The Best of Friends

by Berry, Lucinda

Lindsey and I quickly pull apart. I wipe the tears off my face as she hurries to the large bay window behind Jacob’s bed and peeks out. She has a perfect view of the front porch. “Oh my God, Kendra’s back.”

  Kendra pounds at the door again, louder this time.

  “She’s probably here to apologize,” I say, but her knocks don’t sound friendly at all. Just angry.

  “What should we do?” Lindsey asks, turning to me with bewilderment in her eyes.

  I get up from the couch, grateful for the distraction. “Let me handle it.”

  I unlatch the door and open it a crack. Kendra stands on the concrete, anxiously tapping her feet together. I drop my voice to a whisper like a baby is sleeping inside the house. “Hey, we just finally got things settled down, and we’re trying not to stir them up again. Can you come back later? Maybe tomorrow?”

  “I can’t even believe you’re still here,” she hisses through gritted teeth. “How can you be here after she said those terrible things about Caleb?”

  “Now is not the time,” I snap at her and push the door shut, but she blocks it with her foot. “Are you serious, Kendra?”

  She waves a phone in front of her. “I’m not leaving until she sees this.” Her eyes are wild.

  “Honestly, please stop. She already told you that she doesn’t want to watch the video.” She’s gone too far. None of us can handle another confrontation.

  “I’m not talking about that video. I’m talking about everything that’s on this phone.” She shoves the door open and pushes past me like I weigh nothing, hurrying inside.

  Lindsey snaps the curtains closed and rushes over to her before she can make it into the living room. “You are ridiculous. This is over the line. You can’t force your way into my house.” She points to the door. “Leave.”

  Kendra shakes her head. “Oh no, I’m not going anywhere until you see this, and I’m not talking about a video.” She frantically waves the phone around again. “I’m talking about secret burner phones that Jacob and Sawyer had. The ones that they texted privately on, and guess what? They also did a lot of sexting on them too.”

  Lindsey puts her hands over her ears. “Stop, Kendra. Please, stop. I don’t want to hear about my son’s sex life.”

  “It’s not his sex life. This has never been about sex. Why don’t you get that? Jacob was in love. He was head over heels for Sawyer. Don’t believe me?” Kendra scrolls through the phone and then stops. She reads aloud, “‘I’ve never felt love like this before. I can’t stop thinking about you.’” She scrolls again. “Or how about this? ‘We were meant to be together. I know everyone thinks that when they’re young. But we’re for real.’ Tell me that doesn’t sound like love to you? Tell me it doesn’t?”

  “You need to leave.” I grab Kendra’s arm and pull her back. She’s getting into Lindsey’s space. None of this is good.

  “Leave me alone, Dani.” She jerks away and takes another step toward Lindsey. “Just admit it so that we can start to move forward—your son killed mine.”

  Kendra says out loud what everyone’s been thinking for the past week ever since hints of Sawyer and Jacob’s relationship came to life, but it’s still jarring hearing her say it out loud.

  Lindsey moves within inches of Kendra’s face. Their chests almost touch, like they’re two men getting ready to fistfight. “My son didn’t hurt your son, just like my son didn’t hurt himself. What happened that night was an accident, and both our sons got hurt. I’m sorry it happened, and I’m really sorry that you can’t move past it.” Her voice sounds anything but sorry. She sounds angry in that calculated way that means you’ve thought about it and found yourself justified, which makes it almost more dangerous than the fly-off-the-handle kind.

  “Stop it!” Caleb’s voice cuts through the room. He stands in the entryway to the living room. Hands at his sides. His fists clenched. “Just stop it. Please.”

  The room comes to a standstill. Nobody moves. Nobody speaks. Wyatt stands beside him, but all eyes are on Caleb. His legs tremble like a baby deer’s from the weight of his first words in over a month.

  I rush toward him, but he quickly backs away. I freeze in my spot, careful not to startle him further. “I’m so sorry, honey. We didn’t mean to upset you. We’ll stop.”

  He starts rocking back and forth on his heels, running his hands up and down his arms.

  “It’s okay, Caleb. You’re okay,” I say soothingly, trying to mimic the way Luna calms him.

