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My friend Jay.
He went from class president to drug dealer, then dead at 16. My desperate, personal search for answers.
NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
I was in the water. That’s one part I’ll always remember. It was the morning of Sunday, June 13, 1999. I was 17 and cooling off during my break as a lifeguard at a neighborhood pool down the street from my parents’ house in Reston, Virginia. I still recall that familiar rush of freedom, the heedless plunge into ice-cold water on a not-yet-hot day, that I would feel at the start of every summer.