The Boy Next Door
Annabelle Costa
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dad, business establishments, events, or locals is entirely coincidental.
The Boy Next Door
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Copyright © 2012 Dev Love Press, LLC.
Proofread by Rebecca Quintana
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OneI wasn’t too happy when my parents told me that I had to try to make friends with the crippled kid who just moved in next door.
I was eight years old. For my entire life thus far, living in a suburb of Pittsburgh, our next-door neighbor was an ornery old woman named Agnes. Why are all old people named Agnes, for some reason? Not that I’m prejudiced against old people or anything. My grandmother, Nana, lived with us and was never an ornery old woman, and probably still the best cook I’ve ever known. Anyway, Agnes failed to wake up one morning, and the house got sold off to a young family with two kids.
I was initially really psyched to find out that the family had two kids, one of whom was allegedly my age. I pictured a girl with blond pigtails who would be my best friend, and we’d make each other friendship bracelets, have sleepovers, and all that fun stuff.
But then my fantasy was crushed when I found out that my new eight-year-old neighbor was a boy. And not just a boy. A boy in a wheelchair.
His name was Jason and I saw him a few times from afar. He went to a different school than I did, and there was a special school bus that picked him up. I saw him waiting with his parents at the curb for the special bus, which was about half the length of the bus that picked me up. My parents told me it was a bus for disabled kids. When it arrived, a ramp would be lowered mechanically and Jason would wheel into it, and the driver would help him get arranged in the bus. My mother yelled at me not to stare, but how could I not stare?
When the Foxes had been living next door for a few weeks, we came over for a visit and to bring them a welcome basket.
My little sister Lydia and I were dressed up in uncomfortable pink clothes, and I was firmly instructed to play with Jason. Lydia, who was only four, was totally off the hook since the older Fox child was a 13-year-old boy.
“I don’t want to play with Jason,” I whined, as my mother did up the buttons on my dress. “He’s weird.”
“Oh, stop it,” my mother said. “He’s not weird.”
“He’s in a wheelchair,” I pointed out.
“Don’t you dare mention that,” my mother snapped.
“Why not?” spoke up my Nana, who was listening in. “I’m sure the boy knows he’s in a wheelchair. It’s not a secret, is it?”
Despite everything, I giggled. I wished my mother would let Nana come along, but they were too worried about her making a comment like that. Apparently, she lost her self-censor somewhat as she got older, although Daddy said she’d always kind of been like that.
Fifteen minutes later, my mother was shoving Lydia and me in the direction of the house next door. We rang the bell and Mrs. Fox answered, greeting us warmly. “Jill!” she cried. “I’m so glad you could make it.”
“This is for you,” my mother said, handing over the basket of fruit and muffins. “You met my husband, Gerald. And these are my daughters, Lydia and Tasha.”
“Nice to meet you, girls,” Mrs. Fox said. “My older son Randy isn’t here now, but Jason is very excited to meet you.”
My eyes met those of the boy sitting in a small, simple wheelchair several yards behind his mother. I could tell by his khaki slacks and lame sweater-vest that he too had been forced to dress up for the occasion. He looked just as miserable as I did.
“He’s eight, isn’t he?” Mom asked. “Tasha is eight as well.”
“Yes, that’s wonderful,” Mrs. Fox said. “They could play together.” She lowered her voice to a stage whisper that people a mile away could hear loud and clear: “Jason hasn’t been having an easy time making new friends.”
Yeah. What a shock.
With that sentiment, Jason and I were herded off in the direction of his bedroom, presumably for me to be his new best friend. We both went, sort of like lambs being led to the slaughter.
Once we were alone in Jason’s room, we both just sat there awkwardly, not saying anything to each other. We were too young to even know how to make polite conversation.
I tried not to stare at Jason, but it was hard not to. I mean, really hard. Why did he need a wheelchair anyway? Maybe he had some awful disease where he was dying. Maybe it was contagious! Maybe he had some contagious fatal disease and my mother had locked me alone in a room with him. She’d be so sorry when I died.
Although to be honest, Jason didn’t really look like he was dying. He looked pretty much like a normal kid, but he was sitting in a wheelchair. He had short brown hair that it looked like his mother had attempted to comb, yet he’d managed to get it messy again before our arrival. He had green eyes that were bright, even in spite of how clearly miserable he was at the moment. And then there were the freckles that were sprinkled down either side of his nose, although those disappeared years later.
I was perched gingerly on Jason’s bed. He had Star Wars blankets. Actually, I had to admit, he had some pretty cool toys.
My mother always bought me dolls, but the thing is, dolls didn’t do much. Maybe these days, dolls cry and piss their diapers or whatever, but back then, in the eighties, dolls were much less interesting. But Jason had toys that did cool stuff. He had toy cars and trucks, he had a rocket, and a huge box of Legos. But what really piqued my interest was that he had what looked like a huge box of TRANSFORMERS.
