Stand-Off

by Andrew Smith

  And then Sam Abernathy said, “If it weren’t for you, I’d feel so lonely, Ryan Dean.”

  That was it. Time for Ryan Dean to go. I had to leave.

  I finished my goddamned balls paragraph and stood up, clearing my throat.

  “Thanks for the calc help,” the Abernathy said.

  I did not answer him. I put on my sneakers and changed into a tank top. I stuffed some clean socks, underwear, and a T-shirt into my gym bag.

  “Where are you going?”

  My voice cracked a little when I answered, which made me feel like a stupid loser, so I stared at the door that would get me out of here.

  “I need to go work out or something. Lift some weights,” I said, which was a lie, because there was no way I’d ever want to get caught alone in the locker room on a Saturday with Spotted John on the prowl.

  And the Abernathy said, “Can I come with you?”

  I paused at the door. Goddamn that little kid.

  “Sure. I guess.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  ON SATURDAYS, WHEN NEARLY ALL the students are away from Pine Mountain, a custodian named Red stays in the boys’ athletics area to do things like hand out clean towels and tell guys to wipe down the weight machines after we use them, and to keep an adult eye on the PM boys.

  We were required to always sign in and sign out if we used the locker room and athletics facilities on the weekends, just so they knew where we were.

  Pine Mountain had become very “supervised” following my friend Joey’s death the year before. So after we lifted weights together (God! I was now officially such a loser—lifting weights with the Abernathy!), Sam Abernathy and I went into the locker room.

  I took a towel from Red’s perfectly folded stack. The old man eyed us suspiciously, like our sole purpose for being there was to make a mess of the place.

  The Abernathy said, “Why are you going to take a shower here, Ryan Dean?”

  “Because our bathroom—no, our shower room—sucks, Snack-Pack. It’s ridiculously gross and small.”

  Sam Abernathy sat down on the bench in front of the bank of lockers where I’d undressed. “Okay, Ryan Dean. I’ll just wait for you here.”

  “Fine.”

  And when I came out of the shower to get dressed, I found the tiny little hedgehog undressed and wrapped in a towel of his own (it went around his waist two or three times), with his arms folded tightly across the pencils of his rib cage.

  The Abernathy was out of breath with nervousness, practically on the edge of a panic attack. “I decided to take a shower here too, like regular PM boys do. Only, will you stay here? You’re not going to look at me taking a shower, are you, Ryan Dean?”

  “I told you nobody cares about that stuff, Abernathy.”

  The pale little barefoot salamander padded off in the direction of the showers.

  I added, “And stop talking to me.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t going to work out today, Snack-Pack Senior.”

  Spotted John Nygaard stood at the end of the row of lockers. I guess he’d been watching the Abernathy and me for a while. And now that I was naked and just about completely unwrapped from my towel, I felt especially naked. Like, supernaked. Nakeder than I’d ever been in my life.

  Now here was a real standoff. I heard the water come on in the shower, and then I thought, I never, never want to think about the Abernathy in the shower.

  There was nothing I could do—my towel was already hanging in front of me like a curtain in my hands. If I put it back on, it would look like I was all weirded out by Spotted John standing there, looking at me, which I was weirded out by, but I didn’t want to look like it to Spotted John, which was a very complex internal/external stalemate involving all kinds of straight-guy hangups.

  “I didn’t say I didn’t want to work out. But I’d already promised Snack-Pack I’d take him to the weight room and show him how to lift,” I lied.

  I inhaled deeply. My shoulders tensed up like the backbones of two alley cats getting ready to fight. Then I dropped my towel on the bench and got dressed as quickly as I could without even glancing at Spotted John Nygaard. Well, to be honest, I watched his feet. He stood there, leaning against the lockers and looking at me the whole time. What a piece of shit.

  “You took Snack-Pack to the weight room?”

  I shrugged. “He kinda needs it, don’t you think?”

