“Ryan Dean, you are not supposed to talk about wieners!”
“Yes. Mrs. Blyleven would get mad at us for calling them wieners.”
“I would hate it if I ever got in trouble for talking about wieners and then PM called my parents and told them,” the Abernathy said.
“Okay. Stop talking to me now.”
“Yeah. But why? Why did JP want to start a fight with you?”
I rolled over in bed so I could look across the room to where Sam was sitting. “We got into a few fights last year. It wasn’t good. I made him look bad, I guess, and he won’t let go of it.”
“What was the fight about?”
“Annie. JP likes Annie too. He was trying to get her away from me.”
The Abernathy said, “Oh.” It sounded like something you’d say when seeing your hero receive a medal or something. And that made me feel weird.
“Sam?”
“What?”
“That was really cool, what you did in the locker room.”
“What? Looking at Spotted John’s wiener?”
“Stop talking to me.”
I threw my pillow across the room. It splattered into the kid.
And I’ll admit it: Sam Abernathy was a lot smarter than I wanted to believe.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
GAME DAY CAME AT LAST.
I almost had myself convinced that after my one little chat about goal setting with Mrs. Dvorak, my night troubles wouldn’t come back. Easy fix, right? Well, I was wrong again.
Anyway, I never could sleep soundly the night before a game, so I guess I kind of set myself up for it. Because just when I was starting to think I was maybe in the clear, I woke up at three in the morning on Thursday with that smothering weight on my chest.
It really sucked.
Shaking and dizzy, terrified, I lay there, frozen in place, staring up at the ceiling. The night seemed endless, and as scared as I was that I was actually going to die, I willed myself to stay put and not make a sound. I didn’t want the Abernathy to know what was happening to me. So I stayed there, shivering and scared all night, waiting for morning, and waiting for the next terrible thing that was bound to happen.
I knew exactly what those three days in the well must have felt like to Sam Abernathy.
I think I started to calm down just as the light from our window spilled oyster gray into the room. I was a sweaty wreck. The Abernathy climbed out of his bed. I could feel him looking at me from his side of the room.
“Are you okay, Ryan Dean?”
“Yes.”
“Excited for the game today?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, I’m going to take a shower and get dressed.”
“Oh.”
I started to sit up in bed, so I could leave, and the Abernathy said, “It’s okay, Ryan Dean. You look tired. You don’t have to leave. Just promise not to look at me.”
“Whatever.”
I lay back down as Sam Abernathy rearranged his claustrophobic escape routes from our room by opening the window and shutting the front door. To be honest, the cold outside air felt good, like I’d been dug up from a sixty-foot hole in the ground.
The water came on in the shower.
Maybe the kid was getting better. Maybe Headmaster Dude-whose-last-name-nobody-knows was right about me being able to help Sam Abernathy. Maybe I was a sponge for his neuroses, soaking them all up.
The morning was dreadful, and the morning was wonderful.
I am supposed to be Joey today. Coach is going to make me wear Joey’s jersey. I don’t know if I can do this. I can’t let myself look bad in front of Coach M and the team, or in front of Annie or Nico or Sam Abernathy and especially not in front of that asshole JP Tureau.
I am supposed to be Joey today.
“Done.”
I didn’t realize I hadn’t moved at all. And when I looked at him, there was the Abernathy all Pine-Mountained up in his tie, creased slacks, and school sweater, looking like a you-can-have-one-of-these-too! lawn ornament for a fertility clinic.
“Are you sure you feel okay, Ryan Dean?”
“Yeah. I’m fine. Stop talking to me.”
I dragged myself out of bed and went into the bathroom—no, shower room.
That day, I wore the shirt and tie I’d taken from Joey’s old room in O-Hall. It was a weird thing to do, but I somehow hoped that Joey’s spirit might be lingering on it, that he might calm me down and help me get through the game without totally blowing it. And I could almost hear him scolding me like he used to do—telling me that I worried about things too much, and that I’d put all this work into getting here, so there was no way I’d let myself down by not trying my hardest.
It made me kind of sad to think about Joey telling me off, which was something he was always really good at.
And all day long, I kept looking around distractedly, trying to see if Nico Cosentino would just magically appear, like he said he would. Spotted John never said he’d called back (and Spotted John wouldn’t lie to me about things), so I had to believe Nico would keep his word and show up sometime before kickoff.
It was all I could do to slog through the day. Annie understood. She knew I always got quiet and nervous on game days. What rugger doesn’t? It would be better afterward, when all the bashing back and forth was done and we could sit down to dinner with the boys from the other team while we stretched the boundaries of acceptable Pine Mountain content and attempted to out-sing each other.
In the locker room before the game, it was the Abernathy’s job to pass out the jerseys while Coach read his roster for the first fifteen and the subs. Not everyone would get to play, but that’s how things are in real life, too. Right?
