She nods a touch. “Guess it’s all for the best. Now you don’t have to see that Jamie girl.”
Dad? Throw me a sign, please? Anything? Flicker a light if I should tell Mom I talk to Jamie every day now? That we text each other in between classes to say nothing but hi? I scan the length of our well-lit school. Nothing.
“Sure.” Jamie said she stopped going to group too, but Mom doesn’t need to know that. Apparently Mom doesn’t need to know anything. Right, Dad? But seriously, Dad, feel free to jump in.
“Have a good day,” she says.
I look for good-luck pennies and see none. “You too,” I mumble, and she drives off.
The halls are slick and bare, and the rubber tips of my crutches make a squish-punch against the linoleum. I wanted to be here early so I wouldn’t have to see anyone, and last night I got a late start on my homework because neither me or my mom wanted to get off the couch. So we didn’t, and now I’m behind the eight ball on trig, but I don’t mind. Someday, during my interview with the Rhodes committee, I’ll tell them that when I was in high school I used to pretend an asteroid was about to crash into the planet and kill everyone, but I solved the impossible calculations to avoid disaster and saved the entire human race in the nick of time.
Thinking about cracking open my textbook and setting the doomsday-countdown clock on my phone sends a little thrill to my heart as I open the door to the library. The place is empty. I’ve got my pick of places to sit, and I go for the quiet corner. I throw my bag down, but I’m not alone. There’s sniffling behind me.
I turn around and there’s Bailey. At least, I think it’s her, she’s all hunched over in a ball, head down and sounding like she’s cleaning out a fish tank with her face. “Bailey?” I ask.
Her head pops up. Red, wet face, smudged eyes, and runny nose. Both sleeves of the white dress shirt of her uniform are soaked through. I see skin. “Oh,” she says, wiping everything up with her cuffs.
She gets her things together, but I stop her. “Are you okay?”
Bailey’s face crinkles up and she starts to cry again. “No,” she says in a whisper. “Please don’t tell him.”
I get her a tissue from a pocket pack Mom stashed in my bag on the first day of school. She takes it and blows her nose. “Tell who?”
“JP,” she says, all irritated.
“I won’t. But honestly, who cares what he thinks.”
She breaks down in a fresh round of tears.
“I know you guys broke up, but it’s gonna be okay.” I pat her on the shoulder, but just once so it doesn’t come across as creepy.
“I don’t know what I did wrong.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong, trust me.”
“I told my mom I was going out with the most popular guy in school and she was just, I don’t know…She was so proud of me because I was actually leaving the house and doing normal high school things.”
“You don’t need JP to get out and go do stuff.”
Bailey’s tissue is a wet rag, so I get her a new one. “He dumped me in my own driveway,” she says, dabbing everything at once. “He came over and goes, ‘I think we make better friends, don’t you?’ and then next thing I know we’re sitting under my basketball hoop and making out. I asked him if we were still together, and he just shook his head no. Then he left. But we made out. I’m so confused.”
“That’s his way of doing it, I guess.”
“He was my first kiss. He said I was like no other girl he’d ever met.”
“Look at his track record,” I say. I don’t want to shrug, but I do. “This is his deal.”
Bailey glares at me. “Maybe you don’t get it, because you’re on a whole different side of the train tracks and all, but in a regular normal boy-girl relationship, we mean what we say.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I know what’s going on with you and your Jamie person. He told me.” Bailey mops up her cheek. “JP said you’re into her because she’s the best you can get, so maybe you just don’t know what it’s like in a normal relationship.”
I look over my shoulder. No one’s around, no one heard, and I’m thankful. It’s still too damn early. “Look, Bailey. Whatever JP told you, about anything, pick a topic, is a flaming pile of dog shit.”
“So you’re not going out with a tranny?”
“Don’t ever call Jamie that. I’m serious: that word is not okay.”
“But she is, I mean, she’s not a real girl,” she says.
“Jamie worries about school and friends and all that stuff. She’s as real a girl as you are.”
