I was so tired.
I climbed down from the bed, undressed, and turned off the light.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG with you?” Seanie said.
The light came on and I woke up.
My books were scattered around my head, and I was lying, face up, on top of the covers.
Seanie, JP, and Joey were standing just inside the door, dressed in their shirts and ties, like they had just come from dinner at the mess hall.
I propped myself up on my elbows and looked at them.
I rubbed my hair and sat up. My head nearly touched the ceiling, but not quite.
“I just needed to sleep,” I said. “What time is it?”
I looked at the clock. It was eight fifteen.
“Everyone was looking for you,” JP said. “You missed dinner.”
Yeah. I bet Casey Palmer was looking for me too.
“I wasn’t hungry.” But now that they mentioned it, I felt like I was starving.
“Well,” Seanie kind of whispered, glancing around, “we smuggled you some food, just in case you were.”
Taking food from the mess hall was a definite violation. But as far as rule breaking was concerned, having visitors from the regular dorms in O-Hall was probably just as bad.
Seanie placed a wadded napkin and a paper coffee cup on top of the Calculus book next to my pillow. “It’s a ham sandwich and some tomato soup.”
Now, that was awesome. It sounded so good.
“Thanks, Seanie,” I said. “And thanks for not wrapping it up in your printout from Casey’s MySite.”
JP laughed.
“Have you ever seen Casey’s MySite, Joey?” I asked.
Seanie had a sick and pissed-off expression on his face.
“No. Why?”
“Well, when you go home this weekend, look it up,” I said.
“Okay.”
Joey’s parents were ultrarich. They lived in San Mateo and flew him home every Friday after school. I saw how Seanie was looking at me, so I just fired him back a Ha-Ha-I-just-got-Joey-to-look-at-your-balls-so-write-a-haiku-about-that, fucker expression, if there is such a thing.
But whether or not there actually is such a look, Seanie and I just had an intense and wordless conversation about Japanese poetry, his balls, and our gay friend, Joey Cosentino.
“I got you something to drink,” Joey said.
I looked at him. Maybe I still had the balls/haiku expression on my face, so I guess Joey thought I didn’t trust his evening beverage selection.
“Not beer,” he added, and smiled. He pulled a bottle of water and another of Gatorade from his school pack.
Now, that was a miracle. I was so thirsty, I opened the Gatorade and emptied the bottle without even taking a breath.
“Joey told everyone what happened,” JP said.
“Dude, you’re like a superhero, laying out Casey Palmer, sticking up for your fly half,” Seanie said.
“I wasn’t sticking up for Joey,” I said. “I was sticking up for me. I have to walk up and down that hill every day too. We can’t let them start off with crap like that on the first day of practice. So I just kind of closed my eyes and took him out. I was so pissed off about everything anyway, so I did something really stupid that I’m lucky didn’t end up with me being killed. Like we said in the locker room, I wanted to hit someone, and a game of touch rugby didn’t quite do it for me today.”
“How’s your nose?” Joey asked.
I hadn’t even thought about it since seeing that blood in the bottom of the shower stall. I took a bite of the sandwich—it tasted better than anything I could possibly imagine—then touched my nose.
“It’s not broken or nothing,” I said, inhaling. “I think. Just stuffed up. Man, thanks so much for the food. I think I actually feel normal again.”
But feeling normal meant I immediately thought about Annie, too.
“Did any of you guys see Annie tonight?”
“I talked to her,” JP said. “She is really pissed off at you, Ryan Dean.”
Maybe my head was still a little off, but I kind of got the feeling that JP was glad about Annie feeling that way.
“Dude, her being pissed just shows how much she cares about you,” Seanie said.
That sounded like something you’d tell your kid before giving him a spanking.
“I think she feels like you didn’t tell her the truth,” JP explained.
“I never had the chance to. I never had a minute to talk to her about it.” I guess I sounded pretty whiney.
Then the door pushed open. I expected it would be Chas coming in, and that he’d tell my friends to get the hell out, but it was Mr. Farrow. And he looked pissed, too, because he was going to be the one to tell them that.
“What are you two boys doing here?” he said. He fired a displeased look at me as I sat on my bunk, eating my dinner. I pulled the sheet over my legs. Mr. Farrow had a way of making me feel so uncomfortable.
JP said, “Ryan Dean was sick. We just brought him something to eat.”
Mr. Farrow took a step toward the bed and looked more closely at me, which, like I said, creeped me out because he was practically exhaling on my chest and I was only wearing boxers.
“Are you sick, Ryan Dean?”
“I’m feeling better now. I just woke up.”
“Maybe we should have the doctor take a look at you in the morning.”
“No. Really. I’m okay,” I said.
Then Farrow pulled a scrap of paper and a pen from his pocket and looked sternly at JP.
“You boys are obviously not new students. You know the rules,” he said. “What are your names?”
JP swallowed one time and answered, “John-Paul Tureau and Sean Flaherty.”
“Mr. Farrow, please don’t get them in trouble,” I said. “Really, they were just looking out for me.”
“Ryan Dean, sometimes when boys take it upon themselves to look out for one another, there are unpleasant consequences.”
