“We’ll see you at the game, son,” Dad says as I walk out the door.
“I can’t wait!” Mom follows. “Kick some butt.”
“Or, don’t get your butt kicked—either-or,” Brett adds.
I wait until Mom and Dad aren’t looking before flipping him the bird. Brett is still in junior varsity this year as a sophomore, which he’s pissed about since I made varsity as a sophomore. The competition is unnecessary, but I was told to take it as a compliment. I don’t know what the big deal is since he’ll be on the varsity team next year, but I think he was hoping to play with me one season—for competitive reasons. I’m selfishly glad it turned out the way it did.
“Thanks, guys,” I’ll see you in a bit.
“Drive safe,” Mom says as I close the door behind my oversized duffle bag full of equipment.
I toss my bag into the trunk and hit the road, wondering what made Pete suddenly want to stick a toe back into the social scene after avoiding everyone in our town since that night. All I can hope is one of the therapists or meetings he’s attended has gotten through to him. In any case, it’s a relief—one I desperately needed after this past summer.
For some reason, I’m not surprised Pete isn’t sitting on his front step like he said he’d be. More often than not, I have to go drag his ass out of the house because he lost track of time while playing hours of video games in their mess of a home.
Neither of his parents’ cars is in the driveway. Usually, one of them is home ever since they were told that Pete shouldn’t be left alone until he’s been cleared to do so by his therapist. I haven’t heard otherwise, so I don’t think that’s happened yet. At least I don’t have to be polite and ring the doorbell ten times before someone answers.
I give Pete the decency of knocking a couple of times so I don’t scare the crap out of him by barging in, even though it’s something I used to do whenever he was home alone. I’d usually find him on the couch, controller in hand, his tongue hanging to one side, and a zombie-like stare at the forty-inch TV resting in the center of the entertainment center. I don’t hear anything, so I open the door and poke my head inside, surprised he’s not smack-dab in the middle of two cushions sinking through the couch like he tends to do. “You ready, bro. We gotta get going. Coach said I can’t be late tonight, or I’ll be sitting out for the first quarter.” He didn’t really say that, but he knows I’m part of the line-up, and I’d be pissed if I had to sit out.
His bedroom door is closed, so I knock a few times. Maybe he’s taking a nap or something. It’s another thing he does a lot of. I think the medication he’s on makes him crash by four each day. “Pete, bro,” I call out.
I open his door, finding him asleep. I grab the towel from his dresser and toss it at his head, hoping to scare him awake.
He doesn’t move.
“Pete?” My voice falls flat as I approach the side of his bed. “Come on, bud, get up.”
I’m aware of Pete’s ability to ignore me and everyone for that matter, so it’s possible he is silently telling me to go away and that he’s changed his mind about the game tonight. I should take the hint and move on, but that’s not who I am. I’m a pusher.
I grab his arm and shake him, pulling him from his side to his back.
My stomach churns because I know something isn’t right. Maybe it’s in my head. I could be imagining stuff. His skin color has always been on the pasty side, and it’s kind of chilly in here, which could explain the blue coloring on his lips. With a trembling hand, I touch his face, feeling ice-cold skin.
I can’t breathe, swallow, blink, or move. I can’t talk. I can’t even yell for help. I feel paralyzed, and I don’t know what to do. He’s sleeping, that’s all. What else could he be doing? He wouldn’t just—it wouldn’t happen in his sleep. It couldn’t. Guys our age don’t just die in their sleep.
I try to sit him up, but he feels heavier than the hundred-seventy pounds he is, but when I get him to a sitting position, I find the truth and the answer to the nagging questions I have had for months. Will he try again? Is he going to get better? I went with yes to the last question because that’s what I wanted to believe.
Maybe there was only one pill left in the bottle, and he was due for a refill. Maybe he’s not dead, but just in a deep sleep. With delirious hope, I rest him back down and check for his pulse. I check his neck and both wrists. I lower my ear to his mouth, waiting for a breath … or anything that would tell me he’s not gone …
I don’t know what to do, so I shout his name at the top of my lungs, demanding that he wake up.
I pace his room, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth until I realize I have to call 9-1-1. I don’t even know what to tell them. He’s asleep and won’t wake up? Or he’s freaking dead because he might or might not have overdosed on the pills that were in the empty bottle I found underneath his body. Why aren’t his goddamn parents home? Why is this on me? He’s not even supposed to have a damn door in his bedroom. He told me so himself.
Panic, anger, adrenaline—I can’t decipher what I’m feeling, but it’s everything all at once, and I want to put my fist through the wall. I run to the kitchen and grab the cordless phone from the wall, dialing 9-1-1 as I run back to his bedroom.
I offer the details, breathlessly, trying to speak in thorough sentences, but I can’t think straight. I can’t figure out how to explain what I see. It’s my best friend, the guy I’ve been side-by-side with since kindergarten. He’s dead. He’s dead after I tried to stop him, after I took him to every appointment and meeting, after I checked on him a dozen times a day, and sat outside his house, waiting for him to talk to me for over a month after his discharge. It was all for nothing. He won. He always knew he was going to win. He knew he’d win today at school when he was pretending to be okay. Why did he want me to find him again? Why?
“Son, I need you to take a deep breath and sit down. The police and paramedics are on their way. Have you called your parents?”
I don’t know why, but I choose to disconnect the call. I don’t want to be told what to do. I don’t want to call Mom and Dad. Pete’s parents don’t even know. No one knows. Only me.
I should have assumed he was acting out of character, portraying a different Pete this past year. But I didn’t. I was hopeful it was the new, improved Pete, the one who was finding his way back to normalcy.
The house fills with police, paramedics, and firefighters, and I feel like the house is circling me, spinning like a tornado as I watch everything happen so quickly. It feels like seconds between the time they arrive and take him into the ambulance. Can they bring someone back from the dead? Can they revive him? Is it too late? Did I wait too long to call 9-1-1?
They wouldn’t have rushed him out of the house if there wasn’t a chance. There has to be a chance.
There has to be.
