A Way Out

Chapter 1: Jacob

I tell myself each and every day that I'm fine when I full well know that I'm not. I guess it's a beginning for what may seem the end. Having to say goodbye was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. A goodbye to a friend, a goodbye to an eternity.

I could never tell you when it all started. The lies, the secrets, the backstabbing, the patheticness, and the disappearance.  All I can say is that there was a spark within me when my eyes met hers. I can still feel the pain and anger in me when I found out what she did. The fire pumping through my veins as I took in the heated truth from my best friend. I walked away, but I still couldn't help but feel vulnerable.

Each and every day is a step in the right direction is what I have to tell myself every day. I can't turn around and change what was done in the past because if I did, I would be dead too. These thoughts have swarmed my head for one year. The what ifs. I've stayed up countless nights feeling guilty about saying the things I did. I should have been nicer. I should have been the nice guy. 

"Jacob, time for the bus." My mother calls upstairs shifting my attention from the mirror where I reflect all of my darkest thoughts. 

"K, coming," I yell back. I shake my head and fix my hair. 

One year ago today Alexa, my dead friend, went missing. She died presumably, according to evidence of blood all over the woods, because of cold weather. Her parents never had a funeral because there was no body, and they still believed she was still alive. It hurts to call her my dead friend, but it's closure for me. I already had consumed so much energy in just being hopeful that one day I'd wake up and she'd be there to hug me. Just so I could feel her warm body against mine with her fragrance of vanilla, and to be able to look into her pretty, blue eyes.

I look around my room and close my door behind me as I go down the hallway. I pull my kitbag over my shoulder and head downstairs to grab my lunch. I kiss my mother on the cheek and say goodbye. That's something I feel I say a lot. Goodbye. I walk out the front door and feel the nice cold air. I always enjoyed winter. Snowboarding season, Christmas, snow forts, and the list goes on.

As I wait for the bus, I start to think about how different it would be if I didn't say the words I said. If I didn't tell her I didn't love her anymore, and I hated her guts for going to my best friend and telling him how much she wanted to get inside his pants. How she was such a bitch for not being able to face me herself and tell me instead of having to hear it from my best friend. If I could just build a time machine and rewind to go back in time to let her tell her side of the story so I couldn't say, "Goodbye, Alexa," and just walk away. I walked away and didn't say goodbye. What I got later, was a phone call to me with her parents on the other end of the line asking me where she was. I didn't know, and all I can do now is blame myself for what happened.

The bus stopped and I got on. I sat down in the seat and put my earbuds in and turned up the volume just enough so that I could tune out everyone. I didn't want to ruin my eardrums just yet. I was saving that for whe- if Alexa came back and needed to yell at me for being such a dick. I could see the people turning around and whispering to their friends or maybe they were talking and I just couldn't hear them because I was tuning them out. One year and these guys haven't gotten over Alexa's death either. They weren't even close to her as much as I was. Every time someone asked me if I was okay, I'd lie and say, "Yeah, she was just a friend." The truth is though, she was more than that to me. She was my girlfriend. She was my happy place and my everything. Now, my everything is gone. No one knew we were together because we had so much fun sneaking around. We liked the thought of being like spies. When we were caught, we would just act our normal selves, friends.

All of a sudden I find myself imagining my favorite memory of us. We were at the movie theatres away from our best friends, Bayley and Nick. We purposely told them we were busy that night with homework so we could go on a date together and see this movie. Anyways, we are all situated and sitting together and Alexa has her hand in mine and her head was on my shoulder. We are laughing and talking like the normal conversations we had. Then Bayley and Nick come into the room, and we duck under the seats. They sit right in front of us and we just burst out laughing. I keep telling Alexa to be quiet but it just makes us laugh even more. Bayley and Nick look over the seats and start smiling.