  The water in the shower turned off.

  “Look, I’m sorry I was an asshole, Ryan Dean. About everything. And I want you to know I took down those pictures of you from my blog.”

  Spotted John looked genuinely sorry.

  “Thanks, John. That’s really decent of you,” I said.

  “You’re welcome, dude. And, um, anytime you want to use my phone or Internet, well . . . you know you can. I promise I won’t bug you about . . . you know . . . anymore.”

  Pat-pat-pat! came the sounds of the Abernathy’s bare wet puppy paws on the concrete floor of the locker room.

  I grabbed my gym bag and wadded up the towel so I could throw it into Red’s hamper. Guys do not want Red getting mad at them for leaving a mess.

  “Let’s go outside so the kid can get dressed in peace,” I said.

  I felt better about the whole Spotted John thing. He really was an okay guy. He just needed to study his Penis Commandments a little harder.

  • • •

  Weekend dinners were fend-for-yourself affairs at Pine Mountain Academy.

  If only I’d known that sucking it up and hanging with the Abernathy provided all kinds of spillover benefits besides having him serve as bisexual-shark repellent to the great white Spotted John, I might not have dropped as much weight as I had since the school year began. Because whereas my typical Saturday evening meal consisted of frozen microwavable burritos or toaster-oven pizza rolls, the Abernathy—just utilizing what the cafeteria staff left on hand for us abandoned kids—was able to craft a spicy ginger-orange sauce, which he drizzled over boneless chicken and fried rice.

  The kid may have been endlessly annoying, but he could cook better than anyone I’d ever known.

  When we finished eating Sam’s remarkable dinner, I was so tired after all I’d been through in the past few days, I felt like I would sleep for twenty-four hours. The Abernathy opened our window and switched on a program about eating exotic foods in Mongolia. I undressed and climbed into bed.

  “Do you want to watch TV with me, Ryan Dean?”

  “No. I’m too tired.” And then I said the unthinkable. “Good night, Sam.”

  “You can call me Snack-Pack. I like it when the guys call me that.”

  I yawned. “Whatever.”

  And then the Abernathy did the unthinkable too: He actually changed into his pajamas with me lying there, awake, in the same room. And he didn’t even attempt to hide himself or ask me to leave.

  Ryan Dean West, child therapist. Well, child therapist who probably needed to see his own child therapist, to be honest.

  The Abernathy, all soccer-jammied out, climbed up into his little corner atop his Mario Bros. bed and said, “Good night, Ryan Dean. This was the best day ever.”

  No no no no no.

  What had I done to myself?

  I shut my eyes and fell asleep.

  And that night, it happened again.

  Worse than ever.

  PART THREE:

  the jumping-off spot

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  “OH MY GOSH! RYAN DEAN! Oh my gosh! Please be okay!”

  I couldn’t move my arms and legs, and I had this dim, swirling vision of Sam Abernathy in his soccer pajamas, kneeling on my bed—my bed!—grabbing me by the shoulders, his face just inches above mine. He shook me, trying to wake me up or snap me out of whatever was happening to me.

  “Ryan Dean!”

  The Abernathy got off me and scampered across the floor to switch on the lights. Then he ran back and put his face up to mine.
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  “I’m going to call someone for help!”

  “N-no. No.”

  The fuzzy black fist that had closed around my field of vision began to loosen up. I tried to take a deep breath, tried to will my heart to slow down. I managed to get my hands to my face. It was wet. I had been crying. I had been crying in front of the Abernathy. Nothing—not even waking up in the middle of a photo shoot in my underwear with inflatable Mabel—could ever be more humiliating than crying in front of the Abernathy.

  I wadded my sheets in my hands and wiped my face.

  The Abernathy kneeled on my bed next to me. I also never wanted to be in the same bed as the Abernathy. I kept my face covered. This was worse than anything.

  “Are you okay, Ryan Dean? You screamed. It really scared me. Are you okay?”

