The Payback or The Adventures and Pranks of Zachary O'Connor

Chapter Fourteen: Silence and the Funeral

My parents are good people. Their intentions were good. But I needed silence for a while after that. They tried a million and one ways to get me to open up, but none of them worked. I loved them for trying, but I could not voice this to them. It's not that I refused to talk. I couldn't. Or, at least, I needed not to. They also had seen the drop in my grade, and I agreed that it was dumb to not do work. I set my mind to actually doing work, if doing so silently.

Anti came back to school after an entire week of absences. His grades had also dropped considerably. But we managed to recover, at least a little bit. I began to interact with my friends again, even though I wasn't speaking. Gabby and Meghan were happy to have me and Anti back, even though it wasn't the same. It never could be the same again. But that was OK. Familiar company was enough to lift our spirits. At least a tiny bit. John was also beginning to open back up to us. We saw him after school a few nights that week.

A surprising and depressing part of the experience was that we were now the Popular Pack. We had become the group we had always despised. Anti had made a joke saying, "WE'RE THE PP NOW!" I had heard Gabby and Meghan laugh for the first time in over a week. I smiled weakly, but I still was saying nothing. The others were starting to be concerned about that, too. But through typing, I explained that it would be awhile, and I hung out with them nevertheless. All of us hanging out together seemed to draw so much attention, though, because of our newfound popularity. The only place we could hang out and not draw a crap-load of attention to ourselves was either at the freshman soccer practices (cuz no one gives a crap about freshman soccer) or deep in the woods behind John's house.

So, this was where we found ourselves a lot over the course of the time.

John's house was set over a gently sloping wooded area until it ended at a creek. We made our temporary sanctuary right over the creek, literally. A tree hung out over the creek. It was a great oak, and we usually sat in this tree and talked. Well, they talked, and I listened. But you got what I meant. Pointless explanation.

(Now I've made you think: "This is gonna be a Bridge to Terabithia kind of book!" I promise that no one drowns in the river.)

One day, we were sitting in the tree, and, in a moment of serene silence, Anti said, "Love is impossible for me."

"Love isn't impossible for anyone. Love is improbable for everyone," John replied.

The day before Reagan's visitation, I wanted to get away from everyone, including my friends. So, I went to the skating rink. I hadn't been since I was like 12, but I knew I wouldn't run into anyone I knew. There were a few sketchy 8th and 9th graders sitting in one corner of the rink, but otherwise, it looked like everyone, excluding the staff, was innocent and below the age of 15. Everyone, including the staff, was younger than me. The interior was painted as if someone was trying to act super-cool and failing utterly. There was a cartoon kid with sunglasses and a boom box over his shoulder painted on the wall, and the words "ROCK AND ROLL" were written in graffiti script on the far wall from the skate rental.

I sighed, which was the first sound I'd made in forever from my actual mouth and typed the number 12 on my phone to show what size skate I was. The staff member looked confused, but she brought me a pair of size 12 skates. I slipped them on and wandered out onto the rink. Let me just say, I was never very good at skating, and it had been six years since I'd been. I literally fell immediately. Little kids' eyes shot daggers at me like: "AMATUER!" If 4-year-olds knew cuss words or how to use them, then they certainly would've. Because I sucked. Like I was painfully bad. But it certainly got my mind off Reagan.

I began to get my sea-legs about me after a few minutes of repeatedly falling. I was still very shaky, but at least I wasn't falling. A bunch of little kids seemed to be sending passive aggressive messages as I stumbled around the rink. I feel like if I had been sitting down to eat, I would, like, check my napkin and a note would be written on it like: "hey guy we ar for and we ar going two shank yor puny bich ass." These kids looked absolutely killer. And they were started to unnerve me. I shuffled to the edge to get off cuz this one kid had begun edging closer, and I was afraid he had a knife. I collapsed onto a table and took deep breaths. I closed my eyes, and eventually, I heard someone lie down on the table beside me.