Coach skipped from nine, Seanie, to eleven, Mike Bagnuolo. He was saving my number for last, and I was dreading having to say something as captain to the guys about playing the game. Here’s how our numbers worked out for the first fifteen:
NUMBER
POSITION
NAME
NICKNAME
1
Loosehead Prop
Steven Murphy
Little Wood
2
Hooker
Jeff Cotton
Cotton Balls
3
Tighthead Prop
Doug Wilson
Dougie
4
Left Lock
Jack Jefferson
Basketball
5
Right Lock
Kyle Cortez
Bunbun
6
Blindside Flanker
Georgie Herrera
Bucket
7
Openside Flanker
Eli Koenig
Tarzan
8
Eight-Man
John Nygaard
Spotted John
9
Scrum Half
Sean Russell Flaherty
Seanie
10
Stand-Off
Ryan Dean West
Snack-Pack Senior
11
Left Wing
Mike Bagnuolo
Bags
12
Inside Center
Matthias de Clerq
Corn Dog
13
Outside Center
Javier Mendez
Swordfish
14
Right Wing
Timmy Bagnuolo
T-Bag
15
Fullback
JP Tureau
Sartre
And, in case you’ve never seen rugby, this is how the positions line up on the pitch:
At the end, even after the subs’ jerseys had been given out, it was finally my turn, and all those eyes turned toward me.
Coach McAuliffe said, “Number ten. Our stand-off and team captain, Ryan Dean West.”
The guys clapped and slapped my shoulders, which stung because I had to endure standing there shirtless through the en
tire jersey-passing-out routine. Also, it made me kind of embarrassed because I never thought the guys on my team would clap for me.
It was nice.
So the Abernathy handed Joey’s old jersey to me. I unfolded it. There was still a grass stain on the shoulder, and it smelled like Joey. I pulled it on over my head. I knew what was next, and I was feeling pretty sick about it.
Coach M said, “Do you have something to say to the boys, captain?”
I really, really did not want to say something to the boys.
I looked down at a spot on the concrete locker room floor between the toes of my cleats. I shut my eyes and swallowed.
My voice cracked.
I am such a loser.
“Last year, after we lost Kevin, and then Joey, we kind of lost a sense of who we were as a team, and it felt like we didn’t want to play anymore. I can’t blame anyone for it—it’s the way things just happened to work out. Our hearts weren’t in it. And you can’t play rugby without your heart, because the game is so much more than just a contest about where the numbers end up when that last whistle blows.”
Side note: What the fuck am I saying? You’re not starting to cry, are you Ryan Dean? You better not fucking start crying.
“I’ve been trying to find my heart since last year. I don’t know if I have yet. Maybe we’ll find out after seventy minutes of rugby. We’ve always been a great team, but too many things got in our way last year. Now it’s a new year, right?”
Some of the guys said, “Right!”
It made me feel weird. I didn’t think anyone was listening to me. I don’t even know if I was listening to myself.
I said, “It’s supposed to be fun. Joey would want us to have fun. I’m pretty sure he’d give us some serious shit if we didn’t have fun out there today, no matter what the numbers look like when we clean up and go home. Right?”
And now the whole team answered, “Right!”
Side note: I really did say “shit,” and Coach M, who was very strict about cussing, never said one thing about it to me. Also, I hadn’t noticed, since I was actually looking at my feet—because I was afraid I might have drippy eyes—but while I was talking to the team (and my feet), another boy had come into the locker room. It was Nico Cosentino.
He stood behind the team, watching us and listening to me. When I looked at him, he nodded his chin in a silent, hey, bro kind of greeting that guys do sometimes.
So, yeah, even his chin broed me.
And he was dressed like a Pine Mountain kid—all done up in a full school uniform and tie. That was weird. I thought Nico withdrew from Pine Mountain. I looked at Coach and could see right away that he’d known Nico was coming to the game. It had to have been as big a thing—or bigger—to Coach M as it was for me. But I also could see that Nico didn’t want to be pointed out to everyone. He wasn’t that kind of guy. I knew that about Nico from the first time I’d ever said anything to him in Headmaster What-the-fuck’s office. So before he could get noticed by the other twenty-two kids getting ready to play the game, Nico turned around and walked out of the locker room.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
ANNIE WAS WAITING FOR ME. She stood beside the gate to the rugby pitch, just past the door where the guys came out of our locker room.
And I’ll be honest—I felt a little guilty and ashamed because I was wearing Joey’s jersey, and Annie knew it. Joey had been just as good a friend to Annie as he had been to me.
I grabbed her hand and squeezed while the team filed past us onto the field.
“Are you nervous?” she asked.
“Like always,” I said.
“It should make you feel good to get out there again.”
“Yeah. Hey, look—there’s someone here that I want you to meet,” I said.
“Oh? Who?”
“It’s a surprise. Come on.”
And I led Annie up into the bleachers, which were surprisingly full. There weren’t a lot of things to do around Pine Mountain, so I was never sure if the kids and staff actually liked rugby or just came to the games to see who’d be carried off in a stretcher. I found Nico sitting near the top of the stands, all alone. It was kind of weird that I felt sorry about him being alone. What would I expect? Nobody here knew him—he was just this anonymous new kid who’d never been seen around before.
I said, “Nico Cosentino, I’d like you to meet Annie Altman.”
