Top Ten

by Katie Cotugno

  The paramedics had whisked Ryan away when they’d arrived, and Gabby glanced down the empty corridor now, searching for any sign of life and finding none except for a bored-looking intern sipping coffee and flipping through a chart. She rubbed her arms against the goose bumps that had sprung up there, wrinkling her nose at the smell of Lysol and pee.

  “Gabby?”

  Gabby looked up sharply. Ryan’s mom, Luann, was coming fast down the hallway, dark hair waving like a flag in her wake. Other than their trip to Albany last fall, she didn’t know Ryan’s mom very well; she hadn’t spent a ton of time at Ryan’s house, but the few times Gabby had gone over there after school Luann was always working, clipping a terrier’s toenails or scrubbing a golden retriever in the big industrial sink. Once they’d helped her recapture a nervous Pekingese who’d escaped from the grooming table in the basement and run upstairs. Gabby had thought it was a lot funnier than Ryan had.

  Tonight Luann looked nicer than normal, a pinkish lipstick slicked over her mouth and skinny-heeled boots instead of her usual beat-up Crocs. Gabby thought of what Ryan had said about her having a boyfriend, wondered if possibly she’d been out on a date. “Where is he?” Luann asked, breathless.

  “They took him for a CAT scan,” Gabby explained, feeling like she was reciting lines from one of the grisly medical dramas Celia watched incessantly. “I guess he got hit pretty hard at his game today.”

  “Shit. Shit.” Luann tugged at the ends of her hair in a vaguely alarming fashion. Then she shook her head. “Okay,” she said. “Wait here, all right? I’ll find out where he is.”

  Luann went over to the admitting desk and spoke in urgent tones to the nurse there, returning a minute later looking marginally calmer. Gabby was expecting her to take charge like her own mom would have, maybe even to send her home, but instead she held her hand out for Gabby’s like a little kid afraid to go to the bathroom by herself. “Come on, Gabby,” she said. “They said you can go back with me.”

  Ryan was lying in bed in a hospital gown, plastic ID bracelet looped around his wrist and the skin around his eyes turned bruised and bluish. For a second he didn’t seem like anybody Gabby actually knew. “Hey, lovey,” Luann said, her voice breaking a bit as she dropped her purse on the chair and hurried across the room to the bedside. “Hey, love.”

  “I’m fine,” Ryan said. “I promise. Oh god, Mom, don’t cry.”

  “I’m not,” Luann said, although she definitely was, her expression wet and wobbly. Gabby thought again of her own mom, of how calm and unflappable she’d been when Kristina was hurt. It was unnerving, the idea of needing to comfort a parent. It upset the natural order of things.

  Gabby hung back in the doorway as Luann fussed, adjusting Ryan’s pillows and peppering him with questions. She straightened up, sniffling, just as the doctor came in, a tall black woman with her hair pulled into a knot on top of her head. “Ryan McCullough,” she said, looking down at the scans in front of her, “this is a heck of a concussion you’ve got here.”

  “I’ve got a heck of a hard head,” Ryan said, smiling winningly.

  The doctor didn’t smile back. “It’s not a joke, actually,” she told him, looking unimpressed. “We take traumatic brain injuries very seriously in student athletes. I understand you had a concussion last year, as well?”

  “Just a mild one,” Luann put in.

  “I was fine, really,” Ryan said. “It was the very beginning of freshman year, it wasn’t a big deal.”

  “Mild or not, repeated concussions over time can cause long-term neurological problems,” the doctor continued. “Memory loss, depression, changes in your mood and personality, inability to perform academically. In very rare cases, concussions can be catastrophic.”

  Gabby wasn’t entirely sure what the doctor meant by catastrophic, but she didn’t think she wanted to find out.

  “I’m not going to tell you you can’t play hockey, Ryan,” the doctor said. “But I am telling you this is something we need to watch very carefully. Do you understand?”

  “Yes ma’am,” Ryan said, polite as a church mouse. “I understand.”

  Luann let a breath out once she was gone. “She told us, huh, lovey?” she asked him, pushing Ryan’s hair off his forehead.

