Anything Goes on a Friday Night (19 page)

N
O, YOU ALWAYS DO
the parentheses first. Always.”

Finn looked at me with annoyance in his eyes. “But we read left to right, why don’t we do our math left to right? This is stupid.” He sighed in frustration and tapped his pencil on his desk. “Admit it, I’m never going to understand math; I’m going to fail school and be a bumfuck for the rest of my life.”

Jenna was watching us out of the corner of her eye. She and Finn did decide to end things after she got back. But for the past week and a half, she had stared at him when he interacted with anyone. It was creepy and rude.

“She’s staring again,” I said in a super quiet tone. I gave him my crazy eyes, and we both laughed.

The teacher raised a brow at us, so we quieted down. I took Finn’s math book and paper and did the problem for him. I checked my answer in the back of the book and smiled proudly when it was right. I handed the sheet and book back to him.

He leaned forward in his seat so that he was close to my ear. “If I can just look up the answer in the back of the book, what’s the point of all of this work?”

I smiled. “Dork, you have to show your work, and it only gives you the answers to the odd numbered problems.”

“I’m fucked. I’m tellin’ ya, Ellie. I’m doomed.”

I laughed quietly. “You’ll get it. I promise. Now try to do the next one, and then pass it up so I can check it. I need to work on my own homework.”

I pulled my beanie out of my back pocket and put it on. The heaters were broken at the school, and it was freezing in the old building.

It was only a few minutes before Finn passed his paper up. Wrong. So wrong. I smiled and wrote ‘bumfuck’ across the top of his paper. When I passed it back to him, I heard him burst into laughter.

LUNCH WAS WEIRD. FINN
sat super close to me, kept leaning in really close to tell me things, and even surprised me with a Snickers bar. I looked down at the chocolate and frowned.

“Finn, how did you get this? No offense, but you don’t have the grades for the student lounge.”

He wiggled his eyebrows at me. “Mad ninja skills, baby.”

I laughed and shook my head. “Thank you.”

I had just started eating when Finn nudged me. I looked over at him, in the midst of my bite, and he smiled. That’s all he wanted? I waited a little longer, thinking maybe he wanted to tell me something, but he just started eating.
Really?
He just wanted to nudge me so that he could smile at me?

WARNING: Exit from the friend-zone.

That’s something Channing used to do to me. He’d nudge me just so he could have my attention for two seconds in a crowd of people. I didn’t know if that was just a Finn thing because he had never done it before. Why was I even thinking into this? We were friends. That was it. But he had been super flirty lately. Or was that just his fun-loving personality? I remembered Jane had told me from the get-go that he flirted with everyone.

Stop it, Ellie. Stop. It.

I started thinking about an assignment for English instead of Finn and finished eating my food.

I WAS SITTING IN
the grass, smoking a cigarette behind the Kroger. Typically, I didn’t smoke unless I was drinking, but home had been super stressful lately. Nancy and Dad were fighting, and I couldn’t do anything right. I shut the door wrong. I loaded the dishwasher wrong. I set my cup down too hard. You name it; I did it wrong. I would’ve just stayed with Jane, but I felt like I was ruining my welcome there, and she was always with Tryston now anyway.

I think we were all shocked, even Tryston and Jane, when those two decided to start dating. Finn and I both thought it’d make things weird since we all hung out all the time, and no one had ever thought they would ever, like never ever date. Those two were complete opposites and argued about everything. Though since they’d been dating, the arguing had gotten slightly better.

I took another hit off the cigarette.

I wasn’t sure if the nicotine really helped with stress. Maybe it was just that smoking and chilling out from the hassle of life for five minutes calmed your soul. Inhaling and exhaling. Thinking about things and sorting them out in your mind while you smoked was like some sort of meditation.

My phone vibrated on the concrete next to me. I held the cigarette between my lips and saw Alyssa’s name.

Alyssa: Call me as soon as you see this! I know you’re at work, but it’s Dillon. I don’t want to tell you through text.

I immediately called her. I put out my cigarette and stood while it rang.

“Ellie!” Alyssa shouted through her tears. “Dillon… He… He killed himself, Ellie!”

Time stopped. I couldn’t feel the cold breeze against my skin. I couldn’t taste the nicotine on my tongue. The sound of cars driving by faded. Everything stood still until my mind finished processing what Alyssa said.

“No,” I said, slamming my back against the brick building. “You’re kidding! Dillon is always happy! He’s always the one joking around and being silly. Alyssa, there’s no way!”

She bawled into the phone. “I need you, Ellie. We all do. His mom is a mess, and we just all need to be together right now.”

