Just Another Lovesick Boy

Eddy and I did not go to school the next day. My mom had to call all of her clients and explain the situation and Eddy’s dad had to call in another doctor for a surgery he had scheduled in order for them to stay with us at the hospital, but they managed. We all ended up spending the entire weekend at the hospital with Free. They let Mr. Devereux spend the nights there but Eddy had no choice but come home with me and my mom. I was not about to let him spend all of his nights alone in his house without his family. Things were exceptionally tough so when Eddy came crawling into my bed to sleep every night, something he had not done since we were very small, I did not question it. I had considered skipping school once more the following Monday since Freedom still had not woken up, but at my mother’s insistence, I reluctantly went anyway.

The car crash was all over the TV and the newspapers. Reporters could never resist the scent of fresh blood. On any other occasion, a car accident would have been briefly mentioned but since Mr. Idlett has passed away from his injuries, the story was everywhere. Eddy’s and Free’s names were thankfully not mentioned in any stories because they were both minors but there was a dark itch in the back of my mind that believed that there were people at school who had figured it out already. With our insanely small school, everyone noticed the blue car that Eddy had been driving for the past month. I could only hope that nobody would speak out about it if they had noticed.

I walked slowly over to Lee’s house on Monday, trying to calm myself and gather my thoughts. I stood on Lee’s front porch, waiting for her to open the door, trying to figure out how I was going to explain what happened to Eddy and Free. I fiddled with my fingers when I heard the click of the front door opening. Automatically, I opened my mouth so I could immediately begin to explain but I quickly shut it once I saw that the girl in front of me was not Lee.

“Oh. Hello, Adrian,” Tessa smiled up at me.

“Hi, Tessa. How you been?” I asked politely.

“Very normal. Not great, not horrible,” she nodded. “How about you?”

I shrugged up my left shoulder as I said, “I’ve been okay.”

“Okay is better than horrible. Nara Lee will be down in a sec, her and Nicky are just fighting again,” Tessa sighed as she rolled her eyes.

“What?” I furrowed my eyebrows. “About what?”

“The usual. About nothing.”

“Typical sibling argument, right?”

“Right,” she laughed before I heard the sound of footsteps run down the stairs.

I glanced behind Tessa to see Lee turn the corner, her bag in hand. She gave me a quick smile before sidestepping Tessa to walk out of the front door.

“Bye, Tess, see you at school,” Lee waved as she grabbed my hand and guided me down the stairs off of her porch.

I could see her furrow her eyebrows in confusion when she noticed that Eddy was nowhere near the area. She glanced up at me but did not mention a word about it. It was not until we walked around the corner and past Eddy’s house that she decided to speak up.

“Is Eddy sick?” she asked as she looked up at me.

“Um,” I hesitated. “Something bad happened.”

“Like what?”

“Eddy got into a car accident,” I stated.

“What?” she exclaimed. “Is he okay?”

“He’s fine. But I think I’d rather say everything at lunch when Anya’s there. She’ll want to hear everything, too.”

“Sounds good,” Lee said softly as she held my hand.

The rest of the walk to school, Lee attempted to make the morning seem as normal and jovial as possible. That was the thing about Lee that I liked the most: she was exceptionally kind. She always seemed to know exactly what needed to be done and she went about it in a way that would be the most beneficial for everyone.

As we entered the school grounds, I could see a few people glance our way and I knew immediately that people knew something happened to Eddy. Our school was insanely small with not even one thousand students throughout the entire campus. If one person found out something about another student, it was almost guaranteed that the entire student population would find out.

There were more than whispers in the classrooms and in the hallways throughout my morning classes. While some people were decent enough to at least keep their thoughts to themselves, there were others who had no problem saying their thoughts out loud. Amongst the various rumors going around at school, the most popular one was that Eddy had a drug overdose and was in the hospital. I was not a fighter by nature but I still felt the urge to hit a few people to set them straight. However, there were thankfully no rumors going around about Free.

I rubbed at my face tiredly, waving away some people who tried to stop me on the staircase to talk about Eddy, as I walked down to the cafeteria from the second floor. I ignored all other attempts to get my attention as I walked outside and sat down at the usual table on the terrace, where Anya and Lee were waiting. They did not say anything that seemed to jump in my face but I could see Anya anxiously tapping her thumb on her folder. After taking a sip of my water, I leaned in towards both of them.