“No offense, but she’s not. Because she has, you know, boy parts, right? She didn’t get them chopped off yet?”
I lean in and whisper back, “Do you dwell on everyone’s junk when you meet them? Like, all you do all day long is think about dicks and janes? Is that your thing, Bailey? You can’t stop thinking about what’s in everyone’s pants?”
“No.” She throws herself back in horror. “Ew. I do not.”
“Then why are you doing it to Jamie?”
“Fine.” Her face is dry. She sniffs once more to seal it up. “You did kiss her on the cheek, though. I saw you.”
“I did.”
“So there you go.”
“You of all people should understand that relationships are a bit more complicated than that. But okay, yes. I kissed her on the cheek. Happy?”
“Are you going to bring her to a dance or something?”
“I…don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
Because before I knew, I absolutely would have, but now I wouldn’t, and I feel downright shitty about that fact. “Because I hate dances.”
“What’s her real name?”
“Jamie.” I get my books and put them on her desk. “Did you do trig last night?”
“Of course I did.”
“Spot me?”
“How very unlike you, Dylan.”
“Hmmph.” We plow through it, and I thank the crashing asteroid gods our teacher assigned only ten questions yesterday. Cakewalk. We close our books at the same time.
“Please don’t tell anyone,” I say. “About Jamie.” If I need to bury it inside, then I need to bury it everywhere.
“I won’t. I promise.” I hate that I’m relieved when she says that.
“See you in class?”
“Yeah,” she says, but she has no intention of moving. I can almost see Bailey going over every minute she ever spent with JP, dissecting it like the scientist she is and trying to piece it all together. She wanted the fantasy, and JP got out before she saw the reality. He always does. She doesn’t know how little she meant to him. I do, and that’s an awful thing.
I wonder if all JP’s ex-girlfriends feel the same way? Whispering to each other in solidarity and trying to warn girls before it’s too late. I hope so. A groundswell might get him to quit doing this shit. I hand her a few more tissues and leave her in the library.
Spread the word, Bailey.
The weirdness people send my way is like a wall of spiderwebs. It’s like I’m wading through invisible phantoms. I go to my locker and toss things where they need to go. When I close it, JP’s there. “Jeezus,” I curse under my breath.
“I need to talk to you.”
I hold my hand up. “I wish you peace,” I say, getting all my stuff ready for homeroom.
“Whatever,” he says. JP shuts my locker door. “Come with me.”
“I really don’t want to.”
“It’s about Jamie.”
We go.
We weave through the hall, him high-fiving various wannabe bros and me following. Whatever attention I get from trailing JP is tenuous, and I drink it in while I can. I admit, it’s nice being popular by association. I lock eyes with everyone I pass. Remember me. I’m decent. I’m okay.
JP ducks into a narrow hall next to the auditorium. This better be quick; the bell for homeroom is going to ring any minut
e. “What is it?” I ask.
“Ethan and Bryce found Jamie online and they didn’t come to school today.”
“So? You yourself said they were idiots and weren’t going to do anything.”
“They changed their minds.”
Yellow light barely bounces off the bricks around us, but all I see is one nightmare scenario after another. What they do to her, what I do to them. “Where are they?”
“I don’t know.”
I land against the wall. “Oh my god.”
“Dylan,” JP says. “I’m on your side. I’m being legit—I don’t think you and Jamie are weird or anything. Quit being so embarrassed. Let me get Bryce and Ethan to come back to school, I’ll talk to them. No one will bother either of you ever again.”
“Then do it. If you’re such a good guy, what are you waiting for?”
JP draws a huge breath. “Adam Michaels. I need you back. He never paid up.”
“No.”
“But this is what we do, Dylan. I make the deals, you get the money. This is our thing.”
“Not anymore. How about you call Bryce and Ethan and get them to leave her alone right now because that is what sane normal people do.”
“I know and I will, as soon as you visit Adam Michaels.”
