Chapter 139
Elliott rested his head on the steering wheel. If only he hadn’t decided to take Nancy home. If only he hadn’t left Reggie and went off with Nancy in the first place, this never would’ve happened. The second Nancy mentioned Marv had had too much to drink, he should’ve insisted Reggie get into his car. The thought that it could’ve just as easily been Nancy’s body on the side of the road, instead of her being safe and sound, warm in her bed, also did not escape him.
With tears in his eyes, Elliott headed down the road, knowing another way to get home from here without having to go back through the crime scene. Guilt ate at him the entire drive, and as he pulled into his usual parking spot, he took more deep breaths to try to calm down, knowing he’d have to rehash the whole situation—well parts of it—to Peggy, assuming she was up waiting for him. She always stayed up waiting for him when he was out, but he had never missed his curfew before. His watch told him he was almost an hour and a half late.
He realized he still had Reggie’s football equipment in the trunk of his car and decided his could stay there overnight, too. Maybe in the morning looking at the jersey Reggie would never wear again wouldn’t be so painful, but somehow he doubted it.
The door creaked when he pushed it open. The reading lamp was on in the living room, and Elliott knew Peggy would be sitting there with a book, sipping tea, waiting for him. He ran his hands down his face and made his way in. She was exactly where he expected her to be.
“You’re late.” Her tone wasn’t accusatory as she studied his face, only concerned. “What happened?”
Elliott dropped into Frank’s recliner, trying to hold back his tears as Peggy set her book aside and leaned forward, unhooking her legs from the couch as she did so. “Elliott? Is something wrong?”
He cleared his throat and tried to keep things as factual as possible. “I, uh, gave Reggie a ride out to Lawson’s Point. We were going to see some friends.”
“Lawson’s Point?” Peggy’s tone made it obvious he had misunderstood that this location was an acceptable one to her. “What happened?” she asked again.
“Well, I got to chatting with Nancy Farr while we were out there, and she asked me to give her a ride home. Reggie said he’d catch a lift with Marv Smoot.” Even saying the bastard’s name now was hard. “I dropped Nancy off around 11:00 and was headed home, but that’s when I saw a police car and an ambulance headed out of town.”
“Oh, no, Elliott. Did something happen at the point?”
His eyebrows knit together. He certainly wasn’t expecting that question. What could possibly happen at the point that would require police and an ambulance? An accidental drowning, maybe, or a fight? “Uh, no. It was a… car wreck.” He was immediately brought back to the scene, the image of Reggie lying in that field making his stomach churn again. “Mom, Reggie got ejected from Marv Smoot’s truck. He’s… dead.”
“Oh, my God, Elliott, honey, I’m so sorry!” Peggy exclaimed, sliding off of the couch and wrapping her arms around her foster son, who instantly started to sob into her shoulder, not unlike Linda at the scene. “You poor thing.”
“I found him, Mom. I was the one who found him.” He had trouble getting the whole sentence out, and she squeezed him more tightly as he blubbered on. “If I hadn’t taken Nancy home…. If… I could’ve told him not to ride with that drunk bastard.”
“Elliott, you can’t blame yourself,” Peggy insisted, stroking his hair lovingly. “Reggie was capable of making his own decisions.”
“I know, Mom, but if I wouldn’t have driven him out there in the first place….”
“Well, that’s another matter altogether, Son,” she said, sitting back on her heels but not taking her hands off of him. “I had no idea you were going out there. I don’t want you out there anymore, you hear me?”
“We just sit around and talk, Mom, it’s nothing.”
“There are things about that place you don’t know.” Something about the intensity of her gaze made him shudder slightly, so he nodded in understanding. There was little chance he’d ever go out there again anyway. Not after this. “Besides, it sounds like some of you were doing more than talking if Marv Smoot was drunk.”
“I think Marv might’ve been drunk when he got there,” Elliott admitted. “But, yeah, some of the kids do drink.”
She turned her head slightly to look at him out of the corner of her eye but didn’t ask the question he knew was on the tip of her tongue. Was he one of them? Not tonight. And when he did have a beer, he never had enough to impair his driving. At least, he didn’t think so. Yet, one more thing to contemplate.
“Honey, I am so very sorry about your friend. I have lost good friends as well, and I know how much it hurts. It hurts like hell, and there’s nothing you can do about it except for ride it out. In time, it will sting a little less, but for the rest of your life, you’ll think of Reggie and a wave of sadness will wash over you. You’ll wonder what he might be doing right now, what he might’ve become. You’ll want to pretend he’s just off in another state with his wife and kids, living the life he’d dreamt of. I know, Son. There’s nothing easy about it. And I’m so very sorry. But—you’ll be okay. I know you will be.”
Her words had his tears overflowing once again. She was brutally honest, that was for sure. He could imagine himself in the future, years down the line, still missing his friend with the infectious smile and eyes as bright as the stars at night. “How do you know?” he asked timidly.
“How do I know what?” Peggy asked, placing her hand under his chin and gently lifting it.
“How do you know I’m… strong enough?” At the moment, he didn’t feel like a six-foot-two young man, weighing in at over two hundred pounds. He felt like a little boy stumbling around in the dark, trying to find a security blanket or some string of comfort to hold onto.
Peggy slipped her hands around to both sides of his face. “I know because you’re my son, that’s how I know. Maybe I didn’t give birth to you, and maybe I didn’t carry you around when you were a toddler, but you’re my child, just the same. You are brave and strong. You are a true friend with a winning spirit, and nothing is going to hold you back Elliott Michael. Nothing. I promise.”
Once again, he found himself sobbing, though this was less related to Reggie and more because never in his sixteen years had anyone ever said something like that to him. He rested his head on his mom’s shoulder, and she rubbed his back until he stopped crying. A few minutes later, she somehow managed to help him up the stairs to bed, and Elliott mentally noted that his mom was a lot stronger than he’d ever given her credit for, both physically and emotionally.
Reggie Pope was buried on a bright October morning just a few days after Norman defeated Newcastle in the last football game they would win that season. Elliott cried at his best friend’s funeral, and so did the rest of the team, even Cliff Humphrey. Later that afternoon, he drove across town to Coach Tom Little’s house and turned in his equipment, and Reggie’s. He could never play football again, not under the circumstances.
And when Nancy Farr called that evening, he told Peggy to tell her he was busy. She got the same message for the next two weeks, as well as complete avoidance in the hallway at school. Elliott couldn’t look at Nancy and not think about what had happened to Reggie, so he decided not to look at her at all.
Elliott had once believed it was simple to convince yourself that death was part of life, that these things happened, and it was always best to just accept them and move on, but he knew if he lived to be a very old man, he’d never forget Reginald Pope, and he’d be hard pressed to find another friend like him. One thing was for sure. If he ever found another guy like Reggie, someone so funny and smart, so athletic and inherently cool about everything, he’d be willing to do whatever he needed to do to keep that friend, even lay down his life in his place.
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