Welcome to Falsettoland - A Fanfiction

Jason

The alarm clock on Jason's bedside pointed to 1:06 in the morning when he was awakened by sounds outside his bedroom door. 

  For a few minutes after waking, he forgot the bar mitzvah, the hospital, Whizzer, everything, but it all came back when he realized the noise outside belonged to Mendel. 

  He was talking in a low voice, and Jason could hear faintly a crackly voice speaking back to him; Trina, over the phone. He could only snatch bits and pieces, stuff like "life support" and "Marvin" and "sick." Jason lay quietly, hoping to catch more. 

  "He's on life support now?" Mendel asked. "He's alive?"

  Pause. 

  "Okay. Do you need me to come pick you up? Okay, honey, I'll stay with him. Call me again if anything happens. I love you." 

  The call ended, and Jason rolled over in bed. He could assume for now that Whizzer was okay, but he didn't know, and that was what scared him. Jason had already lost his parent's relationship - he didn't want to lose the only person in his life who really acted like a parent. 

  Because whenever Trina had come to pick him up from Marvin's house, and they'd fight over something or another, Whizzer had always taken Jason aside to play chess or see what was on TV - anything but concentrating on his parents. He had never questioned Jason's lack of interest in friends, never questioned his love of chess over everything else, even teaching him to swing a bat when he was feeling especially awkward at it. He was one of the only people in Jason's life who didn't make him feel like a problem. 

  He should have been tired, but he wasn't. He got out of bed and crossed the room to the chessboard sitting on the ground where he'd left it. Only one of the pieces had been moved, the king - which was strange, as the king couldn't move first, and Jason didn't remember doing it. 

  He picked up the king and stared at it. It was the replacement for the one he'd given Whizzer when he'd left - Whizzer had come back with a new one he'd bought and a story about some Mormon in a coffee shop taking it to Uganda or something. Jason hadn't really understood that story, but he could tell that Whizzer thought it was interesting - remarkable, even, so he'd played along. 

  There was the sound of a car in the driveway. Headlights lit the curtain of Jason's  window, and he heard footsteps descending the stairs. Then, voices, and two pairs of footsteps. It had to be Trina. Jason felt his heart drop.

  His bedroom door opened slowly, and his mother poked her head in. She looked exhausted, and her mascara was streaked across one cheek. He'd seen that look all too often - she'd been crying. 

  He knew what had happened before she came over to him and hugged him, rocking him back and forth like she had done when he was little, when life was still good and nothing was complicated. 

 She didn't need to tell him. 

  He knew.