Demons (Jonathan Toews)

Chapter Seventeen

As I sat in the backyard of Pat’s house, I was thankful for two things; all of the guys from the team that had decided to show up, and the large amount of alcohol Pat had bought when we went grocery shopping early. Without the large crowd of men and the beer in my hand, I would have thrown myself off of the nearest balcony just to escape the horrible awkwardness that filled the air every time Jon and I were within one hundred feet of each other. During the two hours that had gone by, our eyes met once. It was more than enough.

For the most part, I stayed off to the side, observing the party from the bon fire that the guys had set up in the far corner of the backyard. Casey, Andrew, Pat, and Niklas had been sitting by me for a while, but once the others showed up, and the beer started to flow heavily, I was left alone, enjoying the one beer I had and the warmth of the fire.

I didn’t expect the tranquility of listening to the cracks of the logs to last very long, but after a straight half hour of enjoying the sound, a male voice broke the peace. “Are you going to sit here all by yourself, babe?” The voice sent a smile onto my face as I picked my chin off of my folded arms and tilted my head back, connecting my eyes to the pale blue ones that were hanging above me. “I invited you so I could spend time with you, not so you could spend time alone.” His face turned into a pout as he took another swing from his beer bottle and then twitched his nose, his eyes never dropping our gaze.

“It’s so nice and relaxing over here”, I whispered, trying to keep my eyes on Pat’s and off of the group of people behind him. The same group that contained Jon and his ‘girlfriend’. “I’m a little…” I paused trying to find the right word that politely told Pat that if I had to mingle I would shoot myself in the head. “Tired.” My eyes darted to the bottle in my hand. “Tired from school and shit, so relaxing in the nice weather with the sounds of a fire and this lovely beer is just what I need.”

“Well you’re not going to sit here alone.” Pat sang and quickly walked out from behind me and grabbed the chair Casey was once sitting in and pulled it as close to mine as possible before he sat down in it. Tilting his head onto my shoulder, I slowly inhaled, letting his cologne fill my head until a smile appeared on my lips again.

“Thanks Kane.” I whispered as I listened to him lightly chuckle. Whenever I addressed him by his last name, he always laughed. There was no rhyme or reason to it, there was nothing funny about the way I said it, but for some reason, it always made him smile. It was like how he called me ‘babe’ sometimes, it just showed him that I cared; that I was glad he was around.

Which I was; more than he knew.

As we sat there, Pat leaned over, resting his head on my shoulder as he sucked in a huge breath and then set his bottle of beer down on the uneven ground. For a moment, I thought he was going to speak and break the comforting silence between the two of us, but as soon as he let out a content sigh and let his eyes flutter shut, my smile widened. Gently pushing some of the curls from Pat’s face, I pressed my lips to his forehead and then rested my head on top of his, letting my body relax as the sound of his light breathing and cracks from the firewood fill my mind.

It was times like these when I realized how unbelievably stupid I was.

To think that I could have ended it all, to think that I could be buried six feet under instead of sitting here, enjoying the warmth of the fire and a friend, it scared the fucking shit out of me. I always saw death as a way out, as a way to escape from the pain. For a long time, there was no other way out of it that I could think of. I swore on everything I knew that death was the only answer. Then, that night, a simple ‘hey’ changed everything. My whole entire view on life, the same view I had since I was thirteen, was changed in a matter of a week.