“Okay, I’ll tell you what happened.” I said softly, causing them to immediately lean in. “Eddy was in a car accident. But he’s fine.”

“So why isn’t he here?” Anya asked.

“Eddy’s fine. But Free isn’t.”

“What happened to her?”

“You heard about the car accident on Wilshire? How one car flipped and the other crashed into a pole?” I asked them both.

“Don’t tell me that was them,” Lee shook her head.

“Eddy’s car was the one that hit the pole,” I nodded, causing them to gasp. “Eddy had a concussion and a broken finger. But Free got it worse. She has a brain contusion, a collapsed lung, and a broken arm. And she hasn’t woken up since.”

“Oh, my God,” Lee whispered.

“Do they have any idea when she might?” Anya asked.

“They said she should have by now but the brain contusion makes it understandable why she hasn’t. She just needs a lot of rest.”

“I hope she gets better,” Lee said.

“And that’s not the worst part,” I continued.

“What could be worst?” Anya asked as she leaned back in her seat.

“The guy in the other car was the guy who was in the car accident that killed Eddy’s mom,” I said softly.

The two girls at my table stared over in disbelief before turning to glance at each other. As Anya stared sadly down at the table, Lee slowly slid closer to me and wrapped my arm around her shoulders so she could lean into my side. I twirled the end of Lee’s braid around my finger, burying my cheek on the top of her head as I did so. The conversations of the people around us were that of only whatever enjoyments happened over the weekend. It seemed as if that only our table was silent and sad.

Anya hesitated for a moment before asking, “How did Eddy take it?”

“He didn’t know at first,” I said slowly. “Then he wanted to meet him to say sorry for the accident. Then he found out who he was. And he was angry. They talked for a bit and we found out…everything. And Eddy’s been quiet ever since.”

“Should we go see him?” Lee asked. “Or would he not want that?”

“I think you guys should. Eddy needs all the company he can get right now. Until Free wakes up, I think Eddy won’t be okay for a while.”

“I’ll ask my parents to take me to the hospital tonight,” Anya said.

“I just can’t believe it,” Lee spoke softly.

Anya nodded slowly as her gaze drifted down solemnly to the table. Though I was still in a dark stage about what happened to Eddy and Freedom, I had already processed all of the available information and had accepted the truth to the pain. Anya and Lee, however, had just heard everything and it would take some time for them to come to terms with it all. The rest of lunch, as well as the rest of school day, was passed in silence amongst the three of us. The rumors of Eddy, however, persisted. It took all I had to restrain my anger. But luckily, I had Lee by my side and just the smallest touch of her hand to the back of my neck calmed me down.

Rumors about myself did not bother me in the least. I had never heard many rumors of just Eddy before but I was not surprised at how angry I became when I finally heard them. He was basically my brother and he did not deserve to have such lies disgrace him, especially now. I knew that once he returned, the lies would not bother him in the slightest, but they upset me. After a particular boy giggled about something another said about Eddy, I had had it. With an angry twitch on my brow, I whirled around and was about to tell him off when a voice cut me off.

“Fuck off, you don’t even know who Eddy is. You have no right to talk about him,” her voice snapped.

I blinked down in surprise at Nicole, who did not bother to turn my way. Her irritated blue eyes were still focused on the boy in front of us, who stared up at her in embarrassment. With an angry flick of her ponytail, she took another step towards him.

“Don’t spread lies, freshman,” Nicole glared. “It’s disgusting.”

The boy turned to his friend before grabbing his hand to hurry down the hallway away from us. I turned to Nicole, who had relaxed enough to nonchalantly to pick off an imaginary piece of lint from the skirt of her cheerleading uniform. Upon noticing my gaze, she rolled her eyes up at me before giving me a small smile.

“I told you I wasn’t mean,” she shrugged as she turned away.

She took a few steps away from me before pausing. She turned on her heel to gaze up at me with a curious look on her face. Nicole was silent for a brief moment before a devilish smirk crossed her face.

“But I don’t think being perfectly nice is my thing,” she said innocently.

She was not anything like Nara Lee but I liked her just fine for the person she was.