ESCAPE THEORY: A psychological term used to explain why people may engage in self-destructive actions*
* Handbook of Consumer Psychology by Curtis P. Haugtvedt, Paul Herr, Frank R. Kardes
Jason Reed Hutchins
1996–2012
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Jason Reed Hutchins, 16, of Marin County, died Wednesday, September 5th, 2012, of an apparent suicide at The Keaton School in Santa Cruz, California.
Jason was born March 13, 1996 in San Francisco, California, the son of William Hutchins and Mitzi Barbara Hutchins. Mr. Hutchins is the founder of TerraTech, a Fortune 500 company and innovator in the field of molecular biology.
Jason is survived by his mother and father, older brother Eric, a pre-med student at Stanford University, and grandfather Reed Hutchins of Santa Cruz, California, famed biologist and owner of the Athena Estates Vineyard and Winery. Jason was predeceased by his grandmother, Athena Hutchins.
At the start of his junior year, Jason was on staff at the student newspaper, The Keaton Hawk, a varsity soccer player, and an avid surfer at the nearby Monte Vista Beach Cove. He will be remembered as a loving son, loyal brother, and cherished friend to many.
Services will be held Sunday, September 16th at 10 A.M. at the The Keaton School chapel. In lieu of flowers the family requests donations be sent to TerraTech Children’s Hospital in Palo Alto, California. A memorial scholarship will be set up in Jason’s name at The Keaton School.
PROLOGUE
September 10, 2010
Freshman Year
Those Nutter Butters are going to need milk.
Devon glared at the package of peanut butter cookies at the foot of her bed. The bright red plastic caught the light from her desk lamp, taunting her, daring her to break into the package. Of course she wanted to devour them, but there was the problem of living in a dorm room. Milk—the milk required to have on standby when eating Nutter Butters—wasn’t just out the door, down the hallway, past the living room. No: here the milk was across a grassy courtyard, past a library, two boys’ dorms, and the teachers’ lounge, tucked away, in the oak-paneled dining hall.
They can wait. Devon swiveled on her stiff twin bed, twisting her toes into her crisp new Ikea bedspread. It felt hotel phony, not like something that was hers, in her new room. She put her focus back on the smiling pair of girls she’d tacked up to her wall. In the picture her best friend, Ariel, was holding two fingers up to the camera, all-cool peace sign/Hollywood starlet, while Devon smiled but kept her eyes toward her feet. The photos always followed a pattern: Ariel confronting the camera, leading the way, Devon a willing passenger. But that was just an Instagram memory now.
Devon’s eyes drifted back to the package of Nutter Butters. Her mom had snuck them into her suitcase before she left for boarding school four days ago. Devon re-read the purple Post-it: Share with your new friends, but save one for Derek!
The peanut butter cookies were a nice gesture. They were Devon’s favorite after all and only because her mom had turned her on to them. The two had a ritual of demolishing a package over an episode of Grey’s Anatomy and saving just one in case the handsome “Dr. Derek Shepherd” miraculously appeared at their door. Mom subscribed to the “ya never know who you’re going to run into” philosophy. Always on the prowl for a classic Leading Man (she wore lipstick for even the quickest errands) and always leaving a cookie for a charming stranger who might appear at her doorstep.
That was before boarding school. Before Devon got a scholarship to Keaton, and before her mother told her it was an opportunity she couldn’t afford to turn down. “The doors Keaton will open for you.…” Devon’s mom had begun on more than one occasion without ever actually finishing the thought. Devon wasn’t sure where those doors led, but she knew she was supposed to walk through them for one reason alone: her mom had never had the same opportunity.
That wasn’t Devon’s fault or problem, of course. Just because her mom’s family couldn’t afford some ritzy boarding school when she was a kid didn’t mean Devon had to go to one now. The scholarship was nice and all, but Devon didn’t ask for it. Her mom had applied and set up an interview before Devon had even heard of Keaton. To her, boarding school was full of those people; and nothing she’d seen so far had changed that perception. Devon still didn’t want to be one of those people who used