I opened my eyes and found myself staring up at a white ceiling. Blinking, I wondered if this was heaven. Then it all came crashing back to me. Jason and I shopping. He thought he was being followed. We were headed home. To his place for supper so I could meet his parents properly. Jason. Where was Jason? Where was I?
Sitting up, I took in my surroundings. I was in a hospital room. Now that I was focusing, I could hear the heart monitor beeping away. Looking down, I noticed I had needles in my hand and arms. Then, I noticed my knee. It was wrapped up in bandages and looked twice as big as my leg should be. There was an icepack connected to it to keep the inflammation and swelling down.
Throwing myself back onto the bed, I started crying. Sobbing. How could this happen. Everything that I ever cared about had been taken away from me. Jason had been kidnapped and I had no clue how to get him back. Basketball was done and over for me. I wouldn’t be playing again this year. I didn’t know what more could possibly go wrong, but I wasn’t about to ask God to prove me wrong. I had had enough.
The tears wouldn’t quit falling, and my heart was racing as I sobbed into my pillow. A nurse came in, saw me and rushed to my side asking if I was hurt. I was in such hysterics that I couldn’t answer her, and she got another nurse in so they could sedate me. The numbness washed over me less quickly than it does in the movies. And I was forced to calm down. The tears kept streaming down my face, but I was no longer sobbing uncontrollably.
I closed my eyes for what felt like a moment. In reality, however, it was a few hours. When I opened my eyes again, my mother and father came into the room then. They must have been paged that I had awoken. “Oh, honey!” my mom cried as she came over to me. She sat gingerly on the edge of the bed. She carefully pulled me into a hug. “I was so worried.” She held me longer than necessary, but I let her. I craved this comfort and intimacy from my own mother. I had forgotten what it felt like to have her hold me.
“Did they find Jason?” I asked them finally. I needed to know. If they hadn’t, I’d need to go to the police, file a report or something. Whatever it took to get him back.
My mother gave me a sympathetic look that said it all. “No, they didn’t.”
“There was a family on the playground that saw everything happen, but they hadn’t gotten a license plate number, and the police don’t have much to go on right now. They’ve been waiting for you to wake up so you can give your statement. But, that can wait. You need your rest,” my father replied as he took a seat in a chair beside the bed.
“Rest?” I practically screamed. “How do you expect me to rest in this condition? My boyfriend, yes boyfriend, the man I love and who makes me very happy is suddenly gone. And I was there and wasn’t able to do a damn thing to stop it. My knee is damaged goods, and I’ll be forced to go through six more months of therapy and now I can’t get a scholarship anywhere to a school for basketball. Everything I have ever cared about is gone. I was weak and couldn’t do anything to defend myself or help Jason. And now he’s gone. It’s my fault. He thought he was being followed, but I told him it was probably his imagination. I am so stupid.”
The tears were falling again, and my mom pulled me in for another hug. She ran a hand through my hair soothingly. “Oh, baby, we didn’t know you cared about him so much.”
I pulled away. “That’s because you never cared to stop and listen to me. It was always what you thought without even finding out how I felt about it.”
My mother’s eyes got teary-eyed as I spoke. “I know, and now look at you. This isn’t your fault.” She grabbed my hand, rubbing her thumb along my palm. “There was nothing you could have done. If anything, you might have had worse happen to you. I am so glad nothing happened to you.”
“Elijah, this whole ordeal has really opened our eyes. If anything would have happened to you…” my father trailed off as he started to cry himself. He managed to choke back the tears enough to continue, “I don’t know what we would have done.” He reached over and took my other hand, holding it up to his forehead.
“Eli, we know we haven’t exactly been understanding when it came to you and Jason. I guess, we knew he was a bit different so we were a little worried what that would mean for you. We only ever wanted the best for you. But, we realize now that our methods were a little unfair to you. You have every right to hate us. But, we’d both really like to start over,” my mom told me as she tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear.
“I’ve got every cop I can patrolling the city for Jason and that place that does the experiments on him. When you’re ready, I’ll take your statement and we can get proper Ids out to everyone,” my dad assured me. “We’ll find him. I promise.”
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
3 Months Later
School was so much different without Jason. I had taken two weeks off of school after everything that had happened. I would have taken longer, but I was getting too far behind, and they were worried I wouldn’t be able to graduate at this rate. When I got back to school and got settled in, my coach offered me an assistant coaching position. I could help coach 7th-JV teams. The 7th grade team was my own. It was a good distraction. My team went 7-2.
But, that was done a month ago, and I was stuck now doing nothing to occupy my time other than therapy to get myself back to being able to walk without a limp. No one in school really talked to me. But, that was better than the bullying. Everyone knew I was going through enough, so they usually left me alone. When they did talk to me, I could hear the pity in their voices, so I usually avoided everyone the best I could.
