Growing Pains

Chapter 32 - I punched him in the face

E D W A R D

The twins kept looking over at my end of the couch. I had no idea why. They weren't the only ones. Occasionally, Jacob would look over too. And Liam Chan. And others. It was halftime when I realized why.

"Oh fuck, it worked!" Finn shouted, sitting up straight, both hands going for his shaved head. I followed his eyes. Next to me, Isaac had passed out after only one beer. Finn went on shouting, "I wasn't sure it wasn't going to! I just got a punch of pills from my mom's medicine cabinet –"

"What are you talking about?" I stopped him. No one else seemed to be worried. They were all smiling, some of them were even laughing. No one was looking at the tv anymore. Liam was pointing at me.

"He doesn't know?" he asked.

"Of course not," Jacob said as he got up from his chair. He turned to Finn, "What pills did you get exactly?"

Finn shrugged. Next to him, Jack rolled his eyes, and said, "They were sleeping pills. I checked, don't worry."

I looked at the empty beer bottle at Isaac's feet, "You drugged his beer?"

"We did," Jacob said, showing me a smirk. "It's an initiation, baby."

I shook my head, "I thought we didn't do those anymore –"

"It's gonna be different this time," he said. "No one's gonna be left alone in the woods. Don't worry. Honestly, he's gonna fucking love it."

Next to me, Isaac was too out of it to fucking love anything. I stood up.

"This isn't a good idea." There was a reason we had stopped doing initiations for the football team, not that I ever thought we should have been doing them in the first place. They seemed to me like a bad excuse to treat someone like shit, but it was a tradition the school had kept for decades without anyone ever knowing except the players. Every year, the team welcomed new people by knocking them out and leaving them alone at night in the woods at the edge of town. There was always enough of them that at least one would have grown up in town and knew exactly how to get them out.

When Jacob and I had joined the team in freshman year, it had happened to us too. We had been left in the woods with Jason, Finn, and Jack. It had taken us an hour to get out. We had all laughed afterwards, but there had been a moment, alone in dark, where we had all been scared, really scared. Of course, no one ever talked about that.

Then, one year, a freshman actually got lost. He was new in town, and he got separated from the others somehow. We looked for him all night. In the morning, I convinced the others to call the police. They found him a few hours later, walking on the side of the highway. He never showed up to practice again after that, and I slept like shit for weeks after. I still did if I started thinking about it before bed.

In front of me, Jacob said no, it probably wasn't a good idea, but it was happening anyway, whether I wanted it or not. The next thing I knew, the twins were pushing me out of the way so they could get Isaac. Jacob was still talking. I could either go home or I could go with them. The choice was mine. I didn't think it was.

I grabbed Liam, "Where are you taking them?"

He was finishing his beer, then he was laughing at me, "Dude, if Jacob didn't tell you, I sure as fuck am not going to."

The twins were carrying Isaac out of the room with Jacob and everyone else following close behind them. Liam looked down at my hand on his shoulder. As soon as I let go, he went out after them too. I did the same.

They had gone outside. Jacob was too drunk to drive, so he jumped in the passenger's seat of the twin's pick-up. Jack got in the backseat with Isaac. The rest was jammed into the bed of the truck. I stopped Finn before he opened the door to the driver's seat.