The Subs Club by J.A. Rock

Author:J.A. Rock [Rock, J.A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Published: 2015-09-03T16:00:00+00:00

I got as far as my name and address on an application to the Paul Mitchell School. And then I stopped, the same old fears rolling through me. What if I got into a school that was far away? What if I had hours’ worth of commuting, or worse—had to move?

I wanted to stay here. In the town where I was comfortable, in the job where I was comfortable—if not exactly happy. With the friends I couldn’t live without. Why couldn’t I do that?

Because you can’t work in a mall forever. Because your life isn’t going to stay the same.

I sighed and put my head on the desk.

I imagined doing that thing from movies and TV where I’d turn and Hal would be sitting next to me. He’d be a snarky ghost, commenting on my application fails; picking up random objects in my room and being like, Wow, you haven’t changed at all, have you? And I’d be all, What’s it like being dead? And he’d say something bittersweet and ghostly like, Well, Dave, you ain’t lived until you’ve died.

But when I turned he wasn’t there. I tried talking to a photo of him on my desk, but it just felt awkward. So I settled for remembering how the five of us used to go to Mel’s every Friday afternoon for milkshakes. How the milkshakes always cost three twenty-nine, unless you got mint chocolate chip or peppermint twist. Those cost three eighty-seven.

Hal was the first close friend I’d ever lost, and grief was relatively new to me. Miles, who had taken like five classes on death and grief and whatever in college, had helped me a lot with what he called “processing.” But I still had trouble understanding my own brain. Some days Hal’s death was the first thing I thought about. But some days I hardly thought about it at all, and then I ended up with guilt worse than grief. Life really did go on. Someone died and, in the same fucking instant, was replaced by a hundred new babies. The world had never felt Hal’s loss like I did.

Sometimes I wanted to tell my friends what it was like to love them. See if they experienced it the same way—like it was something rare and ridiculous and amazing and terrifying. I was always wondering if they were happy, or if they felt lonely. If there were things each of them couldn’t share, even with the rest of the group.

After Hal died, we’d seemed so scattered. Aside from the funeral, we hadn’t spent time together for weeks afterward. Miles had turned to his family, and Gould wanted to be alone, but I’d needed company. So I’d started inviting everyone over. I’d lived in the duplex with a girl named Cara at the time, but she was gone a lot, so I’d make excuses to have the guys over. “Oh, hey, Super Bowl’s this weekend.” As though anyone but Kamen cared about sports. An Oscars party, a St. Patrick’s Day dinner; it didn’t matter.

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