Guilty

by Selamawit Mersha

I'm such a bad friend, I thought to myself as I sat anxiously in the hospital waiting room with Daniel's parents and this girl, Jennifer (I think that’s her name). She’s in our biology class, but I’ve never really talked to her. My stomach was doing all kinds of flips and my palms were sweating. We hadn't heard anything from the doctor yet.

We all sat in that small room very quietly. Different thoughts going through our heads. All hoping Daniel would come out of that emergency room fine and everything would go back to normal.

    "So, Robby, what exactly happened tonight?" Mr. Jackson asked, trying to sound calm. But I knew by the way he was pacing back and forth, running his fingers through his hair with frustration, that he was not calm inside at all.

    Mrs. Jackson walked over to her husband and in a soft voice said,  "Honey, this is not a good time to be asking questions."

    “Then when is a good time? When they do stupid things like this end up dead?”  He exclaimed. The true color of his anger became clear.

    Maya and Jessica sat on the faded blue couch at the corner. They looked very nervous. I was already nervous, but when I saw Jessica biting the living shit outta her nails, she made me even more nervous. I wanted to make Mr. and Mrs. Jackson shut up. I wanted to go somewhere quiet and peaceful to reflect on what had happened. I walked out of that room for a minute to get some fresh air. I walked out of the hospital and sat on a bench in front of the main entrance.

    It was a warm, but breezy night. While I sat there watching people walk in and out of the hospital, I started thinking about how Daniel and I had first met and everything we had been through.

It was freshman year. We had biology together after lunch and we always came in class late, so Mr. Powell made us wait after school and clean his room. Those afternoons are how we got to know each other.

    "I already hate him,” said Daniel when he stepped out. "Its the first week of school for god sake!"

I was lightweight relived when he started talking to me. I thought he was going to be a jerk and I would have to spend an hour with him, or even more if we keep being late to class. I smiled a little and responded "Really though."

    "My name is Daniel by the way." he said as he picked up all the trash from the floor.

    "Robert, but call me Robby" I said, "I don't really like when people call me Robert it makes me sound kinda old."

He laughed a little and said, "OK then, Robby. So where are you from?"

"I'm from Colorado." I replied. The conversation went on until lunch ended. Mr. Powell sat on his desk grading his student work. I wasn't sure if he listened to our conversation or not. He looked very concentrated on grading.

I was on time for the rest of the week, but Daniel came in late a couple times.

As weeks went by we started talking and working together in class.

    "Hey dude, what are you doing on Friday?” asked Daniel as we walked out of one of Mr. Powell’s boring lesson about DNA and things that I don’t really care about.

    “Um, I’m not sure. Why? What’s up?” I replied

    “Nothing really. I was just gonna see If you wanna come to my house and kick it.”

    Before he said anything else I responded, “yea sure.”

Why did I sound so excited. I hoped he didn’t think I was some kinda dork.

    “Ok cool then. See you later.” He said as he walked away down the hall.

     It was to cool to have someone to talk to, considering I was new at the school and didn't really know anyone. Coming from a school of only 300 students, Berkeley High (about over 3000 students) seemed like a whole little city, and transferring as a junior didn't help either, because everyone already knew everyone and they already had got into their own clicks. Everyone was different and was not wearing the same blue pants and white shirts like my old school. Everyone had different clothes, different hair color, listened to different kinds of music. They all probably knew I wasn’t from there, but thankfully no one said anything. They just gave me funny looks. As I sat in math class, my mind raced through different thoughts. I barley paid any attention to Ms.Williams.

Maybe I should delete my songs on my ipod and get new songs. Also go shopping and get some new clothes.

    I was really glad I had met Daniel. The first couple of weeks of school were a little scary, but once I started meeting new people, especially, Maya, I liked it more and more each day. Maya was this girl from my history class. She had long curly brown hair and was very smart. It took me the longest to talk to her, but once we started talking, everything was great.  Every time I saw her I wanted to ask her to have lunch with me or something. But one day when we were doing our group quiz I had the balls to ask her to have lunch with me and said yes.

    "I am so hungry." I said trying to bring up the topic of food-then ask her about what she likes to eat-then ask her if she wants to have lunch with me.

    "Same here." she replied, and looked at the time."20 more minutes"

    "Ugh. Soo long. Where are you going for lunch?" I asked.

