I stopped talking. I could hear silence. Thank you, God. I mean, next time, stop me a little earlier, okay? And, if it’s not too much, could you also make me a lot more articulate (vocab word on this week’s test)? I was staring at Mr. Peterson, and he was staring at me, and I swallowed hard because I had a lump in my throat that I thought might be my heart, even though I knew that was biologically impossible. Oh no. Now I’ve started to think like I talk. Did I always think like that and I never realized it? “If it’s good with you, Mr. Peterson,” I repeated.
“It’ll be fun, Mr. Peterson,” Allie said from somewhere behind me. “We’ll all be there.”
My eyes got really wide when I turned around and saw Allie, Jonny, Riley, Chad, Steven, Rick, Robert, and Mouse all staring at me and Mr. Peterson.
“Yeah,” Riley said. “We’re all going to hang out and learn about chess.”
“Chad actually has a lot of potential to be an excellent chess player.” Rick smiled really big at Mr. Peterson.
“What about me?” Steven asked, looking at Rick.
“Well,” Rick replied. “You need to develop a better sense of strategy. You’re a bit haphazard and need some more focus.”
Mr. Peterson looked at all of us.
“Please, Dad?” Tommy’s voice was small, and I smiled across the top of the car at him. “I’d really like to go to Dylan’s house for dinner. I promise I’ll study all week for the ACTs. I promise.”
His father looked at him. “I’ll think about it.”
“Thanks, Dad.” Tommy stood there opposite the rest of us as Mr. Peterson rolled up the car window and drove away.
We all stared in total silence for a minute and I walked over to Tommy and looked down at him. “Hi.”
“Hi.” He shuffled his feet wiping something that I couldn’t see off the sidewalk.
“How was the rest of your weekend?”
“Good. Yours?”
“Good. I studied a lot.”
Riley shouted from three feet away. “Jeez, dude. Just kiss him already.”
“Riley!” I shouted back. “Really, dude? Really?” I put my head in my hands.
“You know you want to.”
“Yeah, but not in front of everyone.”
Allie walked past us, holding Jonny’s hand. “For the record, that was not a stupid thing to say. It was an idiotic thing to say.”
She was almost in the school, before I realized she hadn’t finished her thought. “Wait, Allie. What I said, or what Riley said?”
I could hear her laughing.
Alec, Justin, and Russell were standing right inside the door when Tommy and I walked into the school.
“What’s up, fags?”
Tommy looked down at the floor and started to walk faster. I reached out and grabbed his backpack stopping him in the middle of the hall. He jerked away from me and almost tripped over his own feet. I looked at my hand like I’d been burned. I tried a smile, but I don’t think it came out comforting like I wanted it to be. “It’s okay, Tommy. I’m here now. I’ll protect you.”
Tommy turned away, part sad, part scared, and part mad and almost ran down the hall.
“Guess that’s one homo who knows his place.” Russell walked up to me. “Seems like you should figure it out too. No one wants you here.”
“I do,” Riley said, stepping up next to me. He stared at Russell. “You use that word again and you and me are going to have some real problems.”
“Aw, gee,” Justin said, staring back at us. “That’d be too bad. A team of queers might be pissed at us.”
By this time, we were all standing in a row. Me, Riley, Jonny, Steven, and Chad. The five of us against the three baseball players. If it was just us against them, I was pretty sure we could take them. But there was a whole group of other kids standing around. Were they on the hockey team? Was anyone else on the baseball team there to back them up? Would any of the teachers look the other way if we all got jumped? And what if any of the guys got hurt? It wasn’t only the rest of the season that I had to worry about. What if Riley got his knee busted? It’d be all my fault. I pictured Chad and Steven, hanging out with the guys from the chess club. The two of them getting picked on. I pictured Jonny in the middle of English class, getting laughed at and dumping Allie because he couldn’t handle defending me day in and day out. Because of me and the fact that I couldn’t keep my mouth shut and I couldn’t stop thinking and at the same time I really wasn’t thinking, because if I had I wouldn’t have said anything at all. Why didn’t I stop and think before I did anything? I really am an idiot. Or stupid. I have to look that up today.
