The Book of David (6 page)

“So did you write up the big game?” Tyler sneered this, and I felt the muscles between my shoulder blades tighten. God, he is such a dick sometimes. For some reason, because his surliness was not directed at me, but instead at somebody new, I felt it more acutely. I stared laser beams through him across the table, but his sights were set on Jon. Was he always this big a douche bag, but I just never noticed? What is it about Jon
that makes me so pissed off when Tyler talks to him this way?

Jon ignored the tone of Tyler's voice and answered the question as if Tyler had asked sincerely. “Sure did. Great game. You two really nailed that handoff play.”

“Yeah, it wasn't so great from the emergency room.”

Jon pursed his lips, then took a deep breath and tried again. “Yeah, that part sucked. Again, really sorry about that, dude.”

“You and me both.” Tyler cracked open the can of Coke that Erin had brought him and took a swallow, then belched loudly.

“Wow, Tyler. Classy.” Monica sighed, and Erin glanced around, embarrassed.

Tyler ignored them both. “And what qualifies you to write about football . . .
dude
?”

My stomach was in knots. I wanted to brain Tyler, but I felt paralyzed. I couldn't even speak. I felt like an SUV was parked on my chest. I could barely get a breath. It was like I was watching a car wreck in slow motion.

Jon shrugged. “Just like football, I guess. My older brother played in high school. Went to all his games.”

“And where was that?”

“Chicago.” It came out sounding all choked and mangled, but at least I was finally able to say something.

Tyler turned and looked at me like he'd forgotten I was there. He raised his eyebrows. “Got a Yankee in our midst,” he
crowed, then turned back to Jon. “You ever
play
football?”

Jon shook his head as he swallowed the last bite of his sandwich. “Nah—not much for team sports.”

“Just like to
watch
, huh?”

“He's on the swim team,” I offered. It seemed very important to me to make Tyler aware that Jon was an athlete. Why do I feel like I have to defend Jon to Tyler? Why is it so important to me that Tyler like him?

The minute I said it, I knew it was a mistake. Tyler's eyes narrowed again, and he snorted. “The
swim team
? Oh, great.” He was about to say more, but mercifully Tracker broke in.

“Oh yeah—I meant to tell you, my sister's on the girls swim team.” He smiled at Jon around a mouthful of mystery meat. I hadn't touched mine yet. “I forgot to tell you at the bonfire on Friday.”

Sears laughed. “Yeah, 'cause your skinny ass was drunk off two tugs on that bottle of bourbon.”

Jon saw his escape and took it. He wadded up his brown paper lunch sack and slipped the strap of his messenger bag over his head so it crossed his chest.

“Where are you going?” Monica asked.

“Gotta post the story about the game after school. Need to get it approved by Miss Howerton next period and gotta make a few edits. Catch you guys later.”

I tried to catch his eye as he turned and walked out of the cafeteria, but he didn't look at me.

That's the worst part of this whole fiasco. I bet Jon's mad at me for not standing up to Tyler. I'll bet he thinks I'm a total tool now. Some dumb jock who runs around the locker room snapping towels and calling people “fag.”

Why do I care? Why do I feel so worked up about this? Am I mad at Tyler, or am I pissed off at myself? What do I have to be angry about? Maybe I'm not angry at all. Maybe I've just gotten a glimpse of what Tyler is really like from somebody else's point of view.

Maybe I'm just scared. Scared that my best friend is an idiot. Scared that he knows about me. Scared that everything I've worked so hard to build for myself is about to come spilling out—over what? This freaking new kid?

I can't let that happen.

Woke up an hour ago and couldn't get back to sleep. I was dreaming about Jon running down a football field that never seemed to end. He was being chased by Tyler, and I was watching from the stands. In the dream, I knew that if Tyler tackled Jon, something terrible would happen. I was trying to
get down onto the field to run in between them, to tackle Tyler before he got to Jon, but there was a huge chain-link fence all the way around the field with razor wire at the top, and each time I tried to climb it, I cut myself.

