Harmonious Hearts 2019--Stories from the Young Author Challenge

by Ryan Almroth

  On the night of my birthday, we were up in my room, stretched out on my bed. Mom made us keep the door open, but we were by ourselves for the most part. I told him that I loved his cake. I told him that I loved him.

  But love doesn’t save everyone.

  He tossed a stress ball in the air like it was his baseball. I gently touched the scars on his belly. There were more fresh ones now. I didn’t say anything. I believed that if I told him enough times that I loved him that he would believe me, and that he would stop hurting himself. I believed that if I told him he was beautiful, he would come to love himself as much as he loved me.

  “I love you. Do you love you?” I had asked. Jason Jackson laughed. Until he cried.

  His dad had left two nights ago.

  Halloween was right around the corner. Jason Jackson picked out a Joker’s costume, and I picked out a Batman costume. We made out in the dressing room of the Halloween store that day. I was ready for my final year of trick or treating. Jason Jackson wasn’t so sure about trick or treating at eighteen years old.

  “It just feels like I’m second-hand stealing candy from children. Stealing candy from children is wrong. There’s a whole saying about it,” he argued. We laughed as we picked out our costumes. That laugh was an irresistible song. He cuddled close to me and felt my fake Batman abs while I admired his Joker’s makeup. I wanted to smear it so badly.

  Halloween was the last holiday I ever spent with Jason Jackson Jones.

  I worked the late shift at the diner on Friday night like usual. Jason Jackson wasn’t with his football friends when I took their orders. I looked for that lingering stare, but he wasn’t there. I waited until closing, and then even longer out in the late November rain. No sign of Jason Jackson Jones.

  I decided to go to his house to check up on him. I had to keep my thoughts under control. There was nothing wrong. He was probably sick, or he just didn’t play tonight. There was no reason to freak out. Only, he didn’t pick up his phone. He never missed a phone call. Not ever. Not even when I called him at three in the morning after a nightmare.

  I ran up the porch and into the house. Mrs. Jones was too drunk at this time of night to care if I knocked or just barged in. She was passed out on the couch like usual. I bounded up the stairs. He was fine. He was totally fine. I am fine. This is stupid. There’s no reason to be worried. None at all.

  One. Two. Three doors. The third door was his room. Yes! His room was open. He wasn’t in it. No. I ripped down the hall to the first door. The bathroom. Locked. Not open.

  “Jason Jackson! Open the door!” I pounded. My heart rate was rising. No answer. I couldn’t breathe.

  “Jason Jackson! Say something! Anything! Tell me you’re okay! Please,” I begged. Nothing. The house was quiet. The door was locked. I banged my shoulder up against the lock. It nudged, but didn’t give in all the way.

  “Please, please, please.” Tears filled my eyes and cold air racked my lungs. I shook the doorknob so hard it fell off. I rammed up against the door again and again until it finally burst open.

  Jason Jackson Jones was covered in his own blood. He held a red stained knife in his right hand. No. Ready to do more damage. No. No, no, no, no.

  Blood everywhere. On the toilet, on the wall, on the mirror. On him. All over him. His wrist was cut this time, not his stomach. No. Stop. Please. Please be okay. I took the knife from his hand and he whimpered halfheartedly. He couldn’t leave me. He couldn’t just die.

  “Please. Please, Jason Jackson, please.” I couldn’t think. Wrap his wounds. With what? Give him blood. How? Call the ambulance. Where’s my phone? Get his mom. Does she even care? What do I do first? Call an ambulance. Call 911.

  My hands shook. The screen was blurry from tears in my eyes. The phone number never seemed longer than it did now. 911.

  “Hello. Please, my—my boyfriend—he cut himself. He’s dying. Blood. So much blood—please, please—” A shuddering breath turned into a quiet wail. Jason Jackson was slumping over. Oh no. This is my fault. This is all my fault. Please, no.

