The Long Run, page 14
“But I wanna say something first.”
Bash stood up a little straighter. Looked me in the eye a little more. He was listening. He was actually listening. So, I fought past this old instinct to back down. To keep things light. This thing in my brain that told me to cover up my hurt and hope the bad feeling passes. If I wanted Bash to open up, I needed to meet him halfway.
I met his eyes. “I’ve got a thing with being ignored. When people treat me like I’m not right in front of them. That’s something about me. Something I want you to know. And I hate when people talk about me, not to me. Discuss me like I’m not right in front of them. It’s something my family does every day and...that’s what Matty and you were doing. You and Ant Lewis. You all just—”
“That’s not—”
“I need you to let me talk.”
Bash’s hands were by his side. Out of the hoodie. He nodded. “Okay.”
I took a breath and continued. “I think you are really... I think you’re great. I think you’re really great, Bash, I’m not gonna hide that. It’s been easy. And, yeah, today wasn’t my best and I’m going to apologize for getting mad, I really am, but... I need you to apologize with me, dude.” I took a step closer. “Because whatever we’re doing, whatever this is... I need to know you’re in it with me. Even when it isn’t easy. Or simple. I need to know that you’re not just fucking around with me and by November you’ll—”
“Sandro.”
“You’ll just go back to making fun of guys like me with guys like them.”
“Sandro. Stop.” Bash took a step back. He looked almost sick. He nodded at Birdie on the street. “Let’s go for a drive. Okay?” He looked back at the duplex. I don’t know which side he looked more afraid of. “Can we go for a drive, Dro? Please?”
I nodded. It didn’t sound like an ask. More of a plea. So, we went for a drive. It seemed aimless at first, like he just wanted to catch his breath and get away from the house, but eventually we made our way to the farmlands. He parked along this dead cornfield, this cropped lot on the edge of the Sticks, and I knew something was really weighing on him. Like he knew what he needed to say, what he was ready to talk about, but didn’t know how. So, we just sat there for a while. Like tenth period, all over again. Only this time, I wasn’t saying anything. Like that might help him get it out.
“...This was my mom’s favorite spot.”
“Oh.”
“She used to take me here a lot. To talk. Or not. She loved it here.”
I looked around the field. It looked like someone had salted the earth. Not an inch of green to be found for miles. Just dead cornstalks and barren rows of dirt. “It’s...cute.”
“It’s not supposed to be pretty.”
He pointed around the field. All that quiet, dead corn. A scarecrow’s graveyard. “They let this field die. End of every season, farmers set aside a certain section of their crop just to let it die. It’s more helpful that way. Fuel. Glue. Cow food. Works better than the pretty stuff. You just gotta let it die first.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“...There’s probably a metaphor in there, huh?”
Bash shrugged. “Probably. I’ve been trying to figure one out for years. Lemme know if one pops up.” He stared at the dead corn for a little while longer. Chewing on his thumbnail. “I’m sorry about that. On the lawn. I got in my head. I thought someone might be listening to us and... I just had to get out of there.”
“Someone like Lucy?”
He sniffed and shook his head. “...Del.” He wouldn’t take his eyes off the field in front of him. “I know we’re not okay, okay? I know I should be better with him but I just...it’s not my fault.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“But you think it. You think it’s my fault, Sandro.”
“Hey.”
He rolled his eyes. “You got family shit too. Since you wanna talk about it all the sudden. I could say shit about your family too, Dro, I could blame you too.”
“I’m not... Bash, I’m not blaming you. Stop.” I turned in my seat to face him. “But would it be the worst thing? Talking to him? Del knowing what you’re going through?”
“Not all that. You were saying a lot, Sandro. That was a lot.”
“I was trying to be real with you. That’s the point, isn’t it?”
“The point?”
“The point. The point of you and me. Saying a lot. Opening up. Talking.”
After a bit, Bash nodded at his steering wheel. “And that’s...that’s something you want? You want to hear that sort of stuff? The heavy stuff? Stuff that’s not...easy?”
“Yeah, Bash. I do.”
He stared at the windshield for a long while. Our breath was fogging up the glass. He swallowed. “Because...like, I have something. If you want to hear it.”