I woke up sweating, with my heart racing.

Turns out Jon needs zero help from me defending himself. He posted his blog about our first football game right after school yesterday. I don't remember ever hearing anybody talk about going online to read
The Battalion
before, but by the time I was walking out of practice yesterday, like, fifteen people had texted me about it.

In the write-up, Jon called what was happening on the field Friday before Tyler got sacked “a slaughter.” He wrote that the only decent play Tyler pulled off was the fake out to me, and even that he managed to do only once before getting permanently sidelined. He wrote that everybody in the stands breathed a sigh of relief when I took the field and started nailing pass after pass. He ended with a comment about “the injured QB cussing a blue streak this morning in English class.”

I decided to try to head this one off at the pass. I had a hunch Tyler hadn't read it yet, and after practice, I drove straight to his house. His mom opened the door and gave me a hug. Downstairs in his room, I waited while Tyler read the article. Then he turned to me and said, “Dude. Why did you tell me to read that?”

I told him because I wanted him to hear about it from me.

He just shrugged. “Whatever, man.”

“What do you mean, ‘Whatever'?” I asked him.

He stared at the screen of his laptop for a long time and then flipped it closed. “It's all true.”

“So . . .”

“So what?” he said.

“So you're not mad?”

He shook his head once and snorted. Then he picked up one of his crutches and yelled louder than I have ever heard him yell as he threw it against the door of his bedroom. The foam part of the crutch that goes under your arm splintered a hole in the cheap paneled door and stuck there.

I had never seen Tyler cry before last night. He didn't even try to hide it; he just sat there and sobbed like people do on TV when somebody's mom dies or something. Tyler's mom was very certainly not dead, and she came running down the stairs, calling his name. When she burst through the door, the crutch fell out of the hole it had made and wedged itself down behind the door, effectively keeping her out. I finally wrangled the door open, and she just stood there, staring. She walked toward Tyler and tried to touch his face and his shoulder, and he just shrugged her off, then grabbed a pillow and yelled into it.

His mom smoothed his bangs out of his face and said, “I'm
so sorry, son.” He pulled away from her again, and she turned and smiled sadly at me as she slowly walked toward the door. “You're a good friend to come over and check on him.”

The truth is, I feel like the worst friend of all. I'm the one who benefits from Tyler's injury. I'm the one who is all worried about what the kid who wrote this blog post thinks of me. What would Tyler do if he knew that every time I close my eyes I see the hem of Jon's T-shirt riding up his stomach? What would his mom say?

She wouldn't think I was such a great friend then, would she?

Maybe I'm not.

After she left the room, I sat down on the bed next to Tyler. I reached over and gave his shoulder a squeeze. He shrugged my hand away.

“Dude. Get off me. Just get outta here.”

“What?” I asked. “So you're just gonna push away everybody who tries to help you?”

“What the hell can you do to help me, man? What can my
mom
do? Jack shit. That's what everybody can do.”

I sat there, feeling helpless. I wanted to run and get as far away from Tyler as I could. He felt lethal at that moment—like he might explode and take me with him.

“I can just . . . be here.” I said it so quietly, I wasn't sure he heard me.

He did.

“Wouldn't you rather be off somewhere with New Jon?” he scoffed.

“What?”

“You heard me,” he snarled.

“Tyler, you've been my best friend since seventh grade. Jesus.”

He wiped the back of his hand under his nose, and his cheek across the shoulder of his shirt. Then he looked right at me. His eyes were rimmed with red and puffy from crying.

“Really? Have I been?” he asked.

I frowned. “What the hell are you talking about, dude? Of course.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “I'm not sure I even know who you are.”

My heart started racing. The beat was thumping out
He knows He knows He knows
against my rib cage. He was saying it without saying it.

I tried to laugh it off—like every other time Tyler was ever a hothead, like every other time he'd lost his temper and thrown his fist against a locker or a putter against the mini golf green.

