Winger

  I am such a loser.

  She put all the dirty towels in a pile beside the bed and said, “Now you look perfectly handsome again. There’s no concussion, so you won’t have to stay here tonight . . . .”

  Damn. Uh . . . you look pretty good yourself.

  “. . . but you’ll need to take it easy . . .”

  I can’t move right now anyway.

  “We’ll call your parents and let them know. Would you like to speak with them?”

  NO!

  “Uh.” Hiccup. Crap. “Just tell them”—hic!—“I’m okay.”

  “Do you have any clothes you can put on?”

  No, you better take the rest of these dirty things off me. I don’t mind.

  “We can get his stuff from the locker room,” Joey said.

  Shut up!!!

  “That’s so sweet of you. Thank you,” she said, then she bundled up the towels and threw them into a hamper by the door as she left. “I’ll be right back, boys.”

  “Dude,” Seanie said. “That was like watching a porn flick. Nurses Gone Wild.”

  “Ugh.” I closed my eyes and dropped my arms out from the sides of my bed. “I thought I was going to lose”—hic—“con . . . consciousness. Please tell me that really happened just now.”

  “All I can say is, no matter what, I’m cracking my skull open tomorrow,” Seanie said. “And if you want me to, Ryan Dean, I can go get her and tell her she missed a spot.”

  “Oh my God. Would you do that for me, Seanie?”

  “Dude, you are such a perv for a little guy.”

  I laughed.

  The door opened again and Coach M came in, carrying my clothes from the locker room on a hanger he held over his shoulder. He had my shoes and book bag in his other hand.

  “I brought these for you, Ryan Dean,” he said. “Save you an unnecessary trip.”

  “Thank you, Coach.” I sat up, dangling my feet over the side of the bed. Before the door swung shut, I could see that there were a number of guys from the team, showered and changed back into their school clothes, waiting outside. Knowing they had come made me feel really good, but not as good as that warm-towel session did.

  “And thanks to you two for looking after your mate,” Coach M said to Joey and Seanie. “Here, let’s see that.”

  I tilted my chin back so Coach could have a good look at my stitches.

  “Welcome to the Zipper Club, Ryan Dean,” he said. That’s what rugby guys said when they got stitches.

  “Flaherty,” Coach M said, “why don’t you go back to the showers and get dressed. I want to speak with Ryan Dean and his captain.”

  “Will you be able to make it to dinner?” Seanie asked me.

  “I’ll be there.”

  Seanie left. I could hear him talking to the guys outside as his metal cleats clacked against the shiny infirmary floor.

  I began changing into my clothes. I pulled off my shorts. Right about now, I thought, it would be really cool if that nurse came back.

  “You can’t get those sutures wet,” Coach said.

  “They told me,” I answered. “Eighteen stitches. But no concussion.”

  I knew where this was going. If I’d gotten a concussion, I’d be off the roster for a long time.

  “I’ve never seen you hit like that before, Ryan Dean,” Coach said. “That was inspired, to say the least. Is there something going on between you and Tureau you’d like to tell me about?”

  I was stuck. I’d have to tell the truth, especially in front of Joey. And Coach M did not tolerate fighting among the team. He’d probably have to kick me off, and I probably deserved it. I changed my socks and began buttoning my dress shirt, avoiding their eyes, trying to think of how I’d say it.

  I felt sick. Maybe it showed in my eyes.

  I said, “Coach, JP and I . . .”

  Joey interrupted. “Were just seeing how hard they could go. And Ryan Dean proved why he belongs in the first fifteen, Coach.”

  “Oh. I thought I picked up on something else going on there.”

  “Ryan Dean and JP are best friends, Coach.”

  Now, that was going a little too far, I thought. I looked at Joey and then at Coach. I pulled my pants on and began knotting my necktie.

  Coach M turned to Joey. “Who can play left wing on Thursday?”

  “I can,” I interrupted before Joey could answer.

