WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

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We’ve gone back to the custodian’s room. It was inevitable. We understand that now. It’s what we knew would happen. There was no other option. After everything, it’s all there is.

We passed the woodworking and auto classrooms. We went by a door that read Dance Studio. There was another that read Student Council. We saw the drama department. We didn’t try any of those doors. What’s the point? We’ve been walking by these doors on these floors for years. After all this time, even the dust is familiar. We don’t care if they’re clean.

The custodian’s room is ours. It’s where we’re meant to be. In the end, we can’t deny who we are, who we were, where we’ve been. Who we want to be doesn’t matter when there’s no way to get there.

We passed the door to the basement.

This is who we are. Fingernails. Fistfuls of hair. Blood on our own hands.

We saw the photos. The man. We understand. We do. We wish it weren’t true.

Whoever works here, the custodian, he’s not in here. We realize it as we look at his face in the photo. He’s not here anymore. He’s already gone.

It’s us. We’re in here now. With Jake. Just us. Us all alone.

In the car. We never saw the man in the school. The custodian. Only Jake saw him. He wanted us to follow him into the school, to go looking for him. He wanted to be in here with us, with no way out.

Jake’s shoes. In the locker room. He took them off. He took them off himself and left them in the gym. He put on the rubber boots. It was him all along. It was Jake. The man. Because he is Jake. We are. We can’t hold it in any longer. The tears come. Tears again.

His brother. That story about his brother being the troubled one. We think that’s made up. That’s why his dad was so happy we were visiting, that we’d been kind to Jake. He was the troubled one. Jake. Not his brother. There is no brother. There should have been, but there wasn’t. And Jake’s parents? They died a long time ago, like the hair that we can see, the hair that grows on our head, the hair that falls out. It’s already dead. Dead a long time ago.

Jake once told me, “Sometimes a thought is closer to truth, to reality, than an action. You can say anything, you can do anything, but you can’t fake a thought.”

JAKE IS BEYOND HELP NOW. He tried. Help never came.