You're Not Alone

Parker set his plastic fork down and gazed across the cafeteria. All of the tables were full. Except the one he was sitting at. It wasn’t the first time he had been ostracized by his peers, but it hurt the most. He had chosen to opt out of basketball at the beginning of the season and his former teammates were making it a nightmare for him to be at school.

He stabbed his meatball with the plastic knife. Hayden Metzler was approaching the table and he dropped the meatball back down, keeping his eyes on the brown tabletop.

“Hey, Smithe!”

Parker still didn’t look Hayden in the eyes.

“Hey!” Hayden said louder. “Dick-head.”

Parkers eyes glued to the table.

“You really gonna leave us hanging today at the game? It’s gonna be your fault if we lose.”

Anger surged through Parker. He tilted his head up. “How does that work? I won’t even be there?”

“Exactly. That’s why it will be your fault. Cause you aren’t going to show up like a little bitch.”

Parker shook his head and sighed. “You guys are being assholes. Basketball is stupid.”

“All of the sudden it’s stupid? Cause you didn’t think it was so stupid when we won our rings last year.”

Parker looked at his hands. There was an indentation on his right ring finger still where the ring used to have its home every day. He was so proud of it. His parents were proud, and his brother Denny, was proud. He didn’t feel like he was missing anything by not wearing it anymore.

“Hayden, I’m just saying who cares. Who cares about basketball? It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters that bad anymore.”

Hayden backed away slowly from the table. “Jesus, you’re like, a completely different person now. No wonder your brother killed himself. If I had to listen to you moan and bitch about everything, I would to.” Hayden turned around and started walking away.

Parker squeezed his fists until his knuckles turned white. He reached for the plastic knife that still had the meatball skewered through it and launched the meatball at Hayden.

It struck Hayden against his back and Parker reached for his backpack. He swung it on and ran out of the cafeteria before he saw Hayden’s reaction. He kept running until he made it to the doors leading outside and placed his hand on the railing, panting. He felt better. Not good, but better.

If basketball didn’t matter to Parker, school definitely didn’t. Parker climbed down the steps of campus and kicked a crushed soda can as he walked towards home. He imagined the soda can as a representation of Hayden Metzler.

He remembered a time three weeks ago when Hayden came up to Parker on his first day back at school after Denny’s passing and gave his condolences. What a dick. It seemed to be a growing theme in Parker’s post-Denny life. People saying sorry when it’s convenient for them. Parker had come to realize people were just disappointing. No one actually wanted to help him; they just wanted to help themselves. Parker couldn’t find the energy to care anymore.

He continued down the same catwalk he always walked through to get to school for the past three years. The rocks crunched underneath Parker’s feet and he noticed a shadow ahead of him. He stopped and looked up. Nothing was in the air. He continued walking but at a slower pace. Suddenly he heard a loud screech, and the shadow was back, but moving faster towards him. Parker ducked and let out a scream. He felt a light knock on the top of his head, like something fell on him. He turned around and saw nothing on the ground. He felt his head, and nothing was on it.

The screech sounded again. and Parker darted his eyes all over, trying to find out where it was coming from.

“It’s okay!” a voice sounded.

Parker spun around. There was a girl on the other side of the chain link fence that lined the catwalk. She looked around his age, but Parker had never seen her before.

Her eyes were soft, and she had her head tilted slightly in concern. “Don’t be afraid! She’s just trying to protect her babies.”

“Hunh?” Parker said.

“She thinks you’re a threat.”

“To what?”

The girl pointed up and Parker gazed at the tree on her property. The large branches hung over the catwalk, high in the air. Parker could hardly believe that he looked like a threat so far down here.

“What is it?” He asked.

“It’s an owl. A barn owl. I can tell because it’s face is so white. Barn owls are usually pretty timid, but this one has a nest up there. I love owls. I’m surprised it came out at this time of day though. She must have found you pretty scary. You go to that school then?”

Parker looked back and could see Northview high very clearly from where he was standing. “Oh, yeah, sure.”

“Skipping class, then?”

Parker felt defensive. “I could say the same thing to you.”

The girl looked triumphant. “Actually, you can’t. I live here. I’m home schooled.”

Parker understood why he had never seen her before. “Oh, that’s cool.”

“No, it’s not. It’s really boring. I wish I could go to your school.”

Parker snorted. “Well, you can take my place. I’m not going back.” Parker started to walk away.

“Wait, why not!?”

“I’m not going to tell you, or I’ll ruin your fantasy for you.”

“There’s no fantasy. Everyone wants what they can’t have until they get it. I know I’ll hate it once I get there.”

Parker stopped. “Then why are you wanting to go there if you know you’ll hate it? That doesn’t make sense.”

