E D W A R D
The twins kept looking over at my end of the couch. I had no idea why. They weren't the only ones. Occasionally, Jacob would look over too. And Liam Chan. And others. It was halftime when I realized why.
"Oh fuck, it worked!" Finn shouted, sitting up straight, both hands going for his shaved head. I followed his eyes. Next to me, Isaac had passed out after only one beer. Finn went on shouting, "I wasn't sure it wasn't going to! I just got a punch of pills from my mom's medicine cabinet â"
"What are you talking about?" I stopped him. No one else seemed to be worried. They were all smiling, some of them were even laughing. No one was looking at the tv anymore. Liam was pointing at me.
"He doesn't know?" he asked.
"Of course not," Jacob said as he got up from his chair. He turned to Finn, "What pills did you get exactly?"
Finn shrugged. Next to him, Jack rolled his eyes, and said, "They were sleeping pills. I checked, don't worry."
I looked at the empty beer bottle at Isaac's feet, "You drugged his beer?"
"We did," Jacob said, showing me a smirk. "It's an initiation, baby."
I shook my head, "I thought we didn't do those anymore â"
"It's gonna be different this time," he said. "No one's gonna be left alone in the woods. Don't worry. Honestly, he's gonna fucking love it."
Next to me, Isaac was too out of it to fucking love anything. I stood up.
"This isn't a good idea." There was a reason we had stopped doing initiations for the football team, not that I ever thought we should have been doing them in the first place. They seemed to me like a bad excuse to treat someone like shit, but it was a tradition the school had kept for decades without anyone ever knowing except the players. Every year, the team welcomed new people by knocking them out and leaving them alone at night in the woods at the edge of town. There was always enough of them that at least one would have grown up in town and knew exactly how to get them out.
When Jacob and I had joined the team in freshman year, it had happened to us too. We had been left in the woods with Jason, Finn, and Jack. It had taken us an hour to get out. We had all laughed afterwards, but there had been a moment, alone in dark, where we had all been scared, really scared. Of course, no one ever talked about that.
Then, one year, a freshman actually got lost. He was new in town, and he got separated from the others somehow. We looked for him all night. In the morning, I convinced the others to call the police. They found him a few hours later, walking on the side of the highway. He never showed up to practice again after that, and I slept like shit for weeks after. I still did if I started thinking about it before bed.
In front of me, Jacob said no, it probably wasn't a good idea, but it was happening anyway, whether I wanted it or not. The next thing I knew, the twins were pushing me out of the way so they could get Isaac. Jacob was still talking. I could either go home or I could go with them. The choice was mine. I didn't think it was.
I grabbed Liam, "Where are you taking them?"
He was finishing his beer, then he was laughing at me, "Dude, if Jacob didn't tell you, I sure as fuck am not going to."
The twins were carrying Isaac out of the room with Jacob and everyone else following close behind them. Liam looked down at my hand on his shoulder. As soon as I let go, he went out after them too. I did the same.
They had gone outside. Jacob was too drunk to drive, so he jumped in the passenger's seat of the twin's pick-up. Jack got in the backseat with Isaac. The rest was jammed into the bed of the truck. I stopped Finn before he opened the door to the driver's seat.
"You're drunk," I said. It was obvious.
He showed me a smile, "Just a little bit."
"You can't drive."
"I promise you I can," he said, smiling even more. "Ask me anything."
"That's not how this works."
Jacob honked inside the car, "Stop being a pussy and get in!"
Finn looked at me, "I only had a couple of beers and Jack and I stopped over at a fast-food place on the way here and I ordered a double quarter pounder with cheese, large fries, and a box of nuggets. I'm good to go. I promise."
The window in the backseat slid open and Jack leaned over to say, "It's true."
"Come on!" Jacob wined. "Get in!"
We got in. Hip hop started playing. Finn turned the sound up and pulled the car out of Jacob's driveway. Next to me in the backseat, Isaac was still out. Jack had put the seatbelt on him, but not on himself.
When he caught me looking, I said, "Put your seatbelt on."
"Yes, mommy," he said, then he did it. I put mine on too.
In the front, Jacob was singing along to the music, his eyes on the screen of his phone. He looked up to tell Finn to turn left. Finn turned right.
"I said left, you fucking idiot!"
