Him

He Won't Change

“After receiving a blow to the head your son fell to the ground. In doing so he hit his head on the pavement which caused him to have concussion. Since no one was around him in time he fell asleep. This has caused your son to fall into a coma. Also we have given him several drug tests. He tested positive for performance enhancing drugs,” Dr. Staley explains.

 “How long will he be out? And I didn’t even know he was taking drugs,” My Mom asks.

“Hard to say. It could be a few days to a week. Maybe longer. I’m sorry but that’s the best answer I can give you at this moment.”

“Thank you Dr. Staley. May we go in?” My Dad asks.

“Of course.”

I follow my parents into Eli’s hospital room. It is dimly lit with the curtains closed. I sit in a gray leather chair as my parents rush to Eli’s bed. I can’t even look at him. I am still really stressed about my dream.

What if it’s right? What if this is all my fault?

My parents and I stay in there for a few hours. It is hard to watch Eli just lay there. I want to go up to him and wake him up so that he can tell me what happened. I know that I’ll have to wait though. But I don’t know if I can. I just want answers.

“We are going to go home now Katie. If you don’t want to drive you can come with us,” My Dad says.

“It’s okay. I’m going to stay a bit longer.”

I hug my dad and he kisses the top of my head. After I hug my mom, I am left alone with Eli. The room is silent. All I can hear are the machines. Finally I stand up and move towards Eli’s bed. I look down at him. He looks really peaceful, and I can’t even smile at that.

“Eli, I know you can’t hear me but. I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened but I am sorry if it has anything to do with me. I just feel like, I don’t know. Somehow this is my fault, isn’t it? The drugs started because of me. I know that they did. And you fighting? Was that because you are trying to become a better fighter? Who do you need to fight? Please wake up soon Eli. I have to know what happened to you. I love you. Bye,” I kiss his forehead before leaving his room.

I’m not sure when he’ll wake up. But in the meantime I can try and come up with some answers on my own. I will have to go to the one person that might know. I really don’t want to talk to him, but if it can help me get some answers, than I will.

--------

“Can I help you Miss Holt?” The secretary asks me as soon as I enter the office.

“Yes. I would like to see Principal Renner,” I state.

“Of course you would,” She mumbles.

I give her a look before saying, “What was that?”

“You just seem to be in his office an awful lot,” She sasses.

“Wow, reall-“

“Miss Holt? You can come in now,” I hear Principal Renner’s voice say.

I walk passed the secretary sending her a glare. She happily sends one back to me. Once I am in Principal Renner’s office I sit down. He sits down in his chair, across from me. I didn’t say anything for a while. I just look at him.

“How can I help you Katie?” He asks.

“Do you have any information on why my brother was taking drugs or why he was fighting?” I question.

He sighs. “Katie, I don’t think I should be the one telling you. Eli needs too.”

I stands up quickly. “Well he can’t! If you haven’t heard, he’s in a coma!” I yell.

Principal Renner closes his eyes for a minute. He then reaches in his desk and pulls out a notepad. After flipping through a few pages he stops and looks at me.

“Eli has been training to become a better fighter so he can fight someone. He didn’t feel like he was gaining enough muscle from training so he started taking the steroids. That’s all I know.”

I sit down and put my head in my hands. A few tears trickle down my cheeks. Training to fight someone? I have only one guess at who that is. Jake. I hope, really hope that when Eli wakes up he’ll tell me I’m wrong. But I really don’t think he will.

I feel a hand on my shoulder. I look up and see Principal Renner standing by me. He hands me a tissue and sits in the chair next to me.

“I knew it,” I say.

“Knew what?” He asks confused.

“I knew it was all my fault. And it is.”

Principal Renner moves his chair closer to mine and puts his arm around my shoulder. I don’t move. I know he is just trying to help me. “It’s not your fault. Eli made his own decision. You can’t blame yourself.”

“You don’t understand. It is. You’ve been right this whole time. Jake did hurt me. But he went and got help. Eli though, he doesn’t care that he went for help. He wants to fight him. I could have prevented this by just breaking up with Jake. But I couldn’t. I love him. And now Eli is in a coma and I have to tell Owen I can’t be friends with him anymore,” I explain.

“I wish I wasn’t right. And you don’t have to do anything you don’t want too. Remember that.”

“You’re right.”

I stand up and wipe my tears away. Principal Renner stands up also and starts to go back to his desk. I grab his arm and pull him back to me. I hug him tightly and whisper, “Thank you so much.” I place a kiss on his cheek and leave his office.

