This is what was going to be the first chapter of the other story I was planning on writing with Ari. Ari's the one speaking here. Yeah.

TL ⎜The Loss

           “Dad!” I called from the living room, too lazy to get up and walk over to him in the kitchen. It was, like, a good ten feet, and I wasn’t in the mood to exercise. I had already walked downstairs, so as far as I was concerned, I had fulfilled my required physical activity for the day.

           “What?” he yelled back. If Mom (well, Mel, but same thing) had been home, she would’ve scolded us both for the way that we were communicating, because she absolutely hated when we didn’t use our “indoor voices.”

           “What’s for dinner?” I asked in the same loud volume.

           “Food,” he answered, which really meant one of two things: frozen pizza or delivery pizza from the pizza place a few minutes away. Since I didn’t smell anything burning in the oven, I figured that the doorbell would soon be ringing, and we would be sharing the greasy food together as we watched a football game on TV.

           It was Sunday night, and because high school football only took place during the weekdays (practices not included), my dad was home, ready to watch more football. It didn’t really make sense to me, because he already spent five and a half (Saturday practices didn’t really count) days a week coaching the sport, but for some reason, he felt the need to constantly be immersed in it. Football was, like, his religion. Actually, scratch that. Football was his religion (no “like” needed).

           I stared at the screen of pixels in front of me, commercials for products that I would never use blaring on. Advertisements were so stupid. They were a waste of time, and nobody actually cared about them. Sure, some of them were funny or cute or informative (like the ones about diseases and stuff), but for the most part, they were just boring. I didn’t turn on the TV to watch people try to sell me something—I turned it on to watch what I wanted to watch. Currently, I wanted to watch football.

           The doorbell rang, and I hopped up off of the sofa to go answer it, but my dad beat me to it, which was probably for the best. He always got annoyed when I answered the door, scared that the person on the other side would be a kidnapper or an axe murderer. Thankfully for me, it never was.

           I rushed over to the front entrance of the house, watching as Dad opened the tall red door, a single green bill in his hand. He stepped aside after saying something to the person on the other side, and allowed them in. Standing in my house was the Jeremy Jones. He was holding a box of pizza, but still. He looked so cute.

           Jeremy Jones played on my dad’s team and he was junior or something. I wasn’t in high school, but I was pretty sure that a guy like Jeremy Jones was probably among the most popular kids in school. He was so cute. With a football player’s body, a buzz cut that somehow managed to not look dumb, and a smile that made my heart sprint, he was definitely the cutest guy I had ever seen. He was nice, too.

           Jeremy worked for the pizza place, and one of his shifts was on Sunday nights. Sometimes when we ordered pizza while watching football, Jeremy would bring it, and other times it would be this weird guy with a goatee in his mid thirties who shouldn’t have been working at a pizza place. I liked it better when Jeremy brought our pizza because, well, he was Jeremy Jones.

           “Hey, Ari! Wassup?” Jeremy asked as he nodded his head in my direction, noticing me. Oh, and to add to the list of things amazing about Jeremy Jones, he actually knew my name. How cool was that?

           “Nothin’ much,” I mustered up the best smile I could find.

           “Nice,” he grinned, showing off his straight teeth. I still had braces, and at my last orthodontist appointment, they told me that I still had another two years to go. TWO. YEARS. I had gotten them on last year, and my teeth looked fine to me. Orthodontists were so weird. “Is your brother around?”

           “No,” I squeaked, shaking my head, “he’s with my mom, doing errands.”

           “Cool,” Jeremy said, taking my dad’s money and giving him the pizza in exchange for it. “Well, when he gets back, tell him I said hi, okay?”

           “Yeah, sure, totally,” I bit my bottom lip, trying to sound casual, but miserably failing.

           “Awesome,” he gave me a thumbs up. “Later, Coach Rsp, see ya, Little R!” And with being called the nickname that made me feel like the most special girl on earth, Jeremy Jones was gone, the door was closed, and my dad was headed to the living room to watch some football. I followed behind, also going back into the living room.

           My dad sat on the right side of the couch as he always did, and I sat right next to him. The pizza was placed on the coffee table in front of us, and the TV was blasting the national anthem, sung by some high school choir. Everything was as normal as it usually was on a Sunday in the middle of Pennsylvania. A coin was tossed, and then the kickoff began.

