43. Bailey
43
Bailey
Monday
C hase was gone when I woke up on the living room couch. I sat up, looking around the room, ashamed that I had even called him over last night.
When Mom had gotten the call yesterday that Ed was being moved to rehab, that he was making a remarkable recovery, I held it together as best as I could in front of my parents. That bud of pain and rage that sat in my stomach grew, but still, it remained sheathed in fear and doubt. Doubt that all the progress I had made with the guys was even real. Fear Ed would press charges against me, or worse, come for me.
I shivered.
I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I’d rather spend life behind bars than under his control.
I stood up, stretched, and went on with my morning routine. I had debated calling Chase to see if he was all right—if I hadn’t freaked him out too much—but that just seemed awkward. After chores, I showered and got dressed before going to the kitchen for breakfast.
Mom was sitting there with her coffee in hand and a Tupperware of muffins for the team, which was the new morning routine. “We need to talk,” she said.
“What about?” I asked, feigning innocence.
“Boys, sleeping over.”
I took a deep breath. “Sorry. I know I didn’t ask—”
Mom held up her hand. “I’ll stop you right there. You know we trust you. I know things are happening at some homes, and your friends just need a place to crash.” Like Ethan , I thought. “But I have two points I promised your father I would talk to you about. One: are you being safe?”
I nearly choked on my orange juice. “Mom, I’m not.” I looked down at the table, pushing my pancakes around. “I’m not active like that. We already talked about that.” I was glad Dad and Nolan weren't here this time, but I didn’t need to relive the embarrassment.
“Okay. I know Ethan needed a place to stay, but you have had Chase and Nolan over as well. Do they know?”
“Well…yeah. No, not really, but I’m not hiding. I can just tell Nolan that Chase was over last night.”
Mom held up her hand. “It’s not my business, but I want you all to be safe, and even though boys seem tough, they can have their hearts hurt too. Just make sure everyone is on the same page, then no one can get hurt.”
“Wait…Dad wanted you to talk about this?”
“Oh, no. Dad wanted me to take the doors off the rooms and ensure the boys are only around when we are.” She laughed.
I buried my head in my hands. “Does he think I’m dating multiple guys?”
“There has been speculation but no accusations.” My mom gave me a look. “Second—”
“That wasn’t it?” I whined, hoping someone, somewhere, would spare me.
Mom just laughed again. “Bailey.” She reached out and grabbed my arm. “You can be open to me about any of it, okay? I’m not blind. You are still my baby Boo, but I know you’re also eighteen. Now. Second thing.” She got all serious now. “If you think there's an intruder in the house, you call the police! Not one of the boys. I’m glad Chase came to check on things for you, but thank goodness there wasn’t actually someone here. What would you two have done?”
I sighed. “You’re right. It was stupid.” The police were the furthest thing from my mind at that point.
“It wasn’t stupid, Bailey. If you felt someone was here, you were right to call someone. Just the order of operations was a little skewed. Police first, your father or me second, and then one of the boys. Okay?”
I nodded to her. Shoving my pancake into my mouth, I chased it with orange juice, then grabbed the muffins before pressing a sloppy kiss to her cheek. “Thanks, Mom,” I mumbled. “Gotta go to practice.”
I could hear my mother’s giggles on my way out the door and smiled. I missed hanging out with her. Maybe we should do a girls’ night. Maybe…maybe I could get my hair cut. I spent so much time with the guys, with football. I had more contacts on my phone than I could text in a day. I stayed up late talking to Nolan or Lachlan often. I went to a party, and while the ending sucked, I would never forget getting doused with goo and just being a teen. Taking a shot and dancing with friends. I was already being pulled thin trying to fit it all in, but I couldn’t forget about my parents. They had been so good to me.
I picked Ethan up from the shop first. He opened the driver’s door and held his hand out, steadying me while I climbed down. I didn’t want to burst his bubble and tell him I’d been jumping out of trucks through fields since I’d been able to walk.
Nolan was next. He was downing a protein shake as we pulled up. “Are you still doing pre-practice workouts?” I asked.
He settled in his seat. “I want to lie to make you feel better, but also, I can’t lie to you.”
I rolled my eyes.
Lachlan wasn’t far from Nolan’s place. “Babe, you didn’t call us because…?” he asked as he got in the back seat.
Nolan swung his head around, looking between the two of us.
“Chase texted me this morning,” Lachlan supplied.
I lowered my head and eyes. “I’m sorry.” The words fell quickly. “I didn’t mean to. I knew I should’ve called you first…”
“First?” Lachlan asked. “What? No, I don’t care who you called first. Just call me as well. I would’ve driven over, and we could’ve had a sleepover.” He winked.
