Winger (18 page)

Perfect.

Now we’ll see about it-won’t-happen-again.

I folded the note just as the guys began coming in to the locker room. I wanted to change and get out of there before something else happened between JP and me.

WE TOOK A SLOW THREE-MILE
run in the rain for our conditioning, but I wasn’t about to lag back with Seanie and JP. I felt bad about it, because I missed Seanie, but since they were roommates, I couldn’t expect him to ditch JP just so he could talk to me. At least I was relieved that I’d only have to sit through one class, Lit, with JP; and Annie’s empty desk would be between us.

There aren’t many things I like more than running in the rain, even if I wasn’t supposed to get my stitches too wet. I stayed right at the front of the pack, and I was completely drenched by the time I made it back to the locker room.

JOEY WATCHED ME WALK THROUGH
the doorway to Calculus class. We hadn’t said anything at all to each other since practice, not even after the fight in the bathroom with Chas, but he didn’t need to say anything. His pissed-off look was enough. I know what he would have said, without the words.

As soon as I stumbled to my seat, Megan spun around, her amber hair sweeping silently across my desktop and over my fingers—
damn!
—and, smiling at me, she said, “Hi, Ryan Dean!” like nothing ever happened.

And then Joey intervened, looking as serious as he did the night before, after Chas backed down. Joey leaned over between Megan and me and grabbed my chin firmly and said, “Let me see that.”

He tilted my head like an unskilled barber and looked quickly over my stitches. My hair was still wet from the run.

“You going to be good to play tomorrow?” Joey said flatly, still holding my head steady.

“Uh-huh. You know I will.”

Then he kind-of whispered, even though I know Megan heard the whole thing, “Get your shit together, Ryan Dean.”

I didn’t know if he was talking about JP or Megan or Annie or just me. No . . . I guess I did know.

Then, birdlike, and in a hot-therapist kind of way, Mrs. Kurtz was
looming over us, chirping, “Oh my goodness, Ryan Dean! What happened to you?”

Joey let go of my face.

“I play rugby,” I said. “I got eighteen stitches.”

“What a stud!” Mrs. Kurtz said. She always said the dorkiest things, but I never met a student who didn’t love her. Then she tousled my wet hair, which, due to her mysterious, my-best-friend’s-mom-kind-of-hotness, made me feel weak and flustered and convinced that I was destined to keep making the same kinds of stupid mistakes with girls over and over, no matter how spectacular my 2 x BALLS argument to Annie was, and she said, “Maybe you should take it easy today, Ryan Dean.”

“I think Ryan Dean should skip our study group tonight,” Joey said. “So he can rest. We have our first game tomorrow.”

I fired a look at Joey, then at Megan.

I sighed.

Joey was right, and I realized then that I was still just making excuses to avoid dealing with my out-of-control Megan thing.

Megan said, “I’ll miss you tonight, Ryan Dean.” Then she put her hand over mine.

Ugh!

“You should definitely stay in bed tonight,” Mrs. Kurtz said. I, of course, thought this was a very hot thing to say.

“Thanks, Mrs. Kurtz,” I said. “Thanks, Joe. Sorry, Megan.”

But to me, my voice sounded so pathetic, almost like I was crying.

IT HAPPENED AT PRACTICE.

The worst thing imaginable.

Practice is always relaxed and fun the day before a game, especially in the rain. Coach would usually just talk about a game plan, then we’d play a fun little scrimmage, just so we could get all muddy. Nothing serious.

My head was taped up, so I was okay, and I was glad Coach could see that I was ready for the game. We were all just having fun.

Seanie and I ended up on opposite teams, playing sevens, which, like I said, is a much more wide-open and fast game with fewer pileups. I had the ball and was running downfield when I got caught up in a tackle from a flanker who was playing on Seanie’s team.

In rugby, when you’re tackled, you have to let go of the ball. Usually, you do it in a way that makes it easy for your own teammates to pick it up. But when I released the ball, no one was there to get it, so Seanie stepped right over me and poached the ball away for his team.

And the terrible thing is, right when he stepped through, he planted his foot between my legs.

Yeah.

Like the world wasn’t big enough for Seanie to find somewhere else to put his fucking foot.

And that’s how Sean Russell Flaherty, my good friend, the same guy who contrived so many Internet hoaxes about so many people, the same guy who’d told Annie Altman, the girl I am insanely in love with, that I got drunk with Chas Becker the night before school began, that same guy, wearing size twelve metal cleats, stepped right onto my balls.

I became a black hole.

Let me explain the physics of having your balls stepped on.

The entire Ryan Dean West universe instantly collapsed to the size of a five-eighths-inch metal cleat stud, and everything I knew, everything I
would ever know
, got sucked into that pinpoint of agony.

Newton obviously skipped that one crucial law.

When my hearing came back, I heard Seanie saying, “Uh-oh.”

And I’m pretty sure that everyone in the Pacific Northwest heard Ryan Dean West shout, “YOUSTEPPEDONMYFUCKINGNUTS YOUSONOFABITCH!”

Yes, I will admit to cussing that time.

My universe gradually began expanding, but so did the agony. I could think again, and the thinking led to a heightened sensation of pain, if there could be such a thing, and a frightening realization, too.

Mrs. Singer.

Catastrophic penis injury.

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

I must be out of my mind.

And as I lay on my side, in the fetal position, hands clutching for what I could only imagine in my most horrific visions had been damaged beyond salvation, my teammates formed, for the second time in the past twenty-four hours, a mournful and morbidly fascinated circle around me.

“He’s dead,” one of them said.

“If he isn’t dead, he should kill himself immediately,” another added.

“Did you really step on his nuts?” A third one.

