Beast(51)

“Back again?” He drops his bag on the floor. “Not so much a cripple this time.”

“Never was.”

He looks at my leg and crutches. “Whatever. Let’s go.”

We find the busted emergency door that everyone props open with soda cans and go outside onto a barren, cold patch of earth and glare at each other like two dogs.

I am the bigger dog.

My fists bunch up, looking like two hairy medicine balls, and there is nothing I want to do more than break this kid’s f*cking nose. Hear that crack, get that adrenaline high, because I’m frustrated as shit. I want to hate JP, but I don’t. I’m just sad. I want to hate Jamie, but I don’t, because it’s hard to hate someone you want to be with all the time.

“Hope you know I’m just humoring you.” Adam Michaels circles the yard, gets closer to me. He shouldn’t do that. “Kinda want to hear you cry like when you broke that thing. Don’t worry, I’ll be quick. All it takes—”

I lunge, grab his shirt so fast all the threads pop, strike him up and in his gut, right on the solar plexus, and throw his sorry ass on the ground. Mud flies and hits me in the chin. I’ll take it. It’s better than blood. Adam Michaels lies there in one pathetic heaving pile because all the nerves in his celiac ganglia are spasming the f*ck out.

“Do you know who I am?” I lean over him, pushing him hard on his gut so it burns. “They call me the Beast for a reason. Time to pay up.”

My fist reels back. His eyes snap wide.

Do it for Jamie. Do it for Jamie.

I can end this kid and he knows it.

But I can’t.

My hands fall open. Adam Michaels takes his first actual breath. “Work out a payment plan,” I say. “Tell JP you’ll pay him…what can you afford?”

“Um…m-maybe ten dollars a week?”

“Tell him you’ll pay him thirty-two dollars and eight cents a month for a year. That’s a ten percent interest rate, and don’t borrow money until you know you can pay it back.”

“Whoa, you’re really good at math.”

“I know. Now get out of here.”

He crawls through the door, doubled over and covered in mud. Back in the hallway, the bell screams over my head. If I were more social, I’d have Ethan or Bryce’s number, but I don’t because all these years I relied on JP for everything. If I didn’t have the need to branch out, I didn’t, and now I’m kicking myself. Instead I call Jamie. She doesn’t pick up and I have to leave her a message: “I’m worried about you. I need to know you’re okay, like right now this second.”

I hang up.

I realize that might’ve been a little overdramatic and call back.

“Maybe not quite that bad, but whatever. Call me as soon as you get this message.” I hang up, stand in the corner, and wait.





TWENTY-ONE


The closest midway point we have is the mall. I keep expecting all the teachers to call truancy officers, but nothing happens. We turn heads in the mall on a school day for only obvious reasons: I am an almost-seven-foot-tall hairy dude on crutches sitting in the food court next to a girl who makes everyone do a triple check. A pretzel lies half-mauled on a skimpy napkin in between us as I pull my hat down and Jamie takes another billion pictures.

“Jamie…”

“Don’t worry, I’m not posting anything to the Internet. No one will know we’re here right now,” she says. “It’ll be a latergram.”

“No, you’re not taking this seriously. Ethan and Bryce are transphobic idiots, and JP is really dangerous. I don’t know what he’s going to do anymore. He said some real scary shit.”

“I get it. I heard you the first sixty times,” she says sharply. “And you’re starting to sound like my mom. No amount of expert opinion can convince her that I’m not going to be the target of some insane plot. So I’ll tell you the same thing I tell her: I’ll be fine.”

“I know, but I’m afraid they’re going to come after you and hurt you, and you’re brushing it off like they accidentally changed the red dye in their Froot Loops or something.”

“Are you done?”

“You’re mad at me because I’m trying to look out for you?”

“Maybe I’m sick of hearing about my imminent demise. Despite everyone’s well-intentioned concerns, it’s quite nice being me,” she says. “Seriously, my own mother thinks I’m going to end up a prostitute and get murdered by a john, so I don’t need to hear it from you too, okay?”

“She does?”

“No, not like really officially hooker, just ‘her biggest fear’ for me and whatever.”

“I’m not saying you’re gonna be a hooker. I’m trying to tell you I do not know what’s going on and I’m afraid.” Because you mean so much to me.

“And I heard you; now please hear me. I’m done with everyone thinking that me being alive is an open invitation to bigots and weirdos who want to do awful things. I am way past over the lectures. It sucks, okay? I just want to live in peace.” Jamie tears a hunk off the pretzel and chomps down with an angry bite. “Don’t worry. I can take care of myself.”

Her teeth roil and grind the doughy thing into soup. She’s so pissed, but I can’t help it.