“I feel like I’m missing something,” Nolan said.
“Bailey was home alone and thought someone broke into the house. She called Chase, and he stayed the night,” Lachlan explained.
“Was there someone there?” Ethan asked.
“No,” I told him. “My imagination, I guess.”
Nolan leaned back in his seat, like it was no big deal. “Glad Chase made it out there.”
“At least you were actually sleeping and not running an ungodly number of kilometers,” Lachlan said.
“Not last night, anyway. But I did have a five a.m. wake-up call…”
They just moved on. Ed never would’ve moved on. Ed would’ve slipped his belt off and given me a lesson about talking to other guys, about not handling my own fears myself. Also, he probably would have had a breakdown if he knew I slept on top of one of my best friends all night.
Lachlan and Nolan acted like it was totally normal that I’d called Chase to help me. Even Ethan had seemed more concerned with the threat than what had actually happened last night. There was no real threat, though, was there?
“What’s this?” Lachlan asked, pulling a folded note from between my seat and the armrest. “Has your name on it.”
“Did they seriously leave a note in her truck? That’s getting a little too much.” Nolan took the note. I knew what he was thinking—I was thinking it too. All those notes I got before my first game…they were writing them again. I leaned against my window, ignoring it. I had enough to worry about without all the immature high school drama.
Nolan jumped in his seat. “Where’s Chase?” he asked frantically. “Eth, we need to get Chase,” he nearly screamed.
“Nole, chill,” Lachlan said.
Ethan looked up in the rearview mirror at him. “He’s probably already heading to school.”
But Nolan was ghost white. “Nolan? What’s wrong?” I asked.
“We have to go.” He was frantic. “Bailey, we have to find him now. Chase,” he said, as if I had forgotten who he was talking about. “Where would he be?”
Ethan had slowed the truck, and Lachlan pulled his phone out, bringing it up to his ear.
“Nolan, stop! You’re freaking me out. What is going on?”
Nolan waved the letter at me. “He left a note. It’s a fucking suicide note.”
Ethan swerved off the road and onto the shoulder, letting morning commuters pass by before turning around. “I’ll go to his place.”
“Are you sure?” I whispered.
“Hey, man, it’s us. Call as soon as you get this. We’re looking for you,” Lachlan said into his phone, then he started texting.
“Where would he go?”
“I don’t know. He…he could be anywhere.”
“Stop!” Ethan ordered both Nolan and me. His voice was calm and in control, but I knew he was just as terrified as I was right now. “It could be nothing. Let’s just get to his place. We aren’t far.”
“He’s not responding to texts or calls,” Lach said.
“I’ll call.” I pulled my phone out, but Nolan reached over and grabbed my arm.
“Call for an ambulance,” he said. “Send an ambulance to his place.”
“What if he’s fine? What if we misunderstood?” I asked. It had to be a misunderstanding. This couldn’t be real. Why? Why would he?
Nolan handed me the note.
Bailey.
I wasn’t going to write a note, I had no one to write to. No one that would care if I was missing. No one that would suffer in my absence. No one that needed an explanation. Or so I thought. After last night, I realized I needed to tell you that this has nothing to do with you, that you didn’t cause this, that you couldn’t stop this, no matter what. This is just how it was bound to happen…
I stopped reading. I couldn’t stomach it. “Lachlan, call an ambulance,” I said. “Please.”
Lachlan pulled his phone out and dialed the emergency number. Everything around me was a blur. “Hi, ambulance please…” He rattled off Chase’s address. “We think something might have happened to my friend… We found a note, and it looks like a suicide note… no… his parents aren’t around. He’s seventeen…”
“Eighteen,” I whispered. “He’s eighteen.” Fuck.
“Bailey, it will be okay. We will get to him,” Ethan promised.
“No, we don’t know if he’s in the house or where he is… Yes, we tried calling him,” Lachlan continued. “I don’t know if he has weapons.” Lachlan looked to Ethan frantically. Ethan shook his head. “We don’t think he does.”
This didn’t feel real. This couldn’t be real. We were blasting through town already, and I prayed a police officer would see us. I prayed they would turn their sirens on and chase us all the way to his house. I closed my eyes. Please, Chase, don’t let this be real.
Ethan tore down the driveway, ignoring the curves and turns and taking the truck right over the grass. I was somewhat relieved when I saw Chase’s car, but then I remembered, just because he was here didn’t mean he was okay. In the distance, I could hear the sirens of an ambulance, and all I hoped was that this was a mistake. I hoped this was a misunderstanding.
Ethan barely had the truck in park before Nolan and Lachlan burst from the doors. I left the note in the truck as we ran to the front door. It was locked. “The side door,” Lach said.
