He Didn't Have To Leave

• Abigail Avery, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2016

Jake sits behind the wheel of his friend’s car, becoming white knuckled as he grips the wheel with rage, dreading this moment. Dreading the memories, dreading the long walk across the white sand to remember his friend so cruelly snatched from this world by a creature too barbaric to contemplate the pain it has caused. He resists sobs of pain and anger as he unclamps his hands from the worn steering wheel and swings his cumbersome legs from the driver’s seat; now begins a journey of sadness, pain and anguish. A journey of monsters.
As soon as Jake reaches the location that only a year ago he was dragging Finn out of the water he crumbles. No longer can he stand. No longer can he take the pain… He falls onto his knees begging for his friend back. Wishing they hadn’t gone surfing that day, wishing it was him who got attacked. Wishing that it was anyone but Finn. His first friend. His best friend. The one he had the most memories with. Their first surf, the first time they skipped class, the first time they went to a party, the first time either of them had a crush the other was there, they were inseparable. The girls used to joke that once you’re with one of them you are practically in a relationship with both of them. They were a package deal, brothers, but not by blood.
Jake used to detest shark culling… But ever since that day, it’s a different story.
Jake can no longer see why he ever thought that they were peaceful. In the place again one year later. The place he last went surfing. The last place he was with Finn alive. A place with a monster lurking within. A ruthless murderer with no reason for killing. If they are willing to kill humans then why is it that so many others aren’t willing to kill sharks?
Jake’s only words as he looks up from his sobering mess, hands clenched, body shaking, are “You took everything from me when you took Finn… Well I can take too, I can take so much more, and I will not stop until you feel what I feel, you’ll pay for what you did! You ruined my safe place, I’ll take yours…”
He screams into the wind and surf until all that is left of Jake is rage, a mere remnant of his former self, for it takes a monster to stop a one.