WHITE LIAR

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Justin forced himself to trudge through the school hallways on Monday morning.  He was most definitely not in the best of moods.  His head continued to throb with a persistent ache that started somewhere in the wee hours of Saturday morning and was still going strong.  His body felt like it was moving in serious slow motion; sort of like wading through a dense evening fog and to top it all off, even the conversations going on around him seemed to be a thousand miles away.   

His day started with a phone call to the hospital and needless to say the news he received was discouraging.  There was still no change in John’s status.  It’s been over forty-eight hours now and he was still in a coma.  And what made it worse, there wasn’t a damned thing that he could do about it except wait and hope that he wakes up soon.  All of this waiting, unable to do anything, is what was slowly killing him.

The last place that he wanted to be was here, at school, but it wasn’t like Justin had much of a choice in the matter.  One of the conditions of his scholarship had been that he maintains a 3.0 GPA.  So here he was, going through the rigors of high school and for what?  A scholarship?  All so he could play football?

In the grand scheme of things it all seemed pretty frivolous with all things being considered. 

“Hey man.”

Stopping at the sound of the familiar voice, Justin turned around to see several of the guys from the team hanging out by the door at the commons area.  He realized that Don was the one that had spoken to him.  He inclined his head in his direction and Justin slowly made his way over to him.  Standing in the middle of the group, he took a deep breath and slowly let it out.  By now, most of the school had heard about what happened with John.  They all knew it was an allergic reaction to something but what that something was remained a mystery to the public in general.

Both Justin and John had decided after the game to not say anything to anyone about the itching powder that Chloe so deviously filled their jock straps with.  The decision was made in order to avoid an epic embarrassment more than anything.  The guys all knew about the prank war that they had going back and forth with Chloe and Justin just couldn’t bring himself to tell them about how she pulled this one over on them.  Besides, John had been a bit miffed with the fact that she only agreed to go out with him on a date so that she could gain access to the locker room.  And Justin had been hard pressed then to not tell him 'I told you so.'

Looking uncomfortable, Don rocked back on the balls of his feet and played with the zipper on his hoody before finally speaking.  “How have you been hanging man?”  

Justin shrugged.  “I’m hanging in there,” was about all that he could manage to say.  It was nothing short of the truth.  He was getting by- barely.

“Any news on John?”

Shaking his head, Justin told him. “Not really.”  His answers were intentionally cut short because there just wasn’t a whole lot to say about the situation.  Guys didn’t talk about their emotions like girls did.  They just got down to the heart of the matter.  Is he alive?  Are you okay?  And that was about the sum of it.  Anything that they typically felt, they kept bottled up inside.  That’s just the way that guys handled things.

For a long minute afterwards, no one said anything.  Everyone just sort of looked to the floor or across the way.  Anywhere but in Justin's direction.

Finally, Tyler broke the awkward silence by bringing up the big Duke and Carolina basketball game tonight.  With the guys pretty much split in half over which team was going to win, the somber mood of the group instantly transformed into more of a teasing rivalry.