I tried to answer them, but the only sound I could make sounded something like
ehhhhrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggh
, and, shuddering, lying there with my face in an expanding puddle of mud, I realized I couldn’t unclench my jaw.

Coach M blew his whistle to break practice.

I rolled onto my back in the mud, my face turned up into the rain, eyes blurred, scanning the darkness of the clouds for the giant face of a mocking God who might be up there laughing at my stitched-and-stomped-on-skinny-bitch-ass.

“Not exactly the best two days of your life, eh, Ryan Dean?” Coach tried to smile, looking down at me, rain dripping from the brim of his hat. “Can you move?”

And Seanie fell beside me, trying to help sit me up.

But he was kind of laughing when he said, “Dude, my bad, Ryan Dean. And I know you’ve probably waited all your life to hear
another guy say this to you, but, dude, how are your balls?”

And, all at once, I somehow instantly composed a haiku in my mind about how much I hated Seanie Flaherty, and, in a simultaneous flash of inspiration, derived a kind of mathematical, tautological formula about reality, that I could easily envision as a Venn diagram:

Finding Humor in Getting Hit in the Balls = The Universe Minus One

Seanie helped me to my feet. My head was groggy, my eyes swirled with tears of pain, and I felt like throwing up. The other guys were already making their way into the locker room and the warmth of the showers.

I slipped my hand down inside my compression shorts, just to make sure everything was still attached properly. Something stung, and when I pulled my hand out and looked at my fingers, there was blood on them.

Crap.

Seanie Flaherty,

Asshole, you stepped on my nuts.

Please. Someone kill me.

“Here,” I said, dropping the folded paper beside Seanie where he sat eating dinner. “I wrote a haiku about how much I hate your stinking guts, Seanie.”

“Dude, how gay are
you
?” Seanie said in his usual deadpan, focusing on his food and opening the note. “You wrote me a haiku about your balls.”

JP was just sitting down across the table. I didn’t care. I wasn’t talking to him, and he wasn’t going to keep me away from my friends.

And then Joey asked, “What did the doctor say, Ryan Dean?”

Yeah. Here’s another thing I realized: You’d think that receiving an injury to your balls is probably the worst thing that can possibly happen to any guy, but it’s not.

Going to the doctor for an injury to your balls is much, much worse.

So here I was, sitting down to eat among friends and enemies alike, with the alluringly hot and faintly moustached Isabel, wide-eyed in rapt attentiveness, no doubt taking it all down so she could get right back to the recuperating Annie Altman and deliver an update on the status of Ryan Dean West’s testicles.

“Was that hot nurse there?” Seanie practically drooled.

“No,” I said. “Just Doctor No-gloves.”

“Eww,” Seanie said. “Did he touch your little Westicles?”

I took a bite of chicken, pretending that was all I was going to say about the matter. I looked over at JP, and he looked away.

“Are you going to tell us, or what?” Seanie said impatiently.

I paused to gather my thoughts.

“Do you believe in witches?” I asked.

“I give up,” Seanie said, and took a drink of milk.

I looked at Isabel. It was kind of embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as telling
everyone
in the infirmary why I showed up, scared pale and covered in mud with my hand thrust down my shorts, holding onto my balls. Even my friends were too embarrassed to go there with me, afraid they might have to face their own fears and watch in that cold examination room while I sat naked on a rustling paper sheet and the doctor looked me over. Head wounds were one thing, but, like I said, no boy
ever
wants to come face to face with a catastrophic penis injury.

“It’s just a cut,” I said. “On my balls. He put a Band-Aid on it.”

“Was it a SpongeBob Band-Aid?” Seanie asked, almost spitting out his milk when he said it.

Even Joey laughed.

I am such a loser.

“Dude,” Seanie announced, “how awesome is that? You are the
only guy I’ve ever known in my
entire fucking life
who had to have a doctor put a Band-Aid on his ballsack. That’s the kind of thing you just can’t make up. Ryan Dean West, you are going to be a fucking legend!”

“Seanie,” I said, “I can’t even begin to put into words how much I hate you right now.”

“Aww . . . I love you too, Ryan Dean,” he said.

I NEVER COULD SLEEP THE
night before a game, especially a first game.

After dinner, Joey kept his appointment for our Calculus study group with Megan at the library, and I came back to O-Hall alone and tried to relax in bed. But it was absolutely impossible to get comfortable, considering the locations of my injuries. And I know I’m a pig for thinking it, but I really wanted to make out with Megan again.

So I just lay there, staring up at the ceiling with my knees bent, listening to Chas’s breathing, wondering if Annie had read my note, and what she was thinking about at that moment, if she was awake like me.

And I knew that if you could keep score for such a thing, and, of course, I did keep that score, my Degree of Loserdom would be nothing short of godlike.

To make matters even worse, by midnight I had to pee. But there was no way in hell I was going to go down that hallway on the night before a game and run the risk of a face-to-face with Mrs. Singer again. So I held it as long as I could, but that just made my Band-Aided wound hurt more. When I couldn’t stand it any more, I fumbled around the side of the mattress where I stored that Gatorade bottle Joey brought me when I was sick. I unscrewed the top—
Mmm! It still smelled like lemon
—and, kneeling on the top bunk, I filled it to within half an inch of overflowing.

The Ryan Dean West Emergency Gatorade Bottle Nighttime Urinal was an invention of depraved genius. After a quick check on the snugness of my Band-Aid, and, pausing momentarily to wonder how many days it might take to fall off, since—sweet mother of God—there was no way I was going to yank it and all the hairs affixed to it off, I screwed the lid back on as tightly as possible, tucked the bottle down by my feet, where I noticed it produced a very pleasant warmth, pulled the covers back over me, and finally went to sleep.