  “Get off my bed. This didn’t happen. Get off me. I’m fine.”

  Then I blindly pushed the kid away from me, and Sam Abernathy fell hard against my desk chair. It sounded like it hurt him. I was sure it did.

  I got out of bed and stepped over the Abernathy, who was rubbing his head. Then I pulled on some pants and a sweatshirt and slipped my bare feet into my sneakers. I ran out of the room.

  It was two in the morning.

  I ran, and the farther away I got, the more disgusted with myself and scared I became.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  ON THE PATH THAT LEADS to the old O-Hall, there is a small ledge on a bank beside the lake. It’s a place the boys of Pine Mountain call the Jumping-Off Spot.

  A bench cut from a split tree trunk sits in the grass here, so carved up with initials and epithets—the cryptic hieroglyphs of hundreds of Pine Mountain boys from the past six decades.

  It’s hard to imagine, sometimes, the marks that boys can leave in passing.

  The more recent additions were all done by O-Hall boys.

  Ever since Pine Mountain expanded and built the larger dorm buildings, the normal kids at PM rarely come out this way. A few times when I just needed someone to talk to, Joey and I would sneak out of O-Hall in the middle of the night and sit here and throw rocks into the water.

  I want to throw rocks again.

  I want to throw the biggest rock I can find, watch it smash into the windshield of my life and cast a jagged net of spiderweb fractures that multiply the pinpoint stars hanging in the fathomless black over the lake.

  Why won’t my heart slow down?

  Why won’t it slow down and let me catch my breath, so I can be happy to sit here again, so I can feel good about Annie Altman, so I can talk to my friends, so I can be okay?

  I throw one and another and another, listen as they hit the water and sink. I throw so hard, it feels like my arm is separating from my body, and it hurts and feels good at the same time, but it still is not enough and my heart won’t stop doing what it wants to do to me.

  It’s not enough.

  I kick off my sneakers and drop my sweatshirt and pants on the bench, just there, beside Joey’s name and my stupid initials—RDMW—where we’d carved them last fall. Then I run toward the edge of the bank and jump as far as I can.

  The water is stunningly cold. My chest, everything, constricts.

  I am collapsing—a star becoming a black hole. My head spins, and I can’t find up, but I’m not looking for it either. I stay beneath the black surface and I scream as loud as I can, until all the air empties from me and I begin to sink and collapse even more.

  I am not thinking about dying, and I’m not thinking about living, either. For just that slight moment when all I know is the cold and the dark, I can finally sense peace, can imagine myself catching a glimpse of my decelerating heart trying to run away from me as I get closer and closer to it.

  Slow down, heart.

  My arms pull me up through the water; my feet kick until I break the surface and take in a breath.

  How did I get here?

  How did I come to this place?

  I’m out near the middle of the lake and I’m shivering. My teeth are chattering and I can almost feel the blue seeping into my lips. And I hear something soft and sad—it sounds like a bird calling from the shore near the bench.

  “Ryan Dean? Ryan Dean? Please come back.”

  It’s Sam Abernathy.

  I can hear him crying.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  I SAT ON THE BENCH, dripping and shuddering, wearing nothing but the briefs I’d been sleeping in an hour ago.

  Sam Abernathy sat beside me, folding and refolding, on his ironing-board knees, the hooded sweatshirt I’d discarded.

  “You should put this on, Ryan Dean. You’re going to get sick.”

  I couldn’t talk. My jaw was locked shut from the cold. I wanted to put the sweatshirt on, but my arms were too tightly clenched across my chest. I think Sam must have sensed I tried to move a hand to get the shirt from him, but my arms would not let go of my chest.

  I shook and shook. I felt snot running down my upper lip.

  Sam Abernathy rubbed my hoodie to warm it up in his hands, and then he slipped it over my head, pulling it down until I was reasonably covered. Then he put the hood up to cover my wet hair.