  “I can’t let you play like that, Ryan Dean. What would I tell your parents if you hurt yourself again?”

  “You’d tell them what they already know. It’s part of the game. Please, Coach. I don’t have a concussion. I’ll prewrap it and tape it up. Guys do it all the time. It’s no big deal. I really want to play, sir.”

  I wasn’t going to do the fake-tears thing. I could bring real ones up at the thought of being benched for our first game.

  “I want Ryan Dean in my line, sir. He’s our best wing. You know that,” Joey said.

  Note to self: In your prayers tonight, be sure to thank God for making (a) that unbelievably hot nurse, (b) compression shorts, and (c) Joey Cosentino.

  “I’ll have to think about it,” Coach said. Then he went to the door, cracked it open, and called out, “JP?”

  JP came in, walking slowly, looking down. I could tell he felt bad, but I didn’t care about his feelings, anyway. Why would I? He didn’t care enough about mine. He held his hand out, and we shook. Coach wouldn’t have made him do that if he didn’t already know we’d been fighting.

  “I’m sorry, Ryan Dean.”

  “You already said that on the field, JP,” I said. I slipped my feet into my school shoes. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Coach.”

  I grabbed my cleats and the rest of my bloody practice clothes, threw my pack over my shoulder, and quietly walked out without turning back once.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  I WAS ALMOST BACK TO O-Hall when I heard someone running up toward me from behind. I didn’t care who it was. Because once again, now that I was alone in the quiet beside the lake, all the anger and frustration over Annie and JP, and my possibly sitting out of the game, came swirling back through my aching head.

  It felt like JP was trying to ruin my life in every way possible.

  “What’s your fucking problem, Ryan Dean?”

  I should have known it was JP behind me.

  I thought about just going on into Opportunity Hall. He wouldn’t follow me there, not after getting in trouble for it the first week of school. But I stopped and turned to face him.

  He was out of breath, panting fog in the cold as he caught up to where I stood.

  “You know what this is about, JP,” I said. And then I really did cuss. “Fuck off.”

  I turned around, thinking how stupid those words actually sounded coming from my mouth. It almost made me want to laugh, hearing myself say something like that, which is kind of hard for me to understand, because I don’t have a problem writing words like that.

  I started walking toward the door again.

  “You want to have it out right now?” JP said. “No one’s around. You want to fight again?”

  I just kept walking and ignored him.

  “Fuck you, Ryan Dean.”

  I opened the door.

  I went inside.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  AT DINNER, I SAT ALONE at a table full of kids I didn’t even know. They were freshmen. They were all my age. And I didn’t understand them at all. It was like they were from a different planet entirely.

  This is how much of a loser I am: I am such a loser that I don’t even fit in with other kids who are exactly my age.

  Annie, JP, Seanie, Joey, along with everyone else, were sitting where we all usually sit, the way teenagers do, but I didn’t go over there. I was tired, sore, and pissed off, and I wanted to be left alone, exiled to this other world I didn’t know. As far as I could tell, my friends didn’t even know I was there, anyway.

  I just kept my head down and ate my dinner. The freshmen around m
e probably thought I was a new kid or something. I could hear, a couple times, one of them say, “Who’s that kid?”

  “Hey.”

  I felt a hand on my shoulder. I lifted my head and saw Megan standing behind me.

  “I heard you got hurt,” she said.

  “I did.”

  It felt so good just to look at her, to feel the way her hand rested on my shoulder.

  I glanced around to see if Chas was anywhere in sight. And, of course, I saw Joey, across the room, watching us. I looked away. I didn’t want to hear it, what I knew he was thinking.

  “Let me see.”

  Megan sat down beside me. I felt all the eyes of the freshman boys on us, like they were wondering if she was my older sister, or maybe a teacher, or a cop coming to arrest me, because there was no way a girl who looked like Megan Renshaw should be sitting there next to someone like me.

