Unrequited

                                                  Unrequited
                   It was a perfect day for a funeral. That’s something Jodi would have said, and I almost laughed when I realized it; but then I remembered where I was. I stood alone in the spitting rain clutching a single red rose. A mass of black umbrellas gathered around a white coffin, but I didn’t need to see what was in there- I already knew. In fact, it was my fault. Sometimes in life, things happen that you wish you could just forget, or do all over again. Some people get that chance, and others, well, let’s just say I’m one of the others.
         Before any of this happened, nobody even knew who Jodi Thompson was; and afterwards I couldn’t even walk through the school without hearing her name at least once. Some people would have called her a mouse, and some people would have been wrong. Even now I can not describe who she really was, but I do know that from the moment I met her, she surprised me.
         I got the first letter around February, and it was signed J.T. Nobody knew who J.T. was, and nobody volunteered. I hoped that it was one of the other guys on the basketball team having some fun, but I knew better. It was a girl that I’d never met before, and yet she said that we’d known each other all our lives. Eventually she said that I wasn’t as bad as my friends were, and that I was different. I knew what really mattered in life and that was why she liked and admired me. That was where she crossed the line. Everyday at mid-day break I’d read the latest letter out loud, and when I got to that part, well, it didn’t go over to well with the rest of my friends. By now they’d realized that none of knew her, but our school was big enough that we could have been in the same class with her our entire lives.
         “Who does she think she is?” Jason said. “It has to a freshman. No one else would say something like that to someone like you, Evan.”
         Jenna held on to his waist, like a shadow, and smiled. “I think we should teach her a lesson. Some little geek is getting too big for her own good.”
         Jason laughed. “But first we’ll have to find out who she is, and I think I know how.”
         The next day Jason waved a stack of papers in my face. “Ready to find out who our mystery girl is?”
         “How?” I asked.
         “The old fashioned way, ask and you shall receive.” Jason said.
         I found out later that some of the guys had been “practicing” late last night, and Coach had left his office door unlocked. His computer had files on all the kids in the school, and it was as easy as clicking ‘print’ and we had her.
         “Let’s see… there are fourty two girls with the last name ‘T’. Six of them have a first name that starts with a ‘J’, and one of those girls is Jenna.” He gave a smile to his shadow. “So that leaves five suspects. He skimmed the list. “I know all these girls except one.”
         Everyone looked at him expectedly.
         “Jodi Thompson.” He said.
         We found her by using the school website because nobody knew who Jodi was yet, and got her locker number. It didn’t matter, though, because she came up to me the very next day.
         “Evan.” said a voice.
         I turned around and instantly knew who she was. Her gaze was so level and calm, as if there were no barrier between us; as if she were equal, and she knew it.
         “My name is Jodi, and I’m the one whose been leaving the letters in your locker. I hope you liked them. I thought that you might think it was fun, like a secret admirer.”
         I couldn’t believe it. She was serious, and there wasn’t a hint of fear in her eyes.
         “I meant what I said about you being different, Evan. I was wondering if you wanted to go to the Valentine’s Dance with me. It’s this Saturday.”
         Before I could say anything to that, Jason and the rest of my friends came up behind me.
         “So this is the little nerd who thinks we’re so bad?” Jason said
          Jenna stepped towards Jodi. “Looks like someone doesn’t know where her place is, do you, you little-“
         “Jenna, don’t” I said. She gave me a look of disgust.
         Yeah, don’t bother, Jenna. We’ll get her later.” Jason said.
         The plan, as best as I could understand, was to play a little game of chicken with her later that night. Everyone figured that if we showed her how bad we really could be, scare her a little, she’d get the message and remember her place. We waited for what seemed like forever on the other side of the bridge by her house.
         “How do you know she’ll even be here?” I asked.
         Jason pointed. “She lives down there. I followed her home after we found out who she was.” Jason said. “Hey, here she comes.”
         I looked, and sure enough a pair of headlights came creeping up the road. Jenna smiled, and some of the other guys in the truck punched him in the arm. I thought that this would show her, and that would be enough to show her she was wrong.  When her car got in the middle of the bridge Jason gunned the truck. The bridge wasn’t wide enough for two cars, and when she saw how fast we were going, she stopped. That threw us a curve. We’d all just assumed that she would go in reverse, not stop. It didn’t work that way. We hit her almost head on, and she went through the side of the bridge, hanging half on and half off.
         “Oh, my God!” screamed Jenna.
         I got out of the truck and ran to her car, but she wasn’t awake. I banged on the door, but it was closed by the bridge on both sides. Little by little the car crept forward toward the water below.
         “Help me get her out!” I yelled. No one came over. “What are you guys doing? She’s going to die if we don’t do something! Help me!”
         “Dude,” Jason said. “If she tells that we were the ones that ran her off the road, we’re doing jail time.”
         I could not believe what I was hearing. The only thing that kept popping up in my mind was Jodi telling me that I wasn’t as bad as my friends. That I was different somehow. I suddenly knew what she meant, and that I had to save her. I fought to get the door open, but each time I hit the door, the car slide further over the edge. It seemed as though there was nothing I could do. I could hear sirens in the distance, and everyone was getting back into the truck and telling me to leave her.
         “Come on, the cops will take care of it.” Jason said. “Don’t go down on account of this little weirdo.”
         I scowled at the people who I once believed to be my friends; they only cared about themselves. Jodi had appreciated me for who I was, and how did I return the favor?
         “She’s going to die!” I yelled.
         “One less geek to worry about!” someone yelled from the back, and they were gone.
         I turned back to see Jodi opening her eyes, those unmoving blue eyes, and stare at me. “I’m sorry.” I mouthed.
         She smiled, and mouthed back. “I know.” She never blinked, or took her eyes off me. It was then that I knew that I loved her. All I could do was watch the car slowly slide off the bridge as I held onto the bumper in a futile attempt to stop the inevitable from happening. I never got a chance to tell her what I felt, or that I finally understood, but I think that she knew. Somehow, she knew.
         You may judge me, thinking, “I would have jumped in the river to save her.”
         Believe me, if it wasn’t a sheer rock drop, and there was some way that if I were able to get her out of the car,  and get her to land up those straight up cliffs, I would have; in a heartbeat. But there wasn’t. All I could do was watch, and listen to the sound of sirens that were too late. I knew that I could have left and no one probably would have ever known that I was involved, but I didn’t. I stayed and watched the lights come closer, as a beacon of dead hope. I was going to take responsibility for once in my life. I had a debt that I could never repay to a girl named Jodi Thompson, who showed me the kind of person I could be, and I wasn’t ever going to take that for granted again.