"Where are we going?" I asked, and no one answered. Instead, Jacob slapped Finn in the back of the head. Jack laughed. I didn't think any of it was fucking funny.
"Make a U-turn," Jacob said.
"I'm not good at those," Finn said.
Next to me, Jack laughed some more, and said, "He really isn't."
"Just fucking do it!" This was Jacob.
I rolled my eyes and fell back on my seat. My palms were sweating. So was the back of my neck. I opened the window. Finn managed to turn the car around but not without going up the curb. Jack was laughing so hard, Jacob had to turn around to tell him to shut up so he could focus.
"Right," he said, "Just keep going straight now."
This time, Finn got it right. A rap song came on and Finn hit the gas. I told him to slow down. Jacob agreed. He was going to miss the exit again. Finn turned the sound up and kept his foot on the gas. Obviously, by the time Jacob told him to turn right, he was going too fast to do it without tipping the truck over. He had to slam on the brakes.
"What's wrong with you?!" This was me, holding tight, perhaps too tight, onto my seatbelt. My other hand had reached for Isaac, but his seatbelt had done the work too.
We were stopped in the middle of the road. Finn turned around. There was blood dripping from his mouth and down his chin.
"Were you scared?" he asked. "Cause I was fucking scared."
Somehow, Jack was laughing again, "You're bleeding, dude!"
Finn took his hand up to his mouth, somehow also laughing, "I hit my head on the wheel."
"You're fine, you pussy," Jacob wined again, putting the car on reverse, "Go back and turn right."
Finn turned around, hand still on his mouth, blood now dripping his wrist and sleeve. The car started moving again. I leaned forward and put my hand on his shoulder.
"Just let me drive."
Jacob laughed, "Fuck no."
"Why?"
An even faster and more aggressive rap song came on. In the back, everyone started singing. I rolled my eyes. Jacob shrugged, "I'm not even gonna answer that."
"Then stop the car. I wanna get out."
He turned around and looked down at my lap, "Your vagina's showing."
I ignored him, "Finn, stop the car."
"You're gonna leave your boyfriend with us?" Jacob asked.
"No, I'm taking him with me," I told him. Both Finn and Jack laughed at this.
Jacob said, "No, you're not."
Then his phone said, "You've reached your destination."
I looked up. We were by the trainline. Finn stopped the car.
"What the fuck is this?"
"Watch your mouth!" Jack warned me, covering Isaac's ear with both hands, as if they hadn't been saying shit the entire night.
"Jacob," I said.
He was getting out of the car, but he turned around to say, "It's abandoned, relax!"
Finn took the keys off the ignition and opened his door. I felt the weight of the truck shift. Everyone in the back was getting out too. I took my seatbelt off and opened the door. Jacob closed it again.
"You should stay in the car," he said. "I promise you I won't hurt him."
I opened the door again. He closed it.
"I don't believe you."
He frowned, "Now you're just hurting my feelings."
"Just let me out."
"No."
I turned around so I could leave through the other door. Isaac and Jack were gone already. When I reached the handle, something clicked. I looked back at Jacob. He had the pick up's keys in his hands. He had just locked me inside.
"What's wrong with you?" I asked him, trying the door, one, two, three times.
"What's wrong with you?" he asked back. "We're just trying to welcome Isaac into the team. I thought this was what you wanted."
"You know Andy had to go to therapy after what happened. His mom told me â"
"Who the fuck is Andy?"
"Andrew Andresen," I said. "The freshman who got lost â"
"Oh, come on, that kid was a little bitch." Then he walked away.
I fell back on my seat. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't get out. I couldn't even convince them to get me out. I looked through the window. It was pitch black out there. They had to turn on the torch function on their phones to find their way. I could see them by the trainline, but I couldn't tell what they were doing. I started biting my nails. I felt like throwing up. There was a fast-food bag beneath my seat. I looked away.
Were they going to leave Isaac here instead of the woods? How was that any better? Jacob said the trainline was abandoned. Why did that matter if they were just going to leave him here? Were they going to tie him up to it?
I got my phone out of my pocket and called Jacob. He didn't pick up, but I knew he saw me calling because outside, someone had stopped to look at the screen of his phone. I typed him a message instead. I'm gonna call the police, it said.
