The Churning Wake

Chapter Twenty-Five - Then

I think I did like him at a time. On the first day of preschool, Mom dropped me off early, so she could be at work on time. Jax walked in, hidden behind his mother, who was (at the time), recently single, and she dressed like it. 

I think that day Mrs. Meyer was wearing a loose, gauzy red top and loose black pants with a bow around the waist, and heels, she always wore heels. Jax, peeking out from behind her long legs, his eyes red from a prior crying fit, had on a t-shirt with the yellow Care Bear on it. I remember because Mrs. Meyer shot our teacher an apologetic look and explained it was Nikola's, but it was the only clean shirt she could find. The teacher nodded understandingly and laughed, the sound bubbling out from behind bright red lips. 

Jax walked over to where I was playing with a baby doll and picked up a doll. "Baby?" He asked me, and I smiled.

"Yeah," I said, "You wanna play family with me?"

Jax blinked, his head tilting to the side as he mulled it over. "Fine," he said finally, "but I have to be the mommy."

"I'm the mommy."

"Me!" Jax shrieked.

The teacher walked over and crouched beside us, "Honey, you can play together."

"What if we were both mommies?" I suggested.

"NO!" Jax screamed. "Only one! Only me!"

The teacher sighed and looked at me. "Sweetie, can you be the daddy?"

I blinked up at her. Be the daddy? "I guess?"

"Thank you," she said, smiling with relief. She patted us both on the head and excused herself to settle another disagreement.

As soon as she left, Jax grinned a toothy smile. "I love you."

"You don't even know my name!" I protested.

"Well, Jesus loves everyone."

"Um, okay?"

"So, I love you."

"Um, that's weird, but okay."

"I'm Jax," Jax announced abruptly, dropping his baby doll on the floor.

I picked up the doll and handed it back to him. "My name's Bri. I'm four."

"Me, too!" Jax exclaimed, grinning.

"But my mommy's old," I explained. 

"Me, too! She wears clipstick, but she doesn't let me wear any." At this, his eyes teared up, like he was about to cry.

I set my doll down in the doll bed and hugged him. "Maybe she'll let you wear it tomorrow."

"Maybe! I'll ask her!" Jax looked at me and smiled again. "You're my friend now."

And because that's how preschool friendships work, I smiled at him, picked up my doll, and said, "Okay."

From then on, until I met Lex, Jax was my best friend. We had play dates every weekend, anywhere from his pool to the park, my bedroom to the beach; it didn't matter where we were, he made my days brighter just by existing. 

That's the boy I miss. Not who he turned into when his mother remarried, and certainly not the boy who killed so many of our peers and friends, but the boy who held my chubby little hand as we walked into three-inch deep water just when the waves came crashing in; the boy who decided that when we grew up, we'd name our first child Lemonade Apple Juice, because he liked lemonade best, but I liked apple juice; the boy who showed up to my house on my sixth birthday with a party hat and one of those blower things, and proceeded to sing me the best off-key version of Happy Birthday I've ever heard.

Once Lex entered the picture, in the second grade, it had become weird for us to be friends, what with the whole boy-girl friends dynamic becoming a big deal, so he drifted to a group of boys and I hung around with Lex. I missed him and his mom's cupcakes, Nikola and Liliana's tea parties, the endless stream of puppies at his house... 

I just wish I had done something to change what happened. If I hadn't drifted from him, would it be different now? If he had stayed my best friend, would he have spiraled so far down without anyone noticing? If I had kept up our traditional birthday cake-making, would he have spent his birthday alone, plotting a high school massacre? Was it my fault?