The Incident - 1. Chapter 1

As the bell rang to signal the end of 3rd period, Mr. Thomas’ British literature class slammed closed notebooks and textbooks and quickly stuffed them into backpacks, eager to escape Dickens’ never-ending novel. Seemingly unaware of his surroundings, Justin Parks sat at his desk in the third row of the class, his book sitting open in front of him, staring straight ahead. He had sat in that position since the beginning of class – a position of apparent complete boredom that was mimicked by other students in the class. What Justin was feeling, however, was not boredom. Justin was feeling scared, thinking that each tick of the clock on the wall was counting down to the time when his entire world would come crashing down around him. So it was no surprise that when the bell rang to release Mr. Thomas’ class to the freedom of lunch hour, Justin didn’t even notice it. Mr. Thomas finished erasing the white board and turned to face the classroom.

“Uhh, Justin – class is over. You can go now.” There was no response. “Justin – are you all right?” Mr. Thomas placed the eraser back into its holster on the board and stepped around his desk and began to walk towards where Justin was seated. Seeming to snap out of a daze, Justin shifted his gaze to meet Mr. Thomas as he approached.

“Oh, yes, Mr. Thomas. I’m sorry.” Justin gathered his books and shoved them into his open backpack before quickly exiting the room, leaving a slightly curious and worried English teacher behind him.

As Justin entered the hallway that connected the A and B buildings of RMS high school, he shifted his backpack over one shoulder and ducked his head down, weaving through the crowd of students and trying hard to disappear in the mass of people. There was no worry that someone would call out Justin’s name in the halls, or run to catch up with him and ask how his day was going or if he had started on the report for biology yet that was due that coming Friday. No one would bother Justin because Justin had no friends at RMS high school. If you were to take a survey of all the other 10th graders at RMS, it would be quite something if even one of them could tell you who Justin Parks was. To the greater population of RMS, Justin did not exist.

It hadn’t always been this way for Justin. Before the move to Shiloh Falls six months ago, Justin had been your normal average high school student – not popular, but also not unpopular. Among his peers at his old school, Justin was considered normal. That was before the “incident” as his parents had taken to calling it when they thought someone else, including Justin, might be listening. For Justin, the “incident” was the culmination of the absolute worst week in his entire life. Deciding that he couldn’t stand to even try anymore, at age 14 and 7 months on October 14th at 6:38 PM, Justin had tried to kill himself. Knowing that his father had a prescription for a powerful pain medication for his back, Justin snuck into their bathroom just before dinner and swallowed what was left of the bottle. It wasn’t long before Justin was unconscious on the floor of his bedroom, without even a note to explain why he had chosen to do such a thing. For Justin, connections to other human beings, family members or not, no longer mattered. In retrospect, Justin would look back on the decision to try to kill himself as something that was insanely stupid. At the time, however, the infinite wisdom of a 14-year old told him it was the only option.

Since then, Justin had worked incredibly hard to distance himself from every other person he met, including his parents and younger sister. So when the decision was made to move the entire family 450 miles north to Shiloh Falls, Justin was thankful – he could start over fresh and enact his plan of total isolation without having to worry about any existing commitments. His parents, of course, were worried about him and forced him to speak with a therapist twice a week. As part of his plan, Justin had not said one word to his family since the move. He also spent two hours each week, on Mondays and Thursdays, sitting in an office with Dr. Sanford not speaking there as well. Dr. Sanford had reported the lack of communication to Justin’s parents, who still insisted that therapy was something that Justin needed and that it was only a matter of time before Justin would open up to someone and explain why he had done what he had done. Of course, at the time, Justin had absolutely no intention of talking to anyone.

At school, Justin was polite but reticent when speaking with teachers. He wasn’t unintelligent and his coursework came fairly easily to him – he fully believed that he could succeed in life completely on his own. No personal attachments were needed. In fact, they were only a source of pain that had to be stopped before they could backfire on Justin.

Already, however, there was a very quiet voice beginning to speak in Justin’s mind. Human beings are programmed to require personal connections with others. This voice was slowly beginning to nibble at the edges of Justin’s plan, inserting the desire to speak with someone, to connect with them – to laugh and cry with them.

Justin always ate lunch alone. His mother packed it for him every morning and it was almost always the same – some sort of lunch meat, usually either turkey or ham, on wheat bread with a small bag of potato chips and a piece of fruit, either apple or banana. As Justin unpacked his lunch on Tuesday, April 29th – turkey today – he had no idea that his plan was about to come crashing down around him. It was only a matter of time. It is amazing how information and rumors can spread. A friend of a friend of a friend of a student at RMS attended Justin’s old school, and word about Justin’s past and the “incident” had slowly made its way through the chain to RMS, and finally some people were beginning to notice the strange new kid who always ate alone and spoke with no one.

