Chapter 3 – Chap 3

The weekend dragged on without anything eventful taking place. The only real thing I remember was the tightness in my chest late Sunday night. It would be the first time I’d actually, truly spoke with my friend, the first time I’d actually made an effort in almost two years.

When I finally arrived at school that Monday, I went straight to my locker to drop my bag off. I must not have realized how much of a hurry I was in.

“Whoa! Where’s the fire?”

I stopped and turned to my right. My locker neighbor wore an amused grin on her face.

“Am I really that bad, Amy?”

She nodded.

Amy was a freshman who had replaced my old locker neighbor who had graduated at the end of the previous year. She introduced herself on the very first day of the current school year, saying something along the formal lines of “Hello, I’m Amy,” after accidentally bumping into me when I tried opening my locker next to her.

I knew her name and that she was a freshman, but that was about it. We’d make awkward small talk from time to time but would really only talk about what classes we were heading to or what teachers we hated. That was all I knew about her personally from our limited interactions.

There was, however, one thing that I knew about her from outside of our conversations: She had been a friend of Ronnie Ferguson’s.

I’d seen her leave from the grief counseling “meetings” during passing period a few days after Ronnie died. I didn’t think much of it though, afterall, a lot of people went to those meetings. I never brought it up. It wasn’t my place. Like I said, Amy and I were never that close.

“So,” she repeated after I threw my backpack into my locker, “What’s the rush all about?”

“Sorry,” I said, “I’ve just got someone I need to meet.”

“Oh,” she grabbed one of her books from out of her locker, “That’s fun.”

“Yeah,” I lamley added. I was never really good at ending small talk, and that simple, awkward ‘yeah’ had left a strange, thick gap in the conversation. After maybe four or five seconds Amy cleared her throat. “Who are you meeting?”

“Uh, Josh Barifa.”

I’m ashamed to admit that I hesitated before saying my oldest friend’s name. Some part of me was still trying to refrain from acknowledging him as being my friend to others.

Amy’s brief look of apprehension reminded me exactly why this was. She quickly corrected her expression. “Well, have fun then!” The sincerity had suddenly left her voice, but, before I could say anything else, she took off towards her class without another word.

We still had 15 minutes before the first bell rang.

Josh sat at the same spot of the lunchroom every morning with his friends, none of which were people I particularly cared to associate with.

When Josh and I got to Highschool, we saw progressively less and less of one another. This was in large part due to the new friends that he had decided to surround himself with. These kids made up your typical “outsiders” group. They, as I’m sure is the case in many of these groups in High Schools all across the US, were making sure everyone else knew that they were better than them with their unoriginal originality in their style of dress and disposition.

There were four mainstays of the group: Eric, Drevon, Kas, and, of course, Josh. All four sat at that lunch table.

I had walked into the cafeteria with confident strides, but when I saw Josh and his friends laughing at the lunch table, my legs slowed down. As I said, I didn’t particularly enjoy the company of any of those people aside from Josh. Now I’d have to go join a conversation with them. I took a deep breath and walked to the table where my friend sat.

When Josh saw me approaching he jumped up out of his chair a bit too quickly, almost knocking over one of his friend’s to go coffee cups as he did. They all stared at me like a repulsive stranger.

“Hey man,” he said, grabbing an extra chair from behind him, “have a seat.”

I fulfilled his invitation and took a seat to the left of my best friend.

The other’s continued talking and, to their credit, even tried to include me. Though, any attempt I made to fit in with them seemed to fall flat. I felt hot jealousy scorching through me with every joke I wasn’t included in. ‘I shouldn’t feel like a stranger here. I’ve been his best friend for years and now I’m being pushed to the side? They should be the ones awkwardly sitting here, not me.’

The bell rang, interrupting me from my thoughts. That meant we had just ten minutes to get to our first period class. The group kept talking for the next two minutes or so, until the people at the table next to us got up and left. I thought of doing the same until my table, noticing the other group had left, went quiet, abandoning the conversation they were previously having. They glanced from each other’s gazes (my own confused gaze included) and did so until Eric finally spoke.

“I think it’s clear,” he said, looking behind him.

Drevon spoke next, to Josh instead of the group.

“You sure we can trust him?” He pointed to me.

Whatever this was, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a part of it. But, Josh put his hand on my shoulder and nodded, “He’s a friend, he’s cool.”

I nodded as well and stupidly added, “Yeah, yeah I’m cool.”

As nervous as I may have been I was far too interested to not at least try and find out what all the secrecy was about.

Eric spoke again. “We go on Friday. Everyone meets up at Kas’ house at ten, and then we head out, right?” Kas nodded her head.

I saw my opening, “Where are we going?”

Kas whispered, “The woods.”

“Well, which woods?”

“The woods,” Drevon specified.

“Wait… wait hang on,” I breathed in.

I knew what they meant by ‘the woods.’ I immediately understood what all the secrecy was about.

“You want to go to (redacted),” I was whispering myself by this point. “The woods where Ronnie died?”

“Told you he wouldn’t be into it!” Drevon scoffed.

I didn’t like the idea of any of this. Not even a bit. The autopsy was still indecisive on how he died. Sure, the popular story going around was that it was exposure but that didn’t completley rule out a murder. After all, the police covered up the first incident, who was to say it wasn’t to hide something more serious?

However, the idea of Drevon, of all people, having already made assumptions about me was enough to relight my fire.

“No,” I said cooly, “I’m in. I just wanted to make sure.”

Liar.

Eric and Kas looked relaxed again, Drevon settled back into his chair and Josh had a wide smile on his face.

“Ten O’ Clock.”