           I took a piece of pizza and began to munch on it, just as Dad did the same. Our team was starting with the ball, so that was always promising at the beginning of a game. Suddenly, the same sound that had been heard minutes before went off, indicating that someone or something had triggered the doorbell to sound. My dad told me that he would get it, and that if anything interesting happened, it was my duty to tell him. I saluted him, and then off he was, to open the door for a second time tonight.

           “Ari!” he shouted after a few seconds of me numbly watching the TV screen, not really paying attention to what was going on. I liked football, but most of the time it confused me. Like, I got the whole concept of the touchdowns and points and everything, but some of the names of things really got me confused. It was a strange sport.

           “What?” I sighed, beginning to walk over to the door yet again. When I reached where my dad was, another boy had appeared in the spot that Jeremy Jones was once standing. He wasn’t as cute as Jeremy Jones, but nobody was.

           This boy was only a year older than me, though he was somehow my older-by-two-years brother’s best friend. He had straight black hair, and was pretty tall for a thirteen year old. He played lacrosse, and that was probably his main flaw in life. His face was okay, and his skin wasn’t that bad for a teenage boy’s. I had grown up with him, and even though he was supposed to be my brother’s best friend, he was also mine. Scott: the one and only.

           “Ew, why are you here?” I said, crossing my arms over my nonexistent chest as I stared at him.

           “Because I wanted to chill with Tom. Why are you here?” he shot the question right back at me.

           “Because I live here, idiot,” I rolled my eyes at him. “Besides, Tom isn’t even here.”

           “Where is he?” Scott asked.

           “Out with Mel,” my dad answered before I could.

           “Oh,” Scott said, his eyes darting back over to me. “So I guess it’s just you and me, Ira!” Ira. Along with “Little R,” it was one of my few unfortunate nicknames. Since my name was Ari, and it was already so short, there weren’t that many things to choose from, if one wanted to call me something else besides the name that I was legally given. Scott had figured out a few years ago that my name backwards spelled “Ira.” I didn’t really like the name “Ira,” like, at all, so it became my natural nickname from Scott.

           “I guess so, Scotty,” I said.

           “Pizza and football are in the living room, don’t burn the house down, and try not to kill each other,” my dad told both of us, but more Scott, before walking back over to the living room.

           “Thanks, Mr. R.,” Scott called, not even bothering to approach the mentioned room. Scott didn’t like football, and not because he didn’t understand it, but because he just didn’t like it. He was a LAX bro, and was proud of the title. Football wasn’t his sport, and he made sure that everyone knew it.

           Without saying anything to me, Scott just headed right up the stairs, not even bothering to wait up for me. I shook my head, going right behind him. When he reached the top of the steps, he turned down the hallway and went into a bedroom that had Ira spelled backwards on the front of the door in wooden letters. I entered the room—well, my room—a few seconds later, only to see Scott sitting on my bed like he had done so many times before, smirking as he prodded my teddy bear.

           “Can you not?” I requested, walking over to where he was and snatching up my stuffed bear so that it didn’t have to suffer the abuse that Scott was putting it through.

           “Why do you even still have a teddy bear?” Scott taunted. “You’re what, eleven? Don’t most people give up their teddy bears when they’re, I don’t know, three?”

           “I’m twelve and a half, jerkface, and shut up!” I groaned, hugging my teddy bear close to me. It was a little childish to still sleep with a raggedy, old bear that I gotten when I was born, but I didn’t really care. I liked my teddy bear just fine, no matter what Scott or my brother would say about him.

           “Whatever, Ira,” he yawned. “So, what do you want to do until Tom gets here?”

           “I don’t know,” I shrugged, still hugging the bear close.

           “What’s its name, anyways?” Scott asked about my bear, adding an extra eye roll just to try and show that he “didn’t” actually care.

           “It doesn’t have one,” I replied.

           “It doesn’t have one?”

           “Nope. I never got around to naming him,” I said easily and truthfully. Sometimes I felt bad about not giving my teddy bear a name, but it was a teddy bear, so it didn’t really matter. Also, it was too late to christen the thing with a name, so I didn’t see that happening ever. I loved my teddy bear, even if it was nameless.