  “We—I’m—I’m at his house. He’s falling over—Jason Jackson, wake up! Stay with me, please—” His address. What was his address? He lived on a street. The street next to mine. Thirteenth. Thirteenth Street, of Pleasant Hill, Alabama. Say that. Tell them where you are so they can find you.

  “It’s Pleasant Hill. Alabama. Thirteenth Street. Please come—please hurry.” The operator told me to stay on the line. I needed to wrap his wounds. Stop his bleeding. So much blood. It was in his hair too. His perfect beautiful blond hair.

  Wrap it. Wrap it with something. Bandages. Toilet paper. I took the roll off the rack and then thought better of it. Too thin. It wouldn’t help. Sports bandages. Jason Jackson kept a role under the sink. Use it. I got the roll of sports bandages. I couldn’t think of anything better. There was still so much blood. I wrapped his arm, and he fought against me. He wanted so badly to just bleed out of existence.

  “It’s not your fault, Ollie—not your fault. I’m sorry. So sorry. Ollie—” He was fading. I heard the ambulance noise. The house number. I didn’t tell them the house number. I didn’t know the house number. Jason Jackson’s house was just the ugly green house on the corner. There was no number. Please, God, don’t take him from me.

  “I love you, Jason Jackson. Please—please don’t die. You’re going to be okay.”

  Love doesn’t save everyone.

  Love doesn’t save everyone.

  Love doesn’t save everyone.

  I ran down the stairs and threw open the front door. I flagged down the ambulance. They spotted me, and I led them to the bathroom. Jason Jackson’s eyes were closed, and he wasn’t moving. Not moving. Oh God. Please. Please let him live. My fault, my fault. All my fault.

  Later, the first responders commented that if it hadn’t been for my quick thinking, he wouldn’t have lived. That my makeshift bandages had saved him. His pulse had been so faint they weren’t even sure he was alive until the heartbeat appeared on the screen. Mom wouldn’t let me see him in the hospital. She told me he was fine, and that his mom was going to get him the help he needed. She didn’t make me go to school until I was ready. People talked about Jason Jackson in the hallways. Whispers I couldn’t escape.

  “Did you hear? Jason tried to kill himself.”

  “Did you hear? Jason cut his wrists.”

  “Did you hear? Jason went to an asylum.”

  “Hey, look who it is. His boyfriend. Did he hate you so much he had to kill himself to get away from you?” The football jock was loud so his friends could hear him. He used to be friends with Jason Jackson. Before Jason Jackson tried to die.

  Tried to die. Tried. And failed.

  It was graduation. Jason Jackson wasn’t there. I was lonely. I wore a bright blue gown and a stupid-looking cap. Mom took pictures and congratulated me. I tried to smile. Tried. And failed.

  “Oliver Lang,” the announcer called. I gripped my sleeves and stood. He should be here. He should be standing right next to me. He should be holding my hand, and telling me he loves me. And then I would tell Jason Jackson that I loved him back.

  Each stair was heavy. Each stair felt like a mile in a single step.

  I was supposed to follow him. He told me that he dreamed of getting into college on a football scholarship. I told him I’d follow him anywhere he went. And now he wasn’t even here.

  “Ollie! Go Ollie!” Laughter sang out. That song. That beautiful, wonderful song. I knew that song. I turned my head to look when I grabbed my diploma. He was here. Jason Jackson was here, and so, so alive. There was that crazy, perfect blond hair in the wind, and those bright brown eyes. I jumped up and down on the stage with my diploma in hand. Maybe he would follow me to the future.

  After the ceremony ended, Jason Jackson finally came to see me. I cried. He cried. Mom took more pictures, and we smiled through the tears. He still wore bandages on his arms over long-healed wounds that would plague him forever. Bu
t they were a part of him. Jason Jackson told me about the psychiatric hospital and all the things he learned when he was there. I told him about the football games he missed, and the science fair project I did.

  “I have to retake the year. I’ll be playing catch-up for a long time.”

  “I’ll wait for you.”

