Your Friend, Jordan

Fifteen

I sat in the dark room once again, completely alone this time as my goosebumps returned to me. I hadn't left the police station in hours, I was convinced it was nighttime by now but I wasn't sure. It felt like nighttime, although maybe that was just because of the dark shadows swaying in the corners of the room, only the small light above me giving off any brightness.

  Twiddling my fingers, I tried to pass time as Officer Walker and Andrews left awhile ago, the moment they began to accuse again. They had it out for me I confirmed, it seemed they had everything figured out in their heads. It was me, I killed Jordan, or at least that's what they thought. It made the most sense to them, but it made none to me. I couldn't have done that. I couldn't have done that to anyone, but especially my best friend.

  But what about the tough time you two were going through? You had drifted apart within weeks. What about what he did? Weren't you hurting so much, so confused and angry at him, that you could have done it? Couldn't you have?

  No, I couldn't have. There is no amount of pain or anger I could have been in to do something like that. I couldn't have done that. He was family. I wouldn't do that to family. No.

 
  I rested my head upon my hands, as the cold metal table caused me to shiver more. Radiating to my chin, a shiver ran up my spine within a flash, causing me to shake uncontrollably for a second. Locked in this interrogation room, I had nothing to do except think. And trust me, I had so much to sit and ponder over. It was never ending, I never saw the light through the tunnel in my mind. Everything replaying over and over, and this time, I had zero distractions to take me away from my thoughts. But that wasn't a good thing, my mind could be a scary and haunted place. A place where all nightmares came true, and I could never escape.

***

  "Where were you on the night of November 3rd? Where did you go after the game?" Officer Walker asked me again, the third time by now. Continuing to peer down at the table, I didn't answer, feeling a tingling sensation all over as their beading eyes glared at me.

  "I......I already told you. I went to Troy's party afterwards, like everyone else—"

  "No you didn't. Sure, maybe you went to Troy's later on, some time during that night. But you went somewhere between the game and the party, didn't you?" They kept hounding me with questions although I hardly answered, and I kept my head down most of the time. My blood starting to boil, I was no longer cold as the room heated up, and I felt my anger built and spread inside of me. I wanted to yell at the top of my lungs, yell and scream, saying I didn't do anything, but I tried to keep pushing the anger away, the way I had been for awhile.

  "No, I didn't."

  "You know what I think? I think you and Jordan went somewhere together after the game. Maybe to a place completely alone and private, somewhere you guys were familiar with, like the tracks in the woods, just to talk," Walker started up as he interrupted me, and slowly, I began to peer up towards him with a hard glare. "Maybe Jordan wanted to talk about a certain incident that happened. Maybe, one, of the incidents."

  I felt my eyes shoot open wider as he said the last part, letting the words slip from his mouth smoothly. He knew what he was doing I could tell, he knew exactly how to get a rise out of me. But at the moment my anger took a seat in the passenger side, while my shock took its place in the driver's seat. Those pop rocks began to fire and sizzle up once again in my stomach, soon reaching my throat as I tried to swallow hard.

  "What do you mean....incidents?" I asked, scared to know the answer.

  "Oh come on James, you know what I'm talking about. There wasn't just one incident between you guys, was there? There wasn't just one thing that happened between you and Jordan that seemed to.....shake your friendship up. You know what I'm talking about," Officer Walker kept on talking, still trying to get that rise out of me, waiting for me to confess to something that I didn't do. But both my legs began to bounce again, and I sat there with my palms sweating, while he grabbed another paper out of his folder on the desk.

  "No. There.....there was no other incident—"