“DUDE. SNACK-PACK. WHAT HAPPENED to your eye?” Seanie asked.
Here are the depths to which I’d descended: Annie was apparently mad at me—or something was going on. She didn’t come down to eat that evening. I was so distracted, wondering what was wrong with me—and with Annie—and maybe if she’d regretted what we did by the creek that day. I couldn’t help but worry if she felt as terribly guilty and changed by what had happened. And there was no going back now, but I couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
I didn’t feel like it was good, but like I said, there was no going back.
Seanie and I sat in the dining hall after finishing dinner, when the Abernathy came down and joined us at our table, just like that. And nobody said anything about the inappropriateness of a freshman—a twelve-year-old freshman, no less—sitting at a table with two senior boys.
That’s how low I’d sunk.
“Oh. Nothing, really,” Sam Abernathy answered. “Ryan Dean and I were just wrestling around, and I bumped my eye against his desk chair.”
Seanie gave me one of his patented I-know-you-secretly-must-be-gay-Ryan-Dean looks.
Whatever.
“Wrestling?” Seanie chuckled.
And the Abernathy, for reasons that escaped me, felt compelled to give Seanie more details.
“Yeah, well, actually, I fell off Ryan Dean’s bed.”
This was a gold mine for Seanie Flaherty. He wriggled in his seat like Sam Abernathy contemplating fondue recipes, or bonding with me over a creative writing session. I think Seanie even gave himself an excited little Sam-Abernathy-tug-slash-TSE.
Seanie’s ears raised slightly. “And what were you wearing when this intense bed-wrestling session took place?”
And the kid would not shut up.
“I was in my pajamas. Ryan Dean doesn’t have pajamas. He was in his underwear.”
Seanie Flaherty looked at me, then at Sam Abernathy, then back at me.
“Dude. Seriously. Come out, Ryan Dean. Admit it and move on. You’ll feel so much better about yourself.”
Seanie Flaherty had serious issues. And I know that it’s totally normal (at least, it’s normal according to Mrs. Blyleven) for teenage boys to wonder if their guy friends are maybe a little bit into guys, but Seanie never let up, which kind of made me think that deep down Seanie was the one who needed to come out or shut up, or something. So I put that in my little mental notebook of things to ask Annie: if Isabel had sex over the summer, and, if so, who did she do it with; and, after all the alone time she spent in Seanie’s car with him, if Annie thought maybe Seanie was into guys but so hung up on shit that he could never relax and be himself.
“If you must know, to be perfectly honest, Annie Altman and I got completely naked together and had sex in the woods this afternoon.”
Okay. To be honest, I did not say that. But I really wanted to. It would have felt so good to see the looks on Seanie’s and Sam’s faces if I let that out.
What I actually said was, “Feel free to fantasize as much as you want, Seanie. Yes, I was in my underwear. Briefs, in fact. Wrestling. With Sam Abernathy, on my bed. At two in the morning.”
Seanie took a deep, thoughtful breath. “Fair enough. Still, it’s a nice shiner, Snack-Pack. But if I were you, I wouldn’t tell the guys you got it wrestling in bed with Ryan Dean in his underwear. They might not be as open-minded as me, you know.”
Yeah. Open-minded Sean Russell Flaherty.
I was so sleepy, but I was afraid of going back to my room alone. So even after Seanie got up to leave, I—and this is hard for me to admit—stayed and hung out with the Abernathy while he ate his dinner. And how that kid managed to prepare a dish of pasta with ham, peas, and fresh mint in a microwave oven was something I simply could not wrap my head around.
“Would you like some of this pasta, Ryan Dean?”
I shook my head. “No, thanks.”
“I never knew you drew comics. I seriously love that comic you made for me so much, Ryan Dean. How’d you ever learn to draw like that?”
I shrugged. “I’m not really sure. I just wanted to let you know how sorry I am for being such an asshole. Things are really fucked up for me, Sam, and I’m sorry I took it out on you.”
And, yes, I really did say that.
Sam Abernathy stopped eating and looked at me with his large bunny-about-to-be-wolf-food eyes. “I’ve never heard you swear before, Ryan Dean!”
“Sorry. I don’t usually cuss.”
“Well, you should stop it right now.”
“Things have just been so messed up for me.”
“Well, I told you I won’t say anything to anyone, because it’s part of the code, right? But if you ask me . . .”
The Abernathy stopped as though he was suddenly aware that maybe he was going too far and that maybe he should shut up.
“Ask you what?”
“I’m sorry. It’s none of my business, Ryan Dean.”
And the kid filled his mouth with more pasta.
I needed sleep. I was scared to try, though. So I actually hung out with the Abernathy, all because I was afraid of being alone. It felt so uncomfortable, too, like we were on a date or something. Because Sam Abernathy was just so damned excited about spending time with me.
When he finished eating, the Abernathy said, “What do you want to do now, Ryan Dean? Lift weights or something?”
No. No.
“I’m supertired, Sam. You know, after last night and all.”
It wasn’t even seven thirty, another indication of how decayed my life had become.
“Cool! Let’s just kick back and watch TV, then!” He was, as always, just a little too tolerant of me, a little too overjoyed.