“Just….” Hearing my own voice, it sounded even smaller than Tommy’s was earlier when he was talking to his dad. “Just drop it, guys.”
“What?” Riley looked at me like he didn’t recognize me. I always stood up for myself. Always. All I could think of was the fact that I’d ruined any chance I had with Tommy by scaring him and how I could get the guys really hurt. I never thought about that before. Mr. Peterson was right. I was stupid and an idiot. He just never said it out loud. I walked away down the hall, staring at the floor.
I could hear Allie behind me talking to Russell. “Your zipper’s open. Everyone can see your shortcomings.” She grabbed Jonny’s hand and walked away.
I heard someone running up behind me, but I knew it wasn’t anyone on my team. The footsteps were too light. That also meant I wasn’t about to get jumped by Russell or any of his guys. Rick caught up to me. I could tell he was a little out of breath. “Dylan. Hey, Dylan.”
“What, Rick?”
“Stop. Seriously stop. I just want to tell you something.” He kept up with me almost all the way to homeroom. “Dylan. Stop. It’s about Tommy.”
I stopped and turned around to look at Rick. He wasn’t quite as short as Tommy, but he was still shorter than me and I had to look down at him. “Tommy’s not going to talk to me again.”
“You grabbed his backpack.” He said it, like it was the most logical thing in the world.
“What?”
“Dylan, when guys like Tommy and me get our backpacks grabbed, it’s usually because someone’s going to yank us into the bathroom and shove our heads in the toilet.”
“People do that?” Was I really so out of it and ignorant to what was happening at my own school?
“Not really. They used to do that when my dad was my age. Now they take our money and threaten to kick our asses.” He sighed. People did that around me a lot. It was like everyone wanted to teach me something. “Tommy freaked out because all of a sudden you were another jock who was about to kick his ass.”
“But, I just told him I wanted to date him and have him over for dinner.”
“Ugh.” Rick managed to shake his head and sigh at the same time. “Seriously, Dylan. Tommy’s the Scarecrow and you’re his secret origin.” We both blinked a few times. Me because I had no idea what he was talking about, and him because he couldn’t believe I had no idea what he was talking about. He was going to sigh again, I knew it. He sighed. “Don’t you know Scarecrow?”
“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Scarecrow? From Batman? Master of Fear?” Rick’s eyes got wider and wider with every single word. “Okay, the bell’s about to ring, so long story short. Jonathan Crane gets picked on at school all the time, and he has this crush on the most popular girl in school. She’s a cheerleader. She invites him to this party and he goes, thinking it’s going to be great. But it turns out, she’s getting him there so her boyfriend, the jock, can embarrass him and humiliate him in front of everyone. Then he became the Scarecrow and attacks Batman and steals so he can get money for his chemical experiments that test the limits of fear.”
I blinked a few times before I could say anything. “Wait. Tommy thought that I was the cheerleader?”
“Pretty quick.” He smiled at me. “I actually thought I’d have to explain that one a couple of times.”
“But I asked him out. In front of everyone.”
He rolled his eyes. I had to admit, Allie did the eye rolling thing better, but he was pretty good at it. The only thing that bothered me was that it seemed like every single friend of the one guy I wanted to date thought I was an idiot. Or stupid. I still had to look up the difference.
“Dylan. He knows that in his brain. But when it comes to you he doesn’t use his brain to think. He’s all about the heart with you.” The bell rang, and he turned around to run to his homeroom while everyone else was running so they wouldn’t be counted late either.
The rest of the day seemed to go okay. At least until gym class. We were all changing when Coach McCarty bellowed into the locker room.
“Porter! My office. Now! Everyone run laps until we’re done!”
A couple of people groaned while I was walking into Coach’s office, and I stood there while he stared at me with his arms crossed over his chest.
