CHAPTER 5
“Andy! What the hell did you do man?” Kev shouts and I immediately know that Luke is somewhere nearby. And it clicks that I missed the fact that Kev’s speech slurred even though he wasn’t even at the party. He never drank at home. He must have faked it. I deal with the multiple bloated safety airbags before I realize I must warn them to not tell anyone.
I frantically look for the cell where I had left it but ironically, while being cautious to avoid having anything thrown around during the jump, I forgot to put the cell away. I realize this as soon as I spot the broken pieces of the cell. Putting my head out of the window, I scream with complete seriousness, “I will kill you Kev. I am coming up. Don’t you dare call anyone!”
If he does call… I shiver in fear as the thought occurs to me. My reputation, dad’s reputation, my friends, this high, I will lose it all. And this brings on the one fear I never wanted to get a high on but now do. It is one fear I never quite wanted to go through because I had no idea how this would manage. I tried only controllable stunts but this one? Not even if hell froze over could I try to contain this one. I hope those above think of this before they do anything to expose my secret. The high helps me to jump from the still hanging car and get down. Unfortunately, my timing couldn’t have been any worse.
“Hey Andy!” Kev shouts, sounding a lot scared. “We found a rope around a tree along which some sort of cords are hanging. Hang in there buddy. We have almost cut the rope!” My entire body freezes as I process the words and immediately I scream, “NO! DON’T!”
Kev says something but his voice is buried in the huge snapping sound that comes and, to my horror, I see the car begin to roll down the incline with minimal damage with the hooks trailing behind it. And I stand directly in its path of descent. So without thinking, I run down to get to flat surface before the car rolls over me. Even if I do get behind the car, those hooks would tear me into pieces.
“Kev, you idiot! What have two done?” Kylie screams, mostly angry but a little relieved. “Run, Andy. RUN!” She screams to me. I didn’t really need her to know the need for it. I already see the cause.
I run like I have never ran before, faster than ever, as the car seems to be just not touching me. I run, aware of how panicked Kylie’s sobs are, how Kev and Luke are, uselessly, just shouting “Run!” at me and watching. I hope to God they aren’t recording this. I would have felt idiotic if I wasn’t running for my life. I am so going to kill those two dumb idiots for this.
I run almost one and half miles before fatigue begins to make its presence known. I do not slow down, at least not willingly, and push myself to run faster. A strange uncomfortable feeling is gathering in my stomach and I know I am going to throw up whatever I had once I stop and try to rest. By this time I have already reached flat surface and I can almost feel the car slowing down on its own. But it is not slow enough that I might try stopping it completely. I run for another minute, feeling my heart is going to burst out of my chest, before I feel the car has slowed down enough for me to try stopping it.
I immediately turn and put my hands towards the hood of the car, trying to ignore the way my head spun at that sudden movement, and give it all my remaining strength to stop the vehicle. I slip back some distance until my feet touch that weak, temporary wall I had made when the car finally stops. On its own, the car would have gone through the wall as if it were a sheet of cloth. I let out a huge breath of relief and slump on the hood as I try to regain some strength after all that physical exertion. Maybe I should join the team as coach wanted, a part of me remarks and I agree. After a moment though, the nausea comes up and I barely manage to turn to the grass next to me to avoid ruining the car. Cleaning it is a job I do not want or need right now.
With this thought, the reminder comes of why all this happens, and so as soon as I recover, I remove all those dangerous bungee cords and stuff them in the trunk quite roughly as if I was trying to take all of my anger out on these inanimate objects. But I am not. No, I am saving those anger to make Kev and Luke two inanimate objects. So I sit in the car and ride back all the way up after dragging the car back to the road, fuming as I mentally list all the ways I could kill them for this.
This was wrong on so many levels that it wasn’t funny at all. First they break my faith in them by trying to sneak in while I was having my secret stuff, which was secret for a reason. Then they called others to come and join them, even Kylie. How will I look into her eyes again? And when they should have left things alone, they risk my life. What were they thinking? Were they thinking at all?
I park a little before I reach the top so that I calm down a little to deal with them. I needed to get them quiet about this. And no excuse was big or small. Hell, even the truth was not out of the question. Anything to keep this quiet. If dad finds out…
Before I realize it, I am running to them, afraid of what might happen. A part of me moans that I should have quit when the mood was broken but I ignore it. I will deal with everything later but I need to stop them. I am almost breathless again by all the exertion I have had today.
Kylie spots me before I spot her and she immediately calls for me. I barely turn to her as she wraps herself around me, still sobbing. I hug her in return and try to comfort her with a lot of ‘I’m sorry’. I dare not to speak the love word because I don’t want to say it to her in these conditions. I am tempted but I have to consider that she won’t like to hear it right now.
