I could not believe I was actually hanging out with the Abernathy on a Saturday afternoon.
A sudden Indian summer had set in that day, so everything felt like we’d gone back in time to July, which would have been fine with me because (1) I’d be at home, and (2) I would have no awareness of the existence of the kid my team named Snack-Pack. The Abernathy could open the window all he wanted to tonight. Hell, I’d even suggest it.
Maybe the warming of the weather caused some mystical increase of my tolerance, or maybe those pain pills Spotted John gave me had serious long-term, niceness-inducing side effects.
Who was I kidding?
To tell the truth, I was just trying to avoid Spotted John, and the Abernathy was the best deterrent I could come up with. Because now, on top of my anxiety, night terrors, fear of the dark shadowy guy who was following me everywhere, and sharing a coffin-size room with a claustrophobic twelve-year-old, I also had to deal with Spotted John’s horniness.
So awkward.
Mrs. Blyleven could not possibly have dreamed up a better practical lesson for straight guys about consent. Now I totally understood what I must have seemed like to so many girls last year when I was fourteen. You’d think Spotted John, at seventeen, would be grown-up enough to make it clear to his penis who was the bigger boss, which was Penis Commandment Three, according to Mrs. Blyleven, by the way.
To be perfectly honest, in my case, I believe my penis and rational brain were twin copilots on the same plane, and I couldn’t really tell who was flying for Ryan Dean West Airlines. But at least we both flew fairly level. Well, most of the time.
So on Saturday afternoon, with our window open and the outside temperature warm enough for us to wear shorts (and I voluntarily left the room when Sam Abernathy wanted to change—I was such a well-trained loser), we sat at our desks and—unthinkable as it may sound—did homework together.
“What are you working on?” the Abernathy asked.
“Health. Don’t talk to me.”
I caught the Abernathy as he took a quick glance under my desk.
“Not that part, Snack-Pack,” I said. “I am supposed to write a reflective paragraph about performing my TSE.”
“Oh! What are you going to say?” he asked. “Do you want to share out with me, like we do in Dr. Wellins’s class?”
“Never.”
“Maybe I’ll write a paragraph, then, too. Would you like to read mine?”
“Stop talking to me.”
It was so embarrassing, writing that goddamned paragraph for that stupid class.
“Ryan Dean?”
“What?”
“Are you any good at calculus?”
“What part?”
“Derivatives of implicit functions?”
I had fashioned a kind of barrier using a row of novels between our desks, which otherwise may just as well have been connected. I moved the books out of the way and sighed. “Let me see what you’re doing.”
The Abernathy slid his notebook and text across the now-unfortified border between our desks so I could see.
“This is pretty hard stuff, but I can show you how to do it,” I said.
The Abernathy squirmed with joy.
For the next hour and a half, I did math with Sam Abernathy.
Fun.
To be honest, I missed doing calculus and being in Mrs. Kurtz’s class.
By the time we were all homeworked-out and I was midway through my what-I-think-about-fondling-my-balls reflective paragraph for Mrs. Blyleven, the Abernathy said, “I have to tell you something, Ryan Dean.”
“No you don’t.”
“I live in Texas.”
“I’m happy for you.”
“Well, the reason I’m claustrophobic is because when I was four years old, I fell into an uncovered well that was about sixty feet deep and only this big around.”
When he said “this big around,” the Abernathy made a circle the size of a soccer ball between his curled hands.
“Oh. That would suck.”
“It took them three days to get me out. I almost died.”
“Oh.”
Why was he telling me this? I was actually beginning to feel sorry for him, so I had to keep reminding myself that Risotto Boy was currently alive and that he was also my roommate.
“And the other thing is, the reason I don’t ever get undressed or take showers around other boys here is because . . . well . . . I’m not really starting to . . . um, change yet, and I don’t have, you know, any hair around my wiener or under my arms. And it’s embarrassing.”
No.
He actually was talking to me about his wiener.
I never wanted to talk to Sam Abernathy about his wiener.
But I also recalled, with deep horror, what it was like to be the only twelve-year-old freshman in a pretty much entirely sixteen-year-old-boys’ locker room. I had nearly blocked it out of my mind, and I decided then and there that if I ever had a son (which meant I would eventually have the opportunity to actually breed with a noninflatable living female human being), I would never, never, never allow anyone to suggest the idea of moving him forward in school.
Trust me, it was the most God-awful thing that could ever happen to a boy.
“Nobody cares about that, Sam,” I said, which was kind of a lie, and also unwarrantedly kind.
“Sometimes I feel like I shouldn’t have come here to Pine Mountain, because I don’t belong with all you grown-up boys.”
Why the hell was he telling me this?
I couldn’t even respond to him, because I felt so bad for the kid. I was such an asshole to him.
I was not supposed to feel sorry for Sam Abernathy.
But Sam Abernathy was a living photocopy of all the terrible shit I had experienced for three solid years at Pine Mountain. Now that I was fifteen, and a senior, I had finally started to feel like I was on a level playing field with all the other boys at PM, and here that little bastard Sam Abernathy had to disinter all the shitty loser feelings I thought I’d buried over the summer. To be honest, I was getting a bit choked up, so I turned my face down at the page I’d been writing on and focused my attention on a description of rolling my testicles between my fingers (Mrs. Blyleven had strict rules about using correct vocabulary terms, so we had to include words like “penis,” “testicles,” and “scrotum,” regardless of how stupid those words sound in comparison with the preferred, simpler vernacular).
And then Sam Abernathy said, “If it weren’t for you, I’d feel so lonely, Ryan Dean.”
That was it. Time for Ryan Dean to go. I had to leave.
I finished my goddamned balls paragraph and stood up, clearing my throat.
“Thanks for the calc help,” the Abernathy said.
I did not answer him. I put on my sneakers and changed into a tank top. I stuffed some clean socks, underwear, and a T-shirt into my gym bag.
“Where are you going?”
My voice cracked a little when I answered, which made me feel like a stupid loser, so I stared at the door that would get me out of here.
“I need to go work out or something. Lift some weights,” I said, which was a lie, because there was no way I’d ever want to get caught alone in the locker room on a Saturday with Spotted John on the prowl.
And the Abernathy said, “Can I come with you?”
I paused at the door. Goddamn that little kid.
“Sure. I guess.”