  “N-no . . . no . . . it’s not . . . Mom . . . it’s . . . ,” he whimpers. His face contorts like he’s in physical pain. He takes another step backward into the doorway.

  “Why don’t you sit down again with Wyatt?” Lindsey says from behind me, but her words only seem to upset him more, as he starts shaking his head back and forth.

  “Just leave him alone, Lindsey,” I say without turning around. There’s something off about his eyes.

  “I did it.” His voice is wobbly, unsure. “I killed Sawyer.” His eyes furtively scan the room until they land on me, searching for connection. My mouth is too dry to speak. Limbs too frozen in shock to move toward him. My son. The one confessing murder in front of me. I’m not ready for what comes next, but I can’t look away.

  “I didn’t mean to, Mom. I didn’t.” Each word is purposeful—deliberate and slow.

  I nod at him because I can’t speak. My words stripped from me in the same way his were. I’m sure he didn’t. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t. Not my Caleb.

  He slowly shifts his attention to Lindsey. He swallows a few times. “Jacob shot himself.” Swallows again. “Not me. I had nothing to do with that.”

  Lindsey gives short, quick nods like she’s trying to comprehend what he’s telling her. Kendra and Lindsey hold each other up, leaning against each other like they might fall to the ground if they don’t. Their fight from seconds ago forgotten that quickly. Nothing matters besides this moment.

  “Why would you do that to Sawyer?” The emotion in Kendra’s voice is so raw that it brings tears to my eyes.

  For so long, I’ve waited for him to speak, but now all I want is for him to be quiet. I’m not sure I can handle hearing what drove him to shoot his best friend, no matter how badly I want answers. Bryan’s voice pops into my head unbidden, like I’m being shocked out of a deep sleep: Don’t let him speak to anyone without a lawyer present. I step forward. “Caleb, honey, I don’t think you should say anything more.”

  “Dani, no, please, don’t . . .” Kendra’s desperation hits me like a real object. “Let him talk to me. It doesn’t matter what he says.” She shakes her head like a wild dog, so close to the truth she can smell it. “Nobody outside this room has to even know. We don’t have to tell anyone. Just us. Please.”

  Caleb looks to me for permission. His dad’s warnings to him as present as they are to me, like he’s in the room with us.

  And then I remember—I don’t live by Bryan’s rules anymore.

  “Caleb, we’re not keeping anything a secret. I’m done with secrets. So whatever you tell Kendra and Lindsey, just know that you’re going to have to tell the detectives and police officers exactly what you told them. Do you understand that?”

  He nods in consent, but I’m not sure he does. He’s confessing to murder, and he’s sixteen years old. Seventeen in five months. He’s my little boy, but the court will only see him as a man. That much I’m sure of. Pain stabs my heart. Please let it be an accident.

  “They never acted like they were in love. Nothing. Just regular. But they lied. All the time. I was so angry. Pissed off.” His voice is deeper than I remember it. He struggles to find more words. “Not because they were hanging out together by themselves. They push me away all the time. I’m used to it. I thought they were leaving me out. Again. Like all the other times. You don’t know what that feels like.” He shifts his eyes away in embarrassment.

  Except I do. I know exactly what that feels like. Kendra and Lindsey might not have been in love, but I w
as the one shoved aside in any third-wheel situation.

  “I was so mad because they kept lying to me about things. That’s what was driving me so crazy.” His eyes glaze over like he’s about to disappear. He can’t disappear again.

  “That night, Caleb. Tell us about that night.” Kendra’s voice is pressurized. She senses his departure too.

  He slowly walks over to the couch and sits down. The three of us follow and hover around him in a semicircle, Jacob in his bed behind us. Wyatt hasn’t moved from his spot in the doorway.

  “We lied about what we were doing. Not about the whole thing. I had the video game, and we were going to play it, but not until we got home from the party. The two of them got into this huge fight before we even left. I thought it was about the Adderall, because Sawyer was mad that we got ripped off from his usual guy. That was probably a lie. I bet they were fighting about something that had to do with them. Anyway, we started drinking at the house.” He looks at me again. “Sorry, Mom.”