“I do.”
“Okay. Yeah. Okay.” Bash nodded and took a steadying breath. “I might stop. I don’t know.”
“Okay.”
He was gripping the steering wheel hard enough to break it. He cleared his throat. “Um. So, when Del knocked on my door, I was sleeping at my desk. I’d been filling out some Rutgers app stuff and I guess I nodded off. And I was having this really...it was a really shitty dream and I thought I might’ve been... I don’t know. Screaming. Whatever. I thought Del had heard me.”
“What was the dream about?”
Bash exhaled, real slow. “I, uh... Sometimes...” He swallowed and tapped his temple. “Sometimes there’s this, like, replay thing my head does. Like my brain’s too tired to make something new up so I just sit in memories instead. And sometimes it’s great. And quiet. And easy. But this time...”
I could see his jaw moving under the skin. Grinding away.
“When my mom... Fuck. Toward the end, I was hanging out at the hospital a lot. I’d just read a bunch. Sometimes to her. I think I got through twenty books altogether. And there was this one night, a school night, she had this real bad seizure. Not one of the usual ones. And the nurses threw me...the nurses made me leave the room.”
He was pushing himself to get it out. To not get upset. It’s a thing his big eyebrows do. They tense up. Almost vibrate. Like he’s focusing so hard, they might crack off.
“That never happened before. I didn’t know where to go so I went to the cafeteria and I, uh... I broke down. I got a cup of coffee and I couldn’t stop... I was just standing still in the middle of the cafeteria and I couldn’t stop crying? And everyone was looking at me like I was this fucking...”
He shook the thought away.
“Next thing I knew I was burning off laps in a parking lot next door. Jumping around cars. Trying not to get hit. Burning. Just fucking...just screaming.”
His voice cracked a little. It was taking a lot out of him, telling me this. His jaw had locked up and I was worried his teeth were gonna grind to dust. All because I wanted him to open up more. He was hurting and it was my fault and I didn’t want him to hurt anymore so I touched him. Just on the wrist. How I touch GJ when he’s having a night terror. Just enough to remind some part of him that I was there.
“I was really fucking scared, Sandro.”
And he let me. He let me touch him. And he eased up on his brows. His jaw. He stopped clenching Birdie’s wheel so tight and I thought, for a second, that Bash might take my hand. And I had this sleepy memory of sitting in the back seat of Pop’s van, coming home from a day at the Atlantic City beach. Gio was driving and his high school girlfriend Eunice was in shotgun and they were holding hands. I was maybe ten and I thought: One day. That’s gonna be me. I’m gonna know what it feels like to hold someone’s hand. Feel how warm it is. Feel someone’s pulse on mine.
But Bash didn’t take my hand. Instead, we took a breath.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry.”
I don’t know who said it first.
After I apologized for Matty, after we got to joking about it, even after Bash drove me home and we said our good-nights, I sat in my bed that night and thought of the different Bashes. And I wondered which Bash was there with me in his truck. In his mom’s field. Who was that kid? Was that the real Bash or was it someone new? Someone he’s becoming?
I don’t know. But I’m learning more about Bash every day. He likes early 2000s horror movies, strawberry shakes, rain over snow, dogs over cats, and Carole King (a surprise). But as for his larger traits, which Bash is the real Bash, I’m still in the data-collection phase. Sure, as a devoted student of math, I have my theories. It’s just a matter of breaking down his issues and solving for Y. Collating the different Bashes and finding a common denominator.
The Ex lets me know that he has intervals. He can adjust. That if he trusts someone, he doesn’t need to be as Flashy. The Flash lets me know that he has a need to be the best and that need makes him miserable. Moody Booty tells me he knows when too much is too much. When the volume gets too loud, Moody Booty knows how to shut it all down. How to save face. How to stay cool.
With the congruent factors between these three integers being his overall need to please, the obvious conclusion would be that Bash bases his self-worth off how others see him. But these integers aren’t the complete set. There’s also the worst dude, the Stepson. That variable is throwing off my theories. Because if Bash needs to be liked, then why wouldn’t he put it on for his stepdad? If his mom’s death left this gaping wound in his side, why can’t he open up about it with the person who’d understand most?
