The Forever Year

Jack Jensen doesn’t understand why his big brother wants to go to school. Gavin Jensen has a perfectly good reason to—he wants to get over this event, this place in his life. He wants to graduate and escape Riverside once and for all. There’s the plan, but he doesn’t want to get stuck with a GED and a scarce chance of getting into college and he wants to convince the others to at least graduate, too. He doesn’t know if Cadence will ever want to go back, let alone Graham or Tenor or K.C., who had each seen the bloodshed first-hand. He doesn’t know how to help his friends, so Gavin doesn’t. The only friend he’s talked to since the funeral is K.C., but that’s mostly because she had been staying at his house and wouldn’t stop climbing into his lap and leaning her head on his shoulder for hours on end. Yeah, he doesn’t really mind it and he didn’t mind it at the time, but that didn’t make it any less uncomfortable than the awkward rubbing of her back and the small shushes and (hopefully) soothing words.

He can’t see what sort of wrecks the others must be. At the funeral, Cadence cried a lot, and he’d never seen that girl cry in the nine years he’s known her. Tenor looked weak and he looked fragile, like he’d break if anyone looked at him wrong or touched him. Graham probably looked the worst, like he hadn’t slept in days. Truthfully, Gavin hasn’t slept very soundly either but the fatigue was more prominent on the others than Gavin would want to admit about himself.

If anything, the major change in Gavin’s demeanor has been his shortened temper. The patience that he once had for his brother and his brother’s antics has diminished to a threadbare fuse, one that ignites and explodes at even the slightest form of irritation. If his coffee is too bitter, his mood is shitty for the rest of the day. If he stubs his toe, he’ll be cursing up a storm and left in an angry tizzy for hours on end. It’s worrying his parents but Gavin can’t help it and doesn’t want to talk about his feelings or go out and get some fresh air. Solitude calls for him and opens up like an old friend, gathering him up with just the right amount of comfort and coddling that an imaginary being can supply.

“Gav! Phone call! It’s Katherine!” his mother calls him from downstairs, holding the phone above her bosom and waiting at the foot of the stairs for his reply.

“Tell her I don’t want to talk!” he calls back.

K.C. usually doesn’t call and Gavin usually doesn’t want to talk. They’ve done enough talking for one week and he’d rather go out and get a little unsober with Graham but he doubts that the other teenager would be up for those sorts of activities.

“I already told her that you’d talk to her! It’s the least you can do to just talk to her!”

Annoyance bubbles below the surface of Gavin’s calm mask and he trudges down the staircase, snatching the phone from his mother before stalking back upstairs.

“What is it, K.C.?” he asks, the irritation obvious in his voice as a sort of callous that K.C. isn’t used to hearing.

“Callum and Marcus are dead.”

“Good fuckin’ riddance, is that all you called to tell me?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“…I don’t know how I feel about them being dead.”

“K.C., I don’t want to talk about feelings again. Please. Go call Cadence or someone for that. Some girl. Talk to your mom or your cats or something, not me. Hell, go see Tenor and he’ll let you cry all over him if it’d make you feel better. Fuck knows he’d like some company other than his parents in that hellhole of a hospital.”

Gavin hears K.C.’s shaky sigh over the receiver and he almost feels bad for upsetting her but he doesn’t speak to take back his harsh words and he doesn’t attempt to lighten his mood or his tone.

“Sorry. I thought you’d listen to me.”

“I will. I don’t want to talk.”

“You sound like you hate me, Gav.”

Gavin spends the next hour assuring K.C. that he doesn’t hate her and listening to her thoughts and feelings about the deaths of the two shooters. He doesn’t say anything after he’s convinced her that he hasn't begun to hate her, save for the occasional noises of acknowledgement or agreement or disagreement; he’s nearly silent as K.C. talks. In his silence, he thinks in between K.C.'s words and he wishes that he could regain the patience that he once had and rid himself of the constant anger that boils in his core.

When she finally hangs up, Gavin tosses the phone in his bed and puts on loud music to drown out his train of thought. K.C.’s gotten him thinking about what he feels and he really hates the emotions that presently haunt him and his mind. It’s better to nip it in the bud, he reasons, and ignore it before it can grow into something more powerful and allow it to tug at his heartstrings and lead him around like a mindless puppet. He’ll stop his emotions before they stop him, that’s right.

This habit, however, will only become cumulous; to attempt at being vulpine and avoiding the tingle of his emotions will only make Gavin similar to brittle bone, callous and inflexible, filipendulous and on the edge of what is sane and insane. Perhaps it’s a bit of an exaggeration, but the act of bottling up his emotions is what will destroy Gavin if he doesn’t realize it. Although everyone does their fair share of pulling emotions inward and hiding things and keeping secrets, to the extreme that Gavin wishes to is far from healthy. He turns the music up louder because he knows that it’s true and he’s aware that it’ll kill him if it gets the chance.