Holy shit if that wasn’t the recap of my first day here. Then I thought, they must have picked him and Mrs. Singer to run this place because they’re like Satan’s minions or something.
And Mr. Farrow continued, “But, Mr. Tureau and Mr. Flaherty, I do appreciate your apparent concern for Ryan Dean. However, I expect you to leave immediately, and that you won’t do this again without asking me ahead of time.”
Then Farrow tucked his slip of paper back into his pocket and stepped out into the hallway, leaving my door standing open.
“Because we have plenty of room here in Opportunity Hall,” he added, then disappeared down the corridor in the direction of our common room.
“I guess that means we’re leaving,” Seanie said.
“Hey. Thanks, guys,” I said as Seanie and JP turned to go. Out in the hallway, Seanie swung around and flipped me a middle finger with a smile and a fuck-you-for-getting-Joey-to-look-at-my-balls expression on his face, if there is such a thing.
I finished my sandwich. I didn’t say anything, but I suddenly felt really awkward being here, in my bed, alone in my room, with a gay guy. And then I immediately got pissed off at myself for even thinking shit like that, for doing the same kind of crap to Joey that everyone else did, ’cause I knew what it felt like too, being so not-like-all-the-other-guys-here. And I don’t mean I know what it felt like to be gay, because I don’t, but I do know what it felt like to be the “only” one of something. Heck, as far as I know, there’s just got to be more gay eleventh graders than fourteen-year-old eleventh graders, anyway.
I wondered if it bothered Kevin Cantrell, though. Joey and Kevin had been roommates for two years, and no one ever talked shit about Kevin or wondered if he was gay, because everyone knew he just wasn’t.
I am such a loser.
“I feel so much better,” I said. “You want this water, Joey?”
I held the bottle out for Joey.
“No, thanks. I’m going to go watch TV with
the guys until lights-out. You want to watch some too?”
“No,” I said. “I really think I just need to sleep. And anyway, aren’t Casey and Nick going to be there?”
“So what?” Joey said. “I’m not afraid of them.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“They can fuck off,” Joey said. “They’re not going to do anything else. Trust me. You’re not afraid of them, are you?”
I thought about it.
“Yes. I honestly am.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Joey said. “That was a fucking awesome tackle. But don’t ever do shit like that again. Do you want the light off?” He was halfway out the door.
“Yeah. Thanks. See you in Math.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
I HEARD CHAS COME IN that night, but it didn’t fully wake me up. I was in that kind of sleep that just feels so paralyzingly restful and deep, like my body had become the mattress. So when I woke up around two o’clock, needing to pee, I actually did consider using the empty Gatorade bottle I had saved from my dinner in bed. But I decided it was a good opportunity, early on in our life together, for me to see if I could actually climb out of bed without inspiring Chas to beat the crap out of me. I thought I’d go ahead and save the Gatorade bottle for the future, though. Just in case.
And I was like some kind of ninja climbing out of bed, only my invisible and silent mission dealt with peeing, as opposed to murder.
O-Hall was completely still and dark when I stepped out into the hallway. Every part of my body felt so alive and healed; I had finally recovered from the idiocy of the previous night, and my bare feet felt so good on the slick and cool linoleum floor as I made my way down the hall toward the bathroom.
I stretched and yawned. I was actually looking forward to the morning, to the opportunity to find Annie at breakfast and try to make things right again. I had to try. It was making me crazy. After not seeing her for two-and-a-half months over the summer, we’d already had two I’m-pissed-off-and-don’t-want-to-talk-to-you episodes, and that sucked.
After I finished peeing, I switched off the light in the bathroom and headed down the hallway to bed. That’s when I saw a flash of light through the window on the door to the stairwell. It was one of those things that you just catch in the corner of an eye, but it stopped me cold and I stood there in the middle of the dark hallway, silently watching that door to see if it would flash again.
It did, but only for a second, maybe less.
It was a pale green light, the kind you see from one of those snap-activated glow sticks; it lit the stairwell, and then everything was suddenly dark again.
I thought that maybe Chas and Joey and Kevin were doing something they shouldn’t for the second night in a row, but that didn’t seem right, because I was certain I’d seen Chas sleeping in his bunk. And I was kind of scared, too, but there was something about that light that made me want to go see what the person responsible for it was doing there.
I know. Pretty stupid. And I wasn’t even drunk.
And as I padded in my bare feet to the end of the boys’ floor, I kept thinking about all the horror movies I’d ever seen where you just sit there yelling inside your head, “Don’t open that door, you fucking idiot!”
So what did I do? I opened the door.
Then I almost screamed like a little girl, but I was too scared to do that, and if I hadn’t just done what I did a minute earlier, I would have peed myself too, because when I opened the door, I was standing there, in nothing but my underwear, face to face with the so-unhot-she-is-quite-likely-the-only-two-legged-female-besides-his-mom-no-wait-including-his-mom-Ryan-Dean-West-wouldn’t-want-to-run-into-at-night-when-he-is-only-wearing-boxers-and-nothing-else Mrs. Singer from downstairs.
And I thought, I am never going to not-have diarrhea for the rest of my life.
