Daniel (2)

Sometimes you see a person and they completely catch you off guard.

Drake Lu is not the type of person to catch anyone by surprise. He has such a firm control over the mask he wears in front of others - so much so that he must have tricked his brain into believing that's who he was.

Yet, here we are.

When I first came to visit him in the hospital it was because I felt a vague sense of obligation. And curiosity. Curiosity, in the end, was the deciding factor. It has been a constant companion, coming and going, over my acquaintance with one Drake Lu.

If anyone were to see us interact in school they may be under the impression that we are friends, Drake and I.

We are not friends. We are not strangers. We are not something, but also not nothing. Acquaintances seems most appropriate, though a more apt term would be acquaintance-adjacent. Given enough time a possible friend by sheer volume of interaction.

He knows it, and I know it. There's no mismatch of expectations and clear boundaries between us.

I think the only reason we even got to speaking with each other was because our assigned seats were right next to one another.

At first we didn't interact much. Kept our conversations strictly related to school and our classes if we happened to have any. Usually only if one of us was feeling in a chatty mood. He was always the one to initiate a conversation.

The only reason I played along was because I was curious.

Very few things make me curious but I was very briefly. Drake had this tendency to watch people, as though he was watching animals in a zoo exhibit. I don't think he noticed that that's what he was doing. That someone else saw what I did when I looked at our classmates made me curious. The curiosity was brief, but enough to allow an opening in my defences that he pounced on when he had the opportunity.

He's sharp, opportunistic and ruthless. Well, he has the potential to be ruthless. He's clearly never cared enough about anything to truly muster up the energy to use that potential. At least, not yet.

No matter the face he puts in front of others it seemed there's a lot he didn't show. While teenagers our age wore their heart on their sleeve, Drake's heart seemed wrought with barbed wire and locked in a safe only he could access.

He interacted with others and he could get along with other people easily. He had an easy smile. If he tried he could rule the classroom, the school if put to the test but it seems that the only reason he didn't was because he couldn't be bothered to do it.

Why?

This made me curious and confused. Enough to keep my eye on him. We ate lunch together at school on occasion, and if one of us missed something the teacher said we would ask the other.

I think the only reason I didn't become an outcast in our class is because he was beside me. It was strange.

Slowly I noticed that he had amassed around him a number of acquaintance-adjacent people such as myself. Though some of them might think them actual friends. I know at least one of them can't stand the sight of him.

If I cared at all I might wonder why.

I was an extra. Certainly not necessary, yet I went along with it.

It happened a few months ago.

I still remember that day vividly. The day I found Drake. Every interaction and scene from that day etched into my brain.

At first I didn't notice anything amiss. That day I came into class and saw the seat next to mine empty for the first time since Drake and I had become neighbours. It didn't ring any alarm bells. He was always there when I arrived but he wasn't this time. I didn't wonder why.

It niggled at my mind, so I sent him a brief text wondering where he was. I briefly ventured outside of our acquaintance-adjacent mutually accepted boundaries, but I presume that is usually how one advances into full blown friendship.

I didn't receive an answer.

I didn't notice I hadn't received an answer until lunch when the rest of his very scruffy acquaintance-adjacent group gathered around in hallway outside my classroom and called out for Drake.

"He hasn't been at school all morning" I told them as I got my lunchbox out to start eating.

That's when I noticed a shadow appear at my desk and for the first time I felt a vague sense of intimidation before it left me quickly. It was the guy that hated Drake.

"Call him" and in those two words I could hear the razor sharp edge of a sword being drawn.

I could have ignored it. But I didn't care for the scuffle sure to erupt at ignoring this blatant threat. Entering one's personal space as much as he did and not addressing it drew attention.

Attention I didn't need.

I called him then. It was a last resort. Drake always answered when he was called, I noticed. It didn't matter what time of day it was, or what he was doing at the time. He was reprimanded the first day at school for it. I'm not entirely sure what he did but he got away with it going forward.

He didn't pick up.

It sent chills through me and I'm not sure why. I held onto my phone long after the beep for the voicemail message ended. I slowly dropped my hand onto my desk and told them he didn't pick up.

At some point this supposed friend group had surrounded by table, and I could tell that my answer surprised them. Worry flashed through their eyes. Especially the guy still standing over my desk at the time. He hadn't backed off but he looked slightly spooked. They looked like they wanted to interrogate me, but eventually didn't.

Without the glue holding them together they scattered to wherever they came from.

I still remember feeling sick to my stomach that day.

I ended up doing something I never did.

I left school early on the pretense of an upset stomach, objectively true, to go home.

Instead, I went to Drake's house.

It was usually a short walk from the school. About 10 minutes. Yet, I still remember feeling as though it took me forever to reach his house. The sense of unease grew with every step.

When I arrived at his house and rang the doorbell, no one came. He had a decent sized house with a porch. It looked like right something out of a hallmark movie. I told him that the one time I visited and he laughed at my remark. I think that's the only time he has ever truly laughed, at least where I was in attendance to see it happen.

Nothing.

No one answered the door.

My eyebrows drew together. I still remember feeling something was off and not being able to put my finger on why. I don't know why I was surprised. There could be a variety of explanations for having an empty house but something inside me felt restless at it.

I told the police the same thing later that day and they just looked at me disbelievingly. I would too if the positions were reversed.

I further broke convention, and did something so far out of bounds I'm not sure how our acquaintance-friendship could survive my complete disregard of it.

I went around the house to the garden.

