After Before and After

Conclusion: Chapter 11

The best part of the glow-in-the-dark, night club, arcade party was the music, if you asked Jack Merridew, the host and birthday boy. Jack finished that first drink he got shortly after Ralph said he'd be back and wandered off.

Chris then challenged Jack to a game of Smash TV, easily one of the most popular multiplayer games in the arcade. The line was long, and the two boys had to wait over ten minutes before they were finally able to take a crack at the machine. After Chris crushed Jack pretty hard in the game, the younger boy insisted he go find Ralph. Chris waved him off to seek out the pizza table and left Jack to himself.

Jack wandered through the arcade, only a little tipsy, just as he liked it. He asked around about Ralph, and had to describe him to a few of the other kids. Nobody claimed to have seen him, so Jack continued the search for nearly fifteen minutes before he got caught in a conversation with a couple of his friends from his party days back in Dalton.

For awhile, Jack forgot about Ralph as he caught up with his old friends and played them in some of the surrounding games. It turned out that Chris was the only person Jack could lose to tonight. Jack was an experienced gamer, and the owner of an arcade. He didn't get to come here often during the trial, but it did serve as an occasional weekend getaway during the painfully long year.

Jack returned to searching for Ralph after ten minutes of trying to ditch the other guys. Jack wound up finding Paige first, and she was quick to ask him about Ralph. Jack immediately remembered her uncalled for comment about Ralph's history with alcohol, and he was still feeling defensive of the younger boy.

"Ralph's over there playing X-Men" Jack lied on the brunette boy's behalf. "I just came over here to get a refill on my drink" he insisted.

"How much as Ralph had?" Paige wondered.

"What are you, his mom? He's fine, P. You don't have to micromanage him. He hasn't had any more than I have, okay? And I could walk a straight line with my eyes closed if you asked me to" Jack combatted.

"Okay, okay" Paige put her hands up in surrender. "I just hope you're having a good time."

"Yeah, it's great. I'm grateful and all that. For you and Ralph putting this together, I mean. Thanks, bro" Jack smiled as he slapped her arm.

"How touching" Paige forced a weak smile as she slowly brushed her arm off where he hit her.

"I gotta get back to Ralph, later" Jack raised his solo cup up as a way of saying goodbye.

Jack was careless in his continued search for Ralph. He wasn't really looking for Ralph so much as keeping an eye out for him as he moved through the party, challenging different friends, new and old, to different games, new and old.

About an hour passed and Jack was starting to veer on stone cold sober again. It had been two hours since he had his one and only drink. Most of the kids around him were in various stages of drunkeness, and it gave Jack that in-control feeling he loved so much, the one he got from knowing that he was in better control of himself and the situation than anyone else at the party was.

Except for maybe Paige and Ralph, Jack considered, wherever the hell they were.

Jack was just about to challenge his friend, Scotty, from his old high school to a round of Pac-Man when suddenly something on the other side of the room caught his and everyone around him's attention. All eyes shot in the direction of a loud sound, the sound of something crashing and falling. Whatever it was, it was big, and Jack had no idea if his sister, the adult chaperone, had it under control.

"Sorry, 'scuse me" Jack muttered as he pushed his way through the crowd in the direction of the crash. What Jack heard next stopped his heart for a second. He'd heard it dozens of times before in the schoolyard back in Dalton, and even a few times back at the academy. It was unmistakable.