DERRICK DIDN’T HEAR from AJ at all on Sunday. The only phone call had come from his mom and Doug. They’d made it safely to the resort in Santa Fe and were getting ready to enjoy an evening at the casino. He spent the rest of the night downloading music on Napster, and went to bed way too late. Each song took close to fifteen minutes to download, but he’d found some stuff from the band Fugazi that Ben had told him about, as well as some new music from Incubus. After school and tennis practice, he’d planned on spending the evening making some mixtapes for AJ and Dustin. He wanted to give them a “style” mix of songs and bands that he wanted them to pay attention to for writing their own music.
His morning alarm went off, and he thought he hit the snooze button, but instead he hit the off button on the electronic clock. When he opened his eyes again, the blaring red LCD screen read 7:50, and he had fifteen minutes to get to school. Cursing, he threw on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, pulling his Chuck Taylors on as he walked out the door. He nearly ran to school, as groggy as he was. Derrick wondered if AJ had waited for him at the corner, eventually leaving to get to school on time himself.
Once at the school, just as the first bell rang, he saw Dustin in the hallway before their first classes.
“Hey man, have you seen AJ this morning?” he asked.
“Nope,” Dustin said. “How was your weekend?”
“It was hectic. I’m ready for our next practice though,” he said. “I hated going a whole weekend without getting to jam with you guys.”
“Yeah. We’re good for Saturday thought right?”
“Yup,” Derrick said. “I have some new riffs and stuff to try out.”
The second bell rang, which signified the beginning of first period, and the students in the hall started making their way to their classes. Derrick said bye to Dustin, but looked around the hallway for AJ before going into Coach Vargas’s biology class. He didn’t see him.
He did see Haley, however, and as he walked into the classroom she gave him a smile. “Hey,” she said.
“Hey.”
“You ready for the tennis tournament this weekend?” she asked.
He groaned. He’d forgotten that their last tournament of the semester was that weekend. He was already disenchanted with tennis. He enjoyed the time he got to spend with Haley, but his heart wasn’t in playing tennis the way it was with playing music.
“What?” she asked.
“I just haven’t practiced much lately,” he said. “My mom’s wedding was this weekend, and we’ve been so busy planning that, that I haven’t spent much time at the courts.”
“You’ll be alright,” she said. And then, she leaned in closer. “I’ve been thinking...wanna go on the roof again?”
Derrick’s heart did a backflip. He said yes, tonight, before the words even processed in his brain.
She smiled and leaned back into her chair and as Coach Vargas walked into the classroom to begin his lesson. Derrick, however, heard not a single word of it as his mind was already on the roof, underneath the stars.
And with Haley’s hand in his.
♪ ♪ ♪
Derrick walked into Mrs. Rogers’ classroom, hoping to see AJ, but he wasn’t there either. Maybe he was sick or something, but he felt like Dustin would have known about that. He took his seat and opened up his notebook. They were studying Julius Caesar, one of Shakespeare’s tragedies, and their essays were due. He pulled the pages out of his spiral notebook, sure to tear along the perforations, when AJ fell into the desk next to him.
Derrick turned to say hi and gasped.
AJ’s face was swollen and bruised, still red and bleeding, from a recent beating. A cut above his eye was bandaged and his bottom lip was blue.
“What the f…” Derrick trailed off.
AJ’s eyes were full of tears and he didn’t say anything, simply held his head low.
“Dude,” Derrick said. “What happened?”
AJ looked up and said one word. “Ty.”
“Come with me,” Derrick said. He stood up from his desk and motioned for AJ to follow him back into the hallway. Derrick led the way to the bathroom down the hallway from the English classroom. Once in the bathroom, he leaned against the wall near the sinks while AJ stared at himself in the mirror.
“I was walking to school this morning,” AJ started. “I waited for you at the corner for a little while, but I figured maybe you’d come early or something. And then Ty drove by. He stopped and got out of his truck and told me that his back window cost a hundred dollars to fix and he was going to take it out of my ass.”
Derrick’s heart broke as he listened to this story, knowing that he should have been with AJ, but instead had accidentally slept in.
AJ continued, “I tried to run away, but he was on top of me immediately. He threw me to the ground and punched me a couple of times in the face. Then he got back in his truck and drove off. I walked the rest of the way to school and went to Mrs. Harris’s office. I told her what happened and she cleaned me up.”
“He should be expelled now, right?” Derrick was angry. He could feel the heat rising in his neck and his ears.
AJ shrugged. “Mrs. Harris took me to the principal’s office, and I told Mr. Rawlings everything that happened. He said that since it didn’t happen on school property, I would have to file a police report first before the school would do anything.”
“What?” Derrick was indignant. “He’s just walking around now?”
“Yeah.” AJ leaned into the door of the stall across from Derrick.
“I am so sorry,” Derrick said. “This is my fault.”
“No it’s not,” AJ said.
“I should have been with you this morning. But, I accidentally slept past my alarm. If I was with you, this wouldn’t have happened.”
AJ told him that it was okay, that if they’d been together, they both would have probably been beat up. “Or worse,” AJ said. “He could have run us over or something. I’m okay though. I probably look worse than it actually is, to be honest.”
As he talked though, Derrick’s attention went elsewhere. Out in the hallway, outside of the classrooms, as kids dispersed for second period, Derrick could hear the voices of Ty and his friends. And he heard Ty laughing.
Derrick walked out into the hallway. AJ followed him and Ty immediately saw them in the doorway of the bathroom.
“Hey Tooley,” he snickered. “You and your butt buddy hanging out in the bathroom together?”
Before he even registered the implications, Derrick’s feet were moving, pounding against the linoleum tile of the hallway.
He saw nothing else. As he pounced on Ty, fists flying as they connected with the bully’s face, his sight went black.