“I’m going around back,” I told them. “The pool house door is always unlocked.” I hurried through the back gate and across the patio…that’s when I saw him.
His dark shirt gave him away at the bottom of the pool. My heart leaped into my throat, adrenaline coursing through my body as it registered the danger. I ran to the edge of the pool. Chase was still moving, his arms up over his head. Surely, he was just swimming, holding his breath…but then I saw the rope attached to his foot, tied to a cement block at the other end.
I dove into the water, forcing my eyes to open. I swam right to the rope and tried to pull apart the knot that was attached to his foot, but it was too tight. I swam back up to the surface, taking another breath. Looking down, I watched as Chase’s arms relaxed and hung unnaturally around him, as if suspended in time.
Then I screamed. I braced my arms on the pool edge and screamed until I couldn’t breathe. I heard running, then dove down again, trying again to pull the knot loose, but it was no good. I dragged myself deeper and tried to get the knot loose on the cement block, but my fingers were useless. Chase… Chase was dead, and I couldn’t get him free.
Hands met mine, but I needed to go up for more air. I swam to the top. Ethan. Ethan was down there, lifting the cement block. Nolan dove in and grabbed it with him, the two of them carrying it to the shallow end of the pool while Lachlan was swimming, his arm across Chase’s chest to hold his head above the water, pulling him along the surface of the water. “Come on, Chase,” Lachlan growled, the pain etched in his features.
None of us said a word, all too focused on the task at hand. Ethan dropped the cement block in the shallow end at the edge of the pool as Nolan and Lachlan hoisted Chase up onto the concrete patio. Chase’s lips were a dark purple, his skin a sickly grey.
“Is he breathing?” Ethan asked.
“No.” Lachlan was frantic.
Nolan started doing chest compressions. I jumped out of the water and ran over to them, tilting Chase’s head back, like we had learned in gym class. Nolan was counting compressions.
“Come on, Chase,” Lachlan screamed at him again, and his agony tore at me.
Ethan came back with a knife to cut the rope off his foot. As soon as Nolan said “thirty” and stopped compressions, I tilted Chase’s head, sealed my lips around his mouth, and gave two breaths.
Nolan started up compressions again. The ambulance was close; they would likely go to the front door. “Tell the paramedics to come over here,” I yelled at Lachlan and Ethan. Lachlan took off running.
“He’s vomiting,” Nolan shouted.
Ethan grabbed Chase’s side and pulled him over, so he wouldn’t choke on his own vomit as water kept pouring out of his mouth. Ethan looked up at Nolan, absolutely devastated.
“Is he awake?” I asked.
Once the vomiting stopped, we carefully laid him on his back, and the color in his lips had returned. Nolan put his hand on Chase’s chest and his ear by his mouth. “He’s breathing,” he whispered.
Paramedics came into the yard, led by Lachlan, and we stepped back as they got to work assessing Chase and hooking him up to monitors. “Oxygen is low,” one medic said. They put an oxygen mask on him. “How long was he under?”
“I don’t know,” I said, shaking. “He was moving when I first saw him.” So, it couldn’t have been long…right? It wasn’t too long. Right?
“He vomited a lot of water,” Ethan said.
“What’s his name?”
“Chase Jacobs,” Lachlan answered.
“He’s seventeen?” The medic asked.
“Eighteen,” I said, clearing my throat. “Eighteen today.”
The medic nodded. He rubbed the middle of Chase’s chest. “Hey, Chase, we are going to move you and get you onto our stretcher here, all right?” Though he spoke loudly, Chase didn’t respond. I felt arms around me and buried my face into Nolan’s chest while they lifted Chase onto the stretcher. “His oxygen still isn’t coming up,” the medic said. “AR?”
The other medic watched the monitors for a moment before nodding. “AR.” Then they pulled the mask off and opened Chase’s mouth. The other medic was getting a tube ready. He placed it in Chase’s mouth and twisted it into place before hooking up a bag to it. “Ready,” he said to his partner. One medic pulled the stretcher while the other squeezed the bag every few seconds.
I let go of Nolan and followed the stretcher out. “Where are you taking him? In town?”
“They’ll assess him here and may send him to the city,” the medic pulling the stretcher said.
The back of their truck was already open; they lifted the stretcher and pushed Chase’s lifeless body inside.
“I want to come with him,” I said.
“Are you family?” The paramedic asked.
My heart dropped. No…no, I wasn’t. “He can’t be alone,” I cried.
“You can meet us at the hospital, okay?”
“He hates being alone,” I told the medic.
He nodded. “He won’t be alone,” he promised me.
They sped off, lights and sirens going like mad, tearing down the driveway just as fast as Ethan had.
The four of us stood there in complete shock. What had just happened?