Jason
Jason slammed the door to his bedroom, flopped down on his bed and shouted, “This day sucks!”
From the living room he could hear the muffled voice of his grandmother shriek, “Will you be quiet, I’m trying to watch my show!”
Normally Jason would just yell back at here, but not today. It just wasn’t worth it. Better to just wallow in his own misery, at least for awhile.
Going to school was never good, at least not for Jason. He wasn’t very social, preferring to spend the majority of his time with online gaming. And it didn’t help that he was new to the area and new to the school either. Being a Freshman in high school was never easy, but it made it so much worse when it seemed that everyone else knew each other since grade school and easily fit in some group or another. The jocks, the nerds, the stoners and the popular kids.
Sure, there was a group of kids that seemed to be pretty hard core gamers. He could try hanging with them. But they seemed pretty standoffish, not very friendly at all. Especially this one kid named Josh who stalked around the school with a constant scowl on his face, hardly ever talking. No, he just couldn’t bring himself to reach out. The fear of rejection was just too great.
And then he met Keilly. Like him she was new to the school, and she didn’t seem to have many friends either. They didn’t have a whole lot in common. Keilly’s family were ranchers and she loved horses, camping, hunting, fishing and anything to do with the outdoors. Jason had lived most of his life in the city and didn’t know much about ranching. Oh, sure, there was that summer when he helped his aunt in Idaho with her goats, but that was an experience he’d prefer not to think about, much less repeat.
Still, despite their differences, she was someone he could talk to and that helped to make the boredom of the classes a little easier to bear. At least until today, when he found out that she was moving.
He got out of bed, sat down at his computer and loaded one of his favorite games, trying not to think about how much his life sucked at the moment.
“Hey, how’s it going?” Keilly asked when she saw him the next day. Jason couldn’t help but notice that she seemed to be in a good mood.
He tried to sound happy, or at least pleasant, when he replied, “Not bad.”
She looked at him thoughtfully for a moment then said, “Hey, it’s going to be okay.”
Either Keilly was a mind reader or he sucked at pretending to be happy.
“Easy for you to say,” Jason retorted.
She stopped and stared at him. “You think I like this? You think I want to move?” she said in anger.
Jason just hung his head, not saying anything.
“Sheesh, Jason, I like you, but for once I wish you wouldn’t just think of yourself!”
Jason didn’t like the way the conversation was going. He didn’t want to argue. He still didn’t say anything, but neither did he think that he only thought of himself. To him it wasn’t being selfish, it was gospel truth. He had it worse than almost everyone else he knew.
Keilly could tell that her words were having no impact on him at all, so she tried a different approach. “You need to come with me after school today,” she told him.
“Why?” Jason was immediately on guard.
“Never mind, you’ll find out, just do it,” Keilly replied firmly.
Jason was naturally curious about what Keilly was up to, but he was even more curious when shortly after school that day she led him through the doors of the local hospital.
“You don’t know why my family moved here in the middle of the school year, do you?” she asked.
“No,” Jason answered. He had never thought to ask.
Keilly took him up to the third floor where she led him to a hospital room. Inside a young boy lay sleeping on a hospital bed.
“This is my little brother Kenneth. He has cancer,” Keilly told him simply, “We had to move to a city that had a hospital where he could get chemo.”
Jason couldn’t bring himself to ask what the child’s odds were of beating the cancer. He looked so pale, small and frail.
They stayed only a short while before leaving the hospital.
It took awhile before Jason asked the obvious question. “If your little brother is here for chemo, then why are you moving again?”
Keilly had hoped he’d ask the question. That he would begin to see the world from more than just his point of view.
“They cut my dads hours at the ranch he’s working at,” she answered with a shrug, “He can’t find a job around here where he could make enough to support us. So, he’s going to work on a fishing boat in Alaska. While he’s gone, we’re going to have to move in with my grandma in Portland and Kenneth can go to an even bigger hospital there for his chemo.”
“Well that sucks.” It was all Jason could think to say.
“It only sucks if you let yourself believe that it sucks,” Keilly replied with a smile, “You get out and talk to people you might learn that things aren’t as bad as you think they are.”
That night Jason thought about what Keilly and her family were going through, and what she had told him.
The next day Jason saw Josh in the hallway at school and on an impulse walked up to him.
“Hey, how’s it going?” Jason asked.
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