  Love doesn’t save everyone. It doesn’t magically make everything better. Not everyone gets as lucky as I did. Not everyone gets a second chance. I knew better than before. I knew that no amount of love could help a person love themselves. I knew now that I could help Jason Jackson. But not just me. He had me, and my mom, and his mom, and a therapist to go to for help. I won’t ruin this second chance at his life.

  “I love you, Jason Jackson.”

  “Love you back, Ollie Lang.”

  M.K. ELFORD is a freshman at Florida State University. This is her first published work. She loves animals, especially horses. She also loves to travel the world and is currently learning Mandarin as a second language. Follow her Instagram @mk.0101 to find out more.

  Wisper

  By Gabrielle Taylor

  Theo is an outsider with no friends, and following his mother’s death, he finds solace in the forest. Logan is popular, but he still wants to help Theo and earn his friendship. When school bullies drive Theo to answer the forest’s call, only Logan knows how to find him.

  FOR AS long as he could remember, the forest sang at night.

  It was beautiful, something soft and warm and welcoming, a slow tinkling of bells perhaps, the humming of a harp, the breathtaking wails of a flute.

  He only knew that the forest sang, and that he was the only one who seemed to hear it. The others would take torches and candles in the starry summer nights and run through the trees while he watched their lights flicker and dance away from the forest’s edge. He wanted to tell them about the music, ask if they heard it or knew what it was, but what would he say—he, who had not spoken in the two long years since his mother passed? Even if the words could pass his lips, what kind of question could he ask, what kinds of answers would he get?

  Perhaps the others heard it and knew something he didn’t; perhaps there was no reason at all for his knees to tremble at the sound.

  “You still aren’t gonna play?”

  He was jolted out of his thoughts by a boy one year his senior smiling down at him, a genuine and kindly expression.

  “Logan,” he signed in greeting. Logan was one of the few people in his village to learn sign language. He did not know why the boy always asked him to play, or had ever bothered with learning to understand him in the first place, but it made him happy.

  “Come on, Theo, it’ll be fun!”

  Theo smiled at the boy’s enthusiasm but shook his head. Logan harrumphed and threw himself to the grass in front of where Theo was sitting, looking up sideways at him with pleading eyes. “It’d be much more fun with you! There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  “I just prefer to watch,” he answered, hands trembling as he continued. “You… could join me if you wanted.”

  “Logan! Logan come on!” distant voices called out from just past the tree line.

  “Ah, I promised them I’d lead their team tonight. How about tomorrow?”

  Theo nodded, smiling at him to let him know he wasn’t hurt.

  “Awesome! And hey!” Logan exclaimed, jumping up and grabbing his torch that he had set in a rotting tree stump. “This one’s for you if you change your mind. You can be on my team!”

  He pulled another torch out of his rucksack and lit it using his own, then passed it down so Theo could take it. Theo hoped that the bright flames hid his blush as their hands touched for the briefest of moments, and then Logan was gone, calling out a goodbye over his shoulder as he crossed into the tree line. Theo watched his flame until he could no longer tell it apart from the others, each one becoming little more than a distant flicker in what looked like a faerie dance.

  He looked to his own torch and wondered again why Logan spoke to him. Logan was charming, popular, and gorgeous. His skin was a beautiful, deep cedar that glowed copper in the sunlight, and his fluffy black hair was usually pulled into a ponytail, but Theo always thought it looked so much more beautiful when it was free, framing Logan’s face and bouncing when he laughed. Logan was gentle and kindhearted, a personality that was equal parts cool, steady river and warm, blazing fire. He got along with everyone, moving along at his own pace.

  Theo was none of these things. He was sickly since birth, so instead of his mother’s rose-blush and ivory skin, his was more like ash wood, although he shared her freckles and frizzy red hair. He wasn’t very personable either; not that he didn’t want to be, but he spent so much of his life sick indoors that he always felt like an outsider among his peers. He was awkward, shy, and perfectly content to sit and watch.

  Nonetheless, Logan always smiled so gently, spoke so kindly to Theo, as if he, too, knew how lonely the world could feel. How dangerous the forest truly was.

