Cracked

Finding Tim

(Mitch)

Don't know when the last time was that I slept good. One would think prior to New Year's Eve... maybe December 29? 'Cuz I didn't sleep at all on December 31st, with Rob so bad off, and then I spent a few restless nights flipping and flopping around worrying about first him, then Tim, not to mention constantly reliving the holdup in my dreams. When I did sleep, I'd wake up in a panic, drenched in cold sweat, blankets on the floor, still remembering every move, every sound, every taste, everything about that fateful night. Where Rob nearly died, where we all came within a hair of dying. God. It had very nearly been the end of my short life. And it haunted me nightly. The deafening sound of the gun before Rob and Tim fell over in a bloody heap. I swore to God both of them were dead. Everyone's screams, pure agony torn from throats. The thumps and grunts from Rob's and Austin's fight with Linda. I'd never forget the gurgling rasping sounds Adam was making as he was being choked to death. The soft slow melodic singing from Avi as he tried to keep Tim from having the mother of all panic attacks. It'd been a miracle when it actually worked. And, forever sealed in my memory, the solid kerthump of my sweet Scott's fist onto Eli's face and his and Kirstie's ragged breathing when they did not abandon fight for nothing, only stopping when they physically could go no more, when the risk of keeping the fight was greater than abandoning it, with the gun pressed to my head.

It had been five nights ago yet the nightmares were still as vivid as the first time. They were not going away and they were not getting better. And the worst part was that, in each and every one, I survived. Sometimes Rob and Tim died, sometimes Adam died, but in all of them, Scott and Kirstie died, leaving me horrified, lost, devastated, and alone. No matter what Kevin, Avi, or Chance said or did, it never consoled me because my heart was too broken. Irreparably broken.

I can't live like this anymore, I can't, I realized as we tried to keep up a somewhat normal morning routine despite everything. None of us being much of a morning person, nobody paid much attention to me as I got cleaned up and dressed, anticipating my next move in the chess game called life. I was just a pawn in the hands of whoever was controlling us. I'd lost so much control over these last couple of days. Watching Tim's slow descent into the depths of depression's hell, his heroic but near fatal act of saving Adam's little girl (I couldn't help but be mad a her for her stupidity even if she was just a five year old who didn't know what she was doing), Adam's near stuporous reaction, Austin's and Chance's worry about Rob and Tim (Austin was dancing on a breakdown himself; I was certain he'd be the next to crack), Chris' strange erratic behavior (was he always this... inconsistent?), Kirstie's hurt at Jeremy-turned-

asshole (there had to be someone better out there for her), the temporary life in Avi's eyes slowly dimming without Jessica's and his family's presence, was weighing heavily on me. And now we had some dude called Mason that only sent me further into my depression. Why did Austin and Tim have to have all the luck of finding someone they loved and missed terribly? Where was my lost-to-time-and-circumstance best friend from years ago? The fight behind the Dairy Queen that had changed my life? I wasn't even involved in that yet I felt the repercussions on a daily basis. It scarred my happy Teal, changed him, and he got sent away to school off in North Fucking Carolina to keep him "safe" If it was so safe there, why was I forever hearing about fights there? He was more scared of school bullies there than he was at home in West Palm Beach! The every other day calls were never enough for me. I needed my Teal, needed him home where he belonged. Teach us how to defend ourselves, not run from it! God! I halfway blamed my parents' decision to move on my current inability to do much to defend myself. All they'd taught me was to run! Teal may have gained some confidence there with new friends (replaced, I'd been replaced by faceless names, I was no longer his best friend--those Keith and Austin guys were) but I was left alone without other things. Yet I still loved him. And then my parents decided to further traumatize me and just move us way the hell out of Florida 'to keep Mitch safe'. Safe? Really? My heart broke the day I was forced out of that house! And just where the hell did I put his phone number? I never did find that notebook with phone numbers. I swore I'd put it in the box with all my desk things but the damn notebook pulled a disappearing act. I'd called this Greensboro, North Carolina city countless times, trying to find this school called Hawthorn Middle, but there were no records for it, no phone numbers, nothing. I'd tried spanning out, thinking maybe I'd gotten the city wrong but nope. Nothing. No one had heard of Hawthorn Middle School. Closest I'd ever come was some woman out in Goldsboro who told me her son attended Hawthorn Middle but I could get no further information out of her regarding contact numbers. She'd actually acted like she'd already told me too much just mentioning her son. Eleven years old--he'd have to be in Teal's class too. He would have known something. But I'd gotten nowhere with her and she wouldn't even tell me her name outside of 'thank you for calling Goldsboro Welcome Center, this is Ruby.' Ruby who?! My best friend was gone forever. Austin's Mason returned to him, Sawyer's Tim had returned to him, and my Teal was... missing. Not. Fucking. Fair.