Tuesday August 14, 2012 - 12:17 AM

Christ. That was a long three weeks. Uncle Bob and Aunt Shelly took away all of my privileges, including television and internet access.

Fuck.

How the hell is a guy supposed to do his "self-searching" therapy? I haven't even worked out the whole situation that caused the death of my buddy Jagdish yet, nevermind try to deal with the rest of the bullshit that's happened between then and now.

Got way too fucking much to say and I don't know where to begin.

I'm tired. Just want to get back to sleep now. I'll be back.

Tuesday July 24, 2012 - 11:37 AM

stil grounnded not sur if thiss cell phne txt mesage will get thru to my blg feeel so out of toouch fukck

Friday June 22, 2012 - 5:54 PM

Oh fuck.

It’s happened again.

Jagdish is dead.

It’s my fault.

Oh shit -- Uncle Bob's knocking at my bedroom door -- probably wants to "talk" to me again about everything. Dammit.

Thursday June 21, 2012 - 9:03 PM

I was sitting in the cafeteria today with Harley, Neil and Jagdish. Man, I missed those guys.

I’ve been sitting on my own, or just wandering around like a space cadet for so long, I never got caught up with my friends. Sure, I hung around with them for the occasional event, chatted with them in the hallways and sometimes sat with them during lunch or spares.

But today was different.

It was like old times, back before things between Sarah and I fell apart.

I hadn’t felt normal, like one of my old pals since before Christmas. But they welcomed me right back into the fold.

We were talking about old man Cottman and his fuckin’ end of year pop quizzes. We ended up getting all razzed about that morning’s pop quiz surprise and the fact that none of us passed this one. We started worrying about the upcoming History exam that Cottman would present us with when Harley made an announcement.

“We should fucking party tonight!” he said.

“What?” Jagdish looked at him, stunned. “It’s a school night.”

“Fu . . . Screw that,” Harley said, quickly changing the first word of his sentence because a teacher was walking by. “We all flunked this pop quiz, we’re likely going to flunk Cottman’s exam. Why don’t we take a moment to just say ‘to hell with this’ and party it up?”

“Not a bad idea with all of the bizarre shit that’s been going on around here lately,” Neil said. “Both a teacher and a student died just this semester, never mind the accident that nearly took out Miss Hamilton and Sarah.” Neil paused very briefly to look at me when he said this, sensitive to my reaction to her name. “We could use the release. Besides, this is our last year in high school. Next year -- who knows? We should make the most of our time together.”

I started laughing. “Hey, Neil, that’s awfully sentimental of you.”

Jagdish leaned toward him. “C’mon, Neil. Give us a hug.”

“Yeah, you fairy.” Harley said. “Let’s have a group hug and a cry. What are you, like Oprah?”

“Lay off Harley,” Neil said. “I was agreeing with you, okay.”

The group was quiet for a minute when Jagdish spoke up. “Where?” he asked.

We all looked at him.

“So, we know we’re going to do this. So where? The pit?”

"Fuckin' A, Jag." Harley said

The rest of us immediately agreed as well. The pit was an abandoned dump that was just off the highway. There was easy access to it, but the deep pit allowed us to make a lot of noise and have a bonfire without anyone being able to see or hear from the road.

Plans were made as to when we were going to meet, who was going to bring what and it was all settled by the time the bell rang announcing our lunch period was over.

Man, was that ever a good thing. It’s been way too long since I’ve felt that good. I’m so looking forward to getting drunk with my buddies later tonight. Going to pretend to go to bed early then sneak out. Can't wait.

Monday June 18, 2012 - 9:56 PM

There was a note in my locker this morning. Nothing on it, other than the words:

Thank you

Not signed. No indication who it was from. And while I wouldn't recognize her handwriting I know the note was from her.

She passed me in the hall this afternoon and didn't even give me a second look. I understand that she doesn't want to talk about it, doesn't want to acknowledge what we both know.

But it made me feel good to know that by writing that note to let Monica know that her secret was safe with me, and that Robbie’s love for her was true, it was appreciated in the spirit I’d intended.

That and the fact that Monica DID get the note and it didn’t fall into any one else’s hands.

Thursday June 14, 2012 - 9:28 PM

I’ve been watching Monica these past few days, trying to judge by any difference in her if she got my note. I hadn’t spotted anything yet. Maybe the note fell out of her locker onto the floor.

Oh shit. What if someone found it? What if someone found it, realizes what it’s related to and knows there was a witness that night.

Holy fuck. What’ll I do?

Tuesday June 12, 2012 - 10:10 PM

I slipped a note into Monica’s locker. I thought she had the right to know.