           “Him? How do you know it’s a boy?” Scott demanded, hopping off my bed in order to begin wandering around my room.

           “I don’t know,” I yawned, “it just is.”

           Scott was about to say something more, but then for the third time, the doorbell rung tonight. First, it was the pizza. Then, it was Scott. Considering the first time had been with Jeremy Jones, and then the second Scott, I had a hunch that the third time would only be even less disappointing. It was probably just my brother screwing around, not wanting to go through the garage like he usually did.

           Nevertheless, Scott and I then jogged out of my room and down the stairs until we reached the front door, only to face an alarming sight. It wasn’t Tom. Standing in front of my dad were two police officers—one was a younger woman, the other an aging man. They had grim expressions on their faces, and my heart instantly dropped as I stared at my dad’s bleak face filled with horror.

           I felt my hand being squeezed, and looked up, noticing that Scott had taken hold of it. “C’mon, Ira,” he said reassuringly, fear in his eyes as we both looked at the scene before us.

           “Ari Remon?” the male cop addressed me when he finally noticed my presence.

           “Yes,” I gulped.

           “And who are you, son?” he then asked Scott.

           “Scott,” Scott said shakily.

           “He’s—was my son’s best friend,” my dad told the officer, his voice breaking mid-sentence.

           “Dad,” I said slowly, “what happened?”

           My dad looked at me like I was a lost dog who had just been returned home, and then began to cry. In all my twelve and a half years of life, I had never once witnessed my father, Eli Remon, cry. He was a strong man and tears weren’t his thing. But now, whatever had happened caused him to break. He couldn’t speak—all he could do was shake his head, muttering, “This is can’t be happening,” over and over again.

           “Ex—excuse me,” I turned to the policewoman, “what happened?”

           “I’m sorry to tell you this, Ari, but your mother and brother just passed away in a car accident; they died instantly on impact,” she told me, crouching down slightly so that we were face-to-face. And that was when my whole world shattered. Her words began to replay over and over in my mind, and I wondered if it was just a nightmare or if I was hearing her wrong. My vision began to blur and I shook my head, not accepting what she had said.

           “No,” I denied, “you’re lying. Where’s Tom? Where’s Mom?”

           “Sweetie,” she said in a way one would talk to an unstable three year old, “they’re dead. I know this must be hard for you—”

           “Dad!” I shouted. “Tell me it isn’t true! They can’t be dead! They’re coming home! They have to be!”

           “It’s true, Ari,” he whispered, looking me in the eyes before he started sobbing again.

           “Scott,” I urged, “this isn’t really happening, is it?”

           The boy I had known practically all my life just looked me in the eyes and broke down into a stream of tears, not responding to what I had asked. And as I looked between two of the most important men in my life and the two consoling cops, their car blaring red and blue in the distance outside, I broke. Droplets of water began to run down my cheeks, as if the ocean was fueling the never-ending supply. I held my teddy bear close to my chest, and didn’t let go. Nothing could be heard, and everything felt as though it was in slow motion. This was really happening, this was really my reality, and this was something that I wasn’t willing to accept.

           They couldn’t be dead. I had just seen them a few hours ago. Tom was sulking because he had to go with my mom instead of catching the beginning of the game on TV, and my mom was in a rush. She grabbed her car keys from the table in the front room, kissed me on the cheek, shouted a quick, “Love ya, be back soon! Bye!” and then she was gone with Tom. Gone forever.

           We had lunch that afternoon together as a family and everything seemed so…so normal. And here we were now, being told by a couple of police officers that they were dead—killed in a car accident. It couldn’t be happening. My life was supposed to be normal. I was a twelve year old girl; things like this weren’t supposed to happen. Even the actual thought that Tom and Mom were dead was absurd. They couldn’t be. They just couldn’t!

           I clutched my bear as if my life depended on it, allowing the wailing tears to come out. Someone patted me on the back, as if it would make my mom and brother reappear. Newsflash: it wouldn’t. Nothing would. Solace from others had always been a dumb concept to me, but now especially. I didn’t need anyone pitying me or telling me that things would be okay. They wouldn’t be. Tom and Mom were dead—nothing was okay.