  But as Theo stared into the fire of his torch, he thought Logan couldn’t possibly understand him.

  There’s nothing to be afraid of.

  No, Theo thought, listening to the forest call to him.

  What caused him to stay just outside the forest was not a fear of it or the melody that it sang—it was a longing for it. Theo knew that if he left, he might never look back.

  THE NEXT night, Logan made good on his promise and spent it sitting next to Theo, watching the others play their little game.

  “I can see why you like it here so much—the lights dancing through the trees are beautiful.”

  “Yeah, it’s cool to watch. Thanks again for the food.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  LOGAN SPENT the following weeks in much the same way, opting out of the game to sit by Theo’s side, despite the protestations of the boy that he ought to have fun and that he was fine sitting alone. Theo got to know Logan, what he was like, what his dad was like. He loved the way Logan’s nose would scrunch up when he laughed, and it was through that that he noticed Logan had freckles too. Logan often asked after Theo’s life and family, and he answered only because of the way Logan’s eyes seemed to urge him on. He spoke of his mother’s singing, her kindness. Theo tried not to talk about his dad, who walked into the forest one day and never came back. He didn’t remember the man anyway, and he hated the concern that crossed Logan’s face; he didn’t deserve that much empathy from someone so wonderful. Theo wondered what would happen once summer had ended, if he would still be able to see Logan, or if he would leave with the warm days to return to his old friends.

  AS THE days started to turn, Theo could be found sweeping the porch of the house next to his. Since his mother died, they tried to treat him as their own, as much as he’d allow it. As the sun set, he was invited in for dinner.

  It was nice, he reminded himself. They were nice.

  Despite the family’s protestations, he helped clean up the table, then began his trek through the field that sat between their houses. He was met by the forest group, minus Logan, lying in wait.

  THEO BARELY made it home before the panic set in, distantly aware of a pain in his ankle through his rising terror. He collapsed, gasping, just inside the door. Tearing off his shirt, he struggled out of his binder, chest heaving as he was finally able to fill his lungs. Tears stung the corners of his eyes, and he curled up on the floor of the entryway, waiting for his breathing to stabilize.

  “LOGAN COME play with us!”

  “Have you guys seen Theo?”

  “The neighbors said she twisted her ankle—”

  “He,” Logan corrected the girl. “Is he all right?”

  “Yeah, they said sh—he’s sleeping it off. He shouldn’t be bothered.”

  THEO WOKE up coughing, facedown on his floor. He moved to get up, and as his ankle burned, he remembered what had happened the night before. The ambush, the others—the way the first rock felt when it made contact with
his cheekbone. The pain in his ankle flared angrily, the price of running after hurting it, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to care about that.

  Had Logan even noticed that he was gone?

  “WHERE’S THEO?”

  “They said he’s still resting?”

  “I should go see him, make sure he’s okay—”

  “He’s probably asleep. Come on, the game is starting!”

  THEO LAY in bed, listening and hoping all night long to see—he was scared to even finish that thought, to consciously acknowledge how much he cared for his newfound friend. Scared to admit he let himself languish in bed for a full day just to see if maybe Logan would—what? Come check on someone so pathetic? As the sun rose in the wake of a near silent night, his cheeks glistened with tears that he would swear were because of his ankle.

  THAT EVENING, he found himself walking again. It hurt, but it was manageable. He couldn’t wait to leave.

  “WHERE’S THEO?”

  “I don’t know, why?”

  “I’m going to see him.”

  “Wait!”

  Logan didn’t glance back, unable to shake the knot that formed in his stomach at the indifference—no, annoyance—in response to Theo’s absence.

  When he reached the boy’s house, it was empty.

  THE FOREST sang at night. A beautiful melody that Theo held dear. He used to play in these woods, when his mother was alive. He thought the song to be no different than the birds or crickets who chirped through the trees, just another sound of the forest. It wasn’t until he lost her that it pulled so strongly, as though she was all that kept him from it.