  “I’m fine,” Ryan promised, rolling his eyes a little bit.

  Gabby waited for Luann to contradict him, to tell him this was serious—crap, to tell him he couldn’t play hockey anymore—but instead she just got to her feet. “I need to go fill out some forms,” she said. “Will you kids be all right here for a second?”

  Gabby nodded. “Sure thing,” she said, and Ryan looked up at her; for the first time, he seemed to notice that she was here. When Luann was gone, they stared at each other for a moment. Gabby had no idea what to say.

  “You let them cut my shirt off?” Ryan asked, sounding bewildered, and just like that he was himself again; Gabby exhaled. “Why did they have to cut my shirt off?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, taken aback. “I didn’t really ask.” She looked at him for another minute, still hovering near the doorway. “How you feeling?” she asked.

  “Like shit,” he said. “Don’t tell my mom.”

  Gabby rolled her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me you busted your brain?”

  Ryan shook his head, then immediately winced. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

  “Oh, really?” Gabby asked, gesturing around them. “Because I gotta tell you, it kind of seems like a big deal.”

  “Yeah, because you freaked out and called the National Guard,” he said irritably. “Now they’re gonna have to tell my coach, which means I’m definitely going to get benched this week.”

  “Because I—” He was pissed at her, Gabby realized. Abruptly, she wanted to smash his head in herself. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” she snapped. “I’m not going to have that argument with you. You scared the shit out of me, do you know that? I thought you were going to die.”

  Her voice did a weird, squeaky thing on that last word, the fear hot and sharp and immediate. She hadn’t felt any of her standard-issue panic when it was actually happening, on the phone with the 911 operator or riding in the ambulance; now, though, it was like some kind of impermeable shield had sprung a leak, all of it rushing in at once. When she looked down at her hands they were shaking.

  “Okay,” Ryan said, letting out a sigh and leaning back against the pillows. “I’m sorry. You’re right, I should have said something. I was going to mention it at least, but then you were so mad at me all night.”

  “I wasn’t mad at you,” Gabby said, coming into the room and sitting down in the chair by the bedside. “I mean, I was, but not because you did anything.”

  Ryan looked at her like she was speaking German. “Gabs,” he said. “I have a fucking concussion. You gotta make more sense than that.”

  That made her laugh, but then it was like the laugh jangled something loose in her and for a second she felt, horrifyingly, like she might be about to cry. Gabby straightened her spine, swallowed savagely. She was tired. A lot of different things had happened tonight.

  “Michelle was giving me a hard time today,” she explained finally, picking at a loose seam on the handle of her purse. “About the idea that you’re, like—” She broke off, waving her hand vaguely. God, she hated talking about this kind of thing. It was so profoundly gross.

  But Ryan pressed. “That I’m what?” he asked. “Gabby. That I’m what?”

  “That you’re embarrassed of me,” she said. “And that’s why we only ever hang out one-on-one.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Ryan said, suddenly more alert than she’d seen him all night. “We only ever hang out one-on-one because every time I asked you to hang out with other people for like a year you said no. So I stopped asking.”

  “I mean, I know that,” Gabby said, though in truth she’d never articulated it to herself in quite those words. She blushed a little at the knowledge that he was, un
equivocally, right. “But hearing her say it, I just—I don’t know.” She waved her hand again. “I meant it, though. I don’t want you or anybody else to think I’m like, your weird sidekick. I don’t want it to be like you’re Charlie Brown and I’m Snoopy. Or I’m Calvin and you’re Hobbes.”

  “I think Hobbes is the tiger,” Ryan said.

  “Whichever!”

  “Whichever,” Ryan agreed. He shifted his weight in the bed, like he couldn’t quite get comfortable. “You’re not my weird sidekick,” he said finally. “Like, not even a little. You’re—you’re—” He stopped for a minute, looking at her in a way she’d never seen before. “Gabby,” he said, and his voice was so quiet. “That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about tonight, actually. You’re—” He broke off again.

  Gabby thought of kissing Shay on the side porch of Jordan Highsmith’s. She thought of the very first night she and Ryan had met. She thought of the sheer improbability of being here in this hospital room with him, the incredible luckiness of it: “You’re my best friend,” she blurted.

