Upon opening his eyes Kerass was yet again surprised to see that he wasn’t in the room he grew up in. He shook his head. He should be used to this by now, but for some reason three months hadn’t been enough time to get him used to his new surroundings. None of that mattered though. This was it. This very morning senior year would begin, a year he had been looking forward to since the first time he heard “Go home freshmen!” at the pep rallies, although because he could throw a cone-shaped leather ball, all the upper classmen had always been nice to him in that fake-nice way that irritated him like none other. What was he saying? He was now the upperclassman, not only that, he was a senior. The word felt strange, always on the tip of his tongue yet he couldn’t let it escape his lips for fear of what may come following the end of high school. But who was he kidding? He still had a year to go to figure all of his shit out. Most of the summer had been spent walking in the wind…alone, not that he was complaining, but he wasn’t exactly happy about it either. He just felt so confused.
His summer assignments had been completed ages ago. Typically he procrastinated until the week before, but ever since he was out of his father’s hands he didn’t feel the need to push against the system anymore. He wanted to enjoy his last summer in Oak Stream before his real life began inside a university, if he was lucky to get enough financial aid to attend. That was another thing that could be pushed off until later. He wanted to recapture some semblance of joy stepping into senior year, but he wasn’t sure if that was even possible.
After he had walked out of his mother’s funeral months before, he had assumed everything would’ve gone to pieces. But sometimes life had a way of working things out through unexpected people. Thankfully his father had given him the space he so desperately needed. Kerass couldn’t imagine ever talking to that man again. He had kept his promise of never stepping inside that godforsaken house again and he finally felt at peace distancing himself from the faith. He finally caught up on the rest he needed since he was able to sleep in on Sundays now, despite the fact the roommate kept going to the early service at 8 a.m., but at least it wasn’t his father’s church.
A knock at the door broke him from his thoughts. Good timing too since his heart raced as he felt his anger rising up, boiling inside of him at the thought of his father. He got up expecting to see his roommate who somehow always managed to forget his textbooks after heading off to one of his community college classes. He always remembered his key though, so who could it possibly be? Upon opening the door to his utter surprise he saw Mr. Baganz standing in the doorway.
“You forgot about our meeting, didn’t you?” Mr. Baganz said grimacing.
“No, I didn’t,” Kerass defended himself. He explained that his mind had wandered and he thought the meeting was supposed to be held in his office. “After school, you know? I didn’t expect to see you step up to my door.”
“So you want to wait until the end of the day?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I’ll drive you to school?”
“Will you drive me back?”
“Yeah, of course,” Mr. Baganz assured him, patting him on the back.
Kerass was about to respond that that was fine when his phone rang interrupting his thought. Looking at the name he could tell that Jay was calling him...again.
“Do you need to get that?” Mr. Baganz asked.
Kerass ignored the call placing the phone back inside his pocket. “No.”
“You’re going to do it again, aren’t you?” Jay outright asked Jeremy as he buckled up his seatbelt on the drive to begin their senior year, annoyed Kerass ignored his call...again. Annoyed, but not at all surprised.
“You betcha,” Jeremy retorted.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because it’s not a problem,” Jeremy defended himself. He continued explaining that he was perfectly aware of all of his surroundings at all times. “I thought you of all people would learn how to live a little dangerously.”
“Aha! So you just admitted to yourself that it’s dangerous.”
“No,” Jeremy shook his head. Clicking the radio on Jeremy smiled as the sounds of contemporary Christian ballad bullshit crossed the airwaves.
Rolling his eyes, Jay unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of the car. He was so tired of Jeremy making terrible, dangerous decisions that not only hindered him, but made him arrogant. Jay tried to calm his thoughts as he walked away from the car.
“Hey!” Jeremy honked his horn grabbing Jay’s attention enough to get him to turn around. Jeremy explained that he thought that Jay was ok with whatever station Jeremy chose in the morning. “The driver always picks, right?”
“That’s not what this is about and you know it. I need to walk,” Jay said turning around doing his best to ignore his friend who was on a slippery slope and didn’t have enough guts to even realize it, but the more he thought about it, the more it pissed him off, but to maintain peace, he just had to ignore it.
“If you don’t get in the car now you’re going to be late.”
“I don’t care,” Jay paused, “I’m a senior,” he added nonchalantly.
He decided in that moment that he was going to take the scenic route. The first day was always lame anyways. There were no homework assignments and all the teachers did was hand out the syllabus and read over it verbatim in class. His first class was study hall anyways, although he’d never admit that to Jeremy. If he was going to put an air of rebellion and danger in his driving, then Jay wanted to exude rebellion too, but on the sidewalk, off the road.