  “I think stitches are sexy,” she said when I turned my face to her.

  I almost choked on a crouton.

  She had that look in her eyes like she was going to pin me down on the table and make out with me right there in front of the whole school. She touched the stitches over my eye.

  “Are you okay?”

  “You shouldn’t be doing this, Megan,” I whispered.

  “What? Making sure my friend’s okay?”

  “Come on, Megan. No girl here at Pine Mountain cares about me. I’m not a prize like Chas Becker. You can stop being nice now.”

  “Is that what you think, Ryan Dean?”

  She dropped her hand down onto my knee and rubbed my leg.

  Stop looking at me, Joey!

  “Hey, Meg. Where you been?”

  Chas appeared out of nowhere, standing right next to me like the tree I was about to be lynched from. And Megan just left her hand on my leg, and I know Chas saw it, but she innocently said, “Did you see Ryan Dean’s eye?”

  Chas lowered his face so that it was mere inches from my nose. He looked real serious. He looked like he could kill me and not even think twice about it.

  “How many stitches, Winger?” he asked.

  “Eighteen.”

  “Looks like you won’t be playing.” He said it like he wasn’t just talking about the game.

  “I can still play.” My voice cracked. Loser. What was I doing? I felt like I was facing off in a gunfight.

  Chas didn’t move. He stayed there, staring at me.

  “Everyone says you’re in a fight with Sartre.”

  “I am.”

  “You really do got big balls, kid. You better watch it.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Chas straightened. “C’mon, Meg. Let’s go sit at the big kids’ table.”

  Megan patted my leg and stood. “Don’t forget, Ryan Dean. Tomorrow. Calculus in the library. You and Joey. Okay?”

  I tried to say “okay,” but nothing would come out. I squeaked like a doggie chew toy in Megan Renshaw’s unyielding pit bull teeth.

  And Chas practically pulled Megan away, leading her off to where the seniors were sitting. But I saw him turn his face over his shoulder and look at me once, and I’ll be honest, it scared me. I considered scrawling a makeshift will on the back of a napkin, but as I took mental inventory of my life’s possessions, I realized no one would want them anyway.

  I was as good as dead now.

  Images of my funeral again: both Annie and Megan looking so hot in black; Joey shaking his head woefully and thinking how he told me so; JP and Chas high-fiving each other in the back pew; Seanie installing a live-feed webcam in my undersize casket; and Mom and Dad disappointed, as always, that I left this world a loser alcoholic virgin with eighteen stitches over my left eye.

  “What the fuck are you doing all alone over here in loserland, Ryan Dean? How hard did you hit your head?”

  Seanie pulled the chair out across from me and sat down. Annie stood behind him. No one else.

  “I didn’t want to talk to anyone.”

  I could see by the way Annie tilted her head that she was trying to look at the cut or trying to look at my eyes, but I didn’t really want her to. As much as I wanted to just see her and nothing else on this whole weird planet, I felt so terrible about everything that had happened to me and the shitty things I had done to myself that I just couldn’t bring myself to face her.

  Seanie tapped the shoulder of the freshman boy who was sitting beside him. “Hey. Kid. Move so she can sit down.”

  The boy picked up his tray and moved farther down the length of the table.

  “By the way,” Seanie said as Annie took the vacated seat, “I forgot to tell you, I liked the ‘Trick or treat, assbreath’ comment at practice.”

  I sighed.

  Sometimes I just wanted to grab Seanie by the neck and shake him.

  I was finished eating. I really wanted to leave. Then Annie reached across the table and lifted my chin with her soft hand. I know that Annie had touched me before—how could it be avoided? Friends touch. But it never felt like that. And she held my head there and looked at the cut above my eye, then she just looked right into my eyes and we didn’t blink or anything. I don’t know what I looked like to her, because I don’t think there was any expression on my face at all, and it didn’t matter. All we could see were each other’s eyes.