I am such a loser.
And she was standing right there, inches away from me, in a black robe and her black hair tied back in a black scarf, looking like some kind of child-sacrificing Druid, or a bad illustration from an endless volume of Dickens; and for a moment, I was so startled, I just froze.
I should have used the Gatorade bottle.
When my knees thawed, I spun around and ran back down the hallway without saying anything or turning around, my feet frantically slapping their way back to my bedroom.
I felt something cool on my chest. My nose was bleeding again.
Okay, I thought, she’s not a witch. Casey Palmer made your nose bleed; it wasn’t that creepy Mrs. Singer. I pressed my hand to my nose, and it was immediately covered in blood.
When I got back to my room, I pulled the bloodstained shirt I was wearing when Casey punched me from my school pack and held it to my face. That shirt was beyond salvation at this point anyway. Then I attempted to one-handedly maneuver my way back to the upper bunk.
To make matters worse, I kicked Chas in the head when I climbed back up onto my bunk, not that there wasn’t a pretty big part of me that was deeply satisfied by kicking him in the head after he forced me to get drunk and caused Annie to hate me. It probably would have been more satisfying if he woke up, but he just grunted and rolled over as I pulled myself up onto my bed.
My heart was pounding. I panted. I rubbed my hair as I stared up at the ceiling, pressing the wadded-up shirt against my nose to stop the bleeding. I was actually sweating. I couldn’t get comfortable, and I guess I was fidgeting a bit, convinced that Mrs. Singer had it in for me and was just slowly working on some weird method of killing me. Then Chas punched the mattress from below; I felt the thud of a fist in my kidney.
“Please tell me you’re not doing what I think you’re doing up there, you fucking homo.”
What was he thinking? What an absolute moron Chas Becker was.
“I’m not doing nothing,” I said, my voice muffled in my ruined shirt. “I got a bloody nose. Sorry.”
He went back to sleep.
I tried to relax, but I kept thinking about that weird woman downstairs, imagining the horrible crap she was going to put me through in the morning. What could possibly be worse than day one?
I sighed, and drifted off to sleep again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
WE BOTH WOKE UP AT the same time to the buzzing jangle of the alarm clock.
I felt so rested and ready for a real, and hopefully normal, day of school. When I got down from the bed, Chas saw the bloody shirt and said, “Is that from Casey Palmer?”
I said, “Yeah.”
“I heard about that. You want me to fuck him up?”
And I thought, wow, I could almost fool myself into thinking Chas Becker cared about me or something.
“Naw.”
I threw the shirt down onto the floor of our closet; then I picked it up and put it into the laundry bag marked WEST as Chas glared at me.
“He’s a puss, anyway,” Chas said. “And I heard you laid him out pretty good.”
“I guess.”
“You got some balls for a little kid.”
And I thought, Screw you, Betch.
Little kid.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I COULD FEEL MYSELF GET lighter; my heart beat faster, and my scalp kind of tingled when I saw her. Maybe it was just the dandruff shampoo I used that someone had left in the shower that morning.
I’ll be honest. If someone asked me am I in love with Annie Altman, I’d have to say I don’t know, because I really don’t know. I have nothing to compare with how I feel about her. But I do know that I feel this kind of a need where she is concerned; I need her to notice me more than she does; I need to think that I make her feel lighter when she sees me. And there’s no way I could ever believe that was possible, because it was just little me, Ryan Dean West, fourteen years old, walking around in the exact same clothes and tie as four hundred other guys here at Pine Mountain, every one of us so much the same, except for me, except for that one thing she noticed that she couldn’t get over, that made me so unattractively differen
t from every other eleventh-grade boy in this shithole.
It’s what I tried to tell her in the note I threw away the night before.
It was a waste, anyway, because I knew I’d given her enough of a good reason for not ever talking to me again: I had crossed over, tried to make myself so much the same as a guy like Chas Becker by breaking the rules and playing poker and getting drunk, as if those stupid behaviors could ever incite some magical evolution in the ape of Ryan Dean West and cause him to shed his tail and walk upright in Annie’s eyes.
But I could hope, even if I was such a loser.
She sat across from Isabel Reyes at breakfast, eating a bagel and sipping from a carton of orange juice. And despite JP calling out “Hey, Ryan Dean,” and Seanie trying to wave me over to where they sat by the door so they could see every girl who came and went, I ignored them, but not in an unfriendly, stuck-up way, because I was kind of scared and had this jumping-off-the-highest-ever-high-dive feeling as I kept my eyes focused forward and walked right to where Annie sat.
She saw me coming up, but I couldn’t tell from her expression whether or not she was happy to see me. As always, Annie looked totally hot, but so did Isabel in her rustic, more-facial-hair-than-Ryan-Dean-West-will-have-in-college kind of way (God! Why do I think that’s hot?). And then I saw Annie lean over and whisper something to Isabel, and I could only imagine what they were saying.
What the Girls Probably Said: A Play by Ryan Dean West
ANNIE: Here comes that fucking alcoholic Ryan Dean West. Observe how I treat him like he’s some kind of pathetic red-eared slider turtle.