WAKE (Wattpad edition)

54. Broken heart.

Soundtrack: 'Better' - Ben Platt

{Jon}

On Sunday morning, Jon slept late, with no wake-up call to get ready for church. When he staggered into the kitchen for breakfast, his parents were sitting at the table with their coffees steaming, the newspaper spread between them. He checked the clock on the stove automatically-10:40 a.m. The service had already started, and the White family was not in their pew.

His mother smiled at him. "Good morning, Jon."

"Morning," he said groggily. Pete's smile did nothing to lift the heaviness in his face, and Jon had to look away. He held the fridge open a full minute before deciding he wasn't hungry or ready for an audience.

He scooped his phone off the floor in the hall and took it to his bedroom. One by one, he installed his old social media apps, only to delete his profiles and uninstall them again, like he told Pete he would. There was little there he would miss and a kind of satisfaction in wiping out the past two years to start again.

One post caught his eye before he could thumb the trash symbol: a video with a title all in caps and the name of his father's church in it. Everyone he knew from youth group was listed in the tags. He tapped the play button. The screen was crowded with teens and it took a second to find Todd stalking across the asphalt with a bat raised in his hands. There was an audible thud and a flurry of "holy shit!" around the camera.

Jon's stomach flipped. The camera jiggled to follow the action: Cary was a blur crossing the basketball court, arms wrapped around Todd until he drove him into the side of the car while the crowd noise rose around the person filming. Sick, Jon watched Cary's tiny figure on the screen step away and lift his hands, his button-up shirt untucked and crooked.

"You psycho-what the hell did you do?"

Jon's heart stopped. Whatever Cary said back to Kurt, his hands stayed up, open in the air. Jon flinched for him as Kurt's fists snapped his head to the side and thudded into his body. Cary scrambled back, turning his shoulder and pulling his arms close to protect his head. He disappeared, bodies cramming the phone screen, the camera jostling and shaking.

Jon tapped the screen to stop the playback, chucking the phone aside. His breath was shaking, and when he shut his eyes, he could still see the guys piling into Cary, pulling him down. The audio made him think of the shit he'd heard from Todd and the other guys when they had hurt him-except it was Kurt's voice.

Jon scrunched up his face, his nose and eyes prickling.

The oldest Klassen brother was probably on the church stage right now, bent over his guitar, his hair falling into his eyes while his long fingers drew music out of the strings. And inside Jon's phone were whatever messages he had sent to Jon while he was gone, whatever explanations or apologies he'd had to offer for the last weekend, if any. Maybe there was nothing. Maybe Jon had imagined Kurt gave a shit about their friendship. That was easier to believe than Cary's suggestion that Kurt might have more-than-friend feelings as well.

Easier for Jon to ghost out of his life and start new. Clean, or as close to the appearance of clean as he could manage.

The phone buzzed, startling him.

<Hey its Kadee want to do coffee?>

<Cary gave me this number>

Dizzyingly grateful to have someone acknowledge his existence other than his parents, Jon sat up and texted back: <sure! pls pick me up!>

After a quick shower and change into clothes that actually fit, Jon felt more like himself than he had in days. The day was bright and crisp, and Kadee clambered out of her car to throw her arms around him, squealing like he was better than Christmas.