I'll Always Remember
New Tech City was chilly. Sky Tate was shivering through his blue windbreaker. He and Z Delgado looked up at the water tower where Jack Landors stood, ready to jump into the river below. Sky and Jack, though they ran with the same crowd, did not get along well, but Sky still wanted to tell Jack how dumb his idea was.
"Jack?" called Z, and there was a hint of nervousness in her tone. Z and Jack had been best friends their whole lives, but even Z couldn't convince Jack not to go along with his plan.
"I'm good to go, Z," Jack yelled back. He let out a whoop. "Are you guys sure you don't wanna come along? It's gonna be a wild ride!"
"Jack, seriously, you don't need to do this! It's a dumb idea! You'll end up killing yourself and for what? A bit of recklessness!" Z sounded terrified for the boy who was like her brother.
"Delgado may be right, Landors," Sky added, thinking back to how Jack's idea had coma about. A bunch of the tough crowd had been sitting around on the hoods of cars, swilling beers and talking about how lame the people and things in their lives were. Jack brought up the idea of maybe ending things once and for all. He had then scrambled up the water tower.
Now Jack had shed his red jacket and black T-shirt and was working on kicking off his tattered jeans. "I'll be fine, Z!" he slurred, "I'll land in the river!"
Z just shook her head. "I hope he's careful," she whispered to nobody in particular. Sky rolled his eyes. Whatever happened to Jack Landors was probably well deserved.
"Three…two…one!" screamed Jack as he jumped off of the tower. Z shrieked in Sky's ear and then hid her pretty face in her hands.
"What a moron," Sky muttered as Jack came crashing into the river. There was a gigantic splash. Z promptly socked Sky for his comment and then raced to the stream's edge.
"Jack?" she asked shakily. No one resurfaced. "Jack!"
And then came the sound of police sirens. "They're miles away," Sky said calmly. Jack's body came up to the surface of the water. Z looked terrified.
Sky studied Jack. The other boy looked awful. Z pulled him to shore, checking for a pulse. "He's alive," she said a moment later. She dived into her bag for her cell phone, calling 911.
The sirens came closer and Sky looked around at the empty beer cans littering the parking lot. "Let me know how that turns out," he said, getting off of his blue car and sliding inside. He was not about to get caught underage drinking.
He sped away towards home, so focused on getting away with his bad deeds that he didn't realize he had broken the speed limit. The sirens sounded behind him. "Damn it," Sky muttered to himself, knowing he had been caught.
An officer tapped on his window. Sky rolled it down. "Problem, sir?" Sky asked politely. The cop narrowed his eyes at him.
"You're speeding. License and registration?" As Sky dug through the contents of his car and handed the documents to the officer, his breath wafted towards the other man. "You been drinking, son?"
Sky was taken home in the back of the cop car. He was silently cursing his stupidity as he waited for his mother to answer the door. The porch lights were glaring at him. Sky winced under the harsh yellow glow.
Jen Collins answered the door in a pink bathrobe, her eyes bleary and puffy with sleep. "Sky!" she said in surprise. "What's going on?"
"He's been caught underage drinking, ma'am," said the police officer gravely. Jen's eyes narrowed at her son. Sky felt very small.
"Thank you for bringing him home," Jen said through clenched teeth. "Rest assured he won't be getting off scot-free. Are there charges against him officer?" She turned her attention to her son. "Get inside and get up to bed immediately."
Sky did as his mother had told him to. Jen's brown eyes followed him upstairs and out of sight and then looked back at the cop. "I'm so sorry. Ever since his father died he's been so angry with everyone."
"His record comes up clean. He'll get some community service, I'm sure, but nothing more serious than that."
"Thank you again," Jen said quietly.
"Good night, ma'am," said the cop, touching his hat in salute to her.
Jen shut the front door and marched upstairs to Sky's room. He was lying on the bed in a white shirt and blue pajama bottoms, staring at a picture of he and his father paying catch with a baseball.
"Your father would be ashamed of you, Schuler Wesley Tate Collins."