Chapter 61

Jacky had spent three days going out of his mind with worry, and that one hug hadn’t done much to make him feel better. Especially after what happened in gym class.

After last Thursday’s conversation with Ryan, and his session with Dr. Greene, Jacky had come up with a plan to give gym class another try. It was a soccer unit, after all – no sweat.

In the locker room, however, Jacky wasn’t feeling quite so good about his decision. Ryan had deserted Jacky for his friends right after that amazing hug, and Jacky had walked to gym class alone. He had arrived before anyone else, and shut himself up in one of the bathroom stalls to change so no one would stare at him.

The locker room door thumped open, allowing a brief explosion of the hallway chatter to enter, then thumped shut again. By the voices, Jacky knew it was the whole group of jocks. Including Ryan.

“What’s up with you and that freak?” Jacky heard Lance ask.

Jacky froze.

“Freak?” Ryan had carefully measured out the word – he didn’t sound angry that Lance would call Jacky a freak, but he didn’t sound happy, either.

“Yeah. That kid with the one arm. When did you get to be such good friends with him? Were your moms friends or something?”

Jacky’s heart, already pounding from anxieties about gym class, sounded so loud in his ears that feared someone would hear it as he waited for Ryan to call Lance out.

“No,” said Ryan.

And that was it. Conversation over.

Jacky yanked his sweatshirt off and put on his t-shirt. Then he sat down on the toilet seat.

Maybe Dr. Greene would give him a pass if he explained the situation. She knew about Ryan. “Do you think having a friend in gym class will help?” she had asked. Jacky had been sure it would, especially if that friend was Ryan.

Stupid. Ryan wasn’t about to admit to his friends that he was gay.

The more Jacky thought about it, the more Ryan’s hug earlier had been a way of not explaining anything. Not telling Jacky what had been going on the past three days.

The door thumped as a big group of guys headed into the gymnasium. Jacky closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then stepped out of the bathroom stall. I can do this, he told himself. His legs felt like jelly and his head was miles away.

When he stepped onto the wooden floor, no one turned to stare at him. He kept his head down while he approached Coach Ward. “Um, hi,” he started.

Coach Ward looked up. “Yes?”

“I wanted to try participating in class today.”

“What?”

Jacky raised his voice and spoke clearly, like he was talking to an idiot. “I talked to my doctor and I want to try participating in class today.”

“You got a note?”

Fuck. “No.”

The coach looked at him. “Why couldn’t you join in class before?”

Now Jacky wanted to punch the guy in the face. “Uh, I had my arm amputated?” he snapped.

Coach Ward was unfazed. “Recently?”

“Freshman year.”

The coach glanced down at his arms. Saw the one, then looked at the empty sleeve. He gave Jacky enough time to see how the other guys were starting to look over this way. And how Ryan wasn’t looking at him. Now, softer, Coach asked, “You really think you can handle it?”

“Yes,” said Jacky.

“Then have at it.” Turning, the coach bellowed, “Warm up laps, ladies!”

Laps were easy enough, although he felt how out of shape he was. Back in eighth grade, his coach had made them run four laps before every practice, a full mile – and if they took more than eight minutes, they had to do burpees.

Ryan ran side by side with Lance. What was that hug all about if Ryan was going to turn around and pretend he didn’t exist?

“Sullivan, Harrison,” barked Coach Ward. “Pick your teams.”

It had been so long since Jacky had participated in gym class that he’d forgotten. Or maybe he’d never known that particular dread of being picked last, because he’d always been athletic. Now, suddenly, he feared that he would be picked last.

Ryan’s first pick was Lance, and Jacky stared at the floor. Why had he come up with this stupid plan? Stupid therapy. Because he’d written some stupid fucking story for English class. Because one stupid fucking jock made a mean joke on the first day of gym class and Jacky let it get to him.

Alex picked Matt.

The next moments stretched out so long Jacky felt like he’d fallen into some alternate dimension. Please pick me, he thought at Ryan.

“Jennings,” Ryan said, and for a minute Jacky didn’t react. He staggered forward trying to recover himself. Jennings? Why wouldn’t Ryan call him Jacky, like he always did?

Ryan smiled at Jacky as he approached his team. Things were going to be okay.

Jacky decided to play defense, even though he’d been on offense back in the day. The jocks liked to be overly aggressive, which meant they spent a lot of time at mid-court fighting over the ball. Jacky made a few good plays when the ball went wide of someone’s control, kicking it back toward the offensive players.

Then Alex and Matt broke through and headed for the goal.

Ryan had picked Jared McCarthy, better known as “Big Mac” to play goalie, probably because he’d barely managed to run the four laps at the start of class – Jacky had lapped him, so he might have only managed to do three laps – but Mac also wasn’t exactly adept at catching or blocking or kicking or anything else that being goalie involved.