  “What’s wrong with you, Ryan Dean?”

  I shook my head and stared at the lake.

  “Are you going to be all right?”

  I shook my head again. I couldn’t talk to the kid.

  What could I tell him, anyway? Oh yeah, Sam, I’m fine. I’m just losing my fucking mind is all. Just fine.

  I don’t know how long we sat there saying nothing. When my chest warmed up enough that I could move, I slipped my arms through the sleeves and wadded the cuffs in my fists to glove my hands.

  “Here.” Sam Abernathy tried to get my feet into my pants. He managed to pull them halfway past my knees as I sat there shaking and not saying anything to him.

  He shouldn’t have been such a nice kid. There was no reason for him to treat me with kindness—not Joey, and not Sam. I was an asshole, and I went out of my way to keep Sam Abernathy from caring about me, but his heart was bigger than mine. I was an asshole.

  I kept thinking that, over and over. I’m such an asshole. I needed to tell Sam Abernathy how sorry I was for pushing him, and for all the other asshole shit I’d done since school started, but I knew if I opened my mouth to say those words, I would start crying like a little kid, and I was never going to cry in front of Sam Abernathy. Again.

  I pulled my pants up and buttoned them.

  And Sam said, “I won’t say anything about this, Ryan Dean. It’s the code, right?”

  I wiped my nose on my sleeve. I was gross and wet and shaking, and I was such an asshole.

  The kid grabbed my shoes and lined them up in front of my feet so I could slip them on.

  Sam Abernathy stood in front of me, his hand extended to pull me up.

  “Come on,” he said. “We’d better get back.”

  I couldn’t look at his face. I’d hurt him, and I was such an asshole, and here he was—after the best day he’d ever had—offering me a hand. He pulled me up. I was wobbly. My muscles still jittered constrictions against the ice water I’d been swimming in.

  I was such an asshole.

  “If you need a hand, you can put your arm on my shoulder, Ryan Dean. I’m not uptight about stuff like that.”

  I couldn’t lean on the kid. I couldn’t even look at him.

  But before we got out of the woods, I stopped and put my hands over my eyes.

  “I’m really sorry for what I did, Sam.”

  “It’s okay, Ryan Dean. It’s okay.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  I WAS MOPEY AND USELESS the whole day on Sunday. I didn’t want to say anything else to Sam Abernathy, but it wasn’t because I hated him. It was because I hated myself.

  Also, I was filthy and smelled like algae.

  The Abernathy tried to get me to go to breakfast with him, but I refused to get out of bed. So he made me feel even worse when he came back with a toasted bag
el and a cup of yogurt for me.

  “You should eat something, Ryan Dean,” he said.

  I wanted to stay away from Sam Abernathy, so I got dressed to leave.

  “Did I do something wrong?” Sam asked.

  I shook my head. “No.”

  Okay. So you know how sometimes your feelings can be all messed up for so many reasons, and you just don’t want to talk to anybody but it’s not because you’re mad at other people, it’s because you’re really disgusted with yourself, and then you get waylaid by an innocent question like did I do something wrong? and you instinctively answer “no,” but you also instinctively make eye contact with the person you’ve been trying not to talk to or make eye contact with and you’ve been doing pretty good at that since, like, three in the morning, and that’s when you notice the person you haven’t been speaking to or making eye contact with has a black eye because you were mad and embarrassed and you shoved him off your bed because you didn’t want him to see that you were crying—even though he did, and even though you know he would never give you shit over it, because Sam Abernathy would never give shit to anyone—and then you realize OH MY GOD I GAVE SAM ABERNATHY A BLACK EYE?

  Yep. Pretty much that.

  It froze me. I had never done anything as terrible as what I did to Sam Abernathy. And why the hell was he putting up with it? Why the hell was Sam Abernathy nice to me?

  “I gave you a black eye.”

  My stomach knotted. I seriously looked around for a vomit landing site.