Just Jack

Part One: Chapter Twelve: Just A Dance

Chapter Twelve

Just A Dance

     I was laying on the cold hard ground, shattered glass and blood surrounding my almost lifeless body. Beside me, he was already dead, his face barely recognizable. I was twelve years old, and that was the day that would change my life forever. That night, seems so long ago- a night to remember, a milestone. Here I am now, five years later, standing in front of another milestone. Another night to remember. Chris is here, in front of me. Breathing. Alive. His scent, his all so distinctive scent is in the air. I have so much to say, so much to hear yet, all I can do is stand here and think how this is a milestone I never anticipated.

     Chris opens his mouth to speak, but immediately I raise my hand to stop him. Whatever he has to say I'm neither ready nor do I want to hear it. He closes his mouth with a small sigh and slides his hands back into the front pockets of his black jacket. His hair is longer, still messy. His eyes are still golden. His skin, so clear. One would think that he was just gone away for a few months to rest. Vacation, perhaps. Still holding my hand in the air to keep him from talking, I walk slowly towards him.

     I remember sitting on our boards out at sea one day. The lumps under his eyes had never been so purple, his breath had never been as tainted with alcohol as it had that day. Remnants of the night before, I assumed. He had talked about 'getting away' and 'new starts'. The next week, he was gone. To me and everyone else, he was dead. Lost at sea. All we had left of him was his surfing board. It seems to fit so perfectly now- the empty coffin, the absence of a corpse. Just when I thought I had finally come to terms with losing, not just my dad, but Chris too, this happens.

     “You? You. You. You died, Chris. You, are not here! You should not be here!” I say, trying my best to understand what exactly is going on. Part of me, a part that I haven't encountered in so long, is hoping that he too is just a figment. Just a part of my anorexic imagination. “You left me. You left me, alone. Chris. You were dead. I cried for you- you are dead. You are not alive.” He nods, as if agreeing with me.

     His foot makes a circle in the sand and we stand in silence. I remember his funeral and how empty I felt. How I blatantly lied to his mother and told her everything would be okay. I saw Emily for the first time that day, the girl who wasn't crying. Has she been part of this all along? I remember feeling so low, so low that I fell back into something I thought I had defeated, but all it took was another death to bring it right back. What will happen this time, I've never experienced a resurrection before?

     “Can I talk now, Jack?” Chris finally says. I look into his eyes, his eyes filled with life, not death. I remember looking into the lifeless eyes of my father as he laid in his casket, hands crossed. Chris' eyes are not like his were. His dead eyes.

“I tried to tell you. There's so much you don't know, Jack. So much, that I want to tell you. I came to see you at Saint Clares but they had you locked up in some room like- like you were insane or something!”

     I will always remember the death, the pain and the lifeless eyes, but their faces- their faces are just blurry images to me now. Even Gabe's. At times, I have to look at an old photograph of my father to just remember how he looked. It's sad really, how we forget so easily. Thinking of them all now, the dead, it really makes me think. You never know which day is going to be your last.