Winger (33 page)

He didn’t even put forth the effort to call me Pussboy or Asswing anymore.

Nothing.

Joey told me that Megan had broken up with Chas and it was all because of me. So, if I threw in the fact that I’d caught Mrs. Singer and Mr. Farrow practically copulating right there in the O-Hall stairwell, I figured all I’d need to do was publicly out Casey Palmer, then the entire state of Oregon, minus Annie Altman and Joey Cosentino, would want me dead.

I was on thin ice, but I didn’t care.

THE DAY BEFORE HALLOWEEN, WE
had another rugby match.

We played at our own field, on Wednesday after classes, so Annie got to be there.

Our opposition was a club team from Southern California called the Pumas that had come up on tour to play against teams in the Pacific Northwest, where everyone knows we play a tougher game. None of us really liked playing against club teams; they were notorious cheaters as far as things like player eligibility were concerned, and most club coaches’ only priority was winning, so they’d do anything unethical to get there. Coach M knew it too, but it was preseason and we all wanted to play anyway.

Besides that, Southern California? Give me a break. Saying you play rugby in Southern California is like saying you surf in Colorado.

Dude.

But they were tough, and that’s probably because, to me, it looked like they had some players who had been out of high school for a couple years and were married and had mortgages and tattoos and children of their own.

We ended up beating them pretty badly, though, 42–12, and the coolest thing was that Coach M said he wasn’t going to let anyone wear Kevin’s number for the rest of the season.

Kevin stayed on the sidelines wearing the number four jersey with his arm in a sling. That’s probably what pumped us up the most for the game, even though I knew half the guys on the team didn’t want to talk to me, much less give me the ball.

Joey did, though, and I scored one time. But Joey was on fire that day and put in three tries by himself.

The boys on the other team got pretty hotheaded, and a couple times it looked like they were going to try to start fighting, but we kept it under control and had a good game of it. Their coach ended up in such a bad mood, though, that he made them leave the social early and get back on their bus to head up to Seattle. That was fine with me, because we all got out of there early enough to give me hope that I’d catch up to Annie in the mess hall before we had to check in at our dorms.

It was dark, and I was afraid she’d already gone home for the night, so as soon as I could, I took off running for the mess hall. And JP was right behind me.

“Hey, fucker,” JP said.

I knew he was there.

I stopped and turned around. It was so quiet and cold. There was no one else around, and I could just barely hear the sounds of the students who were still having dinner in the mess hall.

“I’m not going to fight about it anymore, JP,” I said. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Screw you, Ryan Dean.”

“Look. I didn’t mean it when I said I was sorry the other day. But I do now. I’m sorry, JP.”

JP didn’t answer.

“We might as well just find some other way to waste our time, because, trust me, it’s over,” I said.

“Fuck you.”

This would have been a perfect time and place for him to absolutely kill me, and I knew it.

Trouble is, I’m pretty sure he did, too.

Oh, well, I thought, I’d gotten my shots in on JP enough in the past week, and I was way ahead on the scorecard. Worst of all, I knew I deserved it.

“You want to punch me, JP?” I put my hands out. “Go ahead. I told you I’m not going to fight you anymore, and I meant it.”

Just then, Seanie came up from behind, totally out of the dark.

He was out of breath from running after us. “What are you guys doing?”

JP walked off without answering, straight for the boys’ dorm.

“What the fuck, Ryan Dean? We used to all be friends.
What the fuck?
” Seanie was pissed again. He turned away, following JP.

“Seanie,” I said. “I didn’t do anything this time. I swear to God.” I followed after him. “Seanie, listen to me. Just a second.”

But he wouldn’t stop, so I just let him go.

I COULDN’T SLEEP THAT NIGHT.

I just lay there on the top bunk and stared up at the emptiness between me and the ceiling, thinking about what Seanie had said, how we all used to be friends, and how his voice had a tone in it like he blamed me for doing something that I don’t think was entirely under my control.

This time.

I listened to Chas sleeping and wondered how I’d managed to live this long sharing a room with him. I wanted to ask him about Megan, but I knew those would likely be the final words spoken on this earth by Ryan Dean West.

For three days, Chas hadn’t said one word to me, but Megan looked so sad and it made me feel terrible, because deep down I didn’t see her as just some hot girl. I really did like her. I really did think she was a great person. I just knew better than to get too close to her again.

RYAN DEAN WEST 2
: Did you actually just say that to yourself—that you don’t see Megan Renshaw as just some hot girl?

RYAN DEAN WEST 1
: I can’t help it. Something’s changing in me.

RYAN DEAN WEST 2
: Oh . . . so you finally
did
decide to join Team Joey.

RYAN DEAN WEST 1
: That’s a shitty thing to say.

RYAN DEAN WEST 2
: How about Isabel? Isn’t she fuzzy-hot?

RYAN DEAN WEST 1
: Shut up.

RYAN DEAN WEST 2
: Doc Mom? Mrs. Kurtz? Aren’t they my-best-friend’s-kinky-mom hot?

RYAN DEAN WEST 1
: Ugh.

RYAN DEAN WEST 2
: How about Annie?

RYAN DEAN WEST 1
: If you weren’t me, I’d punch you in the face.

RYAN DEAN WEST 2
: Nurse Hickey?

RYAN DEAN WEST 1
: Okay. I’ll give you that. Nurse Hickey is a hissing five out of five leaky air-conditioning units on the Ryan Dean West Global Hotness Scale.

RYAN DEAN WEST 2
: My man. There is hope for you after all.

(
RYAN DEAN WEST 1 wipes the sweat from his forehead.
)

RYAN DEAN WEST 2
: Loser.

