I Needed Saving

Chapter 8: Make or Break

The following day was Sunday. I had the largest pile of homework I had ever had in my life. I received some penalty work for not having completed some homework for some subjects, which included History, since Peter hadn't bothered to do it either.

Jenna came over to help me complete most of it, claiming to my mom she came to finalise the science project she made up about.

We worked on two assignments where I did research and she helped me put things together, eight exercises which were homework and five extra once which were a punishment, mainly requiring rewriting some pages in some exercise books. Jenna helped me with that, learning how to write in my handwriting so it wouldn't be obvious I had someone else do some of it. I was glad my mom brought lunch for me and Jenna upstairs; otherwise it would get too awkward downstairs with my parents around.

About two hours after lunch, we completed all the work.

"How'd you feel?" Jenna asked, breaking the silence we created when I finished packing my bag for Monday.

"Great," I admitted. It felt good being productive; completing a lot of work with the help of a friend that always meant the best for you. "And you know what the best part of it all was?"

"What?"

"You." We stared into each other's eyes for a while but then I was scared she might've taken it the wrong way. I didn't have a crush on her; I just meant it in a best-friend type of way, like with Jake. "I mean as in having a friend that cares so much about you that she helps you feel good again, for once."

"Glad that I was successful in accomplishing that." She showed no sign that she was disappointed that it wasn't going down the relationship-road. That was good.

"So, what shall we do now?"

"I think what's best for you now is to make sure that the whole negativity about Jake's death vanishes and maybe we should talk about it so you can let it all out."

I hesitated. I knew I might burst into tears doing that, and then that in front of Jenna. But perhaps she was right. "Alright, come with me." I led her to the garden.

I brought my basketball. I passed it to her and she passed back.

"So tell me about you and Jake; how was your friendship?"

And so I started blabbing about how we were best friends since the day we met and that we always stuck together. We kept on passing the ball to each other. I figured Jenna already knew about how close Jake and I were of course, since she had been present a lot of the times I went over to his house to spend time with him. So I talked about how I felt around him, comfortable, happy and myself of course. I went on and on and tried to focus the sad energy onto the basketball whenever I threw it away from me. When Jenna saw I was struggling at some points of talking about Jake, she reminded me to throw the negativity onto the ball and all in all throw it away.

"What's that thing again that Michael Jordan always said?" Jenna asked me when I had come to an end of the train of words about Jake.

I thought about this for a while. There were so many wise things he had said, but there were three that always stuck to my head. And then I realised one of them was the most related to my situation, the one that Jenna was probably referring to. "Always turn a negative situation into a positive situation."

"Fill in the gaps."

"What?"

"What's the negative situation here that you turned into a positive situation?"

"I turned Jake's death into..." I didn't know what it was. "A life lesson?"

"Don't question it. Be certain about it. What is the life lesson?"

Jenna passed the ball to me but I didn't return it for a while. I just kept dribbling it as I thought. I thought about Jenna's words, and I repeated them exactly: "Learn to turn that weakness into a strength. Smoking won't help you get rid of it. It helps you ignore it, but it's still stuck with you." Then I turned them into my own words. "Turn a weakness into a strength. Smoking and drinking might help you to ignore it but you won't get rid of it as it will stick with you for the rest of your life."

"I think my job is done."

I got the chance to terminate the deal with James. As Jenna left, James had been standing outside house 102. He didn't see me at first, thankfully, so I ran over to my garden, went down the alley behind it and entered the street through there, so James wouldn't suspect anything. Then I walked up to him and we greeted each other. I was relieved to know nothing was wrong. Then he told me why he was there, just to tell me he wanted me to start picking up weed on Mondays instead of Thursdays. I told him I didn't want to continue. He looked at me pretty surprised, and asked me whether I was sure. He wondered why I didn't need my dose of cigarettes.

"There are many ways to get over a loss, but smoking isn't going to be the best path for me. I haven't fully gotten over Jake's death of course, but I need to lighten up and be more positive. I know that as long as Jake can look down at me from heaven and not feel guilty about what he has done to me, then I'm fine. I have learned my lesson for even considering following your plan. And I am sorry to say that the lesson I learned tells me not to be smoking, missing school or helping with dealing drugs."

James was speechless and didn't say anything except for the fact he would be watching me and that I shouldn't report to the police about the location of Tom's cannabis stock house. I wasn't going to anyway; I didn't really care about it.

I waited for James to drive away, so that he wouldn't suspect me for not living in house 102.

I felt like everything was taking a turn for the best. But then I realised my parents were still doubting me.

When I sat down for dinner, the last of the worst happened.

"Why weren't you at school Thursday?" I had just taken my seat. How does she know I wasn't at school on Thursday? Did I arrive home to early?

"I was at school on Thursday."

"Don't think we are stupid Kevin! Ever heard about the reception calling the parents of a child who hasn't showed up at school without having notified them before hand?"

Shoot, I didn't think of that. "Alright, I'm sorry!" I pleaded. I barely pleaded for anything in my life.

"Kevin, where the hell were you?"

I made the big mistake of telling the whole truth. But perhaps I was right to speak the truth. Otherwise I would have to live with a lie to cover up on that for the rest of my life.

My parents stared at me in silence. They were shocked. Extremely shocked.

My mom took a broom from the wall and practically charged at me as I got up fearing the worst. She hit me across the lower body with the stick of the broom. She dropped the broom with a loud clatter and grabbed the collar of my shirt.

"Kevin George Stevens, promise me to never, ever do stupid things like this and to tell your dad and I the whole darn truth!" she yelled at my face. Then she did what I least expected. She pushed me to the floor, and I landed with a loud thump.

I wasn't crying neither was I scared. I was simply astounded.

I quickly got up. "You don't understand mom! I am not that stupid as you think I am. I didn't just go out there for any reason because I am an idiotic psycho! I was depressed and you know how weird that feels for me. All low feeling people feel are because they doubt themselves, and I don't ever doubt myself. I went out there to smoke to help dealing with feeling helpless about someone who is gone!" I couldn't understand why my mom had no mercy. It literally felt as if she thought all teenagers who did stupid things were crazy and ruthless, which was not true because they all had a reason, and I was no exception to that.

"You're not getting any dinner until you quit being a psycho Kevin! Don't you dare set foot in the dining room because you do not deserve the food I cooked today."

This made me furious and I was about to yell back to tell her she was blind and couldn't read between the lines, but I thought about Jake, who hated fights, arguments and hatred and that he wouldn't be proud of me at all.

I went to my room and didn't go out until six o'clock the next morning.