Spencer's Face (Buckeye Hawks) (14 page)

Someone was at the door.
Janel was taking care of it. It was probably someone sending flowers or a card.
I’d told Todd and Janel that I didn’t want to see anyone. I didn’t. I was
seriously considering home schooling now. I wouldn’t be able to play football
any longer anyway, and I didn’t want to be seen at school.

Janel returned from the door
with a bouquet of get well balloons, and a pizza. Who would have brought a
pizza? That was a weird gift. I looked at Janel, reaching for the card on the
balloons. I opened it. “Please call me, Taylor.”

“That was Taylor?” I asked
Aunt Janel.

“It was. She’s persistent.
Isn’t she?”

“She doesn’t know how bad I
look.” I told her.

Todd walked up. “She’s the
one that found you. She stayed with you to make sure you were breathing the
entire time. She saw how bad it was.”

“It’s worse now, though,
Uncle Todd. When she sees me now, she’ll run. I can’t take that.”

“I don’t know about that. She
seems to be different from other girls somehow.” Todd said.

“She’s the only girl so far
to look beyond your birthmark.” Janel said softly. She knew she was treading on
thin ice mentioning that fact.

“You’re right. Maybe she
won’t mind dating a monster, since she was already dating something close to a
monster.” I said spitefully to my aunt.

“That’s not what I was
saying, and you know it.” Janel reprimanded me. “You’ll never know if you don’t
give her a chance. And, she’s practically begging for a chance with all the
phone calls and messages and texts she’s been sending. And who else brought
your favorite pizza?”

“My favorite?” I asked,
opening up the pizza. It was beef and mushroom with a cup of ranch dressing
tucked inside the box. My favorite. “How did she know that?”

“She likes you. She pays
attention. Girls do that when they’re crazy about guys.” Janel said.

“I’m going to text her.” I
said, determined to at least see this through. I needed to see if she was going
to run. “Come back.” I texted her.

A few minutes later, Taylor
knocked at the door.

I was ecstatic to get Spencer’s
text. Finally he was going to let me in. I was at his front door in about two
minutes flat. I knocked and took a deep breath. He opened the door, with his
entire face bandaged. I couldn’t even see his nose, only his mouth. His chest
was bandaged too. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, but there wasn’t much that wasn’t
covered. I could see his stomach though. I tried like crazy to keep my facial
expressions in check. Everyone had always told me that they could read me like
a book by my facial expressions.

“You don’t look so bad.” I
said to him with a smile. Of course, I hadn’t actually seen him yet. All I saw
was a lot of bandages. He had really nice abdominal muscles. “And, nice abs and
shoulders.”

“Come on in. We’ve got
pizza.” He said with a little laugh. I could tell by how short his laugh was
that he was in pain and feeling very self conscious.

I walked in. Janel and Todd
were at the table with the pizza. They said hello to me, as Janel pulled out
another plate from the cupboard.

“Thanks for the pizza.” Janel
said as she took a bite.

“You’re welcome. I thought it
might cheer him up.”

“Hey, I think I finished my
song.” Spencer said to me, excited. “I’ve had a lot of time to work on it
lately.”

“Cool. Can I hear it?” I
asked.

“You can hear it, if you sing
it. I can’t really sing. It hurts to even talk.”

“Ouch. Did they give you some
pain pills? Sometimes it’s okay to yes to drugs.” I teased him as I sat down at
the table to eat pizza.

“I’m taking them. It still
hurts.” He said. I could tell that it did hurt him to talk.

“You can text me.” I said to
him, offering an alternative to talking.

He tried to smile, but that
hurt his face too.

“And, just text me a smiley
icon when you want to laugh about something.” I joked with him. I felt so badly
for him. Even eating pizza was painful for him.

After we finished the pizza,
we went to his room. I sang the finish to his song, which I loved. I thought of
an alternative to the last verse for it though. I sang that, and he liked it.
Then he thought of even better ending. It was a collaborated effort. It was a
lot of fun. He showed me how to record the piano on his keyboard. Mine wasn’t
nearly this fancy. Then we recorded the string section that went with it. Then
he played it all back at once. It was so cool. It was almost like a real band
was there with us.

I picked up his microphone
and started singing the song for him. He sat on the bed watching and listening.
I danced around and acted like a real country music star. I embellished some to
be funny. I had performed in a few talent shows over the years. Todd and Janel
walked in. I stopped, embarrassed because I was acting so crazy and goofy.

“Don’t stop.” They said. “We
wanted to hear his song.”

I took a deep breath and
started over. I could do this. It seemed to be cheering Spencer up quite a bit.
He was actually trying to laugh at me without smiling. They really liked the
song as I sang it. It was a great song, but I probably sounded so gay, because
it was obviously a song written from a guy to a girl.

I finished up the song. “That
sounds so cool.” I said to Spencer. “I could definitely imagine hearing that on
the radio. Only with a guy singing it.”

