Out of the Pool

Really Out of the Pool

Ice rattled inside the frosted glass as Sock set it down on the counter. Jojo and he were sitting on barstools around his parents' kitchen island. Jojo took another sip of her raspberry lemonade through a straw and raised her brow at her friend. Sock looked back with frustration etching a deep line between his brows.

"I don't know," he exclaimed pushing off from the counter and stood up. Jojo calmly watched him pace the space around them. She knew that he had to work out his nervous energy and stayed seated. Waiting.

"Come on Sock, just pick a plan so we can get started."

"No," he mumbled shaking his head as he continue pacing. Jojo didn't see the holdup it was a solid plan, plans, she mentally added. They had plans but he couldn't pick which one they were going to implement. All of them boiled down to getting the girlfriend to break up with Jonathan, thus freeing him to be with Sock. Simple.

Jojo didn't see why Sock was worrying so much. "I thought you wanted to be with him?"

"Yes," Sock stressed, "But not like this..."

"Quit being a baby," Jojo rebutted taking a large gulp of her lemonade. Mm, this is really good.

"I'm not a baby!" Sock twisted around. "I'm just not so heartless as you are Joane."

The sound was deafening in the silence that took over after his outburst. Green eyes blinked rapidly as Jojo pressed her lips together and stood up from her seat. Without saying a word she stormed out slamming the front door after exiting.

"Jojo wait!"

She spun around glaring at him, "So is that what you think? Huh? That I'm heartless. Well you know what, screw you."

"I didn't mean that, I'm sorry—"

"—I bet you did," Jojo interrupted feeling her chest tighten. Her heart pounded in her chest the fury blinding her from seeing anyone but her so-called best friend. "It's what you think of me. It's what everyone thinks of me but I didn't expect it from you. I thought you were my friend."

"I am your friend," Sock pleaded taking a step closer.

Jojo narrowed her eyes at him and took a step back, a step off the sidewalk. Jojo squeezed between two park cars her back turned from the road. "Liar!"

She took another step back trying to keep her distance from Sock. "Jojo, please, I didn't mean it. I was mad okay. You know how I am went I get mad. I'm stupid." She took another step back when Sock tried to lean forward. "Please, you gotta believe me. I don't really think you're heartless, I just didn't like the ideas. It just seemed—"

"—Heartless?" Jojo shot back. The quick flash of guilt was all the confirmation she needed to know that Sock did believe that. Jojo felt her heart squeeze in pain and felt the prickling of tears. However, she didn't want to show her tears, not with Sock, not with anyone. Maybe that was why her classmates called her heartless. Even if it wasn't true and actually stung more than she would ever let on.

Jojo took another step back when she saw Sock take a small step forward. She watched as green eyes went panic wide as he went to reach for her. "Jojo, look—!"

She wrenched herself back away from his touch and didn't hear the rest of his warning. Pain suddenly radiated from her right side. It's shock waves rattling her core as she was thrown in the opposite direction from the pain. Jojo was on the ground and her head whipped and cracked loudly on the cement.

~***~

Sock stood motionless as he stared down at Jojo's crumpled body lying on the road. One moment he was trying to pull Jojo back and the next the car had hit her and she flew forward and landed harshly on the road. He hardly took a breath afraid to move, suspended in the air by the sudden tragedy.

Tires squealed loudly as the car that had just struck his friend raced away. Sock watched in increasing disbelief but it seemed to pull him back to himself. Running the distance between them he landed by her side.

"Jojo!" he cried out, his palms protesting at the small rocks dug and pierced the skin of his heels. Sock paid no mind to the minor pain and placed shaky cold fingers to her throat trying to feel a pulse. "Come on, come on," he mumbled to himself as he frantically searched for a pulse.

He couldn't feel one but he pushed the panic from his brain. Sock couldn't feel anything but his own pulse beating in his eardrums. Crouching down he placed his ear on her chest. Undiluted relief flooded his system as he heard the faint heartbeat different from his own loud beating. Jojo's still alive.

For now, his brain added darkly.

Sock yelled for help. He didn't know how long it took for someone to hear him and call for help it felt like eternity. Jojo was half curled against herself like just before being knocked unconscious she was in pain. Sock wanted to shake her. To get her to open her eyes but he remembered somewhere in the recesses of his mind that he wasn't supposed to move her.

He heard the sirens an infinite time later. For all Sock knew it could've been another century before the paramedics arrived. Being plucked from his friend's side Sock didn't put up any resistance he just watched as the checked her before mumbling to themselves. After that it became a blur of lights and sounds as more sirens sounded.

There was an eeriness to all the commotion and Sock was seated on the sidewalk without a clue how he got there. There was an officer crouching down in front of him, her mouth was moving but Sock couldn't hear her from the buzzing in his head. Something's wrong, he thought.

Sock turned his head looking for Jojo but she wasn't inside the ambulance and the ambulance was still here. His heart stuttered in his chest as he felt an iciness seep inside. Around a group of officials he saw it. On the ground. A bright yellow tarp.

Sock felt hands holding his shoulders. He didn't know he had stood up and tried walking toward the group. Sock kept looking at the yellow tarp decorating the ground on top of an object. The buzzing picked up volume and he couldn't hear his own quickening breaths or his heart fluttering in his chest. All Sock could see was the damn yellow tarp on the floor surrounded by little yellow cones.

Jojo, his mind numbly shouted. What about Jojo?

He couldn't accept it. He wouldn't. She couldn't be... A choke sound escaped his throat. It didn't seem human, more like a whimpering puppy than from Sock. Hot tears burned his face. No...

"No!" strong arms wrapped around him keeping him in place and pulling him away from his friend. "Jojo! No! Let me go! I have to..."

"Shh, it's okay, it's okay." A low voice soothed into the ear ofa distraught Sock. He shuddered closing his eyes against the pain as more tears fell.

"My-my friend... she... she can't..." Sock whimpered.

"Garcia, get him out of here," someone barked. Sock felt himself being pulled away.

"I'm so sorry hun. Your friend—" Officer Garcia said.

"—No," Sock moaned refusing to believe. He went limp in her arms as she continued with the dreaded message.

"Your friend didn't make it. I'm sorry." Sock closed his eyes and then everything went dark.