Nico—as I would have expected of anyone who was related to Joey—stood up when I introduced Annie. And I watched her blush—ugh!—when he gently took her hand.
“Are you—” Annie began.
“Joey’s brother,” Nico said. “Joey told me about you. You’re just as beautiful as he said you were.”
I kind of choked a little. And then I said something really stupid.
“Annie’s my girlfriend. We had sex last Sunday.”
Okay. I’ll admit it. The stupid thing I said did not include that second sentence, even if I wanted to say it. Because what made that entirely stupid was that I knew Joey would have told him Annie and I were boyfriend and girlfriend, but it was just that Nico was so goddamned good looking and nice, and I actually saw Annie blush.
“Bro. I know she’s your girlfriend. Duh.”
“Oh. Uh, I better get down on the field before someone says something. I just wanted you to have someone to hang out with during the game. Uh. Bro.”
So there. I broed him back.
“Thanks, man.”
This was interesting. Apparently, broing a bro promotes you to “man.”
“Enjoy the game,” I said. Then I gave Annie a quick ninja cheek-peck and clattered my metal cleats down the stands.
And as I was walking away from them, Nico said, “Hey, Ryan Dean. I like that jersey on you.”
I stopped in my tracks. I turned around and locked eyes with Nico Cosentino. Neither of us said anything. We didn’t have to.
• • •
It was a rough game, which as far as rugby is concerned made it a perfect game.
The team we hosted traveled down from Bellingham, Washington, where, apparently, there are a lot of really big teenage boys who play rugby, because all things considered, we were completely outsized. The opposing number ten was at least thirty pounds heavier than me. We hit each other a few times, and I definitely felt each and every one of those extra pounds.
Before the first half ended, Seanie Flaherty caught an elbow on the top of his head, which cut him pretty good. He had to come out of the game because he was a bloody mess, so T-Bag moved up to play scrum half, and a replacement winger came in. Seanie needed stitches. There was almost nothing our medic could do for a cut in the top of a kid’s scalp except tell Seanie to keep it pinched shut, because Seanie refused to leave the sidelines until the game was over.
At halftime, when we were down 3–0, Seanie told me, “Hey, Ryan Dean, I’m going to get to see that hottie nurse after the game.”
“Lucky you, dude,” I said. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that Nurse Hickey was out on maternity leave and that he’d most likely get the full-on once-over from Doctor No-gloves.
Poor Seanie.
Halftime in rugby lasts exactly five minutes, and during that time players are not allowed to step off the field of play. That’s how the game is: brutal. We circled up so we could talk about what we needed to do to pull the win. And I glanced up in the stands and saw Nico Cosentino looking right at me, like he was saying, Hey, bro, get your shit together. He was sitting between Isabel and Annie, which, for whatever stupid laundry list of reasons, made me feel kind of jealous.
Coach M never said anything to us about how we were playing during games. He’d just stay on the sidelines, taking notes and watching. That was one of the things that made him such a great coach. He’d say that his time to tell us what we needed to do was at practice. During a game, he said, we were all on our own. The real game was our chance to show him what we had learned, what we could do, and all the grown-up talk in the world
was not going to change what boys do out on the pitch.
“Nice job at scrummie, T-Bag,” I said, and patted Timmy Bagnuolo’s shoulder.
“Yeah. Nice job,” Spotted John said.
“Look, we’re going to have to ruck and post and run on these guys, even if we only get five meters at a time, because we’re not busting through in open-field play,” I said. “Let the forwards do their job.”
JP looked mad. The open field was my responsibility, and I wasn’t getting us anywhere today.
“Bullshit,” JP argued. “Get the ball to me, Ryan Dean. I’ll put it in goal.”
I looked at JP. Another stare-down standoff.
I nodded. “I think you can do it, JP. Let’s give it a try.”
So there, asshole.
And I added, “If we can get a scrum deep in their end, let’s wheel it and see if we can’t get them tripping all over themselves and open up for us.”
“That’s dangerous, and against the laws,” the Abernathy, who had carried water bottles onto the field and had also, apparently, been studying the International Rugby Board law book, said. (There are no rules in rugby—there are only “laws,” which, like all laws, only have teeth if people get caught breaking them.)
“Shut up, Snack-Pack,” Cotton Balls said. “We know what we’re doing.”
I’ll admit it: Intentionally wheeling a scrum is dangerous and arguably illegal, but we’d been practicing plays with the forward pack where we’d wheel the scrum (which means causing the pack of bodies to rotate) just slightly—twenty-two-and-a-half degrees, to be precise—which could really block off the opposing scrum half and back line if we did it right, and if we also had them butted up against a touch line. (“Touch” is what Americans think of as “out of bounds.”)
We tried, we tried, but almost nothing worked against those guys.
When seventy minutes had elapsed, our teams were tied at three points each. Almost unbelievably, and to both sides’ forwards’ credit, neither team had been able to get the ball into goal. Our scores were both penalty kicks. JP, who admittedly was Pine Mountain’s best kicker, made ours for us to tie the match and save us from a preseason loss late in the game.