The Book of David (11 page)

“Nothing. I just . . .” He took a deep breath. “I really like hanging out with you, man. Thanks for being my friend.”

“Phffff. Whatevs. You're the one doing
me
a favor. Seriously. You're gonna help me pass English, keep my scholarship a possibility. Plus you can charm the pants off Monica, my mom, and my freaking sister, and all you have to do is sing. Jesus. You're magic.”

Jon blushed and looked down at his hands. “Well, I really like you. You're my first real friend here.”

I smiled. “Jesus. I can't believe neither one of us is getting laid.”

Jon shrugged. “Seriously. It's not like we're ugly. And you're the freaking quarterback.”

“We're gonna change this,” I said. “Whatcha doing Friday after the game?”

“No plans.”

“Cool. You and Amy are gonna double with me and Monica to Tyler's party.”

“You sure that's a good idea?” Jon looked worried.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You know. Tyler doesn't seem to be a big fan of mine.”

“Screw him,” I said. “He's just being a dick because of his knee. Besides, he'll be so wasted on Friday night he won't know who's there anyway.”

Jon nodded slowly. “I guess, if you think it'll be cool.”

“Guess? I know it'll be cool. Trust me. I'm a quarterback. We're natural-born leaders.”

The smirk crept back onto his face. “I'd follow you anywhere.”

Told Harrison I wanted to take the test yesterday. I think she was surprised, but I told her I was ready, so I sat in the back of her junior class during fifth period when I'm usually in study hall.

This morning she had it graded and waiting for me when I walked by the lectern on the way to my desk.

I got a B.

That's the best grade I've ever gotten in English.

Ever.

And the test didn't even feel hard. I knew that stuff—I actually knew it. I just remembered what Jon and I had talked about and even the essay wasn't too bad.

Jon is such a good guy. He's the kind of friend I didn't know
I wanted. I guess when all you have to compare friendship to is Tyler, you don't really know what you're missing.

Not to get all mushy and weird, but Jon really seems to care for me. And not just me, but he seems to care for people in general. He doesn't put people down and run around saying crass, stupid shit.

I've never really had a friend like him before.

Can't wait to celebrate this with him. I flashed him the test right as I sat down, and he gave me a high five across the aisle.

Of course, then Tyler made stupid kissing noises in my ear for the first five minutes of class, but who cares? Fuck him. This is a big deal for me. I'm gonna show Jon a good time tonight.

I don't give a shit what Tyler thinks.

Jon was gone already this morning when I woke up. I can't believe I didn't hear him leave. I guess I was drunker than I thought I was last night. My head feels like somebody parked a Land Rover on it.

The weird part is that I feel sort of . . . I dunno. Disappointed? Is disappointed the right word? The right idea? I mean, that's what I feel. As soon as I opened my eyes and looked over to the other side of the sectional, I saw that the blanket Jon had used and the shorts of mine he'd borrowed last
night were folded up neatly. I knew he was gone then, and I felt totally bummed out.

Is that normal?

Jesus. Nothing about this is normal. I rolled off my side of couch onto the floor and just lay there for a minute with my face pressed into the carpet. Then I pushed myself up and was so sore—which was when I remembered that Jon and I had lifted weights last night, drunk as hell. It all came rushing back to me, and I started laughing, which made my head hurt even worse.

I grabbed the shorts Jon wore last night and the comforter I pulled off my bed for him and went to get some Advil and a bottle of water. Nobody else is awake yet, so I came up to my room and was gonna get back in bed, but I just knew that between my head hurting from the Maker's last night and this weird sad feeling in my stomach, I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. I honestly don't know which thing feels worse.

That's why I want to write about it, I guess. Seems like I've been doing that a lot lately.

Anyway, before I started writing, I sent Jon a text:

Dude. U left. U OK?

Now I'm checking my phone every twenty seconds like a crackhead to see if he's written back. Nothing yet. Sometimes
I think it's better to just not text people at all. The only thing that's worse than not getting a text from someone first is sending
them
a text and then having them not respond. It's excruciating. Like my headache.