“Christ.” I rolled my eyes. “Nice drama, dude. They should cast you in that damn musical.”

Tyler stayed quiet, so I reached over and grabbed the crutch he'd thrown and leaned it up against the wall beside his
bed. “Dad got me a new rifle for my birthday. Come over on Saturday. Let's try it out and hang.”

I don't really care that much about hunting, but Dad's a big deer hunter, and it's something we've always done together. Usually Dad shuts down his construction business for the first week of the season in November and takes Tyler and me out for a few nights. We sleep in a tent, and he lets us have a couple of beers when we're sitting around the campfire.

“I can't even drive,” Tyler said. “I have to have surgery the end of this month anyway. No way I can go hunting with you guys.”

“Have Erin drive you over,” I said. “Monica's stopping by after rehearsal. We'll chill. It'll be normal—like it was before all . . . this.”

I was headed for the door when his voice stopped me: “Don't you get it?” Something about his tone stopped me midstride. I turned around and saw his eyes on fire. A chill ran down my spine. “It'll never be like it was,” he said quietly. “This changes everything.”

I don't remember driving home, or dinner, really. I stayed awake last night for a long time thinking about what Tyler meant by that remark.

I'm certain he wasn't talking about football.

He was talking about us.

Mr. London, the drama teacher and choir director, posted the cast list for
The Music Man
yesterday right before lunch. The minute the bell rang in chemistry, Monica dragged me down the hall, practically running. The list was hanging on the bulletin boards outside of the choir room. We were the first ones there, and Monica started shrieking like a banshee. As she jumped up and down and was swarmed by half the cheerleading squad, I leaned in to read the list:

Hillside High Fall Musical Cast List—
The Music Man

Harold Hill—Jon Statley

Marian Paroo—Monica Weaver

The whole cast was listed below that, but as I was reading, I felt somebody leaning over my shoulder to see the names. It had gotten crowded fast once the bell rang. People were jostling, and Monica was still jumping up and down, shrieking, but for some reason, I knew who it was.

I just . . .
knew
. It was so weird. That's never happened to me before.

I turned my head slightly to the right for a glance, and Jon's face was right there, his chin hovering over my shoulder. I hadn't ever realized that he's maybe an inch or so taller than I am. His face was really close to mine, and it sort of scared me. I turned my head to face the list again so my lips weren't, like, an inch from his cheek, but I couldn't really go anywhere because people were crowding around and knocking into us in their excitement. Somebody elbowed us, and I felt Jon put his hand on my back so he could catch his balance—but then he just kept it there.

I don't even know why I'm writing this down. Mrs. Harrison put on the board today that the topic was
SOMETHING MEMORABLE
, and I thought I'd write about Monica seeing her name on the cast list. I guess if I'm completely honest, her reaction wasn't the most memorable part of that moment. How is Jon touching me the thing I remember the most in the last forty-eight hours?

I can feel it all again—like it's happening right this second. We are just standing there in a river of people, pinned in by all these bodies, eyes locked on that damn board. In the middle of the ruckus, the two of us just stood there, still—motionless—like boulders in rapids, people bouncing off of us, left and right. I stared straight ahead at the list, not really reading the words, his hand on my back. We stayed that way for what? Two, three seconds tops. It seemed like so much longer.

I can still feel the heat of his palm where his fingers rested—just beneath my right shoulder blade.

Finally I turned my head again and said, “You did it.”

He glanced at me with a big smile, and I knew it was going to be okay between us. We hadn't really talked this week—since that whole thing with Tyler at lunch on Monday and the post about the game. I saw him every morning in English, but he didn't hang around to talk. He'd always jet out while I was helping Tyler juggle books and crutches.

Tyler's been sort of quiet since we talked at his place after Jon's post went up, and I feel like I need to patch things up with him somehow. I've been helping him get from class to class a lot—making sure he's got his books and crap. I just don't want him to think . . .

Shit.