Tears sprang to my eyes. “I’ll go see if I can get off early.” I got off the phone with her and hurried inside the store.

I found the night manager straightening the shelves in the soup aisle. “Craig?” I cried.

“Elena? What’s going on? Are you alright?”

I shook my head. “I just found out while I was on break that one of my friends killed himself. I was going to see if I could get off early somehow to go be with everyone?” My hands shook.

“Sure! Of course! Just leave now, and I’ll cover for you. If you need off for the funeral or anything else, just let me know.”

I hugged him. “Thank you!” I went to the break room to get my purse from my locker. I had to just lean against the metal locker for a few seconds to catch my breath.
Why would a guy like Dillon commit suicide?

Dillon and I used to be super close friends, but we ended up parting ways this past year. I became so involved with Channing and was always with Katie, and we didn’t hang out like we used to. I hated that I had stopped talking to him all the time. We were still friends, but not as close as we once were. I felt horrible.
What if maybe I would’ve been there for him to listen to him?
I wondered if he didn’t have anyone to talk to about stuff. Or maybe he didn’t want to, and he just let the shit pile up until it became too much. But Dillon rarely complained about anything. He was always happy, and he was the guy that was always there for everyone else.
Maybe he took everyone’s problems too seriously, and it got the best of him?

I pushed off the lockers and went out to my car. The 20-minute drive to Fredericksburg felt like four hours. I just wanted to get to my friends. When I finally made it to the old parking lot, I ran through the crowd of people until I reached Alyssa. I hugged her tightly while we both cried. When we pulled apart, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I could smell his familiar cologne. I turned to face Channing.

Tears fell down both of our faces. I stared up at him. I couldn’t be angry at him right now. We were all hurting, and we had to put the shit behind us for Dillon. He wrapped his arms around me and held me. I started to feel like I was suffocating, being in Channing’s arms, so I wiggled myself free. I pulled my sleeves over my fists and wiped my eyes.

“Shit won’t be the same without him,” he said while staring at his feet. “God, Ellie. Life shouldn’t be this hard at seventeen.”

I rubbed my arm, warding off the chill from the harsh truth of his words. It shouldn’t be this hard. We had a lifetime of disappointments and heartbreaks ahead of us. This should be the time of our lives. We should be out on a Friday night, making horrible decisions just so we could feel alive. Not mourning our friend’s suicide.

“He wouldn’t want us standing here crying,” Channing said, looking at me. He laughed a little, and a few more tears fell. Out of reflex, I reached up and wiped his tears on my sleeve. He stared at me in shock.

“Sorry, I didn’t…I wasn’t thinking when I did that.” I shoved my hands in my jacket pockets. “And maybe he wants us to be crying together. Maybe he’s trying to tell us all something. We all went to Dillon with our problems, Channing. He was the guy that could make sense of our issues and make us laugh, causing us to forget why we were mad in the first place. Maybe it became too much for him. Or maybe he had deeper issues that none of us gave him the chance to say, because we were always too busy looking to him to fix our problems and make us laugh. I guess we may never know.”

“Even if we knew the reason, it wouldn’t bring him back.”

I nodded. “I know.”

Channing put his hand on my shoulder and leaned down to kiss the top of my head. He smiled a little at me, then walked off to talk to the rest of our friends. I let out a shaky breath and leaned against the truck that was next to me. I wiped my eyes and pulled out my phone. I scrolled through my images until I found the one of Dillon and I making duck lips in the back of his truck. We were both wasted that night, just being us. That was right before I started dating Channing and got too busy for him.

I’d never be able to hear his laugh again. I’d never have his shoulder to cry on again. It killed me knowing that I could never tell him I was sorry for becoming too busy for him. I hoped he knew that I didn’t do it intentionally. I just didn’t know that he’d be gone one day.

I SNEAKED INTO THE
house. I didn’t want to deal with Dad or Nancy. I was hopeful that they’d get horrible hours at work soon, so they’d be gone more. I was so emotionally drained that I couldn’t take their petty shit.

I
almost
made it to my room undiscovered. I stopped when Nancy stepped into the hallway.

“What the hell is wrong with you? Are you on drugs?” She grabbed my arm and turned me from side to side to observe every inch of my face.

I rolled my eyes. “No. I’ve been crying, you idiot!” Rolling my eyes was the first mistake. But calling her an idiot was a bit over the top. “I just need to go to my room.”

“Is it that Channing kid again? God, Elena, get over that shit. How long are you going to try to milk that shit just to get someone to feel sorry for you!”

My dad came out into the hallway. I looked at him and then pulled my arm from Nancy’s hold.