“My days of beating people up for you are over. I did it to make you happy. Don’t you get how screwed up that is? I’m done. Like, over and out forever, done.”
“Bryce and Ethan are out there.”
His face blurs and we’re two feet shorter. He’s covered in freckles and I’m not covered in hair. We’re in the fourth grade and he’s got this amazing new Hot Wheels to trade if I only go stand outside on a ninety-five-degree day and save him a tire swing until he can get to the park. He doesn’t show up when he says he’s gonna, and I get a sunburn.
We’re slightly taller, shaggier, starting seventh grade, and fitting all these new teeth of ours into retainers and braces. He’s telling everyone at camp how cool I am and I feel so good, I never notice that I’m the one pushing aside little kids because he asked me to get him the last granola bars on the table.
We’re taller. But really, I’m taller. We’re only freshmen and I’m taller than everyone else, including all the sophomores, juniors, and seniors. I can’t fit at the tables, the desks; nothing fits. Except when I’m around JP. I know what to do, where to go, how to be. He jumped right into the high school flow without a single hiccup, turned around, and said, “Follow me.” So I did. I did everything he ever asked as long as there was a place where I fit.
“JP…” I look at him. Maybe for the first time. “Have you ever been my friend?”
“Dylan, we’ve been friends since we were practically babies.”
Except I’m not talking about how long we’ve known each other.
JP brings out his phone. “One text and these two idiots are back at school and no one from St. Lawrence ever bothers Jamie for the rest of forever. Do we have a deal or not?”
“What is wrong with you?” I lunge for the phone, desperate to do it myself. “She’s a person, not some pawn in your stupid game.”
“I have no choice!” He slides the phone down inside his front pocket, where I’m definitely not going. “Adam Michaels has missed every deadline to pay me back. He’s up to three hundred and fifty dollars.”
“So what? Why do you need this so bad?”
“It’s all I have! This is what I do; this is my thing.”
“This is how assholes are born.”
“Shut up. I run this school. I’m the guy in charge, not you. This is what I control.”
“I’m not doing it.”
“I can’t let everyone see I let Adam Michaels slide. This is not some Robin Hood situation here. There are at least two other kids who owe me that much or more. If they see I can’t collect, then I’m out like over a thousand dollars,” he says.
“How can you say you’re all supportive of me and Jamie with a straight face and then blackmail me into beating someone up?”
“I’m a businessman.”
“You’re a back-alley loan shark.”
“Take the deal.”
I scowl at the wall just behind his head. Notches and dings line up inside these faded rusty bricks, and I’m listening so hard for their stories of how they got there because I can’t believe what I’m hearing in real life.
“Dylan, take the deal,” he says. “My dad…I haven’t seen him in almost two months. He’s gone.”
That sucks, but I knew that. His dad still wires him money whenever JP asks him. “Sorry about your dad.”
“So you’ll do it?”
“How about you help keep a fellow human being safe.”
He shakes his head and sucks in air like I’m asking him to dig another Panama Canal. “I can’t. I just can’t. Adam Michaels needs to pay up.”
“You’d rather throw Jamie to the wolves?”
“I…I need Adam Michaels. And if Ethan and Bryce aren’t the ones who find Jamie, it’ll really suck when someone else does.”
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
He stares at the closed door down the hall instead of me. “She’s a real nice girl too.”
“You frigging piece of shit. You win.” I leave the hallway on my crutches. He goes one way, I go another. The bell hasn’t rung yet; Adam Michaels and I can go outside and be back in class in like five minutes.
I round the corner of the senior wing and there he is, collecting his books like a good little student. I button up my school jacket because blood on a white shirt is always a pain to get out. “You,” I say.
“Back again?” He drops his bag on the floor. “Not so much a cripple this time.”
“Never was.”
He looks at my leg and crutches. “Whatever. Let’s go.”
We find the busted emergency door that everyone props open with soda cans and go outside onto a barren, cold patch of earth and glare at each other like two dogs.
