Short Stories - Chapter 13: Chapter 13

"A two-day suspension?" I demanded, staring at principal Rixon with narrow, heated eyes. "What kind of sick joke is this?"
Isaac and I had rushed to her office as soon as we caught sight of Calum in the hall, only to be told that he and Luke had been punished for what they did with two days of suspension.
"This is insane," Isaac snapped. "I'm bound to a wheelchair and all they get is two stupid days?"
"Watch it," Rixon warned, glaring over the top of her crooked nose. She looked at me. "Sit down."
I scoffed and stayed on my feet. "You need to do your job," I said lowly, pointing accusingly. "You need to protect your students."
"I have done all that I can do with what I was given," she said, as if that would satisfy anyone.
"The hell you have!" Isaac exclaimed. "You've done absolutely nothing! I've seen kids get harsher punishment for insubordination!"
Principal Rixon's gaze turned steely. "I will not sit here while you yell at me in my own office," she said.
"Then step out," I retorted. "We'll yell at you in the hall."
"Out!" She demanded. "Now! This discussion is over."
"It never started," Isaac bit back. We exchanged a glance, and I could tell that we were thinking the same thing. A minute of trying to negotiate had only lead to a minute of arguing. We weren't going to get anywhere. Clearly, if we wanted something to change, we were going to have to look higher up the ladder.
When we left the office, Isaac deflated. His anger subsided enough for the panic to take hold.
"Oh god," he breathed. "Oh god, oh god, oh god." His head fell into his hands.
I put a hand on his shoulder. "We'll figure something out," I said. "We'll—"
"I can't be here," he interrupted, lifting his head to stare up at me with wide, scared eyes. "Who knows what they'll do to me if . . . and I can hardly fight back with one leg, and . . . Ryan, this place isn't safe for me. I have to—I have to go."
He began to push himself down the hall, in the direction of the exit. I watched him for a moment, wondering what I could possible say or do to make him feel better, before hurrying to stand in front of him, blocking his path.
"Don't," I said. "You've gotta stay here."
He shook his head insistently, anxiety clear in his eyes. "I can't," he croaked. "Everywhere I go they could be there, ready to . . . Ryan, I can't."
"You can," I insisted. "You can, and you will. Leg or no leg, you're still a tough motherfucker. Nobody's gonna be taking you down. And you won't be alone, okay? I'll be with you, if that makes you feel better. But if you run away now, that's just going to make them see you as an easy target, and then you're through. You can't run forever. So stand up now—metaphorically—and don't let them see that you're scared of them. Sure, we lost one battle, but we've only just started. We can't get anywhere if we're scared of what's in front of us, right?"
He ran his hands frustratedly through his hair and leaned back. "It's not that easy to run into the lion's den," he said. "All I can think of is, what if they do put me in the hospital next time?"
"There's not gonna be a next time," I insisted. "Not a chance."
Isaac didn't look convinced, so I tried another approach. I kneeled down, putting my elbows on his knees and resting my chin on my hands. "Isaac?"
"Yeah?"
"Stop it."
He blinked at my rather blunt delivery. Once, twice, three times. His whole expression seemed to lighten and he let his head hang as he laughed softly. Nodding, he said, "Point taken. Let's do this thing."
I got out of the locker room extra early that afternoon so I could get to the gym before Brainless and Shitstick did.
"Ready to face some fuckheads?" I asked as I approached Isaac, and his response was a grin. His face was healing up nicely, the bruise on his jaw now more yellow than purple.
"Not in the slightest," he admitted, but his reserve remained. "Gonna try not to shit myself, though."
"Great start," I laughed.
When practice did start, Calum and Luke emerged as expected. I could practically feel Isaac's anxiety, which made it significantly harder to hide my own, but I did my best to keep my shoulders straight and my chin up when Calum's eyes landed directly on me. They darted from me to Isaac and back again, but he didn't say anything, and neither did Luke.