I looked out the window again. Jacob was giving me the middle finger. I dialed 911. I didn't know what else to do, but then again, what would I say to the police? That I thought my teammates were tying up the new guy to an abandoned trainline as a welcome to the team? Did that constitute as an emergency? Was it even legal for me to call if it didn't? And, if it did, what would I do when the police got here? They would definitely go to jail for underage drinking. It wouldn't be the first time for some of them. Liam had gone in last year after prom. Finn had been drunk driving too. He would definitely go in for that. Would that ruin their chances of going to college? Coach Sargent had almost kicked Liam out of the team when he heard about him getting caught drinking.
The inside of the car went dark again. I touched the screen of my phone so it would come back on. 911 was still on dial, but outside, something was happening. I turned to it. The guys were all looking the same way. Then they weren't. Then they were looking down at the trainline, and someone was kneeling down next to it, and moving fast, really fast. I couldn't see what he was doing. I looked down at my phone again. I should call 911.
A loud horn pierced through the air before I could do it. Then a lot of light. Then at full speed, a train. Had they really tied Isaac to the trainline?
I started banging on the window. My phone fell somewhere at my feet. I kept banging. When no one looked my way, I turned around to push the headrest off my seat. I was about to break the window with it when the door opened.
Finn was standing in front of me, his sweatshirt covered in blood. I was going to throw up. Then he said, "I think I need stitches."
"What the fuck just happened?"
"A train fucking came, that's what happened," Jack said. I hadn't seen him standing behind Finn. "Jacob probably got the wrong address cause this shit was not abandoned."
I got out of the car and pushed them out of my way. Liam walked past me with his eyes on the ground. I kept walking. A couple more of them walked by. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but some of them were laughing. The train was gone. Next to the tracks, Jacob was laughing too. I punched him in the face.
He asked, "What the fuck?!"
I ignored him. Isaac was on his knees, trying to catch his breath like he had lost it somewhere on the dirt. I asked him if he was okay. He didn't answer.
Jacob did, "Yeah, he's okay. We didn't even finish tying him up."
I turned around and punched him again. I had never punched Jacob before. I had never punched anyone. He laughed. He fucking laughed.
Then he spit blood on the floor by my feet, and said, "You need to relax."
"You're fucking crazy."
He laughed again, "Relax! I got the address wrong, so what? He's alive, isn't he?"
I looked at Isaac. One of his wrists still had rope around it. He ripped it off and threw it away from him. When Jacob leaned down to grab his arm, he ripped his hand off him too.
"Don't fucking touch me."
"Fine." Jacob shrugged, wiping the blood still on his mouth with the back of his hand. "Just get up. We'll go back to mine and make it up to you. I admit things got out of hand, alright? I just wanted to welcome you into the team, but fuck me, I guess."
The car honk went off. I looked back. Finn was behind the wheel again, holding a tissue against his mouth, and motioning for us to hurry.
"I'm not going anywhere with you," Isaac said before I could, struggling to get to his feet. I held an arm out for him. He ignored it.
"So what, you're just gonna stay out here?" Jacob asked. "We get it. You almost died. At least let us take you home."
"I can take him home," I said.
Jacob laughed, "How? We're in the middle of fucking nowhere. What are you â"
"Just get the fuck out of here!" Isaac stopped him.
Jacob threw his arms up, "Fine, I tried, I really did. You can't say I didn't. If you show up dead on the news, that's on you."
I watched him walk away. He was probably still drunk because when he turned around to get show us both his middle fingers, he almost fell over.
"You're not coming?!" Finn shouted over. Jacob said something next to him as he got in the passenger's seat, and he shrugged before driving away.
Without the car lights, everything was dark again. There was only a faint moonlight. I turned to Isaac. He was already looking at me.
"Did they spike my drink?" he asked.
"I'm really sorry. I didn't know."
There was blood on his sweatshirt. When he saw me looking, he said it belonged to Finn.
"What the fuck happened to him anyway?"
"He slammed on the brakes on the way here and hit his head on the wheel."
Then silence.
After a while, he said, "I thought I was gonna die."
"I'm really sorry."
He leaned his head back, hands on the waist of his jeans, and took a deep breath. His chest went up, then down again. At some point, he bent over himself. Then he came back up again, and turned around, and around, and around, and around again, his hands on his face. He seemed to suddenly have no idea of what to do with his body, where to put it, how to deal with being inside of it. When he dropped his hands, I saw he was crying. He was crying right there in front of me.
