savior

one

Halloween was one day that I've never really enjoyed. I wasn't scared—no way. I wasn't scared of anything. But I was fed up with all the local boys trying to play pranks on everyone. About three years ago, when I was just a small, petite freshman girl, I was carelessly walking down the street with my little sister when I felt the gooey mess of a splattered egg rolling down my forehead.

Then we'll take it back to sophmore year, when it was raining and they drove right into a puddle, making it splash on me and soak my costume. I have never had to pay so much for dry cleaning. And then there was last year—I was a junior—when I got attacked by the bunch with bottles of ketchup. "It's only fake blood," they said, and if I had the chance, they would've left home with real blood.

There was always someone playing a prank on someone else on Halloween. They were stupid pranks—not scary, but really annoying.

But something happened this year that put every previous Halloween prank to shame. The day after—November first—was a day that I'll never forget. The morning announcements were ringing on the intercom as every student sat in their first period classes, fingers were drumming on the desks, and the moment of silence that came after the Pledge of Aligiance ended up being two times longer than normal.

The eerie quiet was broken when a voice returned through the speakers, saying, "We'd like to recognize the loss of one of our many students. This Halloween, this student decided to take his own life. Ashton Irwin was a friend to . . . few. If you'd like to attend the funeral service, it will be held on Friday night. Uh, have a good day, students."

I never really knew Ashton. Well, I knew who he was, but I didn't take the time to get to know him. Who were his friends? Did he have any or was the announcement trying to make it sound like he actually had someone? Maybe he didn't and that's why he's gone.

My teacher shuffled around at his desk, trying to distract us from what we just heard. Some people didn't seem too effected by it, others looked really gloomy. In the back of the room was a boy with blonde hair, sniffling and wiping tears into his jacket sleeves. The bags under his eyes showed that he had been crying far longer than those few minutes.

I quietly tip-toed to the back of the room and sat in the empty seat next to him. His shoulders tensed as he removed his sweater paws from his red face. He gave me an irritated look—like he didn't want me to interupt his little moment of remorse for Ashton. "Why are you sitting there?" he asked me, quietly enough to not disrupt the class.

"I was just coming to comfort—"

"That's Ashton's seat," he murmured harshly, sounding a bit angry at me. I scooted over a little, enough for me to still sit down, but not fully in the chair. This kid was definetly one of Ashton's friends.

"I'm sorry," I whispered back. His glare was still on me, and it seemed as if he was waiting for me to ship myself to the moon. I removed myself from the chair completely, puling a different one over and setting it at the edge of his desk. "So, uh, are you okay? Do you need like . . . a hug or something?"

His eyes squinted a bit. He let out a huff. I was beginning to think he was going to be the one to ship me to the moon. "I don't need a hug," he said through his gritted teeth. I wasn't sure why he was mad at me—I was only trying to make him less upset—but I could feel the anger raidiating off of him. He was beginning to scare me, but I couldn't leave. "Can you go away?"

"How close were you to Ashton?" I asked, full of concern.

The boy's face got even more red in anger. "I asked: can you go away?" He faced the board and studied what the teacher was writing. His attention was no longer on me, so I pressed on more.