Driven Down
Part 2: The Death
Serena Castillo
I walked around the field a few times until I finally went to hide behind the bleachers. I waited until Riley pulled up in front of the bleachers about an hour later. I didn’t notice that the sun had already set, and I sure didn’t notice that he was calling out to me from inside the car. Riley exited the car and walked over to me as I continued to pace back and forth.
“Shae?” He finally reached my view. He extended his hand to touch my shoulder. “Are you okay?”
He startled me and I stopped in my tracks. You could see in my face something was eating at me. My eyes didn’t know if I wanted to cry or just stare into the sky in disbelief. I took his hand, and we went to sit on the bleachers.
“I need to tell you something. I don’t want you to get mad or react.” I sighed.
“Tell me,” he said seriously.
“Kenny told the whole football team that we’ve been having sex, and it spread all the way to the girls on my team.”
Riley immediately jumped up, looking onto the field to see if he could spot Kenny. I pulled him back down. Their practice was already over, and the players had already left for home before he even arrived. I made sure that Kenny never saw me while I was waiting. He never even came after me to see if I was okay. He cared too much about football to even think about me, and it’s sad. You would think someone who has known you for your entire life would come and make sure you were okay. I would have stopped everything and anything to make sure he was okay; I wouldn’t care if I got benched for the next game. At least I could admit that I was considerate of his feelings if I were in his place.
“What the fuck! Why would he say something like that?” Riley pulled me in close to him.
“I’m as shocked as you. I caused a whole scene on the field. Probably made it seem like it was true. But I didn’t care. I wanted to know why he lied.”
“When was this?”
“Earlier, in the middle of their practice game.” I let my head drop.
“Shae,” He hugged me tight. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go talk to him? Fuck him up a little?”
“I want you to take me home.” I looked up at him, my eyes watering.
Riley nodded, took my hand, and we walked to his car. The car ride was silent. Luckily, we didn’t have plans until the following weekend to go out. I have the time to get my mind straight. My cousins were coming over this weekend to visit, but I didn’t even feel like talking to them about this situation either. They were the only two people who I was close with other than Kenny.
We arrived in front of my house. Riley kissed my forehead and told me to text him when I was ready to talk. I got out and walked inside the house. My parents were at the dinner table eating, but I asked if I could eat later because I was tired from practice. They didn’t object. I thanked them and then headed up to my room.
I’m not sure what to do. My best friend for years stabbed me in the back about the one thing that I only shared with him, and he used it against me after encouraging me to go forward with having sex with Riley. I threw my head into my pillow and drifted off to sleep.
Let’s fast-forward forward the weekend a little. My aunt dropped my cousins off Friday night while my mom and aunt fled off to spend the weekend in Atlantic City, my dad and Kenny’s dad went to fix some stuff on his car most of the weekend, so Jackie, Debbie, and I were alone majority of the time (of course they ended up getting all the tea out of me. No, I wasn’t crying. I hate to cry about stupid kid shit like this). Kenny didn’t call or text didn’t come by my house to play video games, or told my dad to tell me anything. It was birds chirping from Kenny. Little did I know, something drastic happened.
Sunday night, my dad came back from working with Kenny’s dad, and boy did he have the tea.
“Shae, come down here,” he yelled from the bottom of the steps. Jackie, Debbie, and I all came running down the steps and we sat on the couch.
“What’s up?” I was smiling, in a better mood, and ready to start my week refreshed and with no cares in the world about Kenny until Dad said, “Kenny is in the hospital.”
I jumped up, “What do you mean in the hospital? What happened to him?” Debbie stroked my arm to try to console me.
“He was beaten up badly. We found him earlier today, laid out on the floor of his bedroom. We didn’t even know he had left out or returned.”
“Do you know who did this to him? Can we go see him? I need to see him!” I almost knocked my dad over as I was shaking him with all my strength.
“Shae, relax. We can go see him tomorrow. It’s late, and visiting hours are over for the day. Deb, Jack, can you take her back into the bedroom? Your mom will be here later tomorrow, so you guys can stay and help to calm her tonight.” They both nodded as they took me back up to my bedroom. That’s when I started crying. Who knew? But now I needed to find out who did this, and I knew where to start.