Two of the defensive players were off-sides, not that Coach Ward was calling them on it. That left Jacky and three others. Two of them were girls from his history class, and they were talking and barely paying attention to what was going on other than to get out of the way when the action got close. The other defense, a girl named Trinity who was on the girls’ soccer team, was trying to get the ball away from Alex and Matt. So Jacky ran in there too.

They were all jostling for the ball when a foot connected with Jacky’s shin and caught him off-balance, and when he stepped back to right himself, he tripped over someone’s leg. His one arm windmilled to try to get his balance.

People cringed away from him as he fell.

The looks on their faces said, I don’t want to touch the one-armed freak. Their eyes screamed pity. He shouldn’t be in class with regular people, that’s what they were thinking.

When he hit the floor, he heard the screech of Coach Ward’s whistle.

Of course he had fallen onto his bad side. The impact to his shoulder made him go black for a second. Jacky rolled and got himself up even as Coach was saying, “Give him some room!” Like everyone wasn’t already giving him about a mile of room.

“I’m fine,” he said, blinking. His shoulder throbbed, and he had to resist the urge to reach up and rub it.

“Yeah, I think I’d rather have you go down to the nurse’s office and have her take a look,” Coach said, eyes unreadable behind his aviators.

“I’m fine!” The words echoed in the gym, because everyone else was silent.

“Go to the nurse, and next class have a note from your doctor.” Coach’s voice was steel.

“I’ll take him down to the nurse’s office!” said Mac, a little too enthusiastically.

Coach nodded.

Ryan hadn’t even had a chance to volunteer. Jacky avoided looking at him as he stomped back into the locker room to get his stuff.

He jerked the locker door open and yanked on his bag so that everything fell to the floor. “Fuck,” he muttered.

“Um, do you need help?” Mac asked, behind him.

“Not unless you wanna watch me take off my pants,” Jacky snapped.

Mac blushed and turned around.

Down the nurse’s office, Jacky put an ice pack on his shoulder and lay down in the dimly lit side room. There were four cots in there, and two were occupied. He faced away from the others and tried not to feel sorry for himself.

What hurt more than his shoulder was everyone seeing him fall down. Even if he’d had two arms, it would have been embarrassing. Having only one arm meant that they said nothing. They pitied him. Ryan pitied him. That was why he didn’t want to tell his friends he had a boyfriend. Not because he was afraid to come out. Because he didn’t want to tell everyone that his boyfriend was a one-armed freak, as Lance had so kindly put it.

Jacky stayed in the nurse’s office through the next period. He would have stayed longer, but the nurse told him that she would need to call his mother and have her pick him up if he didn’t think he could go back to class.

He placed his bag over his head and settled it so it didn’t hurt his shoulder, and headed to English class.

Ryan was already there, talking to Monica. Keeping his head down, he started to walk straight back to his desk.

A tug on his empty sleeve.

“Are you okay?” Ryan asked.

Jacky paused. Didn’t look at Ryan. “I’m fine.” In his voice he heard everything that was not fine, and he pulled away to get to his seat.

“What’s up with him?” Monica whispered.

He couldn’t even look at Ryan. His cheeks burned as he made himself busy taking out his binder and pen and started scribbling a doodle in the margin of his notes.

He wished he could go back in time two months, to when he could blame all the jocks for all his problems.

***

He considered using his shoulder as an excuse not to go to therapy.

The whole day had sucked. All Jacky had wanted was to talk to Ryan, and there was never an opportunity. Lunch was the same as usual: Ryan sat with his jock friends, and Jacky sat with Haylee, because once again Cody hadn’t shown up. Jacky wondered if Cody somehow knew that Nina and Matt were back together, which then made Jacky feel like an asshole for not texting him over the weekend.

After getting home from school and lying on his bed for a while with a bag of frozen peas on his shoulder, he sighed and got up and put on his coat, and rode his bike down to Dr. Greene’s office.

Ryan wasn’t in the waiting room when Jacky got there. Jacky picked up a brochure and let it fall open on his lap. Ryan’s seat remained empty as the minutes ticked by.

Maybe they had changed Ryan’s therapy schedule. That would mean Jacky would never see Ryan except in class.

At five minutes of four, Jacky heard footsteps in the hall and looked up.

“Hi,” said Ryan. He sat down in the same seat he had sat in on that first day, and gave Jacky a sad look from across the room.

“Do you have to leave right after this?” Jacky cleared his throat so his voice wouldn’t crack. “Maybe we could hang out? And talk?”

“Mike will be picking me up after.” Ryan looked at his knees, and didn’t explain who Mike was.

“Can I… call you later?” He hated how desperate he felt. He didn’t want to be this person.

“Ryan?” Dr. Burns stood in the doorway to his office.

Ryan looked up, then back at Jacky. “That would be good,” he said.