“What the hell is going on with you?”
“I’m sorry, Coach. It’s my fault.” I could feel my shoulders dropping. “Apparently, I’m a Batman villain. Well, actually I’m the cheerleader who makes him the bad guy.” I started getting all these weird thoughts in my head about Tommy becoming a bank robber and dressing up in a Halloween costume. “See, I grabbed Tommy’s backpack and now he hates me.”
Coach held up his hand. “Hold it right there, Porter because you’re not making any sense, and it’s annoying me. It also has nothing to do with what I was asking.” He sighed. Really? You too, Coach? “What I mean was, why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you?”
“C’mon, Porter. You should have told me you’re gay. I would have supported you. You know that.”
“I know, Coach.”
“Instead I have to hear it in the middle of a warm-up that you’re in love with your tutor and you want to hold his hand?”
“I know, Coach.”
“If there’s anything else I need to know, then I want to hear it from you first. Before you start talking about it on the field.”
“Yes, sir.”
He paused and looked at me. “Are you talking about the Scarecrow? From Batman?”
“Yeah, see Rick, he’s Tommy’s friend—”
“Porter, go out and run some laps. You’re giving me a headache.” I turned to go, but he called out my name one more time. “Dylan? I’m proud of you. Proud that you’re comfortable enough to be yourself. And if you said something stupid to Tommy, apologize. No one wants to date someone who can’t apologize.”
“Thanks, Coach.” For the first time since the bell rang that morning, I smiled and actually meant it.
RILEY WAS already at the lunch table with Jonny by the time I managed to drag myself into the cafeteria but only because I wanted to make sure Tommy was okay. I knew, I just knew that he’d never even look at me again, forget about talking to me, or dating me. This was the first time I ever fumbled before I even got on the field.
Tommy was sitting with Allie. Jonny was sitting down with Riley and Riley waved me over, but I shook my head and jerked my thumb over to Tommy. Riley nodded and gave me a thumbs-up. I walked over to their table and stood there for a minute, like an idiot, before I finally mumbled.
“Can I sit down?”
Allie looked up at me. “Sure.” I sat down. Allie looked at me and I looked at Tommy and he looked at his lunch. She finally said something to me. “Aren’t you going to eat?”
“I’m not really hungry.” I took a deep breath. “Allie, could you give us a minute?”
She looked at Tommy, but he didn’t look up, so she shrugged and grabbed what was left of her lunch. “Sure.” I watched her walk over to Jonny and Riley and sit down with them.
I looked at Tommy, who was still doing everything he could to not look at me. “I know you’re mad at me, and I know I messed up, but you have to believe me that I didn’t mean to do it.” Tommy was really quiet, but he finally looked up at me. “I promised you that I would protect you, and I won’t go back on that promise. Even if you don’t want to come over to dinner and meet my dad. Even if you don’t want to go out with me anymore.” I leaned in because I wanted to say something private and, hopefully, a little romantic, and also because I wanted to smell him. I kept forgetting to ask him what kind of soap he used. I should probably wait on that, until we’d been going out for a little bit. “I want you to know I didn’t even think about what bullies do to you and if I’d thought about it, I wouldn’t ever have grabbed you like that. I didn’t want you to feel like you had to run past Russell and all those jerks. I wouldn’t let anything bad happen.”
“I know that, Dylan.” He finally spoke to me. “It freaked me out, and I thought everything you’d said to me was a joke. And I know, in my brain, that’s stupid, but I look at you and you could ask out anyone in this school and they’d say yes, and I have no idea why you want to go out with me.” He breathed in and out for a few seconds. “I thought you were going to start laughing and tell everyone that you could never even look at someone like me.”
“I know. Rick explained it to me. I won’t do it again, Tommy. I don’t want you to attack Batman and try to rob a bank for your weird experiments.”
“What are you talking about?” He leaned forward so we were closer to each other than we’d ever been, except the other night on my roof. If I thought about it hard enough, I could still feel his head, leaning against my arm.
