Mom looks like a gigantic balloon five days after a Thanksgiving Day parade. Everything about her has gone poof.
I already feel like lukewarm crap; it’s best if I leave. I crack open the door and try to get my crutches on the sidewalk without getting my cast wet. I don’t worry about my head or jacket getting soaked. No one uses umbrellas in Portland unless an ark is floating by. “You’ve left me for business trips before,” I say. “It’ll be same as ever. I’ll eat, I’ll do my homework, I’ll wake up, and I’ll go to school. No big deal.”
I’m out of the car and up onto the brick steps leading up to St. Lawrence before my mom can pull out into traffic. My brain is supposed to be gearing up for physics, but it feels more like scrambled eggs. I hang back in the lobby until the bell rings, hoping I can slide into the day like nothing happened. It’s still early. If anyone asks, I’ll tell them I had an appointment with my orthopedic surgeon.
Which is almost true. I’m meeting with him next week because I grew another inch, oh my god, someone please rip out my pituitary gland with their teeth, I’m begging you. The blood test can’t come fast enough.
Ten minutes tick by. The bell shrieks and I ease back into the current. There’s three things I want out of this day to make it substantial, decent, and tolerable. No JP, no JP, and no JP. That’s it. I head toward my locker and something is off. No, it’s worse than before. Everyone is staring at me. I can feel all their eyes burrowing into me like festering ticks.
My stomach sinks.
They all got the go-ahead to hate me, say the terrible things, reduce me to anecdotes that make them feel like they have the right to do whatever idiots do. JP gave them his blessing. I know it. And the son of a bitch confirms. From the far end of the hallway, where he just left English, he sees me. A smile lights up his face. He points at me and starts to walk over. One of his minions laughs along with him. The one laugh attracts more guys and the group grows larger. They all look at me and laugh.
JP makes like he’s merely passing me in the hall, as if it’ll ever be that simple again. “Bad news, Dylan,” he says my way. “I don’t take payment plans.”
If I could, I would run.
TWENTY-TWO
This past week has been hell. The only thing getting me through is nightly phone marathons with Jamie telling me to turn the other cheek, to forgive, to be patient…all the things she tries to muster up every day and all the things I am currently failing at.
Thanks, JP. Now I’m everything I never wanted to be again. I’m the kid not picked for dodgeball or volleyball or to represent Mrs. Martin’s class in the first-grade spelling bee, even though I can spell the second and third grades under the table. Heads turn away from me. Like I have leprosy, Ebola, and plague all in one. It used to be I couldn’t go anywhere without a robust “BEAST!” thrown my way as I went by. Now the sea in the hallway parts with a trail of snickers made under their breath.
And really, for what? Because some sniveling little jerk told them to? Because they think it’s weird I kissed a trans girl on the cheek? So what, big deal. Lots of stuff is weird. I’m no fan of ketchup, but Jason Harrington practically drinks it with a straw. I might not hold hands with a dude but I didn’t give him shit when he brought a guy from his traveling basketball team to the dance last year. No, I was cool about it. I was like, oh wow, good for him for getting some palm-on-palm action because I—the sweaty, heaving ox over here in the corner—will never find someone to hold my hand. Hoof. Paw, whatever. So I’m not too keen on Jason following JP’s orders by throwing me a bunch of ketchup-swigging judgmental smirks these days.
There are a few smiles. Little quick sympathy grins from the girls in class. I only notice because I’m trying to not stare at their assets as they walk by.
I’m still mad.
Mostly I sit and eat my lunch in the library and pretend I’m Gandhi. Which is bullshit because I can guarantee if Gandhi hadn’t been on a hunger strike, he would’ve had friends to eat with him. Plus, I want to pick up JP and throw him into the whirling, twirling engine of a jumbo jet, and I’m very sure that goes against everything Gandhi preached.
Every time I see JP’s face, I think of Jamie. I wish you peace, I chant in my head. “I wish you peace,” I say now as he’s at my locker trying to “touch base.”
“I really want to talk to you,” he says. “Please? Just for one minute? You can time it.”
“I wish you peace.”
“Stop fucking saying that.”