The girl ran her hand through her long, brunette hair, flipping it to the other side. She looked similar to most of the girls that were in his grade. Unlike most of them though, she seemed to give him attention. Normally, Parker would have been nervous to have a pretty girl start chatting him up, but he didn’t care about anything anymore.

“Well,” she said, finally. “At least I’d have friends to hate the place with me.”

Parker nodded slowly. “Maybe. Friends are overrated.”

“Wow, I’m surprised the sun is still shining with Mr. Johnny raincloud over here,” she joked.

Parker shrugged. “My brother died a few weeks ago. So, the sun doesn’t do anything for me anymore.”

The girl’s face dropped. “Oh. I’m… sorry.”

“It’s fine. You couldn’t have known.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Wanna see something cool?”

Parker shifted his weight between his feet. He didn’t have anything else to do. He was planning on taking a nap when he got home, but he wasn’t even tired.

“Sure,” he said.

“Cool. Climb the fence.”

Parker tossed his backpack over the fence and put his foot into one of the link holes, swing his leg over top. He pulled his foot out of the hole and jumped down. The girl started walking towards the base of the tree that the owl was living in. Parker followed. She knelt down and picked up a rock off the ground.

“You know what this is?” she asked him. She handed it to him.

Parker shook his head. It wasn’t a rock after all. It was very similar to a pinecone in size and shape, but it was soft, and darker in colour.

“It’s an owl pellet. Owls eat like, mice and moles and stuff like that. But their bodies can’t digest the bones and fur, so they get stuffed into this little pod and then the owl spits it out.

Parker dropped the pellet and made a gross face at the girl. She started to laugh.

“Oh, please. It’s not that bad. It’s nothing like real puke or anything. Not until you crack open the pod and see what’s inside.”

“Ew!” Parker exclaimed. “You’ve done that before?”

“Of course!”

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Chloe,” she said, reaching out her hand.

“Parker.” He grabbed her hand and shook it.

“You know, you’re part of a very exclusive group of people now,” she said.

“I am?”

“Yeah. Not a lot of people can say they’ve been attacked by a barn owl. But even fewer can say they’ve seen the inside of an owl pellet.”

Parker shook his head. “No. Now way, I don’t wanna do that.”

“Aww come on, it’ll be fun.”

“I can’t imagine how you would find that fun. All the bones it can’t digest.” Parker shuddered just imagining it. “I wish we could take all of the thoughts from our brain we can’t digest and spit them out in pellet form.”

Chloe smiled. “Now there’s a real fantasy.” She sat down on the grass and lay her back against the tree. She patted the grass beside her for Parker to sit. Parker hesitated and Chloe rolled her eyes. “It’s okay. I already checked this place for owl pellets earlier. The one I gave you is the only one I found. Sit down.”

Parker relaxed and sat beside her, pulling up pieces of grass with his fingers.

“Are you real, Parker?” Chloe asked.

Parker frowned. “If you mean in living terms, then… yes? I’m a real person.”

Chloe placed her hand on her forehead. “No, I mean, like, real. Like not fake. You know how people say they stand for a list of things, but then their actions don’t meet anything on that list?”

“Oh… yeah. I guess I’m real then. I don’t stand for anything, so I don’t have a list to bother following.”

She let out a huff of breath. “Since I met you it seems you want me to know very well that you don’t care about anything. Although I suspect you do. Everyone does, otherwise we wouldn’t be human beings. You’re just messed up right now cause of your brother.”

Parker was shocked at her willingness to speak about his brother. Most people around Parker tip-toed around him, especially when speaking about Denny. Maybe because she didn’t know Denny, so it made it easier. But she didn’t know Parker, either.

“My brother was my best friend. Now that he’s gone, I don’t know what to care about anymore. Everything seems so… pointless now that he’s gone,” Parker said.

Chloe nodded. “Isn’t everything pointless anyways?”

Parker shrugged. “I guess so.”

“What changed after your brother died?”

Parker rubbed a blade of grass between his fingers. He didn’t know the answer to that. He felt a shift after Denny had died, but he couldn’t put words to it.

“Maybe, I don’t know, maybe I feel like the things I did before he died were for him, and not for me. I wanted to impress him. Now that he’s gone, there’s no one to impress.”

“Now I guess you’ll have to learn how to impress yourself. I have a knack for it actually. You’d be pretty amazed at what you’re capable of I bet,” Chloe said.

Parker chuckled. “I can try.” He dropped the blade of grass he was holding and looked Chloe in the eyes. “Wanna open the owl pellet?”

Chloe beamed. “There he is!” She stood up and grabbed the pellet off the grass. She led parker over to a workbench by her garage and started to pull tools out of a bin. Parker stared at her, and then looked back to the pod, feeling excited for what felt like the first time since Denny’s death. He looked into the sky.

“Maybe not everyone is disappointing. Love you, Denny.”