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Tossing his half-eaten lunch into the trash can by the main entrance of the cafeteria, Justin slung his backpack over his shoulder and stepped out into the hallway. RMS ran 2 different lunch shifts because of the school’s overpopulation – a result of booming residential growth in Shiloh Falls. Justin still had 15 minutes until the bell would ring to signal the change to the second lunch period when Justin would head across the courtyard to the science building for 4th period biology. Staring up and down the mostly deserted hallway, Justin had a brief flash of his previous school’s layout. Moving to Shiloh Falls had been a shock to Justin in more ways than one. He was used to living in a very small town and while Shiloh Falls wasn’t a metropolis by any stretch of the imagination, there was quite a bit more here than just a Super Wal-Mart. RMS had about 1000 more students than Justin was used to being around – a fact that made it that much easier for him to enact his plan and hide out among the masses. And because he wasn’t making any effort whatsoever to get to know anyone else, no one else would make the effort either, making it that much easier for Justin to just blend in.

Sighing to himself, Justin turned left and began to walk towards the double doors at the end of the hallway that would lead him out to the sunny morning and the walk across the courtyard. Figuring he would go to the bathroom in the science building and just wait for biology to start, Justin pushed open the doors to the outside courtyard. About 200 people were scattered around the courtyard eating lunch in groups of four to five. Justin ducked his head down and began walking across the middle, taking care to not make eye contact with anyone along the way. As he walked past one group of five girls, their conversation abruptly stopped. Not really paying much attention to them – he’d never had much concern for girls – he continued on his way. What he heard next almost stopped him in his tracks, though.

“Oh my God, that’s him! The one I was telling you about!”

Justin turned quickly to look at the girl who had spoken, wondering what he had done to cause her to take notice of him and talk about him, and still hoping that it was just a coincidence and that she wasn’t even talking about him at all. When the girls all jumped and turned away from Justin, he knew that they had been talking about him. Worried but only slightly, Justin continued onto the science building, hoping this would be an isolated occurrence.

Unfortunately, he was wrong. As he walked into the science building, Justin’s worry continued to grow. And as he sat down several minutes later in his seat at the back of biology, he caught a bit of hushed conversation from a few rows up ahead and he could have sworn he had heard his name mentioned. Suddenly, it seemed like everyone was staring at him and Justin could feel his heart begin to race. He began to feel as if the walls of the classroom were closing in on him and he couldn’t catch his breath. Sweat began to bead on his forehead, and the whispered conversations around him began to grow into a loud buzz, blocking everything else out. Unable to breathe, Justin grabbed his backpack off the table in front of him and rushed for the door, almost knocking over some guy on the way out.

Getting out into the hallway of the science building didn’t alleviate his feeling of being crushed since the hall was still packed with people heading to class or lunch. Brushing past everyone, Justin slammed open the door and burst out into the late morning sunlight of the courtyard. He tore across the green and around the main administration building of the RMS campus and didn’t stop running until he got to the practice field on the far side of the school’s grounds. Finally feeling the pressure easing up, Justin slowed and bent over, trying to catch his breath. Tears were streaming down his face. His plan had worked for only six months. Something had happened. People were talking about him, and he knew there was only one thing that they could possibly be talking about. The “incident.” Blinking away the tears, Justin stood up and threw his backpack to the ground in frustration and slumped down against the back side of the maintenance shed. Leaning his head back against the wall, he let out a huge sigh, finally catching his breath. The reality of what had happened and what he had just done came rushing onto him and fresh tears began to spill down his face. The horrible thought that maybe he had imagined people talking about him and that his panic attack and flight from biology would ruin his plan worse than anything people might have been whispering about.

“It’s funny, you know…” The voice spoke out from about five feet away from Justin, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. “There must be something about this spot.”

Justin looked up at the speaker, but could only get a basic outline of the person as the sun was directly behind him. Shading his eyes with his hand, Justin blinked a few times and recognized the man as one of the maintenance workers that kept the fields and grounds of the school so well kept. He had no idea what his name was, but he had seen him working outside on an almost daily basis as Justin walked home from school.

“I can’t even count how many people I’ve come across out here. Most of them in the same position you’re sitting in. Girl problems?”

Justin’s heightened emotions and feeling of panic made what the man had said to him seem incredibly funny. Of all of Justin’s problems, that was one he had never had any problems with. Slowly, as if his mouth didn’t quite know what was happening, Justin began to laugh. The absurdity of the idea that Justin would have “girl problems” was, for some reason, insanely funny to him.