After all, actions spoke louder than words. And they surely showed their feelings for me through their actions—all of that foul-play they'd pulled on Isaac before was now focused solely on me. Though Calum and I were supposed to be co-captains, he didn't speak to me once throughout practice. He simply made it his task to send me sprawling to the floor as many times as possible, earning cheers and compliments on his aggression from Coach.
His voice only went to jeering at Isaac with words so harsh, they hurt me a little.
It was a different kind of cruel. Worse than he'd been before, but divided differently so that I took all of the hits and Isaac got all of the shouts.
Honestly, I didn't mind it. It could have been worse, given I was sure they probably wanted to destroy us for busting them. By the end of practice, my body ached like a bitch and I felt kind of like a bruised, overripe fruit that would burst if anyone pushed at the skin too hard. But if I was taking the blows, Isaac wasn't, and at least I could get up when I was pushed.
I had a feeling Calum and Luke knew we'd been expecting worse. Their smug expressions explained enough—the way they were acting was just a method of rubbing it in our faces that we hadn't been able to get them into the trouble they deserved. Their treatment of us was just as mild as the punishment they'd been given.
God, I couldn't wait to bring them down.
They played their little game all week. The only time they let up was during our matches, and that was only because they wanted as badly as the rest of us to beat the other teams.
Calum was back playing small forward. Right now, it seemed like they were winning. But I wasn't going to let that discourage me, and I was going to try my damn best to keep it from discouraging Isaac, because he had his first doctor's appointment two Wednesdays from now.
"I think I'm going to cancel the appointment."
I turned on Isaac, forcing him to stop in the middle of the parking lot. It was Tuesday night, right after an easy game, and he and I were among the first to leave.
"I hope that's code in another language for, Ryan, you're the sexiest person ever, because if it's not, I'm leaving you here," I said; I was his ride home, after all.
Isaac shook his head in dismay. "I was stupid to think it was a good idea," he said. "The sheriff hasn't gotten back to us at all yet, and my mom can't reach him. He doesn't care any more than Rixon does."
His mood had been pretty depressed all day. Now I understood why.
"He might just be busy," I suggested. "He'll get to it eventually."
"We don't have until eventually," Isaac said sadly. "If it's this hard to even get started, how do I know I'm not signing up for something I can't manage? What if I take out a loan I won't be able to pay off? Maybe our bad luck is a sign; we can't get to the principle, we can't to the sheriff—maybe it's just not going to happen."
"No," I insisted, because I remembered the look in his eyes when he told me that he wanted to do things like dance at prom and walk at his graduation. I wanted those things for him, and I wasn't going to let a lazy principal and a bum of a sheriff stop him from getting them.
Unfortunately, Sheriff Darmonth was the closest link we had to any legal body, and if we wanted any luck in filing a lawsuit without it taking about a billion years, our best option was to start with him.
"It's just a sign that we're looking in the wrong places. We need someone more powerful than Rixon. And as far as the sheriff goes, we'll give him a little more time, and if nothing comes of it, we'll look for ourselves."
I was trying to be more optimistic, but I could tell that with every blow, it was becoming harder and harder for Isaac to rebound.
Still, he wasn't finished fighting just yet. Despite the doubt in his eyes, he nodded. "I guess it is kind of early to throw in the towel, huh?" he said.
By Friday, there was still no word from the sheriff. It wasn't easy to stay positive.
I got to the chorus room quickly that day, because I had something to do, and I had to do it before Isaac got there.
"Attention!" I called as soon as I stepped into the room. Heads snapped in my direction at the sharp tone of my voice.
"Fellow ivory-ticklers," I said, "I have a proposition."
"Ooh," Callie clapped excitedly. "Do tell, good sir."
"As you all know, a friend of ours has had a rough few weeks," I continued. Isaac's bruises had only just finished healing. "And he's in a situation that none of us can even imagine. It sucks major ass, and I really want things to work out for him. So I have a request to make."
A hand shot up. I nodded toward Amani Chidike, beckoning for her to ask her question. "We are talking about Isaac here, right?"