Screw it. As long as I'm up and waiting on a text message, I might as well write about last night—which was mostly fun, with a few moments of complete bullshit thrown in.

The fun part started with winning the game. Almost every pass I threw connected. The guys were just on fire yesterday. Tracker could catch anything I tossed him. He was sprinting, leaping, and scrambling to get open. He was a pass magnet. And Watters was like magic. Anytime I couldn't find Tracker, Mike would just pop up and I'd zip it to him, low and tight. At halftime, I'd already passed for 260 yards, including three touchdowns, and we were up twenty-one to three.

Coach was actually smiling.

Coach. Never. Smiles.

Second half was more of the same. I broke the school record for passing yards in a single game—which I didn't actually know until I came out of the locker room and Roger Jackson asked me how it felt. I just blinked at him and smiled. He badgered me with questions for his column in the paper as Alicia Stevenson introduced me to the lead recruiter for OU and almost got knocked off her heels by the recruiter from
University of Arkansas, this tall bald guy with a goatee who looks like he could be a professional wrestler. He charged right up and stepped into the circle and interrupted Alicia, who was interrupting Roger:

“Bill Harris. U of A. We can make you a star. I've got a full ride with your name on it and a guarantee you'll start as a sophomore.”

I had seen this guy before.

I had heard these words before.

Bill Harris had made this same offer to Tyler after practice, two weeks before school started. I remember, because I was standing right there when he charged up and introduced himself.

This time, he was saying these words to me, and right as he said them, I saw Tyler, Erin, Monica, Jon, and Amy standing behind him. They'd all come over to congratulate me. We were headed to the party at Tyler's. The look on Tyler's face when Bill Harris said these words told me that our plans would probably change.

“What the hell?”

Tyler's voice was loud, angry, and carried halfway across the field. Bill Harris jumped when he heard it and spun around to see Tyler on his crutches, red-faced and pissed as all hell.

Bill held up both hands. “Take it easy, son. I'm sorry about your injury, but—”

“Take it
easy
? You asshole. You just gave my best friend
my scholarship offer
. Get the hell out of my face.” Tyler was spitting, he was yelling so hard. Erin put a tentative hand on his arm, but he shook it off.

Bill backed away but shoved a card into my hands. “I'll be in touch,” he whispered as he retreated toward the parking lot.

“Oh, you'll be in touch, will you? You fucker!” Tyler's voice echoed across the emptying stadium and stands. Heads turned, eyes widened. This was quickly becoming what my mom would call a “scene.”

The look in Tyler's eyes was crazy. Alicia and the head honcho from OU also mumbled good-byes to me and fled toward their cars.

“And who the hell are
you
?” Tyler had taken to swinging steps up to Roger Jackson, who was busy scribbling down the scene in a tiny memo pad. “You that pansy-ass reporter from the
Gazette
? Here's something to report for your column. Hillside High's new superstar here has something besides a great arm. He's a fairy with the hots for the new kid.”

He spun to face me. “You fucking traitor. Just gonna take everything that's mine, huh? You can take your scholarship and shove it up your ass. And don't come to my party tonight. You can just have fun hanging out with your new boyfriend.”

“Dude. You need to chill out.” Jon's voice was quiet, but firm.
All the adults had run away from the heat of Tyler's rage, but not Jon. When Tyler heard this, he lost his shit. He yelled at the top of his lungs and swung his right crutch at Jon's head. It happened so fast, but Jon caught the rubber stopper in his left hand, and Tyler fell backward, thrown off balance. I grabbed for him as he headed toward the ground and was able to break his fall a bit. We both ended up on the pavement.

Jon leaned over and offered Tyler his hand. Tyler snorted and spit on Jon's palm, then unleashed every name in the book:

Fairy, fag, homo, fudge packer, butt pirate . . .