    "I'm not sure. Probably some where cheap cuz I'm broke!" she said with a little shy/ joking face.

    "I'll buy you something if you come with me." I said with a fat smile on my face. Whoa did I really just say that?

She smiled back and replied, "If you say so."

    "I insist."

    The lunch date wasn't as I expected it, but it was still nice. I thought it was just going to be us two but her friend, Jennifer didn't have anywhere else to go so she came with us. After that day I felt a lot more comfortable around Maya. We talked more in class and on the phone.

About a week after the first lunch date we decided to go on another one. This time we wasn't much different from the first time. We were not alone. In fact, it was more people because Daniel came too. Now I think about it we should have ditched Daniel and Jennifer and be in our own. We did get the chance to hang out and be in our own plenty times though.

    Daniel and I finally got to sit together in Mr.Powell's class. He always sat us apart because he knew we wouldn’t give a shit about his stupid lessons and all we would do is just talk. But I guess he decided to be nice to us. 

    "Hey dude, did you here about Taylor's part this friday?" I asked

    "Yeah I did. I'm hella jucied for it!" Daniel responded.

    "I don't know if I wanna go," I said.

    He looked at me with confusion and asked, "Why not?"

    "Cuz I wanna hang out with Maya."

    "Why don't she come with..?"

Mr.Powell gave us a death look and said, "You two need to stop talking before I separate you. This is why I don't let you sit together."

    I stopped and asked myself the same question, Why didn't I ask her?

For the rest of the class we didn't speak to each other. We just did the work.

    Later that night I thought about the party again.I should ask Maya to come with me.  I picked up the phone to call her, but decided texting would be better instead so I did.

    "hey wats up?...wat are u doing this friday? did u hear about Taylor's party?"  sent 7.25pm

received 7.28 "yea I heard about it. Idk if I'm going tho. I'm still thinking about it. lol"

    "You should go. It'll be fun:)" sent 7.30pm

recived 7.35 "Umm maybe. ill let you know if im going though."

    On Friday Daniel borrowed his dad's car for the night. He just got his driving license about a month ago so he had to do a lot of promising and swearing not to mess up the car and come home early.

    "This is so great!" Daniel exclaimed as we got into his dad's car.

    "I know right! I wish I had my license." I said and buckled my seat belt.

It was 8.15pm when we left his house.Taylor's house was about 30 minutes away from Daniel. We turned up the radio loud enough we could barley here each other talk. I got a text from Maya saying she was on her way to the party. My mood suddenly changed. I had mix feelings now. I was happy I would get to see her outside of school, but also nervous. It should be fun I said to myself.

I saw a lot of kids from school as we drove around Taylor's block to find parking. There were a lot of people.

    "I don't think my folks would ever let me have a party with all these people." I said as I looked out the car window to see people I know.

    "Naw man, her folks are outta town. Well more like her her mom, her parents have been divorced since like freshman year. And she takes advantage her mom a lot."

    "ohh...sucks for mom." I said

We finally got parking at the end of the block. When we got to the house Daniel started high-fifing and saying hi to people he knew. There were some girls that were already drunk and were passed out on the couch. There were people standing around talking with red plastic cups on their hands.

    “Hey I’m gonna go get myself something to drink.” Daniel said and was out of sight in a second.

I looked around to find Maya and there she was by the stairs laughing with Jennifer. Also with a red plastic cup on her hand. Should I go over and say hi? 

I walked over and said “Hey you made it!”

    “Yea I didn’t have anything better to do.”  Her and Jennifer giggled.

    “Where is your friend?” asked Jennifer.

    “I’m not sure. He left me to get some drink.” I answered.

They looked at each other and Jennifer said, “I’ll go find him” and just walked away.

We stood there and talked for a little bit, but people kept coming up to say hi and stuff so we decided to go outside and find somewhere quiet. I didn't really know my way around Taylor's house because it was my first day so I let Maya lead. We got out of the back door and started walked down the street.

Very curiously I asked, "Where are we going?"

    "I'm not completely sure. Lets just have an adventure." She replied.

I wasn't going to argue with that. "If you say so Missy."

We walked passed a lot of big story houses with big back and front yards. This one house we passed didn't even look like a house. It must've been like four stories up. And it had a really big yard to go with it too.