“Rick told me about that guy who fights Batman. The guy who robs banks.”
“Why don’t I ask Rick? And why don’t you get something to eat before lunch is over. You’ve got to make sure you have enough energy. You have a trig test on Thursday and I have my ACTs on Saturday, so we have to focus. Otherwise there’s no hope for dinner on Saturday night.” He smiled at me and I smiled back, like a total goofball. “And how can you not know all about Batman and his rogues’ gallery? I thought football players would know all about macho superheroes. Don’t you read comics?”
“I read Sports Illustrated, Tommy.”
“You’ll definitely have to start reading comic books if we start dating.” He grabbed his pen and a notebook from his backpack. “I’ll write you a list of books you should read. Here, I have one of my favorite books on me.” He reached into his backpack and pulled out a worn paperback copy of something called Stranger in a Strange Land.
He passed it to me and I looked at it in my hands. “This is really big.”
“I like ’em big.” He smiled at me and my jaw dropped.
“Did you make a dirty joke? You made a dirty joke.”
“It’s my first one,” he said, shrugging. “Be gentle.”
“Another dirty joke.”
“Pretty soon, I’ll be hanging out in a locker room.”
I barked a laugh. “Okay, comics and books but only if you promise to spend at least two Sundays a month watching football with me so I can teach you about the game.”
He held out his hand. “Deal.” We shook on it, and he waved his hand. “Go grab something to eat. You need your energy for studying and practice.”
“Be right back.” I stood up and ran through the lunch line grabbing whatever was left. By the time I came out of the line and got back to the table, Allie, Jonny, and Riley were sitting at the table with Tommy and everyone was laughing.
Yep. I smiled.
HOW I ENDED UP ON THE SIDELINES
I REALLY did focus when we were studying for the rest of the week. By the time I sat down to the actual trig test, I could hear Tommy’s voice in my head, walking me through the really complicated questions and the easy ones I could handle on my own. Since trig was my last class of the day, I stayed at my desk and waited until everyone had left and put my paper on Mr. Simons desk.
He smiled at me. “I hope you did well, Dylan.” He started looking at my test. “It looks like you did some good work.”
“Is there any way I could find out how I did now?”
He smiled again. �
��I have plans tonight, Dylan. My daughter’s having a recital. I’ll do my best to have your exam back by tomorrow, okay?”
“Thanks, Mr. Simons. I appreciate it.”
Mr. Simons stood up and started putting the tests into his backpack. “Sure thing.” I started toward the door. Tommy had to skip our tutoring session today because he wanted to have extra time to study. His dad hadn’t said yes to dinner on Saturday night, but he hadn’t said no either. That was a good thing. I mean, it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad. And I had to plan dinner and prep, but I also had twice as much English homework because I was so focused on my trig test. I figured I’d study extra tonight and tomorrow, but considering we didn’t have a game this weekend, I should probably get some extra gym time in. I looked at my watch and figured if I went to the weight room here at the school before they locked up and save a little time and get back home to study for the rest of the night.
I changed into my gym shorts and T-shirt in the locker room and waved hello to Coach as I went past his office into the weight room, plugging my headphones in and pumping my workout music. I jumped rope for a few minutes, until I could feel a light sweat. I figured I’d get a nice pump. Then I could take the weekend off from working out. I had a bunch of grocery shopping to take care of tomorrow, and then I’d be cooking all day on Saturday. I was loading up the squat rack with my warm-up weight when I heard a shout and felt something hit me hard. That’s the last thing I remember.
I WOKE up lying in a bed, with my dad slumped in a chair next to the bed, staring at me.
He stood up the second he heard me say, “Hey, Dad.”
“Hey, kiddo.” Dad was right next to me and leaning over my bed, which was really weird, because my dad hardly ever came into my room. The other thing that was weird is that my room was blue, but the room I was in right now was white. “How are you feeling?”
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