I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to get my wimpy, feeling-sorry-for-myself ass out of bed.

I slipped on my warm-ups and carried my shoes in one hand so I wouldn’t squeak on the floor, and I left.

In the dark hallway, I ran into Joey as he was coming out of the bathroom.

He whispered, “Are you leaving or something?”

“I have to go outside. I can’t sleep.”

“Dude, I am so beat up from the game, I can’t even lie down. Let me get dressed, and I’ll meet you out there in a minute.”

“Okay.”

I didn’t feel awkward talking to Joey, or being in a situation where we were alone together, and I know that’s a crappy thing for me to even point out in the first place, like I have to defend myself to myself for being best friends with a guy who happens to be gay.

But most guys just got all tense around Joey in normal social situations, like any time when we weren’t out on the pitch and bashing each others’ brains in playing rugby.

You could just see it in the way guys’ shoulders would tighten up, and you could hear it in the way they’d talk—like they never really talked directly
to
Joey, even if they were asking him something, it always looked like they were talking past him, or to the ground or something, and in really short sentences.

It’s weird, but I noticed it, and I’m sure Joey did too.

I saw him come out from the mudroom, and he let the door close slowly behind him so it didn’t make the slightest sound. Then he sat down on the steps and slipped his shoes on.

“Where are you going?” he said.

I shrugged.

“That witch downstairs didn’t see you, did she?” I said.

“Why are you so scared of her?”

We talked low until we were far enough away from O-Hall.

“Dude, Joey, she does horrible things to me. Trust me. I know she’s a witch or something.”

Joey laughed. “Whatever.” Then he said, “I asked Kevin to come, but once he’s in bed, forget it. It hurts him too much to get in and out of bed, anyway.”

Joey walked slowly and carefully. He limped.

There really isn’t too much in the world that hurts worse than a guy’s body does the night after a rugby game, and the fly half almost always takes more shots than any other player on the field.

I threw a rock out into the lake.

“I caught Mr. Farrow having sex with Mrs. Singer on Monday, when I came back from having my stitches out. How nasty is that?”

Joey laughed. “No fucking way.”

“Dude, don’t tell anyone. At least, that’s what Mr. Farrow begged me. That’s why we were talking on the stairs when you and Kevin came in that day. He even said he’d get me out of O-Hall if I kept quiet about it.”

“Are you going to do it?”

“I asked him not to,” I said. “I wouldn’t last in the boys’ dorm. JP hates me. I think Seanie does now too. It sucks.”

“You push things too far, sometimes, Ryan Dean. Just your luck.”

“I know.”

“But, shit, everyone knows you’re a fighter. You’re not afraid to take on anyone,” Joey said.

“Oh, I’m afraid. But when you have to fight, you have to fight. There’s nothing else you can do.” I threw another rock. “Annie finally told me she’s in love with me.”

“Did you tell her first?”

“Yeah.”

“Damn. You’ve got some guts, Ryan Dean.”

“So, sorry if it seems like we’ve been ignoring everyone else.”

“Dude. It’s pretty obvious.”

Then Joey high-fived me, but it was weak, so we had to do it again.

Not a record breaker, but it was solid.

“At least there’s one thing I haven’t totally screwed up,” I said.

“Yeah.”

Damn,
I thought. Joey didn’t
have
to agree with that. But then again, Joey wasn’t the kind of guy who’d ever lie about things just to make someone feel better.

I sighed. “Yeah. I feel terrible about JP and Seanie. We used to be such good friends. But I couldn’t handle him chasing after Annie like he’s been doing. I should have known she didn’t really care about him. Well, not like that, anyway. God! I am such an idiot. I wish I could just do it all over again. I wish I never got put in O-Hall in the first place, and now it’s like I can’t ever get out.”

Joey threw a rock too.

“Yep,” he said. “You know, nothing ever goes back exactly the way it was. Things just expand and contract. Like the universe, like breathing.
But you’ll never fill your lungs up with the same air twice. Sometimes, it would be cool if you could pause and rewind and do over. But I think anyone would get tired of that after one or two times.”

“Sometimes, don’t you just ever feel like screaming, like Screaming Ned?” I asked.

Joey laughed out loud, “Sometimes I feel like driving back to Bannock and finding him at that donut shop just so I can kick the shit out of him.”

Then I laughed too. “That was one of the most amazing nights ever.”

“Yeah.”

I felt better.

We walked back to O-Hall and kicked off our shoes before opening the door and climbing upstairs. I was afraid we’d run into Mrs. Singer, but then I thought she just had this certain thing for zeroing in on me, so Joey was like a protective charm against her.

I said good night and thanks, and we hugged—a guy hug, okay? with the patting on the back and stuff—and Joey slipped into his room.

And as I was walking down the hallway to my room, I saw that Casey Palmer had been watching me, just standing in front of his door with his arms folded, like he was pissed off and wanted to fight.

He whispered, “That explains it. What were you guys out doing tonight, little fucking faggot?”

Man
, I thought,
you have some balls saying shit like that to anyone.

I walked past where Casey was standing.

Then I stopped and said, “Don’t be stupid, Palmer.”

“I fucking hate you queers. I’m sick of all the shit Joey pulls around here. Someone needs to straighten his shit out.”

Nick Matthews opened the door to their room and stepped out into the hallway, shirtless and wearing only his boxers. Nick was a fat offensive lineman with a tattoo of a skull on his hairy shoulder.

“We should fuck these little queers up, like you said, Case.”

I glanced back toward Joey’s door. I wished he’d been there to hear what Nick and Casey said, but I was also glad he wasn’t. It would have been a terrible fight, right then and there.