“Dirt would’ve been softer.” I rub my shoulder. It’s wet and warm and stickier than sweat. Now I guess I have a bloody hand and I hold it out awkwardly to not get blood on my clothes. Then I remember what I’m wearing and wipe my hand on my shorts.
“That won’t be the hardest thing. I knew you’d have a slow start without a block, so I ran two watches to time each fifty meters separately. I stopped the first watch at the halfway point before you fell. Six point eight seconds.”
Jason laughs.
“What? Why is that funny?” I don’t know what a good time should be—I’ve never timed myself before. “And show some respect. Have you forgotten that I’m bleeding?”
Jason laughs again. “Oh, you’ll get plenty of respect, Parker. What you won’t get is a good running guide.”
“Why not?” I’m getting heated, which is strange because I don’t even want one.
“Freeborn’s right,” Coach says. “Unless there are more surprises this afternoon, we don’t have anyone who could keep up with you.”
TWELVE
Molly and I finish our homework. She has to talk to her mom about something and said she’d meet me out at the parking lot in a bit. I’m in the middle of organizing my stuff when I hear the quack that means a text from Sarah.
“How’s the arm, sugar?” Sarah asks. She knows I have her text-to-speech voice set to Matron, which sounds like a middle-aged woman from the South, and sometimes hams it up.
I text back: Turns out your ego is kept in your shoulders… Who knew?
I’m not going to need anything from school at home tonight so I dump the bulky stuff into my locker. I hear footsteps and rowdy voices coming closer. Track tryouts are probably ending about now. I don’t hurry. Maybe Jason will see me and come over.
Quack. “Bruised, huh? Well, bless your heart. Glad it’s nothing permanent.”
Already yesterday’s news… at least it will be tomorrow.
“Look who it is,” says a guy with a familiar voice I can’t quite place.
“Parker Grant,” says another, a voice I definitely recognize. The skin tightens across my forehead and down my back. “I always thought you should wear Foster Grants instead of those stupid blindfolds.”
Isaac Walters and Gerald Gibbons. Two of the seven who were in the room that day. Their voices changed too, though not as much as Scott’s. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. It shouldn’t be hard to ignore them since I can’t even see them.
“Sooo,” Isaac says, just to my left. “How ya been?”
Dad said that at his high school reunion the bullies weren’t bullies anymore but they weren’t apologizing either. It was like they thought they’d all been actors in a play called High School and they were themselves now, regular people. I can tell Isaac and Gerald are very far from this point. They’re still in the roles of Asshole #1 and Asshole #2 in a play nobody else wants to be in.
“Not talking to us, huh?” Gerald says. “Looks like you haven’t changed.”
“You’d think a couple years of high school woulda loosed you up some.”
My phone pops out of my hand.
“Give me my phone, Isaac.”
“Hey, she remembers me! Sorry, Parker, I don’t have your phone.”
“All right then, Gerry…”
“Gerry? Nobody named Gerry here.”
“Fine, Geraldine, whatever the fuck your name is.”
“Geez, Parker, no one’s gonna want to kiss that mouth.”
“Mission accomplished,” I say through clenched teeth. “Now give me my phone.”
Quack.
They laugh.
“I don’t see your phone,” Isaac says. “But I hear a duck!”
“Don’t worry, Isaac, she doesn’t see her phone either, do you, Parker?”
“Seriously, guys?” I say. “Fucking grow up.”
“You got a text from Sarah Gunderson—”
“Hey!” Gerald interrupts. “How is old short and dumpy?”
“She says: K… call you tonight. What should I tell her?”
I hear more footsteps. Swell. How many of the other five still hang out together?
Quack.
“Sarah’s a duck!” Gerald says and they laugh again.
I do the math of where Isaac’s voice and the quack came from and I do something stupid; I lunge out with both hands to grab my phone. Nothing but air.
“Whoa, hey now!” Isaac says. “You must really like ducks!”
I’ve had it with these assholes but there’s not much I can do. At least I can stop playing their game. I slam my locker door shut and jam the padlock closed with a loud click.
“When you’re done with my phone, bring it to me at the front office.”
Under the sound of two idiots laughing, the approaching footsteps are running now.
“Hey, look who we bumped into,” Isaac says to whoever’s coming. “It’s Parker Gruumph!”—Crash!
My hands fly up instinctively to protect my face as something bangs hard against the lockers… twice… three times.
“What the hell—” Crash! “Cut it out!” Crash!
I press back against the lockers and keep my forearms crossed in front of me, hands open to block my face, tucked down. There’s scuffling and squeaking shoes on concrete and more clattering metal.