https://Voice.club - Memories of that fateful night tore me like jagged glass. IF ONLY I and my mates had told the truth! Told the police we saw Jake drown. Told his parents that he died because of a drunken dare trying to swim a dangerous river. Bitter memories of turbulent waves, powerful sucking sounds, dank chilly night, dark shadowy waters, drunken laughter crashed over me. But Jake had not really drowned; he was Lazarus returned from the dead. Jake stood beside me, a dark smudge against the same tarnished river.
Contradictory emotions shattered me into a million pieces. Was I the guilty one for lying or the victim? I had become the hollow man for keeping a terrible secret. I was still brittle leaves blown carelessly by life. Why hadn’t Jake let us know so much earlier that he was alive? Fool, I made the wrong choice and never corrected it!
Images of that fateful night haunted me—teens whooping Jake to swim across, Jake’s head sucked under the waves. Images sped up like a Hitchcock horror train.
Bang! Bang!
Nursing a bloody fist against me, I wondered, when had I hit one of the gnarled trees?
Briefly, Jake’s face came into focus, looking like a mixing bowl full of aged cracks. How we had aged!
“You’re shocked to see me alive! Fearful of my abusive parents, I could not tell you I escaped. Then life happened. College. Career. Marriage. Children. You, I’m sure, must be equally successful, as you were always the brains of the group.” Jake sounded so self-confident.
“Jake, I made the stupid choice to lie. I did not lie to save you, but … This lie ate me up. It destroyed me and your other mates. One recklessly joined the army to die abroad. Another ran his vehicle into this river. One disappeared…”
Comprehension finally drained Jake’s face a sickly hue. His strangled “No!” died in the wind.
Choking, I felt trapped in an hourglass. Pounding on the glass, it splintered and cracked.