It hurts. Everything hurts.
The only light comes from one small window and one bare bulb, but the window is high and has bars over it, and the bulb buzzes in a way that makes him want to pull his ears off.
And what is there to see down here, anyway? A small, dirty cot and an old blanket. A folding chair. The toilet and sink and shell of a shower in the corner, all rimmed brown, and the remnants of studs and Sheetrock that tell him it must have been an actual bathroom once, before this place fell apart.
Jake worked construction last summer. He’s pretty sure, anyway. It’s hard to think about anything but the thing he misses most.
“Hey!” he shouts into the locked door, his heart racing. “Where’s my poison?”
But he’s alone.
For now.
Tell me how you know Jake Foster.
We’re friends.
Only friends?
We were together for two years—beginning of sophomore basketball to the beginning of the season this year—but we’re not together anymore.
Did you talk to him Saturday night?
We ran into each other in the training room before the game. I went to get ice for my ankle, and he was in there, looking for a trainer to help with his knee. I didn’t even know it was bothering him again, but there he was.
Did he seem nervous?
He’s been nervous all season, and the whole town’s hopes were riding on that one game. Of course he was nervous.
Have you heard from Jake since then?
No. Wait—why? Where is he? Is he okay?
That’s what we’re trying to find out, Ms. Sharp.
Seth checked on him Saturday night after the party. I think Jake was with Kolt. Have you talked to Kolt yet?
We have.
What about Jake’s mom? What about Luke? Are you saying nobody has seen him since Saturday night?
We’re still working on that part too. Did Jake ever talk about hurting himself?
No. Never. Jake wouldn’t do that.
Did he ever talk about running away?
No. Why would he run away right after they won state? Jake wouldn’t run, and he wouldn’t hurt himself….But where would he be? You don’t think something happened to him, do you?
At this point, we’re investigating all those possibilities.
I’m sorry for asking so many questions. I know that’s your job. This is just…
Hey, that’s okay. Keep asking questions—around school, with your friends—and let me know if you hear anything, okay? Oh, and say hi to your dad for me.
The first time I ever saw Jake, he was sitting in my dad’s courtroom in a collared shirt and khakis, trying to blend in. I just looked over, and there he was, this guy from my English class, sneaking in right before the hearing on some drug case where the defendant didn’t even show.
“What are you doing here?” he whispered.
“That’s my dad,” I said, nodding toward the bench. (Dad came to enough of my games and recitals that I liked to return the favor once in a while, so sometimes I’d go watch court and just be there for him while he did his thing.) “What are you doing here?”
Jake sighed. “Racketeering, money laundering, making moonshine in my bathtub.”
His face was so bright and clean that nobody would have bought it, even if we’d been in juvenile court. I tried to swallow my laugh, but enough escaped that Dad gave me the Look from the bench.
By then I’d realized that no guy would ever be good enough for Dad, but I didn’t blame him. (Not yet, anyway.) It would be hard to see the best in people if you spent your days passing judgment on a parade of broken laws and lives.
From the moment the bailiff called “All rise” in Dad’s courtroom, there was no question how you were supposed to behave or who was in charge. In the few weeks we’d been in town, he’d already had to take the whole “Your Honor” business up a level, thanks to a slow but steady flow of defendants (and one idiotic attorney) who thought his being new somehow gave him less authority and tried to push the limits.
Dad definitely didn’t need his own daughter disrupting things. So once I got the Look, I didn’t even dare ask what Jake was really doing there. I snapped to attention, and by the time I had the guts to glance back over a few minutes later, he was gone.
But after that, I noticed Jake everywhere. Messing around in the parking lot with friends. At the grocery store with his little brother. In the weight room every Thursday.
I definitely noticed him there. Not because he looked hot (although, yeah, he looked hot), but because he was so different from his friends. He never lifted in front of the mirror, like Seth; he didn’t make fart sounds when people did squats, like Kolt. He actually wiped his sweat off the equipment before moving along. Sometimes he sang PBS Kids songs while he benched plates.
(Note: I was very careful not to let him notice all my noticing.)
Once sophomore football was over, Jake started coming to open gym too. The girls took one gym and the boys took the other, playing pickup games until the coaches left and Mr. Caruso, the creepy custodian, kicked us out. There was no official roll, and the coaches weren’t even allowed to talk to us until tryouts, but we knew they were taking note and taking names. Something inside me did the same thing with Jake, wanting to look out onto the court and find him there before losing myself in a game of my own.
During those weeks, we didn’t play just because of who was watching. We played because we wanted to. We wanted that spot on the roster, sure, but we wanted little things just as much: the sting on our palms of a chest pass fired fast, the rush when a three goes through the hoop with that satisfying snap
