Jake had been missing for almost three weeks now, and I had watched as his absence had taken it’s toll on everyone. His family realized something was wrong when he didn’t come home one evening, and, when they called the police, they were given the standard, careless answer from the nine-one-one operator: “Kids run away sometimes. You’ll have to wait twenty-four hours.”

            Jake and I had been best friends. We were born in the same hospital, we lived on the same road, and we went to the same school. We did everything together. At least we did everything together until it came time to apply for colleges, then, we couldn’t do the same thing anymore.

            “I think I’m going to apply to some schools on the east coast,” said Jake.

            “The east coast?” I asked, as we walked down the hallways of our high school. “I thought we agreed to go to state school together, man.”

            He shrugged and adjusted the books in his arms.

            “I don’t know if I really want to stay here, Xavier. There’s nothing here for me.”

            “Your parents, all your friends, they’re here.”

            I knew what he meant though. He had no good reason to stay here and no good reason not to leave. Unlike him, I had a vested interest in this place. I had been offered admission and a full-ride to a state college on the condition that I signed to play football with them for four years.

            Truth be told, I couldn’t go to college without that scholarship. My family lived in a nice house and had a comfortable life, but we’d been struggling the past few years to make ends meet, and I knew my parents couldn’t afford the financial hit a college degree would take.

            “I’m going to go out east,” said Jake, “it’s not up for debate.”

            And that was the end of that conversation.

            Every time I saw Jake after that, I felt a tinge of jealousy. Just a tinge of it, but just enough that the feeling left a gnawing, nagging sensation with me even after he’d left my presence. I hated that I felt this way, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want my friend to go away, to leave me stranded on this isle of complacency that I believed my home state was at times. I wanted Jake to stay.

            One night, leading up to Jake’s disappearance, I sat at the glass desk in my room and fumbled my college acceptance letter around in my hands. I should have felt some sort of excitement, but all I felt was resentment, and soon my mind was lost in the unconscious ramblings and thoughts of the teenage brain. I zoned out.

            And when I looked up I saw that god-forsaken photo. A photo of Jake and I with sunburnt cheeks, bare chests, and brightly colored swim trunks. We both had toothy smiles back then and round, undefined faces. We were young, still unburdened by the troubles of getting older, and all we had to worry about was impressing the hot lifeguard that we had deemed a “total babe,” at age twelve. I missed those days with Jake; when life was simpler.

***

            Our parents made us take swim lessons together. Like playing soccer, swim lessons were a right of passage for kids in our small, suburban town. I couldn’t tell you why, but they just were, and, so, we went to the pool one day a week during the summer to learn to swim.

            “Can we jump into the deep end?” I asked our swim instructor one afternoon when I felt we’d learned to swim well enough. Looking back, we could barely swim, our limbs were still awkward and uncoordinated in the water.

            “Go right ahead. Be careful,” she replied. “But absolutely no running.”

            Jake and I nodded as we ran off towards the edge of the pool, defying her command, and when we got there we threw on colorful goggles and laughed and jumped in.

            We tried out hardest to touch the bottom of the pool, and we hardly weighed enough to make it, but we did. We did flips and waved to each other. We tried our hardest to sit on the bottom of the pool. I remembered we had fun. Just kids being kids.

***

            I hated all the searching they did for Jake; rounding up family and friends and neighborhood folks who were looking for a way to do good in their community. The news had traveled through town like a California wildfire and it seemed like everyone was in on one search party or the next. My stomach turned at the thought of him turning up somewhere. What condition would he be in after all this time? Surely no one really thought they would find him safe after all this time… or, perhaps, maybe they all were thinking the same thing but no one wanted to be the one to dash his family’s hopes.

            “Now,” said one of the officers debriefing us, “we’re going to scour this area high and low. Group one is going to spread out towards the creek and group two will take this middle section of the park. Group three, you’re at the dock.”

            My heart raced at mention of the dock and my palms became sweaty. I tried to take a few deep breaths to collect myself, but I could barely hold it together.

            “Xavier,” said a familiar voice from behind me.

            “Oh, hello,” I said sheepishly. I was breaking.