“Well, I gotta say, that wasn’t the reaction I expected.”

Justin finally calmed down and wiped the tears from his eyes.

“I haven’t laughed in a very long time,” he said.

“Well, I’m glad I at least could help with that. Everybody’s gotta laugh. I’m Dave.” The man stuck out his hand. Brushing his hand off on his jeans, Justin reached up and shook it. The hand was large and callused from a lifetime of working outdoors. Pushing himself to his feet, Justin looked up at the man.

“Justin.”

“Nice to meet you, Justin. Now, you ready to head back to class?”

“Not today. But…thanks.” Justin smiled up at the man before reaching down to pick up his bag, which he slung over his shoulder before beginning to walk away. After about 5 feet, he stopped and turned.

“Dave.”

“Yes?”

“Do you think I could come back and talk to you tomorrow?”

“Well, I don’t know why, but sure, I guess.” Justin smiled slightly again and turned to walk back towards the front parking lot of the school.

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As he passed the final row of cars in the student parking lot, Justin’s momentary good mood began to leave him. He still had to face what he knew tomorrow was going to be like. Worry and panic began to slowly set back in and he had to stop a few blocks into his walk home to lean against a tree and slow down his heartbeat.

As he turned the key on the side door of his home at #13 Magnolia Lane, Justin’s mind was already racing. How would he deal with school tomorrow? Could he keep this from his parents? It was going to be a nightmare. Was it even worth it, really?

Placing his bag on the kitchen table, Justin opened the fridge and poured himself a glass of water from the pitcher. Knowing that no one would be home until after 2:00 when his little sister got off the bus, he had almost two hours to himself to think. Grabbing his bag and glass of water, he headed up to his bedroom to be alone. As he walked past his parent’s bedroom on the way to the staircase that led to his and his sister’s rooms, he stopped and looked through the open doorway at the bathroom door of the master bedroom. He felt his feet turn and, somehow, he was walking towards that door. Reaching out his hand, he pushed open the door and stepped to the mirror and looked at his face. He had red puffy bags underneath his bloodshot eyes and he noticed a small bruise beginning to come up on his right cheek. He had no idea how that had happened. Rubbing the side of his face, he stopped and noticed a small orange bottle with a white cap sitting on the counter top next to the sink.

What felt like hours seemed to pass for Justin as he stared at the bottle. Slowly, he reached out, his hand shaking almost uncontrollably, and grasped the bottle in his hand.

“Are you sure that’s what you want to do?”

Justin spun on the spot, dropping the bottle to the tile at his feet. Standing before him was his mother, Eileen. At 38, she was still in great shape, most likely due to her lifetime of running, completing two marathons by the time she was 24. Justin stood there, stunned, tears once again dripping from his eyes.

“I don’t know what to do any more Justin. You haven’t spoken to me in months. I don’t know what is going on in your head. And now I get this call from your school that you ran out of class and knocked some boy over? Why won’t you talk to me?” Hearing the pain in his mother’s voice, Justin’s last barrier came tumbling down. The tears slowly running down his face turned into a stream as he took two steps and wrapped his mother in a tight embrace burying his head in her shoulder. Sobs wracked his body. Completely stunned by this sudden change in her son’s behavior, Eileen reacted purely on motherly instinct, wrapping her arms around Justin and holding him tight.

After several minutes, Justin finally began to pull away from her. Not wanting the embrace to end, Eileen held on for just a moment longer, squeezing her son’s shoulders and leaning forward to kiss him softly on the forehead. Justin looked up at her. So softly that almost no sound came out of his mouth, Justin spoke to his mother for the first time in six months.

“I’m ready.”

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“Ladies and gentleman, this is your captain speaking. We are beginning our initial descent. As a small note, we will pass over the town of Jordan Heights at an altitude of about 8000 feet. Please don’t blink or you will miss it. Please enjoy the rest of your flight. Weather is looking great at a cool 74 degrees.”

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Justin looked up at the sky at the commercial airliner passing overhead, squinting against the sun’s mid-afternoon rays. Thinking again that one day maybe he would fly a plane like that, he looked back down and across the picnic table at his friend, Ryan Summers. Ryan had been Justin’s neighbor since they were six, and eight years later, they were as close as two friends could be. Almost everyone mistook them for brothers, even though they looked almost nothing alike. Ryan’s head was topped with a shaggy mop of bright red hair, his pale skin covered in freckles and a pair of small rimmed glasses –which he had worn since he was eight - rested on his nose. Justin, on the other hand, was brown haired and almost mouse-like in his stature and behavior. Still, the two of them were inseparable and made no effort to dispel the false thoughts of brotherhood.