She pulls away from me and SLAP! I look at her angry blotchy face stunned in shock as she begins crying once again as she asks me, “Why Andy? Why did you almost suicide?” I am shocked beyond words by this. As I look for words to comfort her, I try to observe all I did on the cliff as a third person. Unfortunately, she’s interpreted what anyone would.
“Kylie, look at me. I want you to look at my eyes while I say this so you realize that I am not lying. Look at me Kylie.” I say to her and she looks at me with an angry expression, but not before turning her head away and wiping away her tears. For some reason, it hurts that she couldn’t even let me remove them. I cup her face in my hands and stare directly into her eyes as I speak, “I was not trying to kill myself. I know you will revive me to kill me again if I did. Girl, I needed to do that for a reason. I will tell you all about it later but first, I got to know. Did you tell anyone about this? No one, absolutely no one can know what happened here. Do you understand this, Kylie? This must remain a secret.” Her eyes widen as I speak, probably realizing what I am implying, but she nods and I relax, knowing that she believes me now. I kiss her forehead and then hug her once more.
“I didn’t tell anyone. I could barely function as I saw you run. You look quite… nice when in danger.” She whispered to me and I smile at her. Then, gently covering her ears, I scream, “Luke! Kev! Get here right this instant or I swear I will murder and bury you two right here!” She flinches in shock but by the time, I let go of her ears, she is smiling. “Thanks for the ear protection.” She smiles before fear returns to her face again. “Don’t do anything like that again.” I know she wants me to promise her but I can’t, not right now and she always catches me when I am lying. So I simply respond with a ‘We’ll all talk in detail all about this. Please let me deal with them first.’
Kev comes running up just as Kylie is nodding at me. I turn and see that although scared, he is now also a little relaxed. But I am not going to go so easy at him. “Kevin Parker Simons, you idiot are-“
“Yeah, you should have seen him. He drove off the cliff! Crazy right?” Luke comes in sight while talking on his cell and I freeze mid-speech. And in a voice that even I don’t recognise as mine, I shout, “Luke! Hang the freaking phone up or I will beat the hell out of you. Hang up NOW!” Kylie winces but I can’t even care. Luke frowns at me and hangs up before coming to me. And before I know it, he is lying on the ground with his nose broken and me standing just over him. Kylie and Kev both shout my name but I am beyond caring. Everything I feared is going to come true. “What part of ?
??Don’t call anyone’ did you NOT understand?” I ask him and even I can hear the deadness in the voice. Luke is angry and almost about to fight back. If he jumps me, I certainly won’t hesitate but Kylie interrupts us, “Luke, what did you do? He wasn’t committing suicide! He was going to explain it all to us. We can’t have this thing go out. Who did you tell? Can you think of what happens?” Kylie explains and my mind responds, contemplating the scenarios to occur.
First it spreads among my classmates. Then someone lets it slip to the parents and then the whole town knows. In short, total humiliation. It all goes through his mind as well and although the anger doesn’t fade, he looks apologetic and says, “I didn’t think of that.” Then he turns to me again, all furious now, “What the hell were you doing, man?”
In a now defeated tone, “I’ll explain. But first call whoever you told it and bring that person here. I can’t have this leaking out.” Just then all three of their phones beep, alerting that there has been a tweet by someone in the group. As soon as Kev pulls his phone out and reads it, his face falls. And I know. Kylie gasps but I don’t care. I fall down exactly where I was standing. Kylie tries to comfort me while Kev talks to Luke and they seem to walk away but it doesn’t matter at all.
“The tweet. Show me.” I croak out, feeling a lump form in the throat. Kylie looks like she doesn’t want to but she seems to see the defeated look I wear and shows it to me. It is my biggest fear come true.
CamBrwn tweeted ‘@AndyPeters jst attmptd SUICIDE by drving off the cliff!’
“I’m sorry, Andy.” Kylie responds when I just lower my head further. Some parents also followed their children via fake accounts to keep track of them. I know Cam’s did because I had made an account for Mr Brown myself. It seems the entire town will find it out tonight in one single swoop.
“God, now I feel like committing suicide.” I moan and Kylie stiffens next to me. But she doesn’t say anything. What could she possibly say to comfort me? That it’ll get better? Witchbury Falls is a small town. People never forget. They still haven’t forgotten my parents’ marriage even now. A desperate idea comes to me and I ask, “Kylie, can we try to do damage control? Try to pass it as a joke on Cam?” She doesn’t respond and I understand. She knows we can’t do that after Luke was that excited. Cam knows how to catch a lie whenever someone in the group tries lying. It is then Kylie responds, “Maybe we can ask Cam to post an hour later to tweet that this was all a joke to get everyone riled up.” I consider it and figure that after hearing me out, he would understand. “But we will need to give it time to be considered a successful prank.” She adds and still, I feel a little lighter. So I speak the words I was afraid to speak moments ago, no longer afraid of tonight’s consequences, “I love you Kylie.”