Confession time: I loved Transformers. I watched the TV show religiously every Saturday, rooting for the Autobots to defeat the evil Decepticons. But nobody would buy me any Transformers because I was a girl and obviously it’s not an appropriate toy for girls. So I had about half a dozen My Little Ponies and at least a dozen Barbie dolls, but no cars that turned into robots. It was a source of frustration for me. Every time I asked my mother, she’d say, “What do you want one of those awful toys for? You’re a girl!”
But Jason, he owned the mother lode.
“Um,” I said, working up my nerve. “Are those, um, Transformers?”
Jason brightened. “Yeah. You like Transformers?”
I nodded shyly.
To my delight, Jason grabbed the whole big box and dumped them out on his bed. He seriously had every Transformer in existence. He had Optimus Prime, of course, most of the Autobots, Megatron, the Decepticons including the cassette spies, plus a bunch of the newer ones like the Dinobots, the Insecticons, and even Devastator. I was majorly impressed. If I were a little older, I would have creamed myself or something.
“Oh my God,” I breathed. “You’re the luckiest person alive.”
Jason grinned. “Wanna play with them?”
I nodded eagerly.
I would say that Jason’s knowledge of the Transformers was possibly better than mine, and he even clued me in to the exciting news that that summer Transformers: The Movie would be coming out, and would take place in the year 2005, which seemed almost ridiculously futuristic back then. Two hours later, when my parents were ready to go home, they had to literally drag me out of Jason’s room, only quieting my whining when they promised to let me come back the next day.
Strangely enough, I got my wish: I became best friends with my next-door neigh
bor. A boy, of all things. I played at Jason’s house practically every day after school that year, and when the summer came, we went to see the Transformers movie together and were collectively blown away. (I saw it again years later and thought it was the most god-awful stupid thing I’d ever seen in my life.) Jason, whose father was a surgeon and spoiled him a little because of his disability, always had the newest and best toys. He even got a small television for his room with a VCR! Jason and I would beg his mom to take us to the video store and rent movies to watch in his room.
We even had sleepovers. I know what you’re thinking: a little boy and a girl having a sleepover is weird. But actually, nobody seemed that concerned. After all, we were only eight-years-old and even though we had the anatomy, we had no idea what to do with it. Plus, I get the feeling that the fact that Jason was in wheelchair kind of desexualized him in the minds of our parents. A crippled boy couldn’t possibly be lusting after any little girls. The only person who ever questioned it was Nana.
“You’re really going to let Tasha spend a night alone with a boy?” Nana asked my mother in amazement.
“It’s okay,” Mom said. “It’s just Jason. The boy in the wheelchair.”
“You know, his wiener might not work, but I bet his tongue still does.”
“Nana!” Mom cried, glancing at me nervously. “Will you stop it? They’re only eight years old!”
Fortunately, I was allowed to go, despite Nana’s warnings. Jason’s mother helped him change into pajamas in the bathroom, which is how I figured out that he couldn’t dress himself, at least back then. He was able to transfer himself into bed, but his mother looked on nervously. It was pretty clear we weren’t going to be sneaking to the kitchen to raid the refrigerator at any point that night.
I watched as Jason arranged his legs on the bed as I snuggled into my sleeping bag. I lay staring at the ceiling for a few minutes before I decided I couldn’t take it another minute. “Why can’t you walk?” I asked, finally verbalizing the question that was in my head for months.
“I was in a car accident when I was five,” he told me. “I can’t move or feel my legs.”
“Oh my gosh!” I exclaimed. “You can’t feel them at all?”
Jason shook his head. “It’s not a big deal. I’m used to it.”
I looked at Jason’s feet, knocking together slightly from their position at the end of the bed. On a whim, I reached out and grabbed his ankle. “So you can’t feel me touching you?”
“No,” he said.
My hand traveled up his leg to his knee. “How about here?”
“No,” he said again. He held his hand up to his mid-chest. “Nothing below here.”
My eyes widened and I said the first thing that popped into my eight-year-old head: “So how do you know when you need to go to the bathroom?”
Jason’s face turned bright red. “I . . .” he stammered. “I just . . .” His voice trailed off, never answering my question. Actually, I think I really didn’t want to know the answer to my own question. And I was kind of relieved when he covered his legs back up with his Star Wars blanket.
***
Jason managed to make some friends of his own over the next several years, more gender-appropriate ones, but we remained best friends. After all, he still had the best toys. And he was located very conveniently next door.
When I was eleven and in middle school, I grew breasts. It happened pretty quickly, practically overnight it felt like. One day I had these tiny little mosquito bites on my chest and the next, bam: breasts. I’m not going to lie: I was attractive to guys. I had blond hair and a cute face and now, breasts, all of which contributed to a significant popularity with boys. “This one’s going to be trouble,” Nana used to say practically every day. On my second week of middle school, I was asked out by an older boy at school, a really cute guy named Steve who was universally thought of as being “cool.” I accepted, of course.
I told Jason about my impending date with Steve. My relationship with Jason was 100% nonsexual. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure if he could have sex, what with being paralyzed and all, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to ask him. I had at least a little bit of tact by now. In any case, he had never shown the slightest bit of interest in me in that way. I hadn’t entirely eliminated the possibility that he was gay, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t, because any time I brought up how sexy Tom Cruise was, he made a face and barfing noises.