It was an anonymous note, and it simply read the following.

Robbie loved you dearly and was regretful
for what happened, that you ever got hurt
because of him. He died trying to avenge
his wrongs, and ensured that nobody
else will ever be hurt by that evil man
again. Robbie died a hero.

Don’t worry, I’m not a stalker, I’m just
someone who cares and thought you
would like to know.

Signed,
A friend

I know it was a risky and silly thing to do, but it was the least I could do to let Monica know how deeply Robbie had cared for her, how truly sorry he’d been about what happened to her.

I think Robbie would have appreciated that.

Saturday June 9, 2012 - 10:06 PM

The group sessions ended on Friday, and they’ve been good. It still hurts, still fucks with my mind -- and nobody has a clue, of course, of my involvement, that I’d witnessed Robbie’s death.
All they know is that Robbie was found dead, his body entangled with a known drug dealer in Sudbury.

The police hadn’t even showed up the night that I fled the scene. They must have been heading out on another call. Or I guess it could have even been an ambulance.

Robbie was found the next morning by a morning jogger. There was an investigation, but I was never even questioned. The evidence seemed obvious. A drug deal gone bad.

Could I have stepped forward and given the authorities details about what had happened that night? I suppose I could have. But what was the point? Robbie was dead, the bad guy was dead -- there wasn’t really anything to tell.

Except where it came to Monica. I mean, sure, if Dillon or whatever the drug dealer’s name was -- I think it was in the papers when they found his body, but they only used his real name once (I suppose the media rather enjoyed the nickname “Dillon” maybe because it sounded like an outlaw’s name) -- if he were still alive, then sure, I could perhaps give the authorities details on what I knew about him. But he wasn’t. And besides, it wasn’t really my place to bring something that Monica herself wasn’t comfortable bringing forth to the surface.

Yes, I cared about her, but it didn’t happen to me, so how could I possibly know the right thing to do for her?

There’s only one thing that comes to mind, and I think I’ll do it.

Thursday June 7, 2012 - 10:32 PM

I can’t believe how utterly exhausting it was to write about what happened the night that Robbie died. I never would have thought that it would take me such a long time to actually tell the story. But reliving it so I could write about it was extremely difficult. I needed to take a break, let the painful and disturbing memories kick around in my head a bit so I could get everything straight.

So many times I just wanted to get it all out at once, let it flow. Maybe I could have done that if I were speaking to someone, telling them the story. But I wasn’t. I was writing it down. The mere fact that I had to slow down made it more difficult to do in longer pieces.

In any case, sure, it almost took me an entire month to go through it, but at least I’ve been able to. And I’m tempted to say that I feel better, but I still feel like a walking sack of shit. But just typing the story out, getting it out of my head, that actually has helped.

So much has been going on lately that I don’t even know where to begin to get caught up. For the most part, since Robbie died, I’ve just been going through the motions, getting up, going to school, coming home, watching TV and going to bed. And that’s been enough. It’s been hard enough just doing that.

At school, our guidance counselor started up sessions again with groups of students, much like he had when Chad broke through the ice. It was different this time, though, at least for some of us.

Robbie was well loved by many of the students. Sure, both Monica and I had had a special personal relationship with him, so maybe we felt the loss differently than most. But we were in different group sessions, so I never heard how she spoke in the group, or if she even spoke in the group. I wonder if, like me, she just played along pretending to just be another student and not someone who shared a special link to this man.

Sarah was actually in the same group session as I was. And she did speak a lot. About feeling guilty over Robbie, but also feeling guilty about Miss Hamilton and the accident. It seemed like she had a lot to get off her chest, and I remember losing myself in Sarah’s words, as if it were just her and I and it was the way it had been before, the two of us together.

I remember listening to Sarah and then picking up on something that seemed to lie between and beneath her words. Sure, she was expressing grief and feelings of guilt about the loss of two much cherished teachers. But there was more grief, more guilt beneath the surface. The guidance counselor didn’t push with her, as if he knew not to go there. But I could tell. I’d heard enough psycho-babble lately to understand that Sarah was transferring the guilt and grief she felt about her father’s cancer death-sentence onto the loss of these teachers. It was almost as if she was trying to pre-grieve her father’s loss.

I openly cried while Sarah spoke, and I remember her noticing when she looked over at me once. I could tell she noticed because her eyes didn’t just pass over me but lingered a moment longer. I looked back at her, not wiping the tears, just looking at her. I wanted to get up, walk across the circle our chairs had been placed in and just hold her; tell her it would all be okay if she just let it out.

But she averted her eyes again quickly, and I knew that I was reaching beyond my grasp again.