Then I saw it.

Him.

I saw Drake lying on the ground broken, his face covered in blood as he lay in a pool sure to be his own blood. I'm not sure how I could tell the broken thing... person, in front of me was Drake but I just could.

Instead of getting closer or touching him in any way I called the emergency services and repeated the address. I asked for help.

I still remember as a sense of calm washed over me. Instead of the panic one would expect at finding such a scene. I didn't notice the nails of my other hand digging into my palm. I only found out when the doctor at the hospital noticed them when he checked me over.

I came closer, and my feet crunched on pieces of glass. I realised they were beer bottles.

I came closer and closer but still remained far enough away to not further contaminate the scene. I didn't touch him so I didn't know if he was still alive.

I doubted it.

I felt pity for him. Even if he survived it's unlikely he would be able to live much of a life after this. Whatever this was.

His wounds still unclear except for the strong sense of broken I got from his prone body.

Eventually I heard a siren and I remember it feeling like a weight lifted off my shoulders. This was no longer my problem, whether he was dead or alive.

I waited and I heard my phone go off again, someone asking me for a location. I told them to come to the garden.

It all went by in a blur.

One moment the entire place was so silent that I could hear each inhale and exhale my lungs made. The next, there was a sense of rush as people stormed the once peaceful garden.

It seemed that Drake was alive since they didn't leave the body as they found it and then proceed to hand over the scene in its entirety to the police.

I think they thought I was in shock. They asked me questions and took me to the hospital. I was covered in a blanket as one of the EMTs fussed over me while the rest of her colleagues took care of Drake.

When we arrived at the hospital I waited. I was checked over and deemed healthy. My hand was bandaged. Someone from the police asked me questions as though they suspected me to have done it.

I wonder if I could have.

I don't know. I certainly don't think I didn't have the ability to do something like that. But, I don't know if I would ever have bothered. I think you need to really hate someone to do whatever was done to Drake. I can barely muster enough energy to get up and go to school.

"Who are you to the victim?"

"Friend", I said. Because that's what others called us. Though, perhaps... If Drake survived this we could become friends. Saving someone's life probably changed the dynamics between the saver and saved.

Not that I care.

Would be interesting though.

If he survived that is.

I stayed longer than I needed to. I was free to go home. Yet, after my interview (read: interrogation), I went to the waiting room and sat down.

Eventually a woman ran into the waiting room and by the panic, fear, and tears in her eyes as well her resemblance to the broken boy in hospital room 528, I knew it was Drake's mother.

Once I saw the doctor approach the distraught woman, I left.

If I close my eyes even today... I still remember the scene from that day as vividly as though it had just happened. I can picture almost everything. Except for how broken Drake was. That I can't remember as much.

I tried to put the entire incident behind me but I wasn't allowed to.

When I came home I was interrogated by my family.

When I went to school I was interrogated by the school, the students, and Drake's acquaintance-adjacent group.

News spread fast.

Days turned into weeks turned into months.

He didn't wake up.

Though clearly the students didn't have many details to make very accurate guesses, they still made them. Their speculations were quite creative when I heard some of them on occasion.

I didn't participate. Although there was a surge of popularity because the students around me wanted information in the beginning - it quickly faded when all they got was a blank look in response.

A few months later I found out from the gossip mill at school that Drake woke up.

A shock went through me at that.

Though I didn't understand why because I hadn't given him that much thought in the first place.

Someone was visiting a family member and overheard one of the doctors discussing his case. Though the only detail they got from that conversation was the flurry of shock that one Drake Lu woke up at all.

When that news spread I could see the acquaintance-adjacent group reforming over the span of a week.

I tried visiting Drake a total of 2 times when the news spread that he had woken up. I was told each time that he wasn't stable enough to receive visitors.

I gave up trying.

Then one day the acquaintance-adjacent group surrounded me and gave me notes from a variety of classes. Some I didn't even take.

"Go visit him and hand him these notes" one of them told me. As though he were a representative of whatever the hell they called themselves with Drake not there.

They had become quieter, more reclusive without Drake there to pull them out of their shells. Yet, here they stood as though nothing had changed at all.

"Why me?"

"Because you're the most likely to actually get through to him" another voice said.

I grow confused at this apparent confidence in my abilities to... Talk with him? Get to visit him? Sometimes the minds of my own species truly baffle me. Especially those at this stage of their development.

They didn't elaborate and left me standing there.

I was later stopped by a teacher on my way back to my class when she noticed the pile of papers in my hand. When I told her who they were for she brought me to the teachers' office and gave me additional notes on homework that Drake had missed.

"It's very good of you to do this, Daniel. That poor boy has gone through so much. The last of his worries should be having fallen behind at school" she told me.

The next time I asked whether it was okay to visit, contrary to my expectations I was told when visitation hours were.

When I went to visit him that first day after he had woken up, I remember seeing him lying prone in the hospital bed bandaged up. At least half his face was covered in bandages, except for his eyes.

It was his eyes that struck me I think. It was as though they took my breath away, quite literally. I hadn't seen eyes like that on anyone our age, ever. The only time I'd seen eyes like that was the when one of my shadow guards showed himself and covered me with his body as his back became riddled with bullets. His eyes... as though a bright light was put out. A light that indicated he knew he was going to die. A light of probably his life flashing before his eyes.

Sometimes you see a person and they completely catch you off guard. Even though Drake Lu isn't the type of person truly capable of doing that, his eyes now shine bright. So very bright.

Curious.