Darius the Great Is Not Okay(10)

Well. Not kind of. I was overweight, period, which is why Stephen Kellner was always handing me the salad bowl.

As if salad would counteract the weight gain from my meds.

As if lack of discipline was the root of all my problems.

As if all the worry about my weight didn’t make me feel worse than I already did.

I pulled on my gym clothes—black swishy shorts and a red Chapel Hill Chargers T-shirt—and ran out to join warm-ups. I caught the tail end of sit-ups, and then we had to run laps for five minutes.

Chip Cusumano caught up with me on our third lap. “Hey, D,” he said.

Now that he was at Chapel Hill High School, with an enforced Zero Tolerance Policy toward bullying, he couldn’t add the -Bag.

I ran faster, and Chip kept pace with me, but at least he wasn’t smiling anymore. “I was just gonna tell you your zipper was open. I didn’t mean to split your backpack.”

“Whatever. At least you can’t hide truck nuts in it.”

“And I’m sorry about your bike. Really.”

I almost believed him.

Almost.



* * *





Unlike the rest of the Net Sports Unit, which was haphazardly arranged, we had assigned teams for volleyball. Coach Fortes set us up to play tournament-style. There were no eliminations, but the team with the best record would get extra credit.

I did not understand the point and purpose of assigning extra credit to the winners when they were—statistically speaking—the most likely to be athletic types and therefore the least likely to need the extra credit.

Me being me, I was stuck on a team with Fatty Bolger, which gave him even more opportunities to joke about balls flying at my face.

Like I said. At least he was predictable.

Trent served first—he always served first—and we bump-set-spiked back and forth, while I tried to stay out of Trent’s way, because he was a very intense volleyball player. He was especially intense since we were playing against Chip’s team. Despite being best friends, Chip and Trent battled like Emotionally Compromised Vulcans when they were on opposing teams.

I didn’t get that at all. If I’d had a best friend—Javaneh was my closest friend, but we weren’t anything approaching best friends—we would have always been on the same team. Not in the sense of a Net Sports team, but in the sense that I’d be happy for them if they won, and they’d be happy for me if I won.

Fatty elbowed me out of the way to set the ball for Craig, who was in front of us, to spike.

“Get with the program, Kellner!” Coach Fortes shouted.

I was with the program. It’s just that Fatty Bolger seemed to be operating a different version of it.

So the next time the ball came at me, I planted myself right under it, locked my elbows and bumped it.

But instead of going upward, the ball shot straight forward, right into the back of Craig’s head.

I was terrible at Net Sports.

Craig looked back at me as he scooped up the ball.

“Sorry.”

Craig shrugged and tossed the ball under the net to Chip, who was serving next.

“Watch where you’re aiming,” Trent said. “Terrorist.”

This was not the first time I had been called a terrorist. It didn’t happen often—no teacher let it slide if they heard it—but school was school, and I was a kid with Middle Eastern heritage, even though I was born and raised in Portland.

It didn’t bother me that much.

Not really.

I mean, D-Bag was a lot worse.

Terrorist was so ridiculous that I could shrug it off.

Mom always said those kinds of jokes didn’t bother her, because Persians couldn’t be terrorists. No Persian can get up early enough in the morning to bomb anything.

I knew she said it because it really did bother her. But it was easier if we could make fun of ourselves about it. That way, when boring Hobbits like Fatty Bolger said things, it didn’t matter. We had already made the joke ourselves.

I guess it actually did bother me.

Just a little bit.





INTERMIX RATIO



“Hey, son. What happened to your backpack?”

I stuck my homework in the Audi’s backseat and got in front. “Structural integrity field collapse.”

Dad laughed at my Star Trek reference, and also because he was finally getting his wish: He had been after me to get a new backpack all semester. “Better at school than in the airport.”

“Chip Cusumano wouldn’t have been at the airport to rip it open.” I explained how it all happened, and Dad started shaking his head about halfway through the story.

“All you have to do is stand up to him.”

“I did. He didn’t listen.”

“He’s only doing it because he can tell he’s getting to you.”

I wondered if that’s why Dad treated me the way he did. Because he could tell he was getting to me.

Ever since my bicycle had been removed from active service, I had been taking the bus to school in the morning, and Dad had picked me up in the afternoon to drop me off at Tea Haven. His work schedule was a lot more flexible than Mom’s.

I think Dad and I got along as well as we did—which wasn’t that well, but still—because I didn’t see him that often, with school and then work in the evenings. And when I did see him, it was usually for dinner, when Mom or Laleh were around to provide a buffer, or for Star Trek, which was sacrosanct.