The anger coursed through me like a power surge blowing a lightbulb. I leaped to my feet and tried to fling myself at Tyler. I wanted to stop the sounds coming out of his mouth any way I could. If that was a fist through his face, so be it. As I tried to get between him and Jon, Jon put a hand on my chest and held me back.

“I got this,” he said. There was something so strong and sure in Jon's voice that I looked into his eyes, away from Tyler. I saw something there I'd always wanted to see in Tyler's eyes but never had: certainty.

No matter how tight Tyler and I had gotten, or how many hours we spent together hanging out on the football field or hunting or playing video games or just listening to music and driving around in my truck, I realized in this moment that I'd
always been afraid: afraid of his judgment of everything and everyone, afraid I wasn't cool enough, afraid that he would turn on me, afraid that any moment, he would learn my secret and he would snap, afraid that I would one day become the unseen enemy he was always fighting.

Now that seemed to be happening, and as one of my worst fears became a reality, there was Jon, stepping in between us, telling me with a single look that in just a few weeks, we'd developed a friendship worth
not
fighting for, that I would never have to worry about him turning on me. That he would be there for me in a way Tyler had never been. The look in Jon's eyes stirred something inside me, and for the first time I realized I could make a choice about my friendships. I could choose to feel something more important than popular. I could choose to feel peaceful.

Trying to keep this friendship with Tyler had been so frustrating and painful, and I'd always felt racked with the fear that if I didn't do it just right, this very thing would happen. What had all that work and effort and trust and trying been for if it made me feel miserable?

It only took a second for these thoughts to flash through my head, and all at once, I didn't want to brain Tyler anymore. He was still hurling insults at us from the ground, but I just felt sorry for him.

Jon leaned in and whispered, “Stay cool, man. There's a reporter here. Let's get him up.”

Tyler fought us, but I took Jon's lead, and we got him back on his feet and got his crutches under his arms. He screamed at us the whole time. “Get your faggoty fingers off me!”

Once he was standing, Jon gave me a quick nod. “Let's get out of here.” He said it to the whole group. Monica and Amy each had an arm around Erin, who was crying on the curb. The girls tried to get Erin to come with us, but she shook her head. “I have to get him home.”

Tyler yelled put-downs and curses after us all the way to the parking lot. He was still shouting as we agreed to meet at my place and piled into our cars. I'd always been grateful to be on Tyler's good side and wondered what it was like for people who weren't.

After last night, I don't have to wonder anymore. It's pretty terrible.

At my place, Dad had gotten started celebrating at halftime with a six-pack he'd stashed in his truck, and Mom had driven him home right after the last play. He'd gone straight for the fridge and was pretty tanked when we all walked in. He was hooting and hollering and giving high fives. I steered us all out the back door, and we walked through the trees by iPhone light, down the trail to the running path along the river that leads to the bridge over the dam.

Jon pulled a flask of Maker's Mark out of his back pocket and passed it around.

“Thanks a lot,” I said.

“For what?” Jon asked.

“Just . . . reminding me to keep my cool.”

Monica rolled her eyes. “God, Tyler is such a dick.”

Jon shrugged. “This has to be hard on him.”

“He's not losing his leg. He's just missing the season,” Amy said. “It's not the end of the world.”

“It might feel like it to him, though,” I said.

Monica threw her hands up in the air. “Please. When he got named quarterback, you didn't run around crying and pouting—or being an asshole to everybody.”

She had a point.

“Sorry he called you both all those names.” Amy said this to Jon, who raised the flask in a toast and took a swig.

Monica reached over and grabbed it from him with a laugh. “Enough about Tyler. Jesus. We have a B on an English test, a broken record, and three wins this season to celebrate.”

Jon hooted and gave Monica a high five, and the two of them talked about me getting the offer from University of Arkansas. Monica was the most excited about that. She's been planning to go to U of A since she was a little girl. Her mom and dad met there, and she jumped up and down in her cheerleading uniform on the bridge.

“It's amazing! Now we'll go to the same college, and I'll be dating a U of A quarterback!”