  Ryan looked at her for half a second, unreadable. Then he nodded, and it was like he was agreeing to something she hadn’t asked out loud. “Yeah,” he said, clearing his throat a little. “You’re my best friend.” He glanced down at his hands then, shyer than she’d ever seen him. “Sorry I busted up your good time,” he said.

  “What, at the party?” Gabby shook her head. “No, you didn’t.”

  Ryan smiled ruefully. “I don’t know about that,” he said. Then, off her questioning expression: “I kind of saw you,” he admitted. “With that girl on the porch.”

  Gabby felt some kind of trapdoor open inside her chest. “With Shay?”

  “Yeah, is that her name?” Ryan nodded. “I wasn’t trying to be a creep, I was just—I was looking for you, and, you know. I found you.”

  “Oh,” Gabby said, feeling her face flush. “Yeah.”

  “We can talk about that stuff, you know,” Ryan told her.

  Gabby huffed. “Oh my god, stop. Don’t be corny.”

  “How is that corny? I literally just told you you’re my best friend, you fucking cyborg.”

  “Okay, I know, I just—” Gabby broke off. “Okay.”

  Ryan made a goofy face. “Okay.”

  Gabby fussed with the zipper on her bag for another moment. “There’s one thing you can tell me, I guess.”

  “Name it.”

  “All right.” She tucked one knee up underneath her, settling in. “Can you help me figure out how to get a girl’s number?”

  NUMBER 7

  THE DAD THING

  SOPHOMORE YEAR, FALL

  RYAN

  “Can you even name ten, though?” Ryan asked, leaning back in the wobbly Adirondack chair in Gabby’s backyard and crossing his legs at the ankles. “Ten Halloween costumes that don’t have, like, a corresponding sexy version?”

  “Sexy Mr. Potato Head,” Gabby said immediately, and Ryan laughed. “Sexy Dr. Kevorkian. Sexy Margaret Thatcher. Sexy Teletubbie. Sexy—”

  “So clearly this is something you’ve already given a lot of thought to, then,” Ryan said, reaching for his soda. It was Friday, Monopoly night, fall of their sophomore year; Gabby’s dad had made a flatbread pizza with honey and goat cheese that should have been gross but was in fact actually delicious, like most things Gabby’s dad had made in the year that Ryan had been coming over. Now they were camped out on the back patio, Gabby stretching her oversized sweatshirt down over her knees while the wind rustled the papery brown leaves still clinging to the trees in the yard.

  “Obviously.”

  “What did you go as last year?” Ryan asked.

  “I didn’t,” Gabby said. “I hate Halloween.”

  Ryan snorted. “Of course you do.” He was opening his mouth to suggest Sexy Kool-Aid Man when Celia slid the kitchen door open.

  “Hey, Ryan,” she said, “there’s a weird car lurking outside in the front that I’m assuming is your ride.”

  “Oh, yeah, must be Anil,” Ryan said, digging his phone out of his pocket and seeing the here text he’d missed a few minutes before. He turned to Gabby, who was tugging her sweatshirt off her bent knees and standing up. “You sure you don’t want to come?” he asked. “It’s just a few people; it’s not a rager or anything.”

  “Nah,” Gabby said, predictably. “I’m good.”

  “Shocker,” Celia volunteered from the doorway; Gabby shot her a dirty look.

  “You sure?” Ryan pressed. It grated on him too sometimes, how much Gabby dragged her feet when it came to going out and actually doing stuff. He knew it was hard for her. But wasn’t that how you made hard stuff easier? By doing it? Sometimes it was like she didn’t even want to try. “I think they’re just watching movies.”

  Gabby shot him a look like, Leave it. “Tempting,” she said. “But I’ll pass.”

  Ryan nodded and started to stand up, but Celia turned to glare at him accusingly. “Why do you let her get away with it?” she asked.

  “Uh,” Ryan said, surprised. “What?”

  “Don’t get him involved in this,” Gabby protested.

  “I’m just saying,” Celia continued. “Has she ever even been to one of your hockey games? Or anything else you’ve tried to get her to come to?”