Inconclusive. More data required.
bash
oct. 28
branch
Dro was falling asleep at his desk in Ms. Morgan’s classroom. He was going on nod #8 in the vicious cycle of nod/drift/snap back to it and I suspected that one was going to take him. He’d been up all night helping GJ make a last-minute family tree for school and I knew he was working with three hours of shut-eye, tops. I would’ve nudged him or thrown a shoe at his head but we sit on opposite sides of the room.
“Mr. Miceli?”
From the reflection in the window, I watched Sandro straighten, all faux-casual, and smile up at our AP English teacher.
“Yes, ma’am?”
Ms. Morgan only looked slightly amused. “Mr. Reyno just popcorned you to read?”
From the other corner of the room, Phil Reyno tried to contain his chuckle and flipped Sandro the subtlest of birds. I scoffed. Cheap shot. Sandro cleared his throat and nodded, committing to the reality that he wasn’t just caught napping. “Sorry. I was just...absorbing.”
He picked up his copy of Daniel: Last Forever and flipped around the pages. I sighed. The guy was completely lost. He caught me watching him in the window reflection and made a face. Just as subtly, I motioned to him like a third base coach.
1
1
9
Ms. Morgan was losing patience. “Mr. Miceli, we are on page—”
“Page 119, I know. I’m there. Just giving everyone...a moment.”
Sandro turned to the right page and stared at the book. Shit. How could I tell him what line Phil left off on?
“Miceli, Jesus Chriiiiiiiiiiiist.” I saw Ant Lewis’s blond bro-hawk whip around from the front row. “AP still stands for advanced placement, right, Ms. M?”
Sandro went completely still. I now know that’s his way of keeping himself from getting red. He’d much rather look like an unplugged robot collecting dust in some storeroom than give an overstuffed prick like Anthony Lewis the satisfaction of seeing him embarrassed. And he was embarrassed.
Ms. Morgan gave Ant a look. “Well, Mr. Lewis, if you’d like to run the show, why don’t we hear how you’d read it?”
Ant stifled his groan and got to it. Sandro gave Ms. Morgan a quick appreciative smile then buried his face in his book. I watched Dro in the window for another few popcorn rounds. Waiting for him to look at me. Waiting to give him a smile.
But he stayed in his book. Sandro is one of the smartest guys I’ve ever met but will fold the second someone makes him feel stupid. He’s literally taken every single math class this school offers, aced them all, but I guess a GPA isn’t strong enough armor when you’re surrounded by people who call you the Italian Yeti. When you’re raised in a house that treats you like an unpaid intern. Sometimes your bad won’t let you hear your good.
When class let out, I headed for the door immediately. Sandro found us a nice post-English rendezvous spot beneath a stairwell that’s great for uninterrupted check-ins between classes.
But before I could get gone, Ant slipped right in front of me. “Yo, yo, amigo. You’re applying to Villanova, right?”
I froze up. My brain had already started transitioning from Diligent English Student Bash to When I’m With Sandro Bash and I couldn’t remember who I was around preppy assholes like Ant Lewis.
“Uh...maybe? Why?” Sandro was standing by the door, unsure if it’d be okay to wait for me.
Ant looked around and got in close. He smelt like the kind of cologne you don’t refer to by name but by price. “My dad’s tight with the alumni board and set up a lunch for me and the Nova coach last week. And he said he remembered you.”
I was confused. Did I remember a Villanova scout? I knew I put up some pretty solid sprints last spring and I remembered a lot of people wanting to talk to me afterward. But I only remembered the Rutgers scout. He was the only one that mattered to me.
“That’s...dope.”
“He said he doesn’t remember anyone. Seriously, bro, the man couldn’t stop talking about Bash the fucking Flash.”
“Great. That’s...why are you telling me this, Ant?”
I felt my phone buzz. I could see Sandro texting me from the hallway. I had to go. I needed to check in with him after all that bullshit with the reading. But Ant just laughed.
“I’m telling you ’cause that’d be sick, my guy! You and me, tearing it up in Nova next year? I’m sure you could get in easy.”
“I mean, I’m kind of set with my college choice—”
“You wouldn’t even need that affirmative action bull, dude, you’re a fucking beast.”
