This story is dedicated to anyone who has ever lost a friend.
A Few Words: What you are about to read is a short story I wrote in early March
called "It Had To Be You." As you read it, it will become obvious that it was
inspired by some true and rather tragic events. However, the story itself is
fictional. Nothing like this has ever happened to me (thank God) or anyone I
know or to the Hansons (whom I don't know). I don't pretend that I know what it's
like to go through stuff like this and quite honestly, I hope I never will know.
Without going into some whole writing lesson which I feel I have no right to give
you (we're all different when it comes to writing techniques), some writers say that
you should only write from experience while other writers say that you should
write about what you don't know in order to understand it better. Obviously, I did
the latter. And I'm not sure of how good a job I did, but I hope you enjoy the story
anyway.
The building was short. Most schools were tall and multi-leveled. Except for maybe the basement, there was probably no more than one floor to this one. Anyway, itwas short, mostly brick, and old. Well, not that old. The cornerstone that one could view on their way into the school said 1967. Or maybe it was 1963. Either way, it was older than any of the students that passed through its doors everyday, maybe even older than their parents. Probably even older than some of the teachers. And if not the teachers, their careers certainly couldn’t be quite as old as the building. Some of them weren’t good enough to have lasted that long. But the world is a funny place.
The school certainly didn’t seem like the type of place where tragedy could strike. It didn’t seem like the type of place where people went to die.
Looking up at the sun rising in the horizon on the opposite side of the school he was standing on, he thought back to that day, though he had told himself that morning, staring harshly into the reflection of his own eyes in the mirror and met with nothing but a blank stare that had been there for so long now, he had told himself that he wouldn’t think about it. Today was the day when he had to get on with his life. It was time to get over this.
Everyone thought that. For the past couple of weeks, he hadn’t been able to let go of it. He hadn’t been able to shake all of the vivid dreams. He hadn’t been able to get that horrible hurt, that special kind of hurt that you feel only when you think of something as painful as this in the bottom of your heart that screams toward your tear ducts and makes them overflow, he hadn’t been able to get it out of him. And, though his family was supportive and pretended to understand(though they helplessly did not and knew that, though they refused to admit it), it was obvious that they all just wanted this to end. So did he. More than anything, so did he.
He looked to his right and took in the sight. The sight of the early morning runners just trickling off of the track as they completed their last lap. The sight of the huge hill (Goat’s Hill, as someone had once dubbed it) and the people on top of it, kicking around a soccer ball, not yet wanting to go to class.
He walked over to the track, passing the window to his first class on his way. He took a moment to glance in and saw that most of the students had already filed in. Because of that, he knew that the second bell must have rung already. Hardly anyone was there before that second bell. He was rarely one of those “hardly anyones.”
He walked over to the track, remembering the way he used to do it. The way he would always walk up to him, Nick, and wait for him while he cooled off before going into the school with him. Nick always liked to run a couple of laps before school. Why, he had no idea. All he knew was that his friend had risen especially early every morning just so he would have enoguh time to do it.
He walked over and watched the last of the runners finish their last laps. One looked at his watch and swore quietly to himself. Another simply walked over to where he had placed a water bottle and took measured sips of it, while walking away from the scene. Still another simply sighed with defeat, also glancing at his watch, and walked in, shoulders sagging with the weight of his heavy heart.
Nick wasn’t there. Of course.
A shiver ran down his spine when he finally got the courage to look to his left, at the empty field that was used as an extra soccer field or as a field for flag football when there were too many gym classes on at the same time.
Even so far away from it, he didn’t feel safe.
Even after all this time, after everything had already been said and done, he didn’t feel safe anymore.
How can you feel safe when you know you’re standing a mere two or three hundred feet from where your friend was so mercilessly murdered? How can you feel safe when you know it was supposed to be you?
He could still hear the sound of that fire drill. The annoying blaring of it that deafened you to all other sounds as you walked down the hall, down the designated path for fire drills. He could still see the confusion on Mr. Ackerman’s face when the alarm had started to go off. There had been confusion on all the teacher’s faces as they had led theirstudents out the door in standard procedure.
He and Nick had been laughing, both breathing sighs of relief at getting out of the hard Biology test that they had been in the middle of, even if it was only for a few minutes. If there had ever been a perfect moment for a fire drill, it was then. He now cringed at their ignorance. Even if there was no way they could have known in the first place.
