The tragedy in Idaho

Somewhere in the middle of Idaho lived a boy and his mother. Next door lived his best friend who had a military father. The boy and his mother moved to Idaho from Missouri a few years ago because his mother got a job at one of the best lawyer firms in the Midwest. When they moved in he met Jeff who was around the same age as him and helped them load their boxes off their truck. Luke was ecstatic that he made a friend so soon but the more he hung out with Jeff he saw he was not who he thought he was. Luke was 16 and he wasn’t a nerd but he wasn’t exactly a jock and Jeff was ego centric and a bit of an asshole. He was a bully in a sense but only because he was vying for his father’s attention. Jeff didn’t like the fact that his father was barely home. Luke being raised by his mother and his father died when he was 8 but he remembered his father telling him that “a man is not a man if he believes that there is no good in the world”. Luke was taught to be a good person and was uneasy when he was around Jeff because Jeff wasn’t exactly a nice guy. But being around Luke was good because positivity was all Jeff needed. And one day Luke saved this scrawny nerdy kid from Jeff by letting him know that it wasn’t right and he was willing to stand up for the little kid which is something Jeff hasn’t seen before. One day after school they decided to go to the lake and this guy from school named Tristan asked to come with them. Tristan was a good guy who was friends with everybody; he was a social stud. It was the end of the school year and they all decided that they would be a group for the rest of their lives. But something went wrong in the woods on the way to the lake. It’s a trail that all the kids follow that a clear path to the lake but this day they decided to take a shorter path on which Tristan and Jeff argued over for a couple minutes. Luke being the mediator had to step in between them because the argument would have turned into a fist fight. They continued walking the path they believed to be shorter when they stumbled upon a hill and at the bottom was the lake but it was surrounded by rocks and big boulders. Now this ticked Tristan off to the point where he started cussing and yelling at Jeff that it was all his fault. Now what Luke didn’t realize about Jeff is that he had an anger problem. Now Jeff didn’t take kindly to being yelled at and he got into Tristan’s face and the two were yelling at each other when they started fighting. The two ended up on the ground rolling around. When they stood up Tristan’s back was to the lake and he was standing close to the edge of the hill. Jeff being still raged with anger he ran forward and pushed Tristan down the hill and all Luke could do was watch in disbelief. They watched Tristan tumble down the hill falling and rolling (as if he was a rubber ball) until he hit a large boulder that stopped him in his track. Luke and Jeff saw that there was a way down to where Tristan had fell. There was a small path down the base of the river through a wooded area. When they got to where Tristan was they started to panic because he was lifeless and they thought he was dead. So, after the panic died down Luke wanted to call the police or somebody who could help but Jeff didn’t want to because he played football and didn’t want his career to end. As they were panicking and murmuring words Jeff told Luke that he had to snap out of it and help him throw the body in river so that the current can pull the body down the river and no one would know what happened. This was an uneasy task but Jeff informed Luke that if he was his friend he would help him because they both could not survive in prison which is where they would go if anyone found out. After getting ahold of themselves they waited for the current and when it came they pushed the body into the river and watched the current drag it down. Luke was going crazy because he never did anything like that before and Jeff wasn’t as uneasy because he had a secret that was dark but it wasn’t as bad as killing someone. Nobody saw Tristan, Jeff, and Luke together so no one would suspect something was up and Jeff and Luke were always together so nothing would be suspicious. As they came out of the woods they ran into couple of the neighborhood watch people. The neighborhood watch was informed by Tristan’s parents that he hadn’t been home and school had been out for hours. The boys lost track of time but they had been in the woods for 2 hours. The watch had been walking around town questioning kids and looking for the missing boy. They questioned the two kids and normally someone like Luke would tell the truth but the thought of prison scared him more than anything so they told them that they were at the lake but didn’t see anybody. They had their lie airtight as they informed the nights watch that they had only been at the lake for 30 minutes as they were supposed to meet some girls from school there. The watch let them go and they both went home. The next morning the watch found Tristan; he was about 5 miles away from the river as he washed up on the edge of a ravine close to a pond. An old man spotted him as he was trying to fish. The man quickly went over and called the police. The news came on and reported that the missing teenager had been found and the man was rewarded $500. When Luke and Jeff heard the news they quickly met up and started to panic as they didn’t know what to say if Tristan woke up and told the truth. They didn’t want to go to the hospital as people would know they knew him and it would look suspicious. The news also reported that he was in a coma with a broken leg. Now that Luke and Jeff were 18 and were seniors they occasionally had been checking on Tristan as he had been in his coma for 2 years and being the good person Luke was he started freaking out and wanted to tell someone the truth about what happened but Jeff desperately begged him not to. The next time the news came on Tristan had come from his coma but he had amnesia and didn’t remember anything. The friends were relieved that he couldn’t remember as their secret was safe for the time being. Feeling guilty the truth was really eating Luke alive and he felt like he had a duty to tell the truth but ultimately, he couldn’t as his fear was much greater. A few days later Tristan started to remember his name and a few other things but didn’t remember the accident that caused him to be in a coma the past few years and since he could remember everything else but the accident he was released and everybody hoped that one day he would remember and the two culprits decided that all they could do was hope that if he did remember he would be forgiving. A few months went by as the end of the school year had come and all of them were graduating and Jeff and Luke were so happy because they would be free to go their separate ways and put the past few years behind them but at the graduation their hearts dropped because Tristan was there and wanted to speak with them as they thought he had remembered what they had done to him. He spoke to them briefly as he thanked Jeff for all the help he had been giving him and thanked them both for everything they had been doing for him and for being good friends for him and Luke felt bad and almost told him everything. As he was trying to build up the confidence to tell him he took a quick glance at Jeff who was imitating the word no and don’t do it with his mouth and hands. So, Luke just told him thanks and he didn’t have to do that. Tristan insisted and also invited them to go onto his parents yatch and sail with them to an exotic island after the graduation. They of course denied as they pleaded it was too much and that they couldn’t impose. A few months after the graduation the three guys ran into each other at the gym and Tristan told them that he had been going to the doctors and therapist and they said that everything with him was fine but the only thing he probably would never remember is what happened that caused him to be in a coma with a broken leg.