The hallways are pretty empty. I find Jake quickly. He is wearing a red shirt with black jeans so I easily spot him out. I hurry over to him. He is talking to a few guys. I don’t want to interrupt him but it is important. I have to tell him that I want to be friends with Owen. And I hope he will understand.

“Hi Jake. Can we talk for a second?” I interrupt him and his friends.

He turns towards me and smiles. “Of course.”

We walk away from his friends and head down an empty hallway. Once I know we are alone I stop walking, “Jake, I have to tell you something.”

“What is it?” He asks concerned.

“I can’t tell Owen I can’t be friends with him anymore,” Jake moves and I flinch.

“I see. And why not?”

I feel a bit bad for flinching, especially when I see sadness in Jake’s eyes. “I knew him before I met you. And I don’t think that it’s fair to stop being friends with him. You know?”

“Huh. I guess I’m having a hard time understanding why you would want to be his friend. I mean, he ditched you, didn’t he? He also couldn’t wait for you to make a decision and moved onto to that Paige girl.”

I look down. He’s right. Owen hasn’t been there for me. He was only there as a distraction. He did move on. He asked me to choose and he couldn’t wait for me. But he was there for me with Eli. And he helped me a lot with that.

“You might be right about that Jake. But I have a lot of history with him. And I don’t want to throw it all away.” I say as I turn to walk away.

“Wait.” He says grabbing the back of my neck and holding me in place. “You are choosing to be friends with him. I love you Katie. Does he? I’ve never ditched you when you need me! He has.”

I feel the pressure on my neck increase as he finishes. “Please let go.”

“Plus I’m pretty sure he used you because you were sad and he knew he could take advantage of you.”

“Ow Jake. Okay, I’ll tell him,” I surrender.

“Is there a problem here?” I hear someone ask from behind me.

Jake moves his hands and places his arm around my shoulder. I am turned around and see Marisol standing there looking at us. Her eyes are full of suspicion. “Everything’s fine. Right Katie?”

“Right,” I look down so that I don’t have to look at Marisol. She slowly turns around and walks away. Jake and I start to walk towards the main hall. He keeps his arm around my shoulder. I look up finally and notice a couple of people staring at me. I lift my hand and place it on my neck. I pretend to be scratching it but really I am covering the red marks.

I look towards the office and see Principal Renner standing there. I look away quickly. His eyes are just as bad as Marisol’s and I cannot look at them.

“Look there’s Owen,” He says pointing ahead. He slightly nudges me forward. “Go ahead.”

I swallow hard as I move forward. It feel like it takes forever, but I finally reach him. He turns towards me and smiles. I send him a small smile and turn to look at Jake. He is standing up against a wall now. His arms are crossed and he is staring at me.

“How’s Eli?” Owen asks.

“Oh um, I’m not really sure how to answer that since you know, he’s in a coma.”

“Right, yeah.”

“Look, that’s not what I why I came over here,” I start.

“Okay, what’s up?”

“Meeting up with you yesterday. That was a mistake. Everything with you has been a mistake. I tried to pretend everything was okay Monday but I can’t anymore. You have ditched me and you couldn’t even wait for me to make a decision before you moved on to Paige. I can’t be friends with someone like you. I’m sorry,” I turn away quickly to hide my tears.

“Wait Katie!” Owen yells after me.

I am too far away from him now. I walk up to where Jake is standing. He puts his arm around my shoulders and we head to my car. I quickly get rid of my tears. Jake doesn’t need to see them. He doesn’t need another reason to be angry.

“Thank you Katie. So hey, I have to go help me dad with something. I’ll call you later. I love you,” He kisses my cheek and walks away.

I get into my car and wait for Jake to be out of my sight. Once he is gone I place my head on my steering wheel and cry. I’m not sure how long I sat there crying. Jake is getting worse. The ‘help’ he got didn’t even work.

I pull out my phone and google the place he said he went too. Zero results came up. I gasp. He lied to me. He never even went to get help. I trusted him. Where did he go that week if it wasn’t there? I just can’t believe he lied to me.

I start my car and back out of my parking spot. I decide to go to the one person that will understand this. It takes only a few minutes to get there. Marisol’s house is close by. I can see her pink Volkswagen Beetle up ahead. I pull into her driveway and get out. I take a look around before I walk up to her door. I knock and take a step back.

A few seconds later the door opens. I am greeted by Laci giving me a hug and pulling me inside. I laugh a little. I shut the door behind me and look at Laci. She is smiling at me and I look around for Marisol.