            “Thanks for being here, son. I think Jake would appreciate it.”

            “Would?” I asked, my heart dropping into my stomach. Did he know?

            “If he were here right now,” said Jake’s father. “He would appreciate you being here to support him.”

            I nodded. I could feel my face becoming flushed and my eyes welling up with tears. I turned from him to hide my face and he began to part ways.

            “It was nice seeing you, kiddo,” he said as he walked away, as if I were still that young boy taking swim lessons at the pool.

            Just then, the group leader called out our marching orders. “Let’s go, group one. Let’s start making our way down towards the creek.”

            I moved with the group. We were like a gander of wild geese headed north instead of south for the winter. All we would find was broken beer bottles and cigarette butts and lovers’ carvings in the surrounding trees. We would find remnants of something, underage drinking and teenage debauchery, but we would not find Jake.        

            Maybe a memory of him, but not him.

            The creek was a place of refuge from the prying eyes of parents. It was a place Jake and I used to go to sneak a beer or a smoke a joint without having to worry about getting caught. I would go down by the water, skip rocks and shout random talking points about my day to Jake who would stay a good distance away from the calm, trickling water.

            “I have something to tell you, Xavier. I think you’re going to be impressed,” said Jake with a grin.

            “What? Did you finally get laid?”

            “No,” said Jake, “nothing like that.”

            “Then did you rob a bank or something?” I asked sarcastically, attempting to skip another stone.

            “Can you be serious for one second?” asked Jake, sighing.

            I reached down and picked up a stone and skipped it along the water. Then, I looked at Jake.

            “Okay, what is it? I’m being serious.”

            Jake started to pull out an envelope from his book bag that he had set beside himself.

            “Look, I got in,” he said and smiled at me. He held up the thick acceptance packet in his hand. It was adorned in crisp white and maroon, much more official than the packet I had gotten. At least it seemed that way at the time.

            “Oh,” was all I could get out. I didn’t know if I wanted to be happy or upset.

            “That’s all you have to say to me?” he asked, a look of rage manifesting itself on his face.

            I shrugged, I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to say. I was sad my friend was leaving.

***

            When I emerged to the surface, I was all alone. A smile still graced my face from the fun I had been having with my friend on the bottom of the pool, but it faded as I realized some time had gone by and I started shouting for help.

            Soon enough the life guard was jumping into action, making a huge splash.

            One of the scariest days of my life was seeing Jake come out of that water unconscious, blue, and breathless. I watched from a distance as lifeguards and medics worked their magic, but I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like without him. I don’t think, at that age, my mind could come up with any valid answer, but I had my answer now.

            I knew what it was like to live without a brother. And, even worse, I knew what it was like to feel like his blood was on my hands.

***

            “We found something!” Someone shouted from a distance.

            I later found out that the search party had discovered some of Jake’s school stuff floating in the water by the dock. A blue, canvas backpack, a soggy book, and his college acceptance letter.

            On that day though, I knew it was over. The facade I had been keeping up to shield myself and others from the fallout of my actions and feelings, however incidental, had to come down. I had a choice to make. I could come forward or I could stay quiet, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could carry this guilt alone.

            “Mr. Daniels,” I called to Jake’s father who was standing by the dock. “Mr. Daniel’s!”

            “Xavier,” he said, “what’s wrong?”

            I shook my head, tears finally spilling over.

            “I know what happened to Jake,” I said through sobs. “I know what happened.”

            Mr. Daniel’s did the unexpected then. He embraced me, and he held back tears.

***

            The truth is, Jake never learned to swim during those lessons, or after the incident at the pool. He’d always stayed out of the water at the creek and the lake, but sometimes he would sit at the edge of the dock and think when he was upset.

            “That’s all you have to say to me?” he asked me down by the creek after he told me he got accepted at an east coast school.

            I shrugged, but that’s all I did, and that was the last time I ever spoke to him.

            I found his stuff floating by the dock half an hour later. He must’ve gotten too close to the edge, fallen in, and couldn’t make his way out. I felt responsible for what happened to him at the dock. I wish I would have said something more.