This Can't Be the End

As Rian stormed to his car in anger he saw another car pulling up Alex’s driveway. He recognized the car so he decided to stay and talk to the person who was now parking. Lisa, Alex’s girlfriend, got out of her car quickly.

“Hey Ri, is everything okay?” she asked with a worried expression.

“Yeah everything’s fine except your boyfriend is a complete asshole,” Rian told her. Her face fell with sadness.

“What happened?” she asked.

“I just tried to get him to tell me what happened between him and Jack! Jack’s been really fucked up and I’m afraid he’s going to try something again... I just thought Alex would care enough to go see him or at least tell me what fucking happened!”

“He does care! Alex is just as fucked up by this whole thing as Jack is!” Lisa defended.

“Well then why won’t they help themselves? Or each other?” Rian started to raise his voice again in frustration in wanting to help his friends.

“I don’t know! Maybe what happened between them was worse than we thought...”

“No shit Lis Jack tried to fucking kill himself over it! I didn’t think it was a fight over whose hair was better!” Rian said unable to contain his frustration.

Lisa sighed, “I don’t know how to help them...”

“We have to get them to talk to each other; that’s the only way. Maybe we can like trick them or something into being at the same place at the same time...”

“Well, I’m down for anything just text me and let me know okay? I have to go check on him, make sure he’s not hurting himself,” Lisa sighed and gave Rian a hug goodbye. After Lisa went inside Rian sped off to Jack’s house, which he basically moved into the past month.

Once he got to Jack’s house he went inside and found Jack on the couch playing cards with their friend Matt Flyzik. They both looked up when they heard the door open and Matt sighed in relief when he saw Rian returning. Rian smiled at them, going over to Jack and asking, “want something to eat?” then directing his attention to Matt, “has he eaten anything?”

“Well, I tried to get him to eat a sandwich, but it’s been sitting there since I made it an hour ago...” Matt told him. Rian sighed.

“Do you want me to make you something else or are you going to eat that sandwich?” Rian asked Jack, but Jack only looked away. “Jack you’re eating something! Should I heat up the pizza from last night?” Jack shrugged at that and Rian knew he got him. Jack can’t resist pizza, especially leftover pizza, he always liked it better the day after.

Rian went into the kitchen, followed by Matt. “So? What happened?” Matt asked eagerly. Rian just sighed.

“Nothing good...” Rian informed him as he preheated the oven. He made the mistake of looking over at Matt and saw his face fall. “Alex said he’ll tell me everything as long as I get Jack to agree, but that’s not going to happen; so I told him he should come and see Jack but that just made Alex have a fucking bitch flip and he told me to leave.”

“Well, why don’t you just go back tomorrow saying Jack gave the okay?” Matt asked.

“I kinda ruined that for myself by asking how will he know if Jack really said yes...”

“Why would you say that?”

“I was trying to get him to come and see him!” Rian gestured into the living room, where Jack still was.

Matt rubbed his temples and sighed. “Well what do we do now?”

“I think we should trick them into seeing each other... I think that’s the only way...” Rian said.

“What if it doesn’t work?” Matt asked.

“It has to work...” Rian said, putting the pizza in the oven. All of a sudden the front door slammed; Rian and Matt ran out of the kitchen to see what happened, but what they didn’t see is what scared them the most. Jack wasn’t in the living room anymore. They darted out the front door just in time to see Jack’s car speed off down the street. “FUCK!” Rian screamed, running to his car, praying he left the keys in the ignition.

Matt, running alongside him to the passenger seat, yelled, “You didn’t take away his CAR KEYS?!”

They got in the car and Rian sighed in relief when he saw his keys there. He started the car and started speeding after his friend. “I just didn’t think to!”

“You are taking care of a depressed guy that wants to DIE and you didn’t think to take away keys to a machine that can KILL HIM in an instant?” Matt scolded.

Rian sped up and yelled back, “He didn’t leave the house for a fucking MONTH without me dragging him outside! I’m sorry I didn’t think hiding his car keys was top priority!”

“Wait I think I see him!” Matt pointed to a shiny black car speeding a few cars ahead of them.

“Shit does he want to get pulled over?” Rian yelled, trying to catch up to him, but unable to maneuver around the other cars.

“I think he’s gonna crash before that can happen,” Matt told him and Rian punched him in the arm.

“Shut the fuck up!” Rian yelled.

“Don’t hit me when you’re driving! Especially at this speed!” Matt scolded.

“Then don’t say things like that!” Rian yelled, passing a car.

“Okay so we are risking our lives speeding to catch up to him... what happens when we do?” Matt asked.

“I don’t know...” Rian admitted. “Maybe we can like get ahead of him and make him pull over somehow..”

“How?” Matt asked skeptically.

“I don’t know like go really slow and don’t let him pass,” Rian suggested.

“Like that’s gonna work!” Matt said.

“Well it’s either that or just follow him and see where he’s going, but the with the latter he can still crash into something!”

“I think it’s our only option... just follow him and pray to God he’s not stupid enough to try to get himself killed...”

“Call Lisa! Tell her what happened and that we are gonna need to get them together sooner than we thought...” Rian told Matt. Matt nodded and got out his phone.

“Hey Lisa! Are you with Alex right now?” Matt asked, Rian couldn’t hear Lisa on the other end but Matt responded with, “because Jack overheard me and Rian talking about how we were gonna try to trick them into seeing each other and stormed out of the house... No he took his car!... Yeah! We’re following him, but he’s going really fast and driving really recklessly... I know! But what we need from you is we need you to get Alex out of the house and start driving East on Route 695... Yeah I’ll call you if there’s any change in direction... Okay thanks Lis bye!” Matt hung up. He looked at Rian and said, “she’s coming.”

“I gathered...” Rian said, passing another car so there was nobody in between him and Jack. Jack turned off an exit, suddenly and Rian had to cut some people off in order to do the same. A couple loud honks and Rian knew he pissed a lot of other drivers off, but he couldn’t bring himself to give a fuck. “Guess you’re gonna have to call Lisa back.” Matt sighed and picked up his phone again.