The school bell rang, and our class jumped from our seats in unison to leave health class like it was a nightmare. Our teacher smiled sweetly at us, saying “Have a good day, class.” Nobody ever replied back, but she insisted. I walked beside my friend Kyle, who gets out of health class in the room across the hallway.
“Hey Ian; so, it turns out that my dog really did eat my homework!” He spoke, holding up a paper with holes and tears all over.
“I used the excuse to my health teacher, and she didn’t believe me. I didn’t believe myself, until I actually found my homework on my dog’s bed this morning.”
I smiled and replied, “Ha, well it serves the teacher right for not listening… Although, I think that there’s more of a punishment for you than her.” He nodded.
There was a small pause in where we walked out the door into the sun before he replied with a simple, “Yeah.” We headed off of school campus to get to my house. We normally walked on a sunny day rather than taking the bus. Unfortunately, a sunny day was never always a good sign of a good day. A block away from the school, we saw an old black car turning onto the street we walked beside, but we didn’t think much of it. It wasn’t until we walked into a quiet neighborhood that it seemed like the car was following us down every street, at every turn. We did what we both had in mind.
Kyle’s face turned to a sense of urgency when he exclaimed, “Go!” We both bolted, and jumped a fence into somebody’s back yard. We turned and saw two men dressed in black casual clothes get out of the car, and were running for the fence. We turned and ran again, running into a small forest that was in the neighborhood. As we dashed past trees and through bushes, our faces were cut and our clothes were torn by thickets and branches that just wouldn’t let go.
I kept running with Kyle running behind, my thoughts telling me, “This can’t end well.” I saw an exit towards an area of houses in the same neighborhood, and hoped somebody was home, because I was going to make an unexpected visit. I got out of the trees and ran for a blue house, and knocked on it rapidly while also trying to catch my breath. I turned to see if the men in black were following, and I was surprised to see that they weren’t there, but neither was Kyle.
The door behind me opened, and an old man answered the knocking with an annoyed tone as he spoke. “Yes, what is it?” I looked at him, wordless because of my realization that Kyle wasn’t there.
I simply put, “Call the cops.” I ran off, back into the trees, hoping that the old man would listen and help out. My search for Kyle was a failure. I searched for the rest of the time I could, until the cops showed up, telling me I can rest easy, they will find him. They sent me home, telling me they would call if anything was found. They never called, and they weren’t there in the morning either, not searching for the friend who had vanished.
Days passed, and I had been putting up posters, asking around, and comforting Kyle’s parents. I was sure that nothing could go in our favor now. I sat in my own home, ready to go to band practice, when my phone went off, and my parents sat watching the news.
“Can you get that please?” My mom asked as she watched the news, interested for reasons I didn’t know.
I walked to answer the phone, and spoke into it without much thought. “Hello?” I walked into the living room when I answered the phone, and looked back at the TV.
“Yes, is this the residence of Ian Grey?”
“Yes, that’s me.” My eyes were fixated on the TV, and I replied sub-consciously to the man on the phone. They found the body of somebody in an abandoned building, and I had a small clue on who it was, when the parents of the victim came onto the news.
The man on the phone responded, “We found your friend, Kyle.” I stood there, with my jaw dropped and my eyes fixated on nothing, not even the TV now. Not now, after I’ve realized that tragedy struck. My emotions were torn like a thin cloth, and I couldn’t even think. I felt completely numb; it took all my effort to move. The phone remained barely in my hand as my grip loosened on it.
I held it back to its place beside my ear, and replied, “I know.” Without thought, I hung up on the cop who called me, and set the phone down onto the table. I slowly made my way to a chair and sat down, my breath coming and leaving in short bursts. My eyes were tearing up from the depression that came over me, and my parents were looking at me worriedly.
“What’s wrong?” My mom asked me, looking as if she hadn’t just seen the news right in front of her.
I replied, frustrated and torn away from all the emotions that made me smile, “Kyle is dead.” I didn’t want to say any more. I didn’t need to say any more. I moved to the couch and we sat on the couch together for a little while, as I tried to regain my lost senses. Minutes of comfort passed, as my family sat in a small triangle trying to make me feel better. I weakly tried pushing them away, and wiped the tears from my face. I wanted to be strong, and not blow off my commitments that I had with the band.
“I need to get going to band practice.”
My dad asked me, more worried that I feel better, “Are you sure?” I quietly nodded, and grabbed my guitar as my dad got his car keys. He drove me over to the church where the worship band practices and we hardly spoke a word along the way.
He dropped me off, and said reluctantly, “I’ll pick you up at 8.” I nodded, and walked into the church with my guitar as my dad slowly drove off. I walked up the stairs, towards the sanctuary, and tried fighting back the depression that tried swallowing me. I entered the sanctuary, to see the other band members getting set up still. I moved to sit down in a chair already set for me, and I didn’t bother to tune my guitar. Sometimes determination comes with no reward, like my search for Kyle. What I strived for never came. All my effort was unanswered. I sat, in my own gloom as people stood and sat around me, ready to practice music for worship band. I hoped my mood would lighten when we got going, so I was ready to play, ready to forget my regret. I started to listen to a half spoken sentence one of the singers said.
“…decided to come over, it was great.” He spoke, talking about a church service.
The bassist spoke as well, in relation to the topic. “There was for some point in time a Catholic contemporary service.” There was conversation, in which I faded from, lost in thought again.
The next words I heard were my cue. “Here we go, from the top.” We played music, and I could feel my mood lightening as we played.
After the song, the singer asked, smiling at us all, “Do we need to do that again, or are we okay?” Everybody around me broke into conversation about the song.
The singer spoke up. “Let’s go over it again.” We practiced again, and went through the whole band practice without much conversation in-between. By the end, I had this sheepish grin on my face, tired but happy with our work. But my worry was still apparently evident.
“Did you hear anything about Kyle?” One of our band members asked me. My grin instantly turned to a mixture of emotions on my face, confused and unsure.
“I did.” I spoke, and paused for a moment, picking out my wording. “I was watching the news, and they found him, but not alive.” I spoke, now choking on my own words. “So my looking for Kyle was in vain.” I managed those last few words before letting a build up storage of tears roll down my face. Somebody put a hand on my shoulder to comfort me, as we all spoke in a prayer for our friend Kyle.
Once everybody looked over at me during the middle of the prayer, I realized I hadn’t spoken anything yet, so I did. “I pray for Kyle for him to be led in by the angels, to be protected from being misguided on his way to Heaven, and to be happy in where his spirit rests.” Everybody responded with a quiet “Amen,” each one off time with another, so it sounded like one big echo. After practice, I got in my dad’s car and sat there, feeling slightly better now.
He still looked at me though and insisted on saying, “If you keep being in the gloom, it’ll only make things worse. I’m sure that things might not be the same, but things will still have a way of becoming better. Besides, I don’t think acting like this will make things better for any of your other friends either. Try and put a smile in, for yourself, your friends, for me and your mom, and Kyle.” He smiled softly at me and I nodded.
“You’re right. Maybe then my prayers for Kyle won’t go unanswered.” I smiled back.