Peace Rock

I frantically hang up the phone, grab my leather coat, and dash down the stairs. "I'll be back!" I scream to my parents, and just like that I'm out the door. What could they have possibly gotten themselves into this time? Why am I always the one saving their asses? I sprint down the street, hop fences, run through traffic, and enter Pennypack Woods until I finally see the unsturdy, rotting treehouse my dad has built for us so many years ago. I hear voices, but can barely make out what they are saying. Jason and Lauren are whispering; this isn't a good sign.

Jason, Lauren, and I have been friends for as long as I can remember. Both of them are loud and obnoxious, and always come up with these stupid ideas that always end up badly. Well Lauren moreso thinks up these plans, while Jason puts them into action. Two years ago Jason ended up in the hospital due to a concusion and broken ribs, whereas last year all three of us ended up in prison for night; after being generously bailed out by my parents. Wherever those two are, trouble is bound to follow in their footsteps.

I climb my way up the rope ladder and swing my body up through the hole. Both of them look at me and become silent. I stare at them; both of them are dirty, covered in mud. Lauren is sitting closer to me with tear stains down her cheek, while Jason is huddled up in a corner.

"What in the world happened to you two?"

"Kris... we fucked up... big time..." Lauren stared blankly off into space.

"Things just got out of hand, we took it to far this time. We don't know what to do."

They were starting to scare me. This clearly was more serious than I had originally expected. I didn't want to deal with this now, not tomorrow, not ever. This is why I went away for school, to stop being apart of this troublesome trio, and already I'm being dragged into this mess on my first day back.

"It's only 8:12 p.m. What could you have possibly gotten yourselves into?"

Jason stared at the rotted wood floor and kept his head down. Lauren stared at me, tears in her eyes, and choked, "Little Ji-Jimmy, he's gone. He's gone Kris."

"What do you mean he's gone..?"

As Lauren stumbled through her story of how she convinced Jason that it was a good idea to jump off Peace Rock (a twenty five foot rock covered in paint jetting out over the river) and into the icy waters of the river below. Jason was about to jump, which was sure to put him back in the hospital, when Little Jimmy, no less than 13 years old walked by and asked to jump with him too. In the end, Little Jimmy jumped, got sucked under by the current, and never resurfaced.

"So he drowned..." I said, my mind foggy at what was happening.

"I don't know. We ran in the water looking for him, but we couldn't find his body. He might have swam off somewhere, but that's being hopeful. What do we do?"

We. Yes, of course we; we were all in this together. We have always, with a little luck, gotten out of situations like these before; but this time, this time we were way over our heads. We were fucked.