Stand-Off (23 page)

“I'd be so lonely here without you.”

“I . . .” And that was all I could get out of my mouth, because I was so strangled by emotions that nothing else would come.

Why did Annie have to say that? It was almost the exact thing Sam Abernathy had said to me yesterday before I melted down, and now all I could think about was the black eye I gave the Abernathy and about Nate wanting to suffocate me at night, and how afraid of everything I'd become. I also was suddenly self-conscious and ashamed of what Annie and I had done together.

It was happening again, another panic attack out of the blue at the worst possible time—while I was lying down naked in the grass with Annie. I forced myself to concentrate on not being scared.

Think about Annie. Think about Annie.

I was shaking.

“What's wrong?”

Annie could feel the tightening spasms in my chest.

I am not going to cry in front of Annie. I am not going to cry in front of Annie. I am not going to cry in front of Annie.

It all came rushing at me: I was terrified at the thought of trying to
go to sleep that night, and especially of having to face Sam Abernathy again. I was such an asshole. And I was an asshole to Annie, too. I was going to ruin her life, and I couldn't let myself do that to her.

“Ryan Dean. Are you crying?”

I squirmed out from under Annie's head and sat up. I took a deep breath.

“I don't know what's up with me. Um. I think we better get dressed.”

I rubbed my eyes and kept my face turned away from her while we put our clothes on.

Annie said, “Did I do something wrong?”

“You're the most perfectly right thing in the world for me, Annie. I'm sorry I'm such a disgusting mess.”

The run was over. We held hands and walked out of the woods, toward the trail leading back to school. Holding on to Annie's hand was like a lightning rod for me—it kept me safe and grounded so I didn't get lost in the panic.

I could breathe again.

“Well. When my mom and I
weren't
talking about you and about having sex and using condoms, I told her I was worried about you, Ryan Dean.”

I felt myself tightening up again. I knew where this was going, and I did not want to talk about it.

Annie continued, “You know, we have a psychologist here at
school. Mrs. Dvorak. Lots of kids go to see her. You can imagine how tough it is for some kids to adjust to being here.”

I shook my head. “I'll be okay, Annie.”

“She's really nice, you know. I've gone to see her.”

“About what?”

I couldn't imagine Annie Altman ever needing help from anyone.

“Last year. It was about you. Mrs. Dvorak helped me trust how I felt about you.”

I'd never met her, but I thought I owed a silent prayer of thanks to Mrs. Dvorak.

We stopped at the tree where I'd hung my tank top. Now we were both just as dressed as when we'd left—like nothing had ever happened. Even if what Annie and I did was the biggest thing that had ever happened in my pathetic life, and now I was all confused and embarrassed—guilty—about what we'd done.

“So. What do you think? Do you think you'll go see her?” Annie asked when we were back on the main campus grounds.

“Could we just not talk about this right now, Annie? Today was so nice, and I don't want to do this right now. Please?”

Annie let go of my hand. She folded her arms across her chest. I imagined seeing her without her clothes on. I would never get that picture out of my mind.

But Annie was mad.

“Fine, Ryan Dean. Fine.”

And just like that, Annie Altman turned her back without saying another word and walked off toward the girls' dorm.

“Hey! Annie?”

She kept walking.

What could I say? I felt like I'd been kicked in the balls, and I was scared to go back to Unit 113.

6
. It was September. So I think I'm doing the math right.

“THANKS FOR THE COMIC, RYAN
Dean! It's awesome!”

I was hoping—unreasonably—that the Abernathy wouldn't be there when I got back to our room. I'd left a note for him—the comic I'd drawn while waiting for Annie—as some kind of means for apologizing beyond just saying
I'm sorry
, which didn't feel adequate.

So I'm not sure if it was knowing that Sam Abernathy had read my comic, which was kind of personal (and it was thumbtacked to the wall above his bed), or thinking about what Annie and I had just done an hour ago, and being here in the same room with a twelve-year-old kid, but I felt my face getting hot and damp with embarrassment.

“I need to take a shower,” I said.

“Do you want me to leave?”

I'd been wanting Sam Abernathy to leave since the first moment I saw him.

“Don't be dumb, Sam.”

But I felt really weird, and really guilty, taking off my clothes in front of him.

What had I done to myself? To Annie?

“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.

Whatever.

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.

“NO WRESTLING TONIGHT, SAM.”

I crawled between my sheets and lay down with my hands folded behind my head.

“Ha ha! You're too funny, Ryan Dean!”

Sam Abernathy turned the TV at an angle. He assumed I wanted to watch it too.

Whatever.

Of course the window was open. But a partial breakthrough had been established. I didn't have to leave the room when the Abernathy changed into his soccer jammies, and when we did the whole brushing-the-teeth prelude-to-bed thing, he even told me he was going to pee (naturally, the boy from the well left the door to our tiny toilet closet open) and asked me to please not look at him.

I was really hoping the program Sam had on—it was about a foodie traveler who ate roasted scorpions and curry from street vendors in Myanmar—would bore me to sleep. Just the white noise of the show I wasn't following, and the flashing colors of the images I wasn't really looking at, distracted me enough that I actually felt pretty good about things.

“Would you ever do
that
, just because someone
asked
you to?”

“Huh?” I was mortified. At first I thought the Abernathy was
talking about what Annie and I had done by the creek that day. To be honest, I really wanted to tell someone about it, what it felt like. Maybe that's a gross guy thing, though, but I did kind of want to tell Sam Abernathy, and especially that creepy Seanie Flaherty. But Copilot One knew saying anything to anyone was a sure way to get Copilot Two grounded for life.

“What?” I said.

“Eat a scorpion. Would you ever eat a scorpion?”

“Would
you
?”

“Yes. I'd eat a scorpion.”

“I guess I would too.”

The Abernathy wriggled on his bed.

Then I said, “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Tonight at dinner, you said that it was part of the code that you wouldn't say anything about me to anyone, and then you said ‘But if you ask me . . .' and you didn't finish. I need to know what you were going to say to me, Sam.”