  “It’s okay,” I say, but it isn’t. My response happens automatically, and he needs to continue. None of this is okay.

  “Sawyer got drunk fast, like, really fast.” He twists his hands together on his lap. “But we were all drunk, even Jacob, and he never drinks like that. Maybe it was the pills.”

  My legs are so weak I have to sit down next to him, or they won’t hold me up any longer. I take a seat next to Caleb and quickly realize that it looks like I’m supporting him, and I’m not sure I am.

  “We got into a huge fight at the Delta Tau party and got thrown out. Luna showed up and got us an Uber home. I just remember lots of fighting in the car. Everyone was yelling. So loud.” He cringes like he hears their voices now. “Sawyer kept trying to fight me and Jacob. Once we got back home, things got even worse. He started calling me and Jacob names.”

  They got into it over names? All of this—names? My brain won’t wrap around what he’s saying.

  “What kind of names?” Kendra asks like that’s important.

  Caleb stalls. His lower lip quivers. This is where he wants to stop. But he can’t. Every awful detail needs to come out. “He kept telling me to stop treating him like a faggot. I didn’t know what he meant.” His face turns red. “He went into detail about the things he’d do to Luna to prove it, and that’s when I lost it. I don’t even know what happened. But it was disgusting, and he wouldn’t stop. I just remember he wouldn’t shut up.” His eyes glaze over.

  Please don’t leave now. I place my hand on his knee.

  “I don’t remember getting the gun. I remember being furious and running upstairs. I was just so angry. The next thing I know, I’m downstairs with the gun. Sawyer was still going off. He was screaming at Jacob, and Jacob was crying. It was like the saddest cry ever. And Sawyer wouldn’t leave him alone. He was on him. I screamed at him to stop. He wouldn’t stop. He just wouldn’t stop.” There’s an eerie detachment to his voice. Pain too deep for tears. “I threatened him with the gun and—and . . . he said I was too big of a pussy to do it.” Grief contorts his face as he wrestles with the memories. “And then I shoved the gun in his gut. I didn’t mean for it to go off.” He chokes on his sobs. “It wasn’t supposed to go off.” He puts his head in his hands, too racked with grief to continue. His shoulders hunch together, and he clutches his stomach like he’s in pain while he sobs.

  Lindsey breaks in with a tiny, quiet voice like she’s scared to ask. “What about Jacob?”

  Caleb raises his head. His face is covered in red blotches. Snot stains both cheeks. “I’m so sorry.” He takes a few gasping breaths. “I dropped the gun and just started trying to help Sawyer. I was screaming at Jacob to call 911. There was just so much blood. I’ve never seen so much blood.” The color drains from his face as he sees it again in his mind. “I kept trying to stop it. I put the couch pillow on top of it, and it just soaked through. It soaked through a pillow, Mom.” His voice cracks. He struggles to go on. “And then there was a shot . . . I didn’t do that one . . . Jacob . . . Jacob, he must’ve grabbed the gun when I dropped it, and he just shot himself.”

  I watch Lindsey as she turns to where Jacob lies comatose on the hospital bed, realizing that he did this to himself. She never considered the possibility any more than I considered the possibility Caleb had shot either of them. She swallows the truth like bile. It must leave the same awful taste in her mouth as it does mine.

  SIXTY

  LINDSEY

  Kendra and I stand awkwardly next to each other in my driveway as we watch the taillights of Dani’s car disappear around the corner of my block. They are headed to the police station. Bryan and their lawyer are meeting them there. I’ve never seen Dani look so scared.

  Andrew’s inside with the kids. I called him and told him to come home with Sutton as soon as Caleb’s confession was over. After Kendra leaves, we’re sitting down with the kids and telling them what happened. One single act of impulsivity, and Jacob’s life was over. How could he have been in a relationship with Sawyer and not told me? And not just any relationship—he was in love and heartbroken. He would’ve gone on to love so many other people, but he didn’t know that, and I could’ve told him that if he’d given me the chance. Why didn’t he give me the chance? I might’ve been able to save him. How did I miss it? My head swirls with disbelief.