I looked down at my feet. There were drops of blood on them. Why were there drops of blood on them? I looked up. Isaac was still crying. I didn't want him to feel like he shouldn't be. Or like he couldn't. I didn't know what to do. When he turned around again, I stepped closer, and wrapped an arm around him.
"You didn't die," I told him. "You're right here."
For a while there, he said nothing, and so neither did I. But I kept my arm across his chest, my hand on his shoulder, head leaned against his. He kept crying. We were like this for a while, and then he took a deep breath.
His hand came up to my arm, and he said, "How the fuck are we getting home?"
I let go of him to reach for my phone only to realize I didn't have it on me.
"I think I left my phone in the truck."
Isaac turned to me, his own already in his hand, "I have mine."
"I don't think any taxi will come all the way here."
"I was actually thinking about calling my dad," he said instead, wiping his cheeks with the back of his hand, like it was nothing.
I asked, "What are you gonna tell him?"
He shrugged, "I don't know, that the guys pranked us and left us here, definitely not that I almost got run over by a train."
"Right," I said, scratching the back of my head. "Go ahead then."
He called his dad, told him he had been left in the middle of nowhere, and hung up.
"You didn't ask him to come get us." I said the obvious.
"I didn't have to. He's on his way."
After that, we sat by the side of the road, and waited.
At some point, Isaac asked, "So what should I watch first?"
I was confused, so I said, "What?"
"Which one of your medieval shows should I watch first?"
"You don't have to watch them."
"I want to." He shrugged.
I smiled but he was looking down at his feet, so he didn't see it. His dad got there a few minutes later in a red SUV. He was listening to a podcast, but Isaac turned it off when he slid into the passenger's seat. I got in the back. His dad smiled at me from the rearview mirror. I opened my mouth.
"I'm really sorry about this, Sr. â"
"Don't worry about it," his dad said, almost immediately, "When I was your age, I got left in the woods at the edge of town in the middle of the night. I had to find my way out all by myself. The whole time I was crying my eyes out."
"My dad didn't really want me to come tonight," Isaac admitted.
I looked back at his dad in the rearview mirror, "It was the football team that left you in the woods, right? You used to play back in the day."
He nodded. I knew the tradition had been going on for decades, but I didn't how many decades. I also didn't know Isaac's dad had played football, or that he had gone to our school.
"It was an initiation," he went on. "Usually you only deal with that kind of nonsense in college, but, as you probably know, your school takes football very seriously. The only reason I let Isaac go tonight was because he said you guys didn't do initiations anymore. Something about a kid actually getting lost in those woods a few years back. But I guess Isaac was â"
"I wasn't lying," Isaac said before his dad could actually accuse him of it.
"You know Andy?" I asked him, only because it was extremely hard to know Andy, because Andy had gone on to be homeschooled. I only knew he had to get therapy after what happened, because I had seen him once, grocery shopping with his mom, and after asking how he was doing, his mom had answered that he was not doing so great, in fact, that she was spending a fortune on a therapist for him, which had made Andy go red in the face, and me sleep-deprived for the rest of the week. I had tried to get the team to contribute to Andy's therapy after that, seeing as we had been the cause of it, but all everyone was willing to give was a couple of pennies. I had to add my entire allowance to make it work.
Isaac turned around on his seat, "Yeah, I know him. He was my lab partner in freshman year and, to be fair, the only reason I got an A in chemistry. I still play video games with him online sometimes."
I was going to ask how he was doing these days, but then Isaac's dad asked me what the way to my house was, and so I said that instead. Unlike Finn, he took all the right exits without having to make clumsy U-turns, or slam on the brakes, and soon enough, he was stopping the car in front of my house. The lights were still on inside.
My parents' car was the only one on the driveway. Mine was still at Jacob's. I took off my seatbelt, thanked them for the ride, and got out. I was climbing up the steps on the front porch, dreading having to ring the bell, since my keys were also still at Jacob's, when I heard my name. I didn't turn around. They weren't talking to me, just about me.
I heard the car start again, and Isaac's dad saying, "I thought he was already on the team. How come they left him out there too?"
"They didn't." I heard Isaac say. "He's just a fucking prince."
I smiled, probably a bit like an idiot, and rang the bell. By the time my old man opened the door, the car was gone from my driveway, and so was the smile on my face.