“Can I talk to your mom please?” I ask Laci.

She nods and runs off. I notice a picture to my right. It is of Marisol and Laci. I notice there is a hand on Marisol’s shoulder. Quietly, I take the picture out of the frame and unfold it. Just as I thought, it is Jake’s hand. I take a closer look at Marisol and see her eyes. They don’t look happy.

“Hi Katie.”

I drop the picture and turn to Marisol. I hear a crack and I look down. The glass has a small crack in it. “Oops.”

Marisol walks passed me and picks it up. She sighs and then looks at me. “Don’t worry about it. Is everything okay?”

“No.”

She sits the picture frame down and leads me to the couch. I sit down beside her and start to cry. I hear little footsteps coming towards us. Looking up I see Laci. Marisol quickly tells her to go to her room. After Laci leaves, Marisol looks at me.

“Jake?”

“Yes. I lied to you Marisol. That day you asked me if he ever hurt me. I said no, but I was lying.”

Marisol pulls me into a hug. “I thought you did. But you seemed so happy I didn’t want to believe you were lying. I should’ve said something. Katie you need to tell someone.”

I pull away from her and stare at her. “I can’t.”

“Yes you can. I made the mistake of not telling and he wasn’t punished. Please don’t make the same mistake I did. He needs to know what he is doing isn’t right,” She explains.

“But I love him.”

“I know you do, but he doesn’t love you. I’m not trying to be harsh Katie, but think about it. If he truly loves you, would he be treating you this way?”

I shake my head. She’s right. He doesn’t, well at least he doesn’t know how to love me right. He needs to be punished but I don’t want to hurt him. He’s obviously troubled and this might just make it worse. I know what I have to do, because he didn’t change.

And he won’t change.

“Will you come with me?” I ask Marisol.

She smiles. “Of course I will.”

Beep Beep.

I look down at my phone and see a text from my mom.

Mom – Eli is awake. He wants to see you.

“My brother just woke up from his coma. Can I meet you tomorrow morning?” I ask.

“Yeah, go see your brother. We can go tomorrow morning.”

Marisol walks me out and I hug her. “Thank you.”

I quickly rush to my car and head to the hospital. Eli wants to see me? I hope that means he is going to tell me why he has been doing this! I really need to know and if he tells me, I can be calm. Well at least for the night.

I rush into the hospital and head straight to Eli’s room. My parents are in there and so is Maya. I become a little nervous because of my dream but head inside anyway. Eli is sitting up now and he is smiling. I am so happy to see his smile.

“Hi Eli,” I say.

He turns towards me and smiles a little. Nothing like he was smiling before. He must be upset with me still. I look down as he asks everyone to leave. Once they are all gone, I sit in a chair next to his bed.

“How are you?” I ask.

“I’m doing okay,” He says. “I think I owe you an explanation.”

“No Eli, you don’t. I know you had your reasons. You don’t have to explain it to me.”

“I do though. Jake’s the problem,” He states.

I feel my heart sink more. I had a feeling it was Jake. I guess I was just hoping that maybe it was something else.

“I know he hurt you. That day you stayed home from school because you were ‘sick’ was when I knew something was wrong. You were asleep that first time I went in. I saw your face and the bruise. You can’t fool me, I knew it was Jake’s fault. I was training and doing steroids because I was planning on confronting him and fighting him,” He explains.

“I thought that was the reason. You’re right Eli. Jake hurt well hurts me. And I’m sorry I put you through that.”

“I didn’t want to believe it Katie. I really didn’t. But now that I know it’s true, you need to tell someone.”

“I am. Tomorrow morning I am going too. Marisol is going to go with me because Jake was her boyfriend once. And he did this to her too.”

“Well then you should probably get home. You’ll need to rest before you go.”

“Okay. I love you. This will all get better soon. I promise.”

“I love you too.”

I leave Eli’s room and head to the elevator. Just as I push the button my phone rings. I look down and see it was Jake. I decide to answer it.

“Hello?”

“I’m sorry Katie.”

“What?”

“I just wish it could be different.”

“What do you—“ the line goes dead.

“Hello? Jake?”

I hurry out of the elevator and run to my car. I unlock it and open my door but before I get in I notice something shiny. I look down and see a knife in my tire. I pull it out and look around. There is no one in the parking lot.

Suddenly there is a quick movement. I feel my head start to throb as I fall down. The world seems to be spinning. I try to move but everything becomes dark.