His mother shouts at him from the staircase to turn the music down and to bring the phone back to her and when he doesn’t she sends his father up to check on him. His father shouts at him for having the shitty noise up so loudly and grabs the phone, taking it back to the main level. Gavin snorts and turns onto his side, looking across the room at the sole window and wondering if he still possesses the agility and the ability to climb out of it without disturbing the other inhabitants. He tries anyway and manages to escape into the dusk without arising any attention from his parents or brother and goes to Graham’s house.

Graham’s mother answers the door and greets Gavin as if she’s surprised to see him and directs him to her son’s room after receiving the usual hello, Opal, and half-smile from Gavin. Graham’s room is in its usual disarray and it doesn’t feel any different to be within its four walls, but Graham looks different. His green eyes are rimmed with red but don’t look at all like Christmas and he seems like he’d be the poster boy for the before pictures of some obscure plastic surgery or a sleep medication.

“Gav?” he sounds confused when he sees Gavin in the doorway and the other boy almost thinks that he’s high, but there’s no smoke in sight and he remembers that drugs are never taken when Mr. and Mrs. Reed are home.

“Yeah, man, what’s up?”

“…Since when do you come over unannounced?”

Shrugging, Gavin doesn’t offer a vocal response. Maybe he was hoping that Graham would be better to be around than his parents or K.C. or maybe he just didn’t want to be alone. The admittance of these possibilities can never be brought to Graham’s attention so Gavin shrugs, changing the subject instead of giving an audible reply.

“You got any booze?”

“Dude, my parents are home.”

“We can go out. Come on.”

“I don’t want to go out.”

As Graham gives his pithy response, he narrows his eyes at Gavin and crosses his arms, attempting to up the laconic tone to one of a brusquer or cross edge. It’s not in his nature to act in such a way, so the front quickly dissipates into slumped shoulders and parted lips and sighing lungs, slowly moving towards agreeing to Gavin's wishes for intoxication.

“So do you have booze?”

“I do.”

“Wanna get wasted?”

Convinced only by the prospect of having a moment to forget about the shooting and Tenor’s hospitalization and his parents sudden tendency to hover and check on him constantly and the overwhelming guilt that resides in his stomach like he’s just eaten a dry, bulky meal and it has yet to be digested, Graham finally agrees to Gavin’s pestering and digs in his closet before procuring half a bottle of vodka and three-fourths of a bottle of rum. He decides that it’ll be all they need and puts both bottles into an old backpack, but then decides that some bourbon would be nice and reaches for that, too.

It’s still March and the air is warm as they leave the house, giving some half-assed excuse to Rob and Opal about why they’re going out in the setting sun and walk a few blocks to an old parking lot. Their group had spent a good amount of time here, drinking and smoking and listening to the twins’ songs and celebrating Alec’s successes and talking and laughing for hours. Tonight, it’s just Gavin and Graham. In nights prior to this, they’ve both been there alone together and alone with the others or in small groups. A pang hits both of their chests when they notice a note that, months ago, Alec had scrawled onto the wall that shielded them from both traffic and the leering gaze of any onlookers.

Neither read it but they recognize his handwriting and break open the bottles more quickly than they’d originally planned to and by the time the sun has completely set, they’re both tipsy, their words masked with slight slurs but not enough to distort the coherency of the syllables.

“I feel like shit, man.” Graham says as he takes another sip of the bourbon. “Like such shit. Fuck, I can’t remember the last time I slept through the night.”

He’s always had more colorful and vulgar language when intoxicated and Gavin throws him a sideways glance when he replies: “I know what you mean, man. It’s been shitty my way, too.”

“Have you seen Cadence? I haven’t since the funeral. And I don’t want to go see Tenor… and I really fucking should but I’m just so shitty and tired now, you know what I mean?”

“I’ve only seen K.C. since then. She cries a lot now. It’s weird.” Gavin laughs and drinks more of the vodka, nearly finishing it off but holding back from doing so. He doesn’t want to get too drunk too quickly; he wants to, for once, savor the experience of sinking away from sobriety and into inebriation, to fully feel the transition as it happens.

They stop talking there because Graham doesn’t want to mention that he cries a lot now, too, because he knows that Gavin will poke fun at him and whatever concept of masculinity that he retains just can’t allow that to happen. Like it’ll maim him if he allows it to happen. So he doesn’t mention it and instead focuses on the booze and the stars poking out of the sky like small dots of spattered paint against a black canvas. Back in the early years of the millennium, they used to sit out in the lot and watch the stars and try to pick out the constellations. Alec was the only one of them who could ever remember and indicate which stars created which constellation and Gavin stares at the array of twinkling dots, guessing at which one could be the North Star or which one is the tip of the handle of the Big Dipper. In his slightly intoxicated state, he begins to hum the childhood tune about the twinkle, twinkle little star and the diamonds in the sky.

“…Lucy in the sky with diamonds, dude, Graham, you wanna try acid again?” Gavin’s humming ceases abruptly and he looks over at the green eyed boy, a wide, intoxicated smile spreading over his lips. When Graham sighs and shakes his head, the grin soon drops to a frown and Gavin huffs, crossing his arms like a small child. “You’re so lame now.”