  There’s no sense going back inside the house since Paul’s on his way to pick up Kendra and should be here soon. He still has no idea what’s happened. She didn’t want to tell him over the phone. She pushed so hard for answers. Is she satisfied with what she got? No answer brings Sawyer back, and the intensity of her sadness weighs on her face. She’s aging by the minute.

  “Dani left Bryan,” I announce, hoping to shift the mood. I can’t stand all the sadness. Maybe Dani setting herself free will be the light in all this darkness.

  “What? Seriously? Is that why she’s staying at her mom’s?”

  “Yeah.”

  I watch as the realization dawns on her.

  “God, I’m such a moron. I didn’t even ask her anything about why she was staying there.”

  “It’s okay,” I say, excusing her for what feels like the thousandth time for the same thing.

  “It’s not okay. It really isn’t. I’m sorry that I’m such a shitty friend. I’m not a selfish idiot on purpose. I swear I’m not.” Her eyes fill with tears.

  The thing is—I know she’s not. She loves her friends. She’s been standing up for me whenever I couldn’t since we were kids. She’s chased every bully away and outplayed every mean girl who’s ever threatened me.

  I put my arm around her. “I still love you.”

  She lets out a small cry of relief and squeezes me back. “I love you too.” She hugs me for another second before pulling away. “At least everything is finally out in the open. That part feels good, doesn’t it?”

  Not everything.

  Andrew’s in love with another woman. I still can’t bring myself to say it out loud. Not to Kendra or anyone else. I’m too ashamed, even though I didn’t do anything wrong, but his sin has already become mine. I never noticed anything going on with him in the same way I never noticed anything going on with Jacob. How long has my entire life been a lie?

  I smile at Kendra despite the wails of anguish inside my body. “Yeah, it really does.”

  The house is finally quiet and still. Everyone has gone home, and my family is asleep. Andrew is tucked in bed with Sutton. He fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion after they finished reading. Wyatt’s curled up with the dog in his room upstairs. My chest is heavy as I stand at the head of Jacob’s bed, staring at his body and holding the burner phone I found in his bedroom this afternoon. I can’t bring myself to sit down and settle in for the night.

  I never bothered searching Jacob’s room other than to give Detective Locke his phone and laptop. I figured any clues about what had happened lay hidden in his online world rather than in the real world, but it was the first thing I did today aft
er Kendra left. I ransacked his room like I was the FBI, and my search revealed a cardboard box hidden underneath his bed filled with mementos of his relationship with Sawyer—movie stubs, concert tickets, dried flowers, and notes they’d scribbled to each other in class. I found the phone tucked inside an old blanket that I immediately recognized as the one Sawyer got when he was two weeks old. He called it his mimi, since he was never able to say blankie, and the name stuck. He carried it with him to playdates and sleepovers until he was too embarrassed to have it in public anymore, but he still slept with it every night until he was thirteen. I found the note that must’ve gone with it when he’d given it to Jacob:

  So you can hold me when I’m not there.

  Kendra was right.

  Jacob was head over heels in love with Sawyer, and there’s no mistaking Sawyer returned the feelings, even though he constantly pushed Jacob away, claiming he wasn’t ready for a relationship. I didn’t think there was any way Jacob could’ve been in a relationship with someone and not told me about it, but Sawyer swore him to secrecy. Somehow it makes me feel better that it wasn’t just that he didn’t think he could talk to me about it.

  “I wish you would’ve told me about Sawyer,” I whisper even though there’s nobody there to hear me. “I could’ve helped you through it.” I grab his hand, noticing his fingernails are turning black, the skin wrinkled and flat like an elderly man’s hand. There’s no warmth left. His wide-open eyes stare into my aching heart without connecting. There’s a strange odor that’s never been there before. He’s gone from body to ghost.

  I lift my eyes to the mantel and our family photo framed in gold at the center. His wide grin spreads across his face with an arm wrapped around each sibling. Andrew and I stand behind them with matching smiles. We took it last year during our trip to Hawaii, and it’s one of my favorite pictures because the happiness in our smiles is real, not posed. All the kids agree that it was our best family trip. The days in the sun and sand gave us all a much-needed reprieve from our busy lives and a chance to connect with each other without all the distractions.