“I like it. I think I’m going
to work on that ending some more. I want it to be better.” He said, excited. He
took the music sheet and worked on it some more.

I sang the new words for him
and played the new music. It did sound better. It flowed better.

“I like it.” Janel said.

“That’s your best song yet, Spencer.
Are you sending it in?” Todd asked.

“As soon as I finish and
record it.” Spencer said.

That sounded so cool to me. I
wanted to be here when he recorded it. I liked being part of it, even if only
in a small way.

Todd and Janel left the room,
leaving us alone. I sat beside Spencer on the bed. “So are you coming back to
school soon?” I asked him.

“I don’t know. I hate it when
people look at me.” he said.

“You should be used to that.”
I blurted out. I knew I shouldn’t have said it the second it came out, but it
was too late now.

“You’ve got a point.” He
halfway laughed.

“Zane’s coming back tomorrow.
He’ll be on crutches for a few weeks.”

“Did you go see him?” he
asked.

“Yes. He looks okay. Just a
few scrapes on his face and chest and arms. But other than that, he’ll be fine.
He’s happy he’s getting a new car.”

“Is your car okay? I saw your
car spinning around as we were rolling. I was scared that you were going to
start rolling too.”

“It’s fine now. It drove
really funny at first, but then Daddy tightened the tires back on for me. It
drives really good now.” I told him.

“The other guy is dead.” Spencer
said sadly.

“I know. I went to his
funeral.”

“You knew him?” Spencer
asked.

“I did. He was Jose’s big
brother, Fred.”

“Fred was Jose’s brother? I
didn’t know that. Their last names weren’t the same.”

“Half brothers. Fred had
his
mother’s last name.”  I tried to explain the weird family history to him after
that. Fred and Jose didn’t grow up together. His father had a few illegitimate
children before he married Jose’s mother. Fred and Jose were close though. It
was horrible at the funeral. Jose cried. Shelly was there for him though. All
of the kids were there. Fred had been one of the guys every week to provide the
kegs at the parties. Funny that I didn’t know that until he died.

“Hey, did you do your History
assignment for yesterday?” he abruptly changed subjects on me for some reason. He
must really like History.

“Of course.” I said to him. I
always did my homework. And I always did it early.

“You wrote your essay on the
reasons for the Civil War already?”

“No. We didn’t have to do
that.” I said to him. “He didn’t assign that. Why did you think he assigned
that? He never assigns the essays at the end of the chapter. Not for our class
anyway.”

“Janel said he did. He wrote
it down.” Spencer grabbed his History book and his notebook. He showed me Coach
Snideman’s handwritten note that said “Essay #2.”

“I’ll ask him tomorrow for
you if you want. Hold off on doing it. He was probably trying to impress Janel.
He gets nervous around the pretty moms. He never assigns those, dude.”

“I’ll wait to do it then.”

“I’ll text you tomorrow from
school to let you know. I have History first period. I guess you won’t be
coming to the game Friday night?”

“No. I really miss the games
too. I finally get to play, then I get benched for this.”

“You’ll be back playing in a
month or so. Won’t you?” I asked.

“Hopefully.”

“We missed you Friday. Brian was
still kind of hurt and he didn’t do nearly as well as you did last time.” I
told him.

“That’s good to hear, not
that he’s hurt, but…oh never mind.” He said.

I looked down at his chest.
There was some blood seeping through his bandages. “Are you supposed to be
bleeding?” I asked.

He looked down at his chest.
“No. I probably need to take care of this.” he said. The way he said it was in
a tone that was asking me to leave the room, maybe even the house.

“Do you want me to leave? Or
just step outside?” I asked him uneasily.

“Just step out.” He said to
me, then called out to his aunt. “Aunt Janel. Can you help me with this bandage?”

I looked up to see Janel
coming in his room. Spencer was taking off his bandages where it was bloody.
“Let me get the kit.” She left the room and returned with a kit full of medical
supplies. “I’m a nurse.”

I stepped outside the room on
the other side of the wall. I heard them talking about how bad it looked so I
looked inside to see for myself. “Whoa!” I said. I wasn’t surprised at the
injuries. I was surprised at his chest. He had an amazing chest. Probably the
best one on the football team. Sometimes they ran with their shirts off, and no
one had a chest that impressive. Not even Jose, and he was voted best body in
our yearbook this year.

“It looks bad. Doesn’t it?”
he asked me. “But it looks worse than it feels.”

“You’ve got a lot of
stitches.” I said as I walked inside the bedroom. It was probably okay for me
to be in here now that I’d seen it all. I stared as Janel taped the cuts
together better where the stitches had come apart. It was kind of disgusting
now that I’d seen the stitches. I was too preoccupied with his chest a minute
ago.

“All finished.” Janel said.
“Do we want to put the bandages back on it? Or do you want to go without a
shirt for a while and let it air out?”

“I’ll do without for a
while.” He said.

Janel turned and walked out
of the room.