His words receive no response but the clink of bottle against pavement as Graham sets his bottle down in between large gulps of the poison. The booze is their chimerical friend, like that from the imagination of a child and the giggles from said child as they play with their new friend. The booze, however, doesn’t talk back and it doesn’t always extract giggles from the throat. Some nights, it instigates rage or fear or sadness and tonight it creates a mix of the three, putting Graham on edge as he swallows more and more of the alcohol that isn’t helping him get out of his mind. His thoughts tear at the walls of his brain like great monsters with salient, keen-edged claws, ripping away at the threads of grey matter as if they are as thin and fragile as a spider’s web to a serrated knife. As the assault goes on, the teen feels as though he’s gotten a hangover before he’s even gotten drunk; his eyes ache and his temples throb and his stomach churns. It takes but moments for him to propel himself off the ground and stagger-run across the lot to vomit and grimaces as the stomach acid’s aftertaste burns his tongue and throat.

The act of drunkenly regurgitating his dinner nearly pushes Graham to tears when he remembers the last time he’d drunk so much that he’d vomited and it’d been the time that the others had thought he’d fallen to alcohol poisoning when it’d really been the lightweight K.C. who’d needed a trip to the emergency room. While he’d been puking in this same spot those months ago, K.C. was shivering and spitting up over her front; Tenor and Cadence had rushed to hold her hair and move her head (and more importantly her mouth) in the direction of the ground at her side. Alec, who was the sole sober-tard and the usual designated driver, had been the one to drive K.C. to the hospital (with the twins still holding her hair and keeping her from getting puke on the upholstery of the car), leaving Graham and Gavin to their own means of returning home. Gavin had walked home, leaving the drunken Graham at the abandoned lot until Tenor returned, his sobriety replenished and without Alec or his sister. They’d sat together that night, watching the stars and Graham realizes just how dearly he misses the blond teen in light of the foggy memory.

Though the horrid feeling still prickles beneath his skin and a copious amount of alcohol still floats through his veins, when Graham staggers back to Gavin, he demands that they go see Tenor. Gavin argues that the hospital is too far away and that visiting hours are probably over and that Tenor needs his rest and that Graham is too drunk to be thinking about going to a hospital of all places. His protest is valid but Graham insists and he even goes as far as to suggest that they take his parents’ car to speed their travels.

“Dude… did you drink stupid juice instead of booze? If either of us drives like this, we’ll both get killed.” With the slightest tone of aggravation in his voice, Gavin continues when Graham opens his mouth to continue the bickering: “Let’s just get home. We’ll go see him tomorrow.”

And so they walk, silent and without the bottles of alcohol with them, to the Reed household and Gavin reminds Graham to be careful when he returns to his bedroom. He doesn’t wait for an okay for Graham before leaving him at the doorstep, abandoning him drunk as he always tends to do. Gavin forgets that Graham does stupid things when he’s not sober and leaves him places, but at least this time he’s leaving him at the doorstep of his house instead of at a party or in the empty lot. He always expects Alec or Cadence or Tenor to take care of him and forgets that the responsibility can’t always be burdened on the others. Gavin leaves without waiting and he goes home and he turns off the TV for his sleeping brother and makes himself a cup of coffee.

Work tomorrow, bright and early. Black coffee is supposed to sober you up and Gavin wants to avoid the throb and nausea of a hangover tomorrow, so he downs the bitter coffee and takes a few aspirin before heading to bed. What he forgot to account for was the caffeine.

Sleepless, he stares up at the ceiling and wonders if he has insomnia because he spent the night before tossing and turning and sleeping fitfully when slumber finally came. The caffeine keeps him up. The caffeine keeps him up until the sun rises and he hears his father rouse and then he finally sleeps. He’ll be dead on his feet tomorrow and he knows he shouldn’t have been drinking with Graham last night and three hours later he regrets the whole experience as the ache sets in between his temples and his eyes water from the sun’s rays. And he works in retail.

He knows it’ll be hell and he knows that he’ll be especially touchy today, so he sends Graham a grouchy text message and dresses in his uniform for work instead of showering and tries for another of the supposed hangover cures by submerging his face in ice water. The alleged cure doesn’t do much but turn his lips a bit blue and numb the tip of his nose, but at least the shock of the chill woke him. The water drips from the tendrils of his hair (always too long for a respectable boy, as his father would describe) and drips onto his shoulders, leaving darkened pinpricks across the fabric of his shirt. The morning is normal, routine; if he hadn’t had the blasted hangover, Gavin would’ve thought it to be like any other Saturday morning, like the shooting hadn’t happened and he’d be going to the lot again tonight and they’d do whatever they pleased. The reminder that one of his friends is dead and the other still hospitalized hits him and brings a frown to his hips and a sadness to his eyes; despite how vehemently he wishes to build a bridge and get over it, he’s beginning to realize that it isn’t going to be as easy as he wants to escape the reminder of the massacre.