I am the bigger dog.
My fists bunch up, looking like two hairy medicine balls, and there is nothing I want to do more than break this kid’s fucking nose. Hear that crack, get that adrenaline high, because I’m frustrated as shit. I want to hate JP, but I don’t. I’m just sad. I want to hate Jamie, but I don’t, because it’s hard to hate someone you want to be with all the time.
“Hope you know I’m just humoring you.” Adam Michaels circles the yard, gets closer to me. He shouldn’t do that. “Kinda want to hear you cry like when you broke that thing. Don’t worry, I’ll be quick. All it takes—”
I lunge, grab his shirt so fast all the threads pop, strike him up and in his gut, right on the solar plexus, and throw his sorry ass on the ground. Mud flies and hits me in the chin. I’ll take it. It’s better than blood. Adam Michaels lies there in one pathetic heaving pile because all the nerves in his celiac ganglia are spasming the fuck out.
“Do you know who I am?” I lean over him, pushing him hard on his gut so it burns. “They call me the Beast for a reason. Time to pay up.”
My fist reels back. His eyes snap wide.
Do it for Jamie. Do it for Jamie.
I can end this kid and he knows it.
But I can’t.
My hands fall open. Adam Michaels takes his first actual breath. “Work out a payment plan,” I say. “Tell JP you’ll pay him…what can you afford?”
“Um…m-maybe ten dollars a week?”
“Tell him you’ll pay him thirty-two dollars and eight cents a month for a year. That’s a ten percent interest rate, and don’t borrow money until you know you can pay it back.”
“Whoa, you’re really good at math.”
“I know. Now get out of here.”
He crawls through the door, doubled over and covered in mud. Back in the hallway, the bell screams over my head. If I were more social, I’d have Ethan or Bryce’s number, but I don’t because all these years I relied on JP for everything. If I didn’t have the need to br
anch out, I didn’t, and now I’m kicking myself. Instead I call Jamie. She doesn’t pick up and I have to leave her a message: “I’m worried about you. I need to know you’re okay, like right now this second.”
I hang up.
I realize that might’ve been a little overdramatic and call back.
“Maybe not quite that bad, but whatever. Call me as soon as you get this message.” I hang up, stand in the corner, and wait.
TWENTY-ONE
The closest midway point we have is the mall. I keep expecting all the teachers to call truancy officers, but nothing happens. We turn heads in the mall on a school day for only obvious reasons: I am an almost-seven-foot-tall hairy dude on crutches sitting in the food court next to a girl who makes everyone do a triple check. A pretzel lies half-mauled on a skimpy napkin in between us as I pull my hat down and Jamie takes another billion pictures.
“Jamie…”
“Don’t worry, I’m not posting anything to the Internet. No one will know we’re here right now,” she says. “It’ll be a latergram.”
“No, you’re not taking this seriously. Ethan and Bryce are transphobic idiots, and JP is really dangerous. I don’t know what he’s going to do anymore. He said some real scary shit.”
“I get it. I heard you the first sixty times,” she says sharply. “And you’re starting to sound like my mom. No amount of expert opinion can convince her that I’m not going to be the target of some insane plot. So I’ll tell you the same thing I tell her: I’ll be fine.”
“I know, but I’m afraid they’re going to come after you and hurt you, and you’re brushing it off like they accidentally changed the red dye in their Froot Loops or something.”
“Are you done?”
“You’re mad at me because I’m trying to look out for you?”
“Maybe I’m sick of hearing about my imminent demise. Despite everyone’s well-intentioned concerns, it’s quite nice being me,” she says. “Seriously, my own mother thinks I’m going to end up a prostitute and get murdered by a john, so I don’t need to hear it from you too, okay?”
“She does?”
“No, not like really officially hooker, just ‘her biggest fear’ for me and whatever.”
“I’m not saying you’re gonna be a hooker. I’m trying to tell you I do not know what’s going on and I’m afraid.” Because you mean so much to me.
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