"Oh, uh, yeah," I said, blushing as several oh's went up around the room; I probably should have specified that. "Anyways, my point is that Isaac really wants a new leg, and words can't describe how much he deserves it. But the process of getting it is really expensive, and we're trying to start now so he can be on his feet by prom. As I'm sure you've all realized by now, money doesn't grow on trees, and we're kind of struggling to make it possible. So I was thinking—there's, what, thirty of us? If everyone was to donate, like, five dollars, we could really make some headway.
"Of course, you don't have to, and I totally understand if you don't, because life is rough. But if you want to . . ."
"I think it's a great idea," Callie beamed. Around me, thirty students voiced their agreement.
I heard everything I'd been hoping to hear, from "We'll help however we can," to "Of course I'll pitch in," to "That's what friends are for."
"Epic," I grinned. "You're all angels. Oh, and please don't mention it to him, because he'd castrate me."
Callie linked her arm through mine, pulling me aside. "It's really awesome, what you're doing," she said.
I shrugged. "I mean it when I say he deserves it. He's a really great guy, Cal."
"I know he is," she smiled. "He's in some of my classes. We're, like, friends now."
"Do I hear a three-way date coming?" I joked, and she laughed.
"Nah, just a two-way," she said lightly.
I felt myself tense. ". . . Say that again?"
She dragged me toward the corner of the room and lowered her voice. "I mean, he's just so cute, you know?" She giggled. "And he's such a sweet guy. Funny and smart and everything. Wouldn't anyone want to date him?"
I chuckled uncomfortably, trying to ignore the unease I felt down to my stomach. "Ha, yeah," I said. "Anyone."
"Which is why," she mused, "There's no way I could third-wheel on one of your dates."
I choked in surprise, and she gave me a knowing look. She'd caught me, fair and square.
"You like him, don't you?" She asked.
"More than I wanna admit," I groaned, putting my face in my hands. "Is it that obvious?"
She pulled me into her side playfully. "Only to me," she promised. "You know, gay-tuition and all."
With a sigh, I leaned against the wall and said, "I am such a shit friend."
"Hey, you can't control your feelings," she said sympathetically. "Besides, it might not be, you know, an issue. Isaac's totally pan, and I think he likes you, too."
I raised my eyebrows at her. "How do you know that?
"Gay-tuition," she said with a wink. I pursed my lips.
"I don't know, if anything I thought he'd be bi."
"I stand by my guess," she said adamantly. "Definitely pan."
"You know, he could be straight," I said, and she screwed up her face.
"Boring."
If she'd been planning to say anything else, it was cut off when I nudged her rather violently in the side. Isaac had just entered the room, and I could think of at least six awful things I'd rather do than have him hear our conversation, all of which included death.
"I'm nervous," Isaac said.
"Well then stop being nervous," I said.
He chuckled. "Has anyone ever told you you've got a way with words, Matthews?"
"Every day of my life."
We were in the waiting room of a big doctor's office an hour away from home. Or, more specifically, a prosthetists' office. We were missing practice to be here, and would probably be pummeled by Coach for it, but that was about as far from our minds as equality was from Trump's.
"This is the time to be excited, not nervous," I said more seriously, because I could tell he really was nervous—he was fiddling with his necklace again. "After this, next step is meeting with the superintendent. We're moving on up."
"Not too quickly, I hope," Isaac said.
"No such thing."
When Isaac's name was called, we were lead down a few hallways to the office of a woman named Dr. Pam, who greeted us kindly and ushered Isaac onto the examination table.
She made idle ice-breaking conversation for a few moments before asking Isaac for some details. Things such as the type of leg he'd used in the past, what he'd felt most and least comfortable in, etcetera etcetera. I honestly didn't understand most of what they were saying, so I just sat on the little guest chair silently and observed.
Isaac spoke about his leg much more comfortably than he did when he was talking to fellow students—it must be much easier to discuss with a doctor who knew what she was talking about. I tried to catch on and pick up a few terms, but I quickly got lost.