I was sitting in my coach’s office, wondering why he had called me into his office. I sat in the chair opposite his desk. He cleared his throat before speaking, “Elijah, have you thought about colleges you want to apply for? It’s April. You graduate next month, but I haven’t heard much of you talking about what you want to do or where you want to go.”
I shrugged. “I had always been planning on getting into college on a basketball scholarship, play ball. Maybe take classes to be an athletic trainer, but I wanted to go pro. But, since I missed playing my senior year, that’s not going to happen, so I’ve been stuck, unsure of what to do. I applied to the community colleges around the area. But, nothing too major. I‘ve had other things on my mind lately.”
Coach tilted his head, nodding in understanding. “Haven’t you thought about still doing athletic training? Or trying out for the teams there?”
Shrugging again, I answered, “Thought about it, but I don’t want to do intramurals. And the schools were I could just be a walk on aren’t really leagues that are gonna get me seen by the pros. I’m still weighing my options here.”
Pushing an envelope across the desk at me, he nodded, “Open it.”
Frowning, I grabbed the manila envelope. I tore off the top and pulled out a piece of paper. The top had the Duke University logo. I was taken aback but read further down the page. They were giving me a full ride to come play basketball for them. I shook my head at a loss. “But…. How… why did…. I don’t…”
Smiling, Coach leaned forward to shake my hand. “Congratulations. I submitted some tapes from last year to Duke for you. I wrote them a letter stating what had all happened to you. I filled out your application and paid the fee. Hope you don’t mind.” I sat there my mouth opening and closing like a fish. “You, Elijah, are meant to do great things. Just remember us little people when you get famous.”
I got up and pulled him into a hug. He had never stopped believing in me, even when everyone else had.
When I got out of the school, I noticed my dad parked in front of the building. Rushing over to him, he threw the door open and yelled for me to get in. As soon as I had the door shut, he floored it, but the lights of his cop car on and sped off.
“Dad, what’s going on?” I asked as I reached over and pulled my seatbelt on.
“We found it,” he said, smiling at me. “Jason’s going to be coming home.”
By the time we got there, the other officers had already infiltrated the place, so my dad and I were able to just walk in. I followed my dad down the hallway and we stopped in front of a door. “This is the only room we haven’t checked yet,” another officer said. “He has to be in there.”
My dad nodded and pushed me far behind him as his officers kicked the door down and rushed into the room. I didn’t hang back like I was supposed to. Pushing myself passed everyone, I ran into the room and saw a giant tank filled with water in the middle of the room. Someone was in there. Jason was in there! “Jason!” I cried out as I rushed over to the edge. The tank was too tall. At least 8 feet tall. Jason was at the bottom, his legs weighed down.
He must have recognized me because he started fighting harder to get the weights off his legs, but it wasn’t coming off, not to mention he was running out of oxygen. “Jason! Don’t you die on me!” I looked around and saw that there was nothing covering the top. There was a ladder on the side, which is how they had to have got him in there.
Rushing up the ladder, I dove down to the bottom. Luckily, I was a strong swimmer. Thankfully, the weights were only taped around his leg. I managed to pull the weights off quickly enough. Grabbing Jason around the waist, I swam as hard as I could back to the top. Gasping, I made sure Jason’s face was above the water.
“Dad!” I called out, not sure how I was going to get Jason out of here on my own.
“Right here.” Behind me, there was a platform that my dad and some officers were standing on that was even with the surface of the tank. Swimming over to them, I was able to hand Jason off to them. They laid him down on his back.
I got out of the water and rushed to his side and began doing CPR before any of the other officers had a chance to do it. I pumped his chest several times than putting my mouth over his, breathed air into his lungs. Please don’t be dead, I thought. You can’t be dead. You can’t leave me here alone in this world. It doesn’t matter as long as you’re not with me.
I kept pumping, but nothing was happening. His eyes stayed shut, his lungs still not breathing. “No,” I cried.
My dad pulled me off. “We were too late. I’m so sorry, Elijah.” He was trying to pull me into a hug to comfort me. But, I pulled away.
“No. He’s not dead. He can’t be,” I sobbed into his chest. I looked at his face. Even now, he looked so peaceful. How could these terrible things happen to him. He didn’t deserve it. He was the purest person I knew. I wanted to trade places with him. It should be me. It’s what I always wanted.
I tried once more to push air into his lungs, but nothing happened, and it turned into a deep kiss. I just needed to kiss him one more time. I didn’t even care that there were tons of people around watching me, thinking I was crazy. “I love you,” I whispered.
Suddenly, he started coughing up water and we had to push him on his side or he would have started choking on it. Once his coughing fit was over, he looked up at me. “I love you.” I flung my arms around him and kissed him so much more passionately than I ever had before. He was alive. He was with me. And after this, nothing would ever keep us apart.