Jason was the only person in whom I felt comfortable confiding how nervous I was about the date. “He’s so mature,” I said, while we were talking within the confines of his bedroom. “What if we go out and he thinks I’m just a baby?”
“I’m sure that won’t happen, Tasha,” Jason assured me.
“I’ve never even kissed a boy,” I confessed, even though Jason undoubtedly knew it must be true. “What if I suck at it?”
He laughed. “You won’t suck at it.”
“How do you know?”
“Why would you?”
I wiped my palms on my jeans. They were perpetually sweaty lately. I had never been so nervous about anything in my life. Math tests suddenly seemed entirely insignificant.
“Maybe I should practice?” I suggested.
Jason frowned. “Like on your pillow?”
“No, like, for real,” I said. “We could practice together.”
Jason’s eyes widened and I wondered again if maybe he was gay. “I don’t think . . .”
“Come on, it would really help me,” I begged him.
I hadn’t really thought this out, but Jason and I were best friends, so it seemed like an obvious thing for best friends to help each other out with. Way better experience than kissing a pillow or my hand. Anyway, it wouldn’t be that bad having to kiss Jason. He wasn’t gross or anything, like some guys. Not as cute as Steve, obviously, but not bad looking.
“Well, um . . .” Jason scratched his head, making his hair stand up a bit. “I guess if it would really help you . . .”
“Awesome!” I clasped my hands together excitedly.
I couldn’t help but notice that Jason’s cheeks were a little pink. “So, um, what do you want me to do?”
“Well . . .” I thought about it a minute. “I guess just you sit there and I’ll sit on your bed and we’ll just . . . do it.”
I put my hands on Jason’s shoulders. His green eyes were still wide and I was pretty sure you were supposed to close your eyes to kiss, but then again, I was the one with the date coming up and needed to practice, not him. I leaned in toward him and pressed my lips against his. He barely moved, so I had to do most of the work. His lips were soft and I slipped my tongue inside his mouth. We kissed for, I don’t know, thirty seconds or so.
“How was that?” I asked him when I pulled away.
“Um,” he said. “That was . . . fine.”
“Just fine?” I asked, disappointed.
Jason shrugged, but when he pulled at his collar, I noticed his hands were shaking.
“Can we try again?”
Jason and I spent the better part of thirty minutes kissing. I think I got better at it, and moreover, it seemed like he got better at it too. He didn’t just sit there motionless, he actually moved his tongue in my mouth and put his hands on my shoulders and back. I actually think he was doing a pretty good job towards the end.
Unfortunately, when we were mid lip lock, his mother did her usual knock-and-immediately-enter routine. I could see her mouth fall open when she saw us and Jason’s face turned red like a beet. “Mom,” he gasped. “Tasha has a date coming up and we were just practicing, so . . .”
Even though it was entirely innocent, needless to say, we weren’t allowed to have any more sleepovers after that.
In high school, Jason and my paths diverged even further, though we were finally at the same school. I really embraced the whole grunge look, dating guys with long messy hair and ripped jeans. I actually cried when Kurt Cobain died and I tried my damnedest to look as much like Cou
rtney Love as I could manage. I wore ripped fishnet stockings and way, way too much eye makeup. I mean, at the time, it seemed like the right amount of eye makeup, but in retrospect I’m majorly embarrassed.
Jason, on the other hand, descended into geekdom. He had a computer before anyone else I knew and he spent an unhealthy amount of time on that thing. His friends were the biggest pimple-faced losers in the school. He committed further social suicide by joining math team and then even something called the Computer Club. If he was anyone else, I wouldn’t have been caught dead with him. As it was, we barely talked while we were at school.
When we were about fifteen-years-old, I came by Jason’s room to hang out and he was wearing glasses. I gasped in horror. “Take those off!” I cried. “Come on, you look like a total nerd! You don’t really need those, do you?”
Jason raised his eyebrows at me. “Um, yeah, I do.”
“That’s because you spend too much time on the computer,” I said.
“You’re probably right,” he said, and pulled off the lenses. He didn’t look that bad with them, I guess, but it was really hard to keep Jason from turning into a complete nerd. He just didn’t seem to get it. Or care. But that didn’t stop me from making an effort.
“That’s better,” I said. “After all, how are you going to get a girlfriend wearing those?”
Jason just laughed. As far as I knew, he’d never had a date. I was pretty sure he was straight because I once found some issues of Playboy stuffed into his pillowcase, but he seemed totally unconcerned with his dateless status. I guess he figured that being a geek in a wheelchair wasn’t likely to land him a date.
I sat cross-legged on Jason’s bed and rolled a joint. He went through his drawer and pulled out a lighter and tossed it to me. I took a deep drag and handed the joint to Jason, who took an impressive drag of his own. He blinked and I could almost see his eyes turning bloodshot. “Ah, Tasha,” he muttered. “You get the best weed.”
“As if any of your loser friends could score you weed,” I retorted, slugging him gently in the shoulder.
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