Achieving Unbroken
Chapter Twenty One

—

"Paint dries,
Like my tired eyes;
Rain cries,
I don't wanna go outside"
Outside | Bea Miller

—

Lilla
[Friday, April 29th, 2017 - Before School]

It only took a few days  for all of my questions from earlier this week to be answered.

Monday had been a strange day; everyone had been told that something happened at a party this past weekend, but many details weren't provided. I heard whispers of drugs, ambulances, teenagers involved. Someone took a lethal amount of drugs. Somehow, a person at Bringham was involved, but I have no idea if they were the person busted with drugs or the drug provider.

Until today.

"Lilla, I have news," Piper rushes up to me, Allison and Peyton in tow, fresh off of one of the arriving buses.

"We," Peyton corrects, making Piper and Ally's eyes roll.

"We have news." Pip fixes, turning back to me with slight annoyance. "There's details about the party last weekend." I blink, taken aback with the sudden news.

"What? Are you sure, or is it B.S. rumors?"

"We're sure," Peyton confirms, nodding. "I was there. I just haven't talked about it very much. It was... A lot," his eyes darken, like he's remembering. It makes me nervous.

A jolting thought pops in my head, and suddenly, my curiosity is put on pause and shifted onto a different topic.

"Wait, Peyton, you're a star athlete on the swim team. And you were at a party with drugs?" My voice drops to a whisper, scared of people hearing in case this is detrimental to Peyton. Not many people are at school yet, but some are trickling in, passing us in the large hallway. He shakes his head.

"I gave the school a statement that I genuinely didn't know that there were drugs at the party, and had like, twelve people testify that I wasn't involved in anything illegal. They also gave me a drug test, which I passed." Content with his answer, I nod.

"So what happened?"

The three of them give each other a sad look, like they are all hesitant to tell me.

"It was Joey Oakland, Lil. He died."

Everything in my mind freezes. There's no way it was Joey. He's too young. He couldn't have been at the party.

"Ja— Jason?" I force out, thinking she misspoke. Ally shakes her head, and steps closer to carefully hug me.

"No, Lilla. It was Joey," she whispers into my ear. Tears press against my eyes and I do everything in my power to not cry, but it's hard with all of the thoughts going through my mind, the heartbreak in my chest.

"Joey..." My voice trembles. "Overdosed?"

She nods against my shoulder, and gives me another tight squeeze. I can barely find it in me to hug her back.

"No," I breath shakily. "He can't have. He's fourteen. He can't die." My voice slowly transforms into a sob, tears flowing out with no control and I secure my arms around Allison's athletic frame. "No."

I stand there, crying in the middle of the hallway and after a few moments a feel the bodies of Peyton and Piper surround me, turning the one-on-one hug into a group hug.

"Jesus Christ, did someone die?" I hear a male voice approach, strikingly similar to Patrick. Our group peels apart and finds Bianca, Patrick and Vince holding identical cups of coffee and staring at us like we spiked our hair up and got a ton of face piercings. I swipe furiously at my face, internally screaming when I see a blurry black substance rubbing off with the tears. My eyes refill, though, thinking about what Patrick just asked, and my instant thought is to get the hell out of this hallway and into a bathroom stall.

"I'm— I'm sorry," I weep, starting to stomp away. "Tell Clarkson I'm going to be late, it was an emergency," I yell, directed at Vince, who I share first period with. As I turn my head away, I see him nod in response, and my focus returns to getting out of the public eye. My body harshly slams into the bathroom door and I flood with half-hearted relief at seeing that the restroom is vacant.

I pause myself in front of one of the two mirrors in the small room, and wince when I notice my black-streaked face; eyeliner half gone and mascara damp, coming off in drips whenever I simply blink my eyes.

Thinking fast, I take a paper towel and run it under water, wiping it swiftly over the dark lines that cross over my cheeks. Once the excess makeup is off, I fix up my eyeliner and apply another layer or two of my mascara. My eyes are still flaming red and my face is spotted with a mix of red and white. Even my hair has fell flat and gotten tousled.

Telling myself that I'll fix that later, I shake my head and storm into the small, cramped corner stall that has a ton of stupid writing in it, slam the stall door and fling myself back against it.

He's not dead, my mind repeats, over and over and over. How could he be? The rejection hits and pounds my skull until my head throbs. It's not true. It's a rumor. If I call him right now, he'll answer.

This idea provokes me to the point of needing to prove myself, so that's what I set out to do. Digging my phone from my purse, I unlock it as fast as humanly possible and sift through my apps to get to my contacts. I scroll to the J's, and find his name. My thumb first presses onto the contact, and then onto the green phone symbol that makes the phone call.

The speaker blares rings into my ear.

One ring.

Two rings.

Three rings.

Dammit, Joey! Pick up your fucking phone so you can tell me you're not dead.

Four rings.

And just as I start to convince myself that he's at school, he probably has his ringer off and doesn't have his phone out right now, he'll call me later—the rings stop.

The line picks up.

"Hello?" A weak, strained, raw voice rasps.

The voice is deeper than Joey's.

It isn't Joey.

"Lilla?" The voice questions, voice slightly more distinguishable.

My breathing speeds up. I wonder if this is what hyperventilating is. Am I going to pass out in this bathroom stall until someone comes and finds me?

The voice isn't Joey's.

It's Jason.

"Jason?"

The line goes dead.

Jason hung up, as soon as I said his name.

And it hits me. Like, genuinely hits me. My head pounds, like it's trying to escape something all in itself.

Jason has Joey's phone. He has is because Joey isn't around anymore.

He has it because it belongs to his dead brother.

An image flashes through my head of Jason curled on his bed, surrounded by Joey's favorite things; Joey's phone sitting on the charger next to Jason's bed, like Jason is keeping it charged so his brother can come back anytime and use it.

And then the phone rings. Whether or not Jason bothers to look at the contact name, he answers. Who knows what he was hoping to hear. But when he double checks and sees who is calling, he knows it's not who or what he was hoping.

He hangs up, and throws the phone across his room, probably being reminded of the same realization that I just had:

His brother is gone forever. And now, I'm probably a permanent reminder of that.

Shoving my phone back into my bag, I give into my weak legs and slide down the stall door until I'm crouching on the ground, more tears waiting to just drown me.

And it pains me to think of how much this kid just needed a chance, a chance that he's never going to get, because...

I squeeze my eyes tightly shut, and inhale some deep breaths. My hands slide up to cover my face.

Because Joey Oakland is dead.