After a few minutes, Dr. Pam asked Isaac to take off the liner he always kept around his remaining right leg. I'd always wondered why he never took it off, even though he didn't need it when he didn't have the prosthetic. He glanced over at me awkwardly, and I realized with a pang that he was insecure about what I might think of how it looked.
"You know what I'm gonna say," I said with a reassuring smile. "Stop it."
It worked every time. Isaac chuckled and, albeit a little hesitantly, pulled the liner off of his leg.
It was, in all honesty, just like you'd picture it. His skin looked the same as it did anywhere else on his body, save for a long, white scar along the edge, where his thigh should have met his knee.
"Would you look at that?" I said. "Still gorgeous."
Isaac turned red, and Dr. Pam laughed slightly. "You boys are precious," she said.
She asked Isaac to lay down and sat on a swivel chair that she maneuvered to the edge of the table. I watched with quiet curiosity as she evaluated and measured his residual limb, all-the-while asking him questions about his lifestyle. "What kind of career are you planning on choosing?" "How active do you think you will be?" "Do you plan on participating in sports?" "Going for daily walks at the park?"
I actually learned a lot about him by listening. He wanted to go to college in-state and get his master's so he could be a physician's assistant. He liked basketball a lot, but it was more of a hobby and an extracurricular for him than an aspiration. He definitely wanted to be mobile and active, but he didn't feel that he needed a leg specifically geared toward athletics.
When Dr. Pam was finished with her evaluation, she had Isaac sit so that his legs hung over the edge of the examination table. She stood in front of the computer monitor next to the table and opened the cabinet beneath it, pulling out a metallic device that was connected to the monitor on one end by a pair of thick cables.
She pressed a few buttons, typed in a password or two, and the monitor screen glowed to life. "You said you've done a laser scan in the past, correct?"
Isaac nodded. "For my last leg, yeah."
"So you know that you've got to stay as still as you can for me," she said, and Isaac nodded again.
The first thing she did was slide a new, different sleeve onto Isaac's leg—one that was white and somewhat transparent. Then she raised the device—it looked sort of like a small, double-sided, wiry hammer of Thor.
My eyes kept darting between Isaac's leg and the monitor screen—I couldn't pick one to focus on. In front of me, the device Dr. Pam held projected red lasers onto Isaac's leg. As she slowly moved the scanner, a 3-D model developed on the monitor that bore the exact shape of Isaac's limb.
Moral of the story: it was pretty fucking cool.
Isaac and Dr. Pam discussed the future as she meticulously scanned every angle of his leg. In two weeks they would have another appointment where Isaac would try on temporary sockets to determine which was the right fit. The next step would be getting a temporary prosthetic—I could see his eyes light up in excitement at the thought, because that would allow him to walk again. Then, after a few more appointments, he would have a new—permanent—leg.
He left the office with a big smile on his face.
The next phase of our mission was to meet with the district's superintendent in order to get Calum and Luke the hell out of Westview. Maybe it was ambitious, going straight to him, but "go big or go home" seemed to be the only option that would work for us.
That was how we ended up in Lonnie's van on Saturday morning, driving thirty minutes downtown, where the sleek glass buildings touched the sky and made our own town look like a pile of rubble. Which, to be fair, it practically was.
We were all dressed up to go see the superintendent. Lonnie was wearing a dress, Isaac had a tie on, and I'd gelled my hair. Clearly, we meant business.
The wait to see the man himself was over an hour long, despite the fact that we'd set an appointment. We were starting to think he'd merely forgotten about us when a lady in a tight pencil skirt and and obnoxiously loud, deadly-looking high-heels rounded the corner and beckoned to us.
The building was massive. I hadn't even known it was possible to be in an elevator for so long. We just kept rising and rising and rising, looking out through the clear doors at the office-bustle happening inside.
When we finally got out, there was another long journey just to get through the winding halls to the door on which a gold plaque read: Superintendent A. Anderson.
Stilettos knocked on the door, opening it for us at the man within's beckoning call before hurrying away, her shoes resounding harshly against the tile floors.