A honk broke him out of his thoughts. “Jeremy I said I wanted to walk! Why can’t you just-” Jay stopped midsentence. His father shrugged at him.
“It looked like you needed a ride.”
“I was fine walking.”
“You’re not going to be late for your senior year,” his dad responded. He continued saying that he wanted Jay to enjoy every minute of his last year of high school.
“All right,” Jay conceded. He really wasn’t cut out for rebelling anyways.
“Hop in.”
Closing her locker shut, proudly sporting her senior shirt (finally), Cadence was taken aback by Gus who was standing right beside her.
“Early again I see…” he trailed off.
“You can’t be that surprised,” she snarkily replied. She continued saying that she was shocked to see him early. “Wearing your senior shirt?” she asked bewildered. “Never thought I’d see the day.”
“Well, the design’s terrible, the tagline is atrocious and it doesn’t fit well, but at least it was free, so I’ll give them that.”
The tagline was atrocious, even Cadence could admit that. The tagline read: Freshmen fear us. Sophomores revere us. Juniors want to be us. It was such a crock. Freshmen had gotten shorter and a whole lot cockier since they were freshmen.
Freshmen year...it felt like a lifetime ago. Our Savior came to mind. What would have happened if she had stayed after she completed her freshmen year there? She wouldn’t have been able to stay in contact with Kerass, even though they hadn’t talked all summer. She never would’ve met Gus, both the greatest boyfriend and the greatest pain ever. Damien would’ve come out eventually and she was glad they weren’t dating while it happened, although she regretted everything about how she handled her dating situation or lack thereof sophomore year.
“You thinking about London again?” Gus asked.
Sometimes his persistence was too much, so irritating. His voice broke her train of thoughts crashing back to the reality of a situation she never wanted to share, least of all with Gus.
“No,” she practically spat at him.
“When are we gonna talk about it? You know we’ll need to address this at some point.”
“No, we don’t,” she shook her head determinedly, “because there’s nothing to discuss.”
“You can’t run away forever.”
“Not forever,” she said. She continued saying just until they would eventually break up if and when they went to different colleges.
“You’re not playing fair,” Gus whispered in her ear and then walked away.
She couldn’t tell if she had angered him, but she didn’t care. He had pried to a place that was so private, so painful that she didn’t know if she could trust him. If he knew the truth...well, she hoped she’d never have to find out.
Most of the drive had been silent. Mr. Baganz was technically no longer Kerass’s teacher, but it was still very odd to be sitting in his car watching the eerie quiet of Main Street breeze by. He hadn’t been anywhere near the town since he had moved in with his current roommate, who happened to live a half-hour out of town. No longer the 2-mile journey he had grown accustomed too near the end of junior year. He hadn’t driven in several months.
“How’s Bryce?” Mr. Baganz asked shattering the silence.
“You should know. You see him every Sunday,” Kerass replied bewildered that he was being asked about his roommate.
“I know I see him a lot, but I wanted to hear your take on things.”
“He’s good, I guess,” Kerass said not really caring. “I don’t know. He and I don’t talk much.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Well what do you think?” Kerass snidely snapped back.
“Just tell the truth. You’re not going to offend me.”
“I wish we talked more, but I’m happy to have my space,” Kerass said. He added that Bryce had been quite accepting of the fact that he didn’t desire talking about God.
“Where are you on that? I know at the beginning of the summer you had said you weren’t sure if you could fully say either way.”
Kerass sighed. Of course Mr. Baganz would ask him about his ‘relationship’ with God, he had to swallow spit at the very thought. Bryce gave him space because he was simply depressing to be around, Kerass glumly admitted to himself. If only he could force himself to feel better, but he just felt awful and he hoped his father felt the same way.
“I don’t know,” Kerass replied with finality. He didn’t want to discuss it now even though his mind was cranking through the various possibilities of a higher power.
“You going to try out for football again this year?” Mr. Baganz asked changing the subject.
“Yeah, of course,” Kerass said without a thought.
“You know you need a parent’s signature to join the team.”
The thought hadn’t even occurred to him. In order to be a part of the Oak Stream varsity football team, he’d need to have his father sign a release to let him play. He honestly believed things couldn’t get any worse.
“That’s not gonna happen.”
“I have a solution for you,” Mr. Baganz said as he pulled into the school parking lot.
Kerass’s mouth clenched as he saw his father standing on the school sidewalk.
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