    "I think I would get lost in my own house if it was this big!"

She laughed at me and said "Well, you don't gotta worry about that 'cuz your house is like 10 times smaller"

    "It really is, but you don't have to point it out. you've never even been to my house!" I exclaimed.

    "Just saying."

After walking for about 15minutes in the dark we got to this nice little park. No one was around.It was quiet and a little scary for some reason. Or maybe it could be the fact that I've never really been at a park at like 9.30pm on a Friday night.

    "This is a nice park." I said to compliment her leadership.

    "I told you not to worry about it."

    "Have you been up here before?" I asked.

    "I think once or twice. It's usually full of hella rich old white folks."

I smiled and tried to make an eye contact with her but she was looking up at the moon so I looked up and joined her.  We sat there in quiet, just enjoying the beautiful night and the fresh air. After a couple minutes she turned to me and  asked, "So whats your story?"

    "Well....."

I moved a little closer to her and I started telling her the story about how I had to move here from Colorado because my dad got a job at the University of Berkeley as an English professor.

By the time I finished telling her my whole life story we had gotten a lot closer to each other. My arms were around her shoulders, her head on my shoulder and she had her legs in between mines. I don't think we both realized we had gotten this close to each other so there was a little awkward silence after I finished my story. But it felt so nice to have her so close to me, I can feel her body warmth. We ended up looking up at the moon again. Not really saying anything. I turned to face her slowly and she lifted her head up, then I kissed her soft, smooth lips gently. We got a lot closer to each other, exchanged body heats.

    Mayas phone rang. We let it go to voicemail, but it kept ringing so I got myself off her and helped her look for it. She dug in her purse. "It's Jennifer, should I answer it?" she asked. 

    "Just let it go to voicemail again." I suggested "She's probably gonna ask where you are."

    "She is my ride home though."

    "Daniel can give you a ride." I told her hoping that she would just ignore the calls and get back to what we were doing.

She pressed the green talk button on the right, "Hello?" no answer "Hellooo..? Jenny!"

I could hear Jennifer's voice over the phone. She sounded very panicked.

    "OMG WHAT?! WHAT HAPPENED? WHERE ARE YOU GUYS? WHERE IS DANIEL??" Maya panicked and got up to leave.

I was completely lost. I didn't know what had just happened. I kept asking questions but Maya seemed too busy and scared to even notice anymore.

        "OK WE WILL BE THERE IN A SECOND!" said and hang up the phone she ran up to the street with out even her purse.

I got her purse and started to chase after her. This whole time I was asking questions. "What happened?? Are they OK?!?" She was so horrified at whatever she heard she had seemed to completely zone me out. She finally stopped for a second and said,  "THEY GOT INTO A REALLY BAD CAR ACCIDENT!  He...they had a lot to drink and...and..

    "WHAT??!" I exclaimed. The words she was saying didn't  not seem really to me. It was one of those moments when something really bad is happening and you wished to the lord that created the earth this would all just be some scary, crazy dream.

    "THEY GOT IN THE CAR AND WHEN HE WAS DRIVING  they s..ss..slammed into a tree and she said it was really bad. He is hurt really bad!! The ambulance is there and they are on the way to the hospital now!" She cried as we ran back to Taylor's house to ask someone a ride to the hospital. 

When we got to the hospital, we run inside like we were being chased by some crazy ass man. Jennifer was sitting on the floor with her hands over her face. I heard her sob a couple doors down. She was surround by 3 police officer question her but she didn't give them any answer because she was too busy crying. When we saw her Maya ran even faster to give her a hug and see if she was OK. I followed behind. At this point Maya was crying a lot too. They hugged and cried. I hugged both of them for a second too but then I started walking around to find the room Daniel was in.

    A car drove and brought my mind back to myself. I stood up and decided to go back inside. When I walked back into that cold, dark room I saw Ms.Jackson on the floor crying her eyes out, and Mr.Jackson on his knees holding her very tightly. Maya and Jennifer stood by the doctor looking shocked out of their lives. Jennifer looked like she had just seen a ghost. Her eyes opened wide and tears fell down her face. My heart dropped and I felt something hit me in the stomach.

"How could I have left my best friend at some random party by himself for a girl?!"