Justin and Ryan were sitting at a table during lunch at the unsurprisingly named Jordan Heights high school just outside the school’s cafeteria. Their school was one of the smallest in the state, with a student population of around 250. The area was highly agricultural, and a large percentage of students dropped out of school at age 16 to help their families – so much so that this year’s graduating class was only 22 students, and with four months still to go, it would be a surprise if that number stayed the same. In such a small town and school, everyone pretty well knew everyone else. There were still cliques formed in the school, but at the end of the day, most students could list every other student at the school. As a result, when something happened at Jordan Heights high school, news traveled very fast. And at 12:32 PM on that day, something very big indeed was going to happen.

“Ry.”

“Yes, Justin?”

“Let’s skip the rest of the day.”

“And do what?”

“I don’t know, go to the river? I just don’t want to be in this stupid building any more today. We don’t have any tests and it’s Friday. What will we actually miss?”

“Hmm, I guess. Lost my perfect attendance record last year anyway when I got that pig flu thing. How we gonna do it without our parents finding out?”

“Who cares, we can deal with that later. Let’s just run for it.” An impish grin crossed Justin’s face and he looked around furtively, lending even more credence to his mouse-like nature.

“Fine,” said Ryan. “We can cut through the woods by the ISS building.”

Both boys packed up their belongings and, trying to appear nonchalant, headed south along the side of the school and out across the grass by the teacher’s parking lot. Just past the lone portable that housed those unlucky enough to be assigned in school suspension was a thickly wooded forest. Having lived within a mile of the school their entire lives, both boys were intimately familiar with the lay of the land, and their escape into the trees was quick and unnoticed. Grinning at each other as they slowed to a walk among the trees, they turned east when they reached the walking trail and followed it for another mile and a half to the banks of the river that the town of Jordan Heights was built directly on top of.

In 1857, Thomas Jordan staked a claim on the banks of the Jordan river – as it came to be called – and built a house on a rise overlooking it. As folks followed the river north, Jordan’s homestead began to attract followers, becoming a waypoint for the long journey, slowly growing to the size it is today by 1884. In the past 120 years, not much has changed in Jordan Heights. To say that the town was “stuck in time” would be an understatement. Most preferred the way of life they lived, and if they needed anything from the “big city” one was only a 30 minute drive away.

As they reached the river bank, Justin eyed his friend cautiously as Ryan took off his shirt. In the past year, many things had begun to happen to Justin. Most of them had been covered in the horribly awkward sexual education class that all the students had to take and even though they lived in such a small town, he still had almost unlimited access to the internet, which told him WAY more than he ever wanted to know about sexuality. As he had entered puberty, he was confused by only one thing that changed. He had always thought of girls as being gross and fairly unnecessary to a boy’s survival, but at age 12, Justin had been shocked to find himself taking peeks at his best friend whenever he thought Ryan wasn’t looking, especially when he was in any state of undress. Justin wasn’t exactly sure what they meant, though he had a good idea, which was bolstered by the fact that he pretty much never took those same looks at girls around school. Last summer, there had been a huge pool party at Jessica Saren’s house, and Justin had spent the entire time trying to soak up all the bare flesh while trying to look nonchalant.

“Hey Justin, I know you’re jealous of my hot body, but you’re starting to creep me out a bit with the staring.”

“Oh…right…sorry. Just got lost in thought.” Justin smiled slightly and took off his shirt and kicked off his sneakers and socks, wading into the river just behind his best friend. The cool water felt great as it slowly drifted downstream and was so clear that they could easily see fish darting around their legs. Justin ducked down slightly to get a closer look at a particularly large fish, and before he knew it, was completely submerged in the water with a straining Ryan pushing down on his head. Fighting hard to get loose, he finally did, and panting, emerged from the river, his dark brown hair matted to the sides of his face.

“You ass.”

“Hah, don’t be such a wuss.”

“I’m not.” Justin turned slightly away from Ryan, baiting the other boy into letting his guard down and when he did several seconds later, Justin spun on the spot and lunged at Ryan, knocking his friend over and into the water. Sputtering, Ryan shook Justin off of him, and stood up, his unruly red mop dripping water everywhere. As Justin righted himself and turned to look at Ryan. Blinking away the water, Ryan looked back at his friend, wary that he would make another attack.

“All right there, Justin. Now we’re even.” Justin was still staring at him and slowly closing the distance between the two. “Easy there, I don’t want to have to kick your ass, Parks.” Ryan slowly raised his hands in front of him defensively, but they would prove no use as Justin wasn’t going to try to dunk Ryan into the water again. Ryan stood there completely shocked and confused as Justin closed the last remaining steps between the two, leaned in, and kissed Ryan right on the lips.