The Remains Of My Wasted Youth.

“He’s back. He’s fucking back!” The words exploded from my mouth the moment I saw my other best friend, Rian Dawson, emerging from his Honors English class. Jack was standing beside me, his hand on my arm, trying to calm me down.

“Who’s back?” Rian asked, his eyes not really focused on me as he scanned the crowd for a glimpse of his girlfriend, Cass.

A string of expletives left my mouth and I jerked my arm away from Jack, cradling my pounding head with both arms. I felt Jack’s arm go around me on one side, and Rian’s on the other.

“Gaskarth’s back. He’s in our first period English class.” Jack broke the news matter-of-factly, and I felt Rian tense up.

After a long minute of silence, he spoke. “I knew there was a reason I took Honors English this year. I might have killed the mother fucker.”

Leave it to Rian to express exactly how I was feeling. I hadn’t known what to think when I’d walked into English class to see my best friend talking to my ex best friend turned enemy. White hot rage had washed over me, and it’d taken all of my self control to not simply turn and walk out of the class. Instead, I’d toughed it out and had did my work.

It hadn’t helped that once again, my parents had been on the warpath when I’d woken up. It’d taken me forever to calm my father down, which was why I was late to school once again. I didn’t know if they knew the Gaskarths were back – I didn’t think so, otherwise they would have killed someone for sure.

I wondered when they’d gotten back. I had never seen them, not once. I’d driven by their old house occasionally. A nice family with young kids lived there now. It was as if they’d appareared out of nowhere. No one even knew where they’d gone when they’d left Baltimore two years ago.

As if reading my mind, Jack volunteered some information. “They’ve been in London for a year and half. Alex thinks they’ve always lived there. They moved back last spring but kept him at home until now.”

Figures. Peter and Isobel were cowards. They always have been.

“Since you’re an outsider in the situation really, no offense Jack, and since you’re the first one of us to talk to him, do you want to tell me what you think?”

Jack’s face visibly reddened. “Do I have to?”

“Yes.”

“Oh-kay.” He drew the word out into two syllables. “First of all, and don’t get mad, please, Zacky, but first of all, let me just get it out of my head and system that he is cute as hell.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “I knew that already, Jack. I want you to tell me about … how he seems. What kind of person you’d think he was if you didn’t know anything about him to begin with.”

Jack spoke without thinking this time. “If I didn’t know anything about him, I’d have kept trying to get into his pants.”

We all laughed and he reddened again. “No, but seriously, at first I didn’t know his name. When I first started talking to him. He seemed really nice. He has a great taste in music, he’s seen Blink 182 before, and he plays guitar. He seemed – well, he seemed like someone I could be friends with.” This was said kind of wistfully, and for a moment, my conscience twinged.

Jack hadn’t been here when everything had gone on with Ale- Gaskarth. For my own sanity, I couldn’t call him Alex. Gaskarth. Jack had transferred here not long after, when I was still dealing with everything. Rian and me, unintentional as it was, had poisoned Jack’s mind. It was a shitty thing for us to do, I guess. But then again – I didn’t like keeping anything from my friends – it was hard to explain my brother’s death without getting into the whole thing.

Loyal as Jack was, there was no way he wouldn’t have taken my side.

I’d never once blamed Gaskarth for my brother’s death. My parents did. Only three people had ever known the truth of what happened – two of them had only had to deal with it for but a split second, and one of them has had to deal with it ever since. This being thought, I rubbed my scar even though it wasn’t hurting. It’d become habit.

A junior kid bumped into me and jolted me out of my thoughts. The kid squeaked a sorry and ran off the other direction.

It was as I followed him with my eyes that I saw Gaskarth again. His bag was pressed to his chest and he was avoiding eye contact with everyone who was eyeing him. It was as if he was a little puppy thrown into a lion’s cage – everyone saw it happen, but no one wanted to do anything about it, because everyone was scared to get involved themselves.

I knew Alex’s return would stir up questions that people had left unasked for the last two years.

The boy’s slim body disappeared into the music room – the same class that I was heading to. Without my friends.

I walked as slowly as I could because I wasn’t in any hurry to get to a class where I was going to be stuck with him.

I sighed as the bell rang. I didn’t know what to think at the moment. I had to deal with the fact that Gaskarth was back – deal with the fact that I couldn’t ignore my past anymore.