  “I—” Ryan didn’t know how to answer that. “Of course,” he lied.

  Celia looked back and forth between them for a moment, then rolled her eyes. “Sure,” she said, turning around and sliding the door shut behind her. “Whatever you say.”

  “I’m going to murder her,” Gabby said once Celia was gone, flopping back down into the Adirondack chair; Ryan thought of Anil still waiting out front in his Subaru, but didn’t want to just walk out now. “I have never met anybody so smug in my entire life. And my parents are going to North Carolina tomorrow for the closing on my grandma’s house, so you know she’ll be on a power trip all weekend. She’s probably got a plan to make me do, like, social calisthenics.”

  “I mean, she did make one good point,” Ryan joked, “which is that you actually never have been to one of my games.”

  Gabby frowned at him. “Okay, fine,” she said, sitting up straighter. “When’s the next one?”

  Ryan laughed at that, surprised. “It’s tomorrow,” he said, “but I’m kidding. You don’t have to.”

  “No, I’ll come,” Gabby said. She had her stubborn face on, which is how Ryan knew she was serious. The only person who dug her heels in harder than Anxious Gabby was Trying-to-Prove-Something Gabby. “I like having new experiences.”

  “Um, you definitely do not.”

  “Now you’re picking on me.” Gabby sighed loudly. “Okay, you’re right, I hate having new experiences, but I’ll make an exception for this.”

  He shook his head. “It’s all the way up in Albany,” he warned her.

  Gabby shrugged. “Your mom’s probably going, isn’t she? I could get a ride with her.”

  “Two and a half hours in the dogmobile?”

  “Why not?”

  Ryan didn’t have an answer for that. He felt shy all of a sudden, even though there was no reason to. Something about the idea of Gabby coming all that way felt like a lot of pressure. He wasn’t sure if they were that kind of friends. “My dad’s gonna be there,” he said, unsure if he was trying to deter her or not.

  “Oh yeah?” Gabby looked interested. It occurred to Ryan that he didn’t talk about his dad that much, maybe so that he wouldn’t miss him as bad. His parents had been separated for a full year now. “What’s he like?”

  “He’s great,” Ryan said, feeling himself grin a little. “He’s really fun, everybody loves him. He played in the minors when he was in his twenties, so he helps me with my game a lot.”

  “Really?” Gabby tilted her head to the side. “I never knew that, that hockey was the family business or whatever.”

  “Oh, no, it’s not like that,” Ryan said quickly. “I mean, yeah, I guess he’s the o
ne who got me into it, but it’s not like I’m taking over his butcher shop when I really want to paint or something.”

  Gabby laughed at that, but there was something skeptical about her expression, too, like she didn’t entirely believe him. Still: “Okay,” was all she said, with the confidence of somebody who generally liked parents better than people her own age. “Let’s meet your dad, then.”

  “I think that means we’re going steady,” Ryan joked.

  Gabby made a face. “Oh my god, you’re a gross person.”

  “Don’t gag too audibly,” Ryan said, rolling his eyes at her. Not that he wanted to go steady, clearly, but her active disgust didn’t exactly stroke a guy’s ego. Sometimes it was like she thought he was too ridiculous to breathe air. “You realize you can’t bring a book tomorrow,” he reminded her, standing up. “It doesn’t count if you’re reading like, The Collected Works of Shakespeare while you’re sitting there.”

  “Are you trying to discourage me?” Gabby asked, sliding the door open. “Because I’m in this now. I’m committed.”

  Ryan grinned at that, he couldn’t help it. “Okay,” he said. “See you tomorrow, then.”

  “Okay,” Gabby said, and it sounded like she was challenging him to something. “See you tomorrow.”

  GABBY

  The game was at a Catholic school called Saint Augustine’s that had a giant crucifix in the lobby and a massive addition at the back that held the hockey rink. A famous Boston Bruin had gone here, Luann explained as they bought their tickets, though the Saint Augustine’s team actually wasn’t very good. “Not as good as our guys, anyway,” Luann said, tucking her hands inside the kangaroo pocket of her PROUD CAVS MOM hoodie. “I might be a little biased.”