MERIT BADGE: SUCKER PUNCH
I stayed in the creek until I was numb, until I couldn’t feel the muck and sand beneath me. When I finally dragged myself out onto the lawn I was shivering so violently that I could hardly breathe, my muscles clenching and locking into place so hard I thought my bones would break.
I don’t know how I made it to the house. The back door was unlocked and not shut entirely, which was good because I couldn’t close my hand around the doorknob. I went to my parents’ bathroom and somehow bludgeoned the shower on and collapsed onto the tile and lay in the fetal position, still shivering, the transition back to sensation even more agonizing than the knifelike intensity of the creek. I stayed there, going in and out of consciousness, until the hot water ran out. Then I went into my parents’ room and got into their bed, and that’s all I remember.
The house was deserted when I finally woke up. Or I think it was. Josh’s door was closed, and I didn’t knock. It was past ten.
I went to school because I didn’t know what else to do. I dressed in my old jeans, my old shoes, an old T-shirt. I didn’t put any product in my hair. I rode my bike but felt so weak and winded that I could only pedal for short bursts before I had to rest, the bike slowing to a near stop each time.
I’m zombieing my way along the school halls now, hollow eyed, exhausted. A negative space of me, a silhouette cutout of me. Maybe people are looking at me and whispering. I don’t know. I don’t care.
Sarah Blumgartner sees me. She’s in the hallway, walking toward me. Her eyes widen as she registers my condition. Go away, I think. Go away.
“Hi, Isaac. Are you—”
“Go away,” I say, and keep walking.
Lunch, and I sit alone in the corner diametrically opposite from Eric’s solitary table. Danny and Paul and Steve are not in the lunchroom. I passed Eric once in the hall, and he didn’t even glance at me. I’m even lower now than I was after getting beat up on Friday, off-the-scale low, beneath whatever is there at the bottom. Not a friend left, and no Lesley.
I have no appetite for my food. I feel hot. I’m holding my hand to my forehead as I’m leaving the lunchroom and pass by door seven, which opens to the grassy area behind the school, just as Tim Phillips comes inside.
It’s just the two of us there in the ten-by-ten vestibule.
He sees me at the same time I see him, and his eyes widen and I don’t even realize what I’m doing until I’m hurtling toward him and ramming my shoulder low in his gut while I grab both his legs. It’s a double-leg takedown, just like Josh has made me practice every day, except Tim weighs less than half what Josh does and I lift him easily as he curls over my shoulder, then slam him down on the hard floor and climb on top of him. It’s oddly silent, no shouting or swearing or anything, not a word from either of us. He’s not even resisting. I’m sitting on his chest like he did to me, and our eyes meet and I then see his expression: helpless, traumatized, terrorized. Not by me, I know, but by Josh, looming behind and through me. In that instant I’m overwhelmed by a powerful surge of misery and disgust and lethargy.
I stand up and stagger away without looking back. It’s not supposed to feel like this. I’ve just defeated Tim Phillips. I’m supposed to feel some sort of triumph, like I’ve overcome an impossible obstacle, but all I feel is futility, like I can see an endless series of assaults and counterassaults, stretching off into infinity, no resolution ever. It’s never fair, said Patrick, and he’s right. It’s just meaningless.
I drag myself up the stairs, heading to the second floor, and there is Danny coming toward me. There’s nowhere for us to go without passing each other. And, seeing him, part of me forgets everything that has happened, as if we’re still best friends, and as we both reach the landing I say, “Hey, dude.”
He stops.
“Hey,” he says, guarded.
I just want to be friends. Desperately. I just want to be able to hit reset, like on the Xbox, and get a new life and start over right now.
“Danny,” I start to say, but he interrupts.
“Where’s your fancy clothes?” he says bitterly.
Which is how I end up punching him.