Debbie and Jackie left this morning with my aunt. My dad filled in my mom on what happened with Kenny. They let me stay home from school so I could visit him. While I waited to head over to the hospital, I paced back and forth in my bedroom in front of the mirror. I was trying to find the right words to confront Riley. How the fuck do people do shit like this? My palms were sweating. My phone rang nonstop from Debbie and Jackie checking in on me. They didn’t want to leave me in this state to deal with this alone, but Jackie had to get back to school to prepare for finals. I was waiting for Kenny’s dad. When I finally heard Kenny’s dad honking the horn of his car, I grabbed my bag, keys, and my phone and ran down the steps.
Since my mom let me slide with school for the next week to visit Kenny, our teachers emailed the work to us so we could complete what we would miss. Kenny had to be put into an induced coma. For how long? Who knew?
Riley continued to call and text me, even showed up at my house, but my parents told him that I was sick and that I wouldn’t be coming outside any time soon. He knew it sounded funny, but I didn’t care. I loved my parents even more for covering for me.
My parents met me at the hospital a few hours later. I ended up telling them what really happened between Kenny and me. My dad laughed. I was appalled that he thought it was funny. He continued to tell me a story, “Daniel and I weren’t friends since we were babies how you and Kenny were. We met in high school through mutual friends and hit it off since. One day, Daniel told everyone in the school that he was dating his mom when she was really dating me. Your mom was a senior at Francis Lewis High School when Daniel and I were juniors at Springfield High. I met her while I was doing some after-school work with my English teacher at her school. Your mom was amazing even back then.” My dad smiled as he told the story, and my mom held his hand. “Daniel and I stopped being friends, but when he got into this bad car accident a few months later, I rushed to his side. Daniel was my best friend. He still is. There will be situations where it will put a damper on your friendship, but you need to determine if you can forgive him and move on, or just end it here and now.” My dad and my mom left the room where Kenny was and went to get us something to eat.
I sat alone with Kenny. Almost two weeks had passed since Kenny had been put into the induced coma. I picked up Kenny’s hand. He was laying in the hospital bed, machines beeping, bandages all over his body, a black eye, a broken nose, and so much more it was unbearable. He originally had a breathing tube but he began to breathe on his own in the middle of the night, so they removed it before we arrived. I held back my tears as I started to talk, “Remember my fourteenth birthday party? You invited me over to your house to play video games, when we never play at your house, but I went because you told me your parents got me a cake and they wanted to cut it over there before coming over to mine for dinner. When it was finally time to go back to my house, you stopped me at the door and told me that we would be friends forever even if one day we ended up hating each other.” Tears started to roll down my face. “I realize now what you meant. I forgive you, okay? I just need you to wake up. I don’t want to lose you like this.” I buried my head into his body as tears fell from my eyes even faster.
I ended up falling asleep next to Kenny. When I woke up, it was dark outside. There was food on the table, waiting for me. I didn’t even notice that Kenny had woken up. He was sitting up, and he was staring at me. I smiled ear to ear. He smiled back at me.
“Hey, you.” Kenny’s face was still swollen. He had the head bandage taken off.
“Hey.” I moved closer toward him.
“How long was I out?” He grabbed my hand. “Almost two weeks,” I interjected.
“Really?”
“Yeah, really.” I looked into his eyes, cleared my throat, and asked, “Who did this to you?”
He looked at me and took his hand away. I could tell that he didn’t want to talk about it. Maybe for the sake of my feelings, but I needed to know. I grabbed his hand back and continued, “I need you to tell me, please.”
“I heard you. When you told me that you forgave me.” He put his head down.
“You did?”
“Yes. I am sorry. I didn’t mean for it to come back to you that way. I wanted to explain to you what really happened.”
“And what really happened?” I sat up straight.
He cleared his throat. “Riley. He has some friends on the football team. I didn’t know that. He told them that he was planning to have sex with you by the end of the year and dump you. I overheard them all talking about it, so I told them that you were with me. But then they made it seem as if we’ve been secretly together, but—”
“But that’s not what you wanted it to seem like either?” I interjected.
“I am truly sorry. I don’t want to lose you. You are my best friend. No matter what.” He smiled at me. I couldn’t help but smile back.
My parents texted me and told me that they were going to pick me up in the morning. Kenny’s dad had called and told them that Kenny had woken up and that I should spend some time with him since I was a familiar face. We stayed up most of the night, talking and laughing. Luckily, Kenny had his own room, so no one could tell us to shut up. I can admit, I missed this. I missed my friend. I just hope that nothing else comes between us, especially not another life-and-death situation.
Excerpt from Serena Castillo’s Collections of short stories Unknown (2022)