"Come in, sit down," Mr. Anderson said kindly. He was a man in his early forties with a build and posture that would make him seem quite stern, but a friendly smile and voice that balanced it out. Lonnie and I took seats across his desk and Isaac rolled into place on my left. "So, what is it that we're discussing again? I apologize—my memory has been no good these days, I've been so busy."
"That's quite alright," Lonnie smiled. "We're here about an assault on my son made a few weeks ago by two boys at his high school."
And so it went, the routine that seemed to keep repeating. Lonnie proposed the allegations, Isaac explained what happened, I gave my witness report.
When we had finished several minutes later, Mr. Anderson was shaking his head sympathetically, which already felt like more than we'd gotten from the principal, so I took it as a good sign.
"Yes, that's absolutely unacceptable," he sighed. "You said these boys got away with only two days of suspension?"
Lonnie nodded. "They weren't even kicked off the basketball team."
"And what school did you say you go to? Who is the principal?"
"Westview High, sir," Isaac answered. "Principal Rixon."
Mr. Anderson nodded. "Right. And what were the names of the boys who assaulted you?"
"Calum Berkeley and Luke Freeman."
He wrote the names down on a notepad. "And do you have any viable evidence?"
I saw Isaac's expression fall. "Sir, I—"
"Don't get me wrong," Mr. Anderson interjected. "I believe you. But unfortunately, you bear no marks that could be considered incriminating, I assume since it has been several weeks since the incident. But you said that your prosthetic was mutilated, correct? If you were to bring it in to me, we could run a fingerprint scan. If there is any way for you to perhaps access video evidence of the attack, it would be particularly helpful."
Three heads nodded at once. That much was fair. We could do what he was asking.
"I think that man is our ticket to victory," Lonnie said as we walked back to her car. We could all agree there. He had so far been the most responsive out of everyone we'd contacted. And a man like Mr. Anderson had power we could use.
"Hey dad?" I said as I entered our house that afternoon, shutting the door softly behind me. He looked over his shoulder from where he sat on the couch, next to the sleeping brown ball of fur that was our chocolate lab, Apollo.
"What's up, bud?" he asked, diverting his attention from the tennis match he was watching.
"So, we're always honest with each other, right?"
It was kind of random, but at some point during the drive home, it came over me that it was time I told my dad the one thing he didn't know about me. I'd been thinking about what Isaac said about dancing at prom, and about how I wanted to be the person he danced with when he got his leg. Which got me thinking about prom in general, and about how I'd want my dad to take pictures of me and my date in the yard beforehand like you always see in cheesy movies.
I didn't know how he would react. He'd never said anything about his feelings concerning sexuality, but I always assumed he was pretty liberal. I'd been wondering when I should tell him for ages, but we'd only been living with each other for three years, and it always seemed too soon. Now, though, I was close to graduating, and I wanted him to know before I went off to college, whether he liked it or not.
"Of course," he said, and he seemed to realize that I was onto something serious, because he stood from the couch and walked over to me.
This man had changed my life. He'd taken in a kid who was convinced by that point that he'd continue to go from home to home until the second he was old enough to be on his own and could be thrown out onto the streets to try and make a life for himself out of nothing. He'd loved me like we'd had each of those fifteen years to get to know each other. Thanks to him, I'd gone to the same school for more than two semesters at a time for the first time in my life. No way was I going to let a secret hang between us.
And now that there was someone in my life who I knew I had feelings for and could maybe—if luck was on my side—be with, I wanted my dad to know more than ever.
"What would you say if I honestly told you that I like someone, and that someone is a boy?"
He seemed surprised for a moment. But then he quickly recovered, and his response was immediate. "I would honestly tell you that that means nothing to me."
Just like that. It was so easy with him. It always had been.
He wrapped me in a hug, and I leaned into him. It was a nice feeling, knowing that someone cared about me even though he didn't have to. There was no shared blood between us, yet I was his son and he was my dad.
"But the fact that you told me means everything to me."