They had walked out on the sidewalk, among their classmates. Everyone was just as happy as they were to get out of class. Everyone agreed that on a beautiful sunny and warm day like today, it was sheer deprivation to not be allowed outside. He and Nick had both sighed in the dismay of not having gym class on such a day. Tomorrow it was supposed to rain.
They were in the middle of this discussion when the shots started to ring out. When the confusion started. When the fear set in.
Nick had looked at him with his ever inquisitive look. Though Nick had been the academically smarter of the two, he would always look to him for the answers.
He had time to do nothing more than acknowledge the expression when suddenly a girl they had been talking to, a girl named Haley, had fallen. She was the first one of many hit.
Shocked, he had lowered himself to his knees to see if she was all right.
As he lowered to his knees, he heard the scream of another shot being fired and because where he had once been standing, there was nothing, Nick was the next to fall to the ground.
Haley was immediately forgotten by him, though quite a few of her friends were already crowded around her. Instead, he turned around on his knees and saw his friend laying there, both of his hands clasping onto his shirt were clasping on for dear life. And because of the crimson colored liquid that was already seeping through the small separations between his fingers, it didn’t take him long to know that Nick was, in fact, holding on for dear life.
“I got hit,” Nick had sputtered to him, shaking now.
He didn’t know what to say to that. Even if he had not been in such a daze, he wouldn’t have known what to say to that. And though he had searched his mind nearly to the point of not hearing Nick’s next words, he knew now that there were no right ones.
“Wow, this reminds me of that scene from that one war movie,” Nick had said, his voice now shaking nearly as much as his body. He didn’t even think to ask Nick to clarify which war movie of nothing short of a thousand he was talking about.
Not knowing what else to do, he gently positioned Nick so that his head was resting in his lap. Nick stared up at him, the green of his eyes reflected in the tears of pain and knowledge of what was coming next. Nick knew, but he didn’t. He wouldn’t hear of it.
“You’re going to be okay,” he said quietly.
Nick had nodded.
“Now tell me something that’s not a lie,” he said.
Again, he didn’t know what to say to this.
“I failed the Biology test,” was the only thing he could come up with.
Nick smiled up at him.
“That’s better,” he whispered.
He flexed his fingers now, remembering the feel of Nick’s stringy hair against his fingers as he had held his friend’s head, not sure of what to do, having never been told what a person was supposed to do when their best friend was dying in their arms.
The gun shots had stopped by now. There was no way that there could have been more ammunition in those guns than had already been fired. People were crying and screaming, passing out and throwing up all around he and Nick. None of it mattered though. He wasn’t aware of any of it as his friend began to cough up blood and other types of liquids that came from inside his body.
“You’re my best friend, you know that?” he had said, through the coughs.
Words left him completely at that moment. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He heard the words in the back of his mind, but couldn’t get the sound out of himself. He was reminded of a scene in a book they had read in English called A Separate Peace. He hated that book now. He hadn’t hated it before, but for some reason he did now. He needed to hate something.
“I--,” he stuttered, feeling the words resist.
“I know,” Nick told him.
It was the last thing Nick would ever say.
It took a long time to cry. It took a long time to let himself feel the pain of losing his best friend enough to let himself cry. It had worried everyone, it hadn’t occurred to him until after the event had already taken place.
He cried now, thinking about how it could have been him. How it should have been him. He missed Nick. He missed the way things were before Nick had died,especially with the knowledge that they would never be the same again.
“Tay?” a voice from beside him said.
He turned around, faced with his older brother, Isaac and younger brother, Zac, who had probably seen him through the window to the choir room. Isaac had been the one to speak.
“Yeah?”
“Aren’t you, um, going to come to class?”
“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “Just give me a minute, okay?”
"Okay," Zac agreed and began tugging Isaac away with him though it was obvious that Isaac didn't want to leave Taylor alone.
When they were gone, Taylor turned back toward the field and sighed to himself.
"It just had to be you, didn't it?" he said quietly to the air.
A sudden gust of wind hit him, blowing his hair around in front of his face. He brushed some it back with his hand, tucking it behind his ear. Shivering, he began to walk away, to where his brothers were standing in the shade of the school, waiting for him.
Halfway there, he turned back around, toward the field and gave a small good-bye wave.
"Bye, Nick."