  “Wow,” Seanie said. “This is one heavy moment. Are you two getting ready to make out or something? ’Cause if you are, it’s about time.”

  Annie pulled her hand away, and I looked down.

  “Are you okay, West?” she asked.

  “Yeah. I’m fine.”

  “You still planning on coming to my house this weekend?”

  Nothing, especially not John-Paul Tureau, could stop me.

  “Is it okay if I do?”

  I was scared she’d say no.

  “Best friends,” she said. “It’s going to be fun.”

  “Best friends.”

  Then she stood and left us there. It was getting late, and most of the students were making their way back to the dorms. I was so glad she didn’t say anything else, anything about JP.

  She didn’t have to.

  “Damn,” Seanie said. “Why don’t you just get it over with and fucking kiss her, Ryan Dean?”

  “Shut up, Seanie. Annie knows what’s going on.”

  “Everyone on the planet knows what’s going on. Except you.”

  “Seanie?”

  “What?”

  “Thanks for not saying nothing about JP and me.”

  “There’s nothing to say.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  I WAS AFRAID THAT JOEY would be waiting outside when I headed back to O-Hall. I didn’t want to hear him lecture me about Megan again. But there wasn’t anyone there, and I walked along the trail by the lake in the dark alone.

  I got lectured anyway.

  I stopped by the shore so I could just stare out at the blackness of the lake, and that’s where I got that arguing and taunting voice in my head that went something like this:

  RYAN DEAN WEST 2: Now what are you going to do about Megan?

  RYAN DEAN WEST 1: What are you going to do about Megan—times infinity?

  RYAN DEAN WEST 2: You are such a loser.

  RYAN DEAN WEST 1: And she’s so five out of five Space Needles on the Ryan Dean West Reasons-Why-Male-Architects-Design-Structures-Shaped-Like-That-in-the-First-Place Hall of Fame.

  RYAN DEAN WEST 2: You must spend a lot of time thinking up perverted stuff.

  MR. WELLINS: Proof that sex actually does motivate everything.

  RYAN DEAN WEST 2: Sex doesn’t even exist in Ryan Dean West’s universe. Not even in the architecture. Everything is skinny-ass-bitch flat and flabby.

  MR. WELLINS: Good point. Maybe I need to go fine-tune my theory.

  RYAN DEAN WEST 1: Hey! How did an old pervert end up in my play?

  RYAN DEAN WEST 2: Your head is a freaking watering hole in the desert of purity for all things perverted. So . . . back to the issue
at hand: You know what you got to do about Megan. So do it.

  MRS. KURTZ: Don’t forget your study group tomorrow night, Ryan Dean!

  RYAN DEAN WEST 1: Ugh.

  (Ryan Dean West throws a rock out into the lake.)

  ANNIE: What are you doing, Ryan Dean?

  Oh, wait . . . that was real.

  “What are you doing, Ryan Dean?”

  And she called me Ryan Dean.

  “Nothing. I was just thinking.”

  I turned around and looked at her.

  She was so beautiful, standing there in the dark. I kept thinking about what Seanie had said—about why I didn’t just get it over with and kiss her. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen, right? We’ve known each other for more than two years, and I’ve only held her hand a couple times. God! I wanted to kiss her so bad, but I didn’t have the guts.

  I am such a loser.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  I smiled. “God, Annie. Don’t you know me by now?”

  She laughed. “Oh, yeah. You are so perverted, Ryan Dean.”

  Wow. She called me that twice.

  And I could see the real smile in her eyes. I loved that about her.

  She touched her fingers to her eyebrow, like I was a mirror or something. “Does that hurt?”

  “Not really.”

  “You’re mad at me, aren’t you?”

  “Kind of.” I sighed. “It’s stupid. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “Seanie said you and JP were really in a fight.”

  I looked out at the lake. I didn’t want to talk about this with Annie.

  “I’m going to be in trouble if I don’t check in at O-Hall in, like, two minutes, Annie.”