Her smile freezes on her face as she looks at me in shock and then it melts into an expression of pure joy. She opens her mouth to say something but I put a finger on her mouth and say, “I really do and it took this ‘suicide attempt’ to truly realize how much. But even if you do feel the same, I can’t have you say them back to me. Not tonight. But I want a promise from you. A promise I might extract depending on how this goes. Trust me, Kylie and promise me that you will do as I ask you to promise.” Her face now shows fear and it takes a few moments before she quietly responds, “I promise.”
And considering what is the best for her, I tell her, “If this attempt fails, I want you to walk right back home and to anyone curious, you were at the party. When you read the text, you tried calling me. My cell is broken so I didn’t pick up. Then you called Kev and he passed the phone to me. And then, once confirming that this did happen…” My voice clogs up as I force myself to speak, “… broke up with me. Shh!” I put a finger to her mouth again as she tries to speak. She is now scared and panicking. “I cannot have this taint you, Kylie. You promised. Now hold your word. So after… that, you returned home. You weren’t here, Kylie. Get that.” I don’t remove my finger this time. She nods but is close to tears so I simply say, “Maybe you won’t have to resort to this. We just have to convince Cam.”
At that moment, Luke walks in. “Remove that post Cam. I got fooled by Andy and Kev.” He speaks into the phone as he looks at us and nods, understanding everything he just listened into. “Yeah, you don’t believe me? I don’t care. Remove that post Cam. Just remove it right now!” Cam has a habit of not taking back his words so I can relate to Luke losing his patience. Kylie walks up to him and I look at her in surprise, wondering at her actions. Before I realize though, she is taking to Cam, “Remove the freaking post Brown! Or I swear I will post every dirty secret of yours on there!” Uh oh, Cam never responds to threats well. And I get a bad feeling when he hangs up on her. That bad feeling is confirmed by the notification of another tweet. This time, Kev, who stood silently in the side so far, responds. “It’s another tweet from Cam. Tht twt about Andy’s suicide. TRUE! Ask Kylie, Kev or Luke. They are with him. Kyl, bring it on!!!!!!!’”
We all look at each other with a defeated expression. Kylie bursts into tears. Kev apologizes, “I didn’t know you were going to do that. I would never have told anyone you knew. Why did you do it, though?”
“For the rush, Kev. In the one moment, when fear took over, the adrenaline rush was glorious. I felt invincible. If I had a regret regarding anything in that moment when my mind believed that I truly will die, I knew what I had to do. Tonight I was wondering if Kylie and I were ready.” I turn to Kylie and continued, “I didn’t want to lose you if you weren’t ready and then regretted it. Also the rush is addictive and after having lived on it for so long, 12 years almost, I was a serious addict. You know what happened when I tried to share this with Simon. And when I tried to quit, I had ended up depressed, unable to feel emotionally connected at all.” I explain it all, feeling no need to hide anything anymore. “All the stunts I ever did were very well planned with no room for error.” A self-deprecating laugh escapes me though. “I obviously didn’t factor in nosey friends, though. I thought the excuse of ‘secret stuff’ would keep you guys away. Foolish me.” I don’t even know when the hysterical laughter turns into sobs, only that Kylie comes to comfort me while the other two keep mumbling apologies. She keeps suggesting potential solutions, the most plausible being asking Mr Winthrow, Ms Aubrey’s fiancée, for help but there isn’t a reason why he would help. And it would still be too late.
A few moments pass before I remember what had to be done, “You came here to check if the tweet was really true yourself, Kylie. It wasn’t and you tried to convince Cam otherwise but failed. Betrayed by my lack of trust in you, though, you broke up with me. And now, you’re going to leave.” Her look of confusion turns into one of horror as she realizes what I am asking her to do. Moments ago, we were hoping that this wouldn’t need to be done and now… “You promised.” I whisper to her, no longer even trying to look at her to hide my hurt.
Seeing that I am unwilling to change my decision, she slowly gets up and leaves and none of us interrupt her. And it is only few minutes before all three of us hear it. The sirens. The police. Trying to suicide, although not a crime, is still an alarming act that requires intense care and observation. They seem to be here in case of the fact that I tried again and succeeded.
And soon enough, the police car comes to us and stops. None of us even bother with an explanation. What can we try to explain? That we were trying stunts? Officer Garrows, Nik’s father, comes out of the car, along with my dad and I lower my head further. They both look scared but when they see me safe, it turns to anger. Dad reaches me first, “What were you thinking?” I don’t know if he realizes but he is trembling himself and as he shakes me, I fear the places he grabbed me bruise.
“Leave him Donald, it is official matter now.” Officer Garrows calms him down and Kev takes him away, with them talking about something, most likely me. “Jonah Andrew Peters, you are under house arrest now. You shall have no contact with any person out of the house, except for law officials or your parents, at
all.”