Page 61 of Four Letter Feelings

Chapter 24

“I can’t.” Jeremy forced himself to breathe deeply through his nose as he stared at the screen on his phone. “You do it,” he rasped, shoving his phone towards AJ. He dropped himself onto the stairs, raked his hands through his hair and tried to calm his frantic mind. “Please, Pim. I— I can’t— I need you to do it.”

“They won’t talk to me, Jer. They’ll want you.”

“Lie. Pretend you’re me. They won’t know any different. I can’t. I just… please just call them,” he pleaded.

“Ok, ok, wait.” AJ crouched down in front of him. “Whatever they tell me, we will get you through this, ok?”

“What if they’re dead?” he managed, his voice barely a whisper. Each breath felt like it was battling through shards of glass to get into his lungs. Tears made their way down his cheeks and he didn’t move to stop them.

AJ grabbed his head, forcing Jeremy to look at him in a gesture of solidarity.

“I got you.”

Despite sounding confident, Jeremy could see his friend was struggling with his own composure, his eyes were filled with sympathy and they reflected his own pain, too, which only made him feel even worse.

“They could be fine, right? I mean, I’m sure plenty of people are ok, right? There are a million reasons why they might not have answered their phones, or why they couldn’t find another phone to call me from…” he trailed off.

He knew that there was no plausible explanation for his parents not making contact to let him know that they were fine, unless they weren’t fine, and he really wasn’t ready to accept that they weren’t fine. Parents were supposed to live long and annoyingly overprotective lives where they drove you insane about every bad decision you made for all eternity.

He zoned out, staring straight ahead as AJ pushed himself up to standing and hit the redial button on the three-one-three number from Detroit.

Please, God, please just let them be ok. I won’t even be mad that they didn’t call. Please just let them be ok.

As he sat staring hopefully at his friend, his mind went numb. His body quickly followed and as AJ spoke it sounded like he was underwater. Jeremy couldn’t hear what he was saying, it sounded garbled and far away, but somewhere in his brain he knew, his parents were dead.

Denial

He forced himself to look AJ in the eye, he knew from AJ’s posture that the news wasn’t good. His shoulders curled forward, his head hung low and when he spoke, his voice was unsteady. While Jeremy couldn’t hear what was being said, he could tell by AJ’s reaction that whomever was on the other end of the phone wasn’t telling him that Jeremy’s parents were alive, well and just couldn’t come to the phone right now.

He could tell AJ was fighting tears, his eyes glistened under the harsh glare of the light in the hall and Jeremy felt denial quickly coiling in his stomach.

They’re fine, they just need to keep looking. They’re fine. The cops will find them, alive and hiding in a corner somewhere. They… I… no, they’re not dead, they can’t be dead, they’re fine, I know they’re fine.

“Yes sir, we’ll make the arrangements,” AJ said. “Yes sir, thank you.”

He took Jeremy’s phone down from his ear and held onto it for a moment before lifting his head and meeting his piercing stare. Jeremy could see he was struggling to find words.

“Jeremy, I—”

“No,” he rasped. “They’re not.” He shook his head, emphatically. “You have to call whoever that was back and tell him to keep looking. They need to keep looking until they find my parents!” He hadn’t realized he was yelling, or that he’d balled his fists so hard his hands were starting to ache. He hadn’t realized that his chest was heaving so heavily with desperation, or that beads of sweat were trickling down his neck.

“I’m so sorry, Jer,” AJ tried again.

“It’s not them. They have the wrong people!”

“Jer—”

“You’re wrong, AJ!” Jeremy bellowed, standing up and thumping his fists against his thighs. “You’re wrong! It’s not them!” he challenged, squaring himself up to his friend. “It’s too fast. There’s no way they are contacting next of kin this quickly! There’s no way they can identify bod – people this early.” Jeremy knew he was hysterically trying to convince himself. He also knew that it was pointless.

“I’m sorry, Jer. But it is. They were… eh, found first.” Jeremy was suddenly aware that AJ was trying to soften the blow and break it to him gently.

“Just tell me,” he demanded.

AJ took a slow breath and shook his head gently. “They found your parents first. They suspect they had just walked into the theater. Officer Moore said it looked like,” he paused and took another breath, seemingly to steady himself. “It looked like your dad tried to protect your mom. But… I’m so sorry, Jeremy. So sorry,” he repeated. “They’re gone Jer. They died instantly, it was quick and they didn’t suffer. I’m so sorry.” He took a step forward, arms reached out, and Jeremy swatted away his hands.

“No!” he insisted, though less vehemently than before. “They can’t be,” he whispered. “My parents can’t be dead, Pim. They can’t!” He felt his body quivering against his will.

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