I felt my phone buzz again. Or maybe I didn’t. Maybe the buzzing was me. Maybe I’d been buzzing our whole talk. This whole class. You know, I think I’d started buzzing the second that silver-spooned, boat-shoed, yacht-clubbed dick decided to embarrass my friend.
I cocked my head a little. Completely unbothered. “Why would Nova track want a guy who couldn’t make captain his senior year?”
Ant’s mouth closed. “...What?”
I didn’t blink. I didn’t shrug. I didn’t let that racist fuck off the hook. “Your dad bought you a playdate with the head of a D1 track program, and he couldn’t stop talking about me? Wow, Ant. Sounds like you got your money’s worth.”
Ant looked around the empty room, assuming someone would be there to back him up. But we were alone in there. Just Ant Lewis and a teammate who’d heard enough of his shit.
“That’s...a really messed-up thing to say to me, Villeda.”
“Yeah, well, I’m a messed-up guy. See you at practice, amigo.”
I brushed by him and headed out to meet Sandro. He looked concerned. “What was that?”
I shrugged and walked clean past our stairwell. “You know. Just bros being bros.”
I held open one of the double doors leading out to the parking lot. “Skip Guitar today. Let’s get food.”
“Really?”
“Really. You’re a senior. Call it a privilege.”
Sandro raised a brow and looked around for teachers, scandalized by the potential rule breaking. “I mean...what about your run? The cross-country guys? It’s Thursday.”
I shrugged. “I don’t wanna run. I just wanna talk to you.”
Sandro smiled.
With an open afternoon of endless possibilities, Sandro and I found ourselves back at our usual favorite spot doing our usual favorite shit. Chilling in the ditch, eating some Wawa, and reading Daniel: Last Forever. Well, trying to read. We’d been distracted by our new game and it was my turn.
“...My eyebrows. They’re too bushy.”
“They give you character. The hair on my shoulders.”
“It’s cool. Real macho-like.”
Sandro smiled at his shoulders through the neck of his sweatshirt. “Yeah?”
“Like a bear or some shit.”
“Nice.”
I sipped my Wawa coffee, happy for the warmth, and tried to think of something else I didn’t like about myself. “Hmmm... My laugh.”
“I’ll always be able to find you in a crowd.”
“I don’t laugh like that in crowds.”
“You should. It’s a good laugh.”
“Maybe people should just be funnier, then.”
“Maybe.”
Sandro stared up at the trees. The squirrels watched us, curious why these two humans were intruding in their space so deep into October. “...My smile.”
“You don’t like your smile?”
“It’s goofy.”
“Says who?”
“My brothers. Teachers. That yearbook photographer. This priest, one time.”
He wasn’t looking at me then, but I wished he would. Or maybe I didn’t. I still wasn’t sure if I wanted Sandro looking at me. “...I don’t think it’s goofy.”
“Yeah. Me neither.”
He yawned and his eyebrows started to get heavy. What he barely survived in Ms. Morgan’s class was coming back with a vengeance. Before I could even say goodbye, he was out.
I cracked my book back open and found my spot. I’d been taking my time with Daniel, trying to go at Dro’s speed, but I’ve always had a bad time pacing myself. Sandro’s snoring scored the painfully anticlimactic last pages of Daniel: Last Forever and I closed the book for good. There’s nothing more disappointing than reaching the end of an unsatisfying book. You always hope it can pull itself together and make all the time you spent reading worth it but then you turn that last page and wonder why you bothered.
Bash stood up a little straighter. Looked me in the eye a little more. He was listening. He was actually listening. So, I fought past this old instinct to back down. To keep things light. This thing in my brain that told me to cover up my hurt and hope the bad feeling passes. If I wanted Bash to open up, I needed to meet him halfway.
I met his eyes. “I’ve got a thing with being ignored. When people treat me like I’m not right in front of them. That’s something about me. Something I want you to know. And I hate when people talk about me, not to me. Discuss me like I’m not right in front of them. It’s something my family does every day and...that’s what Matty and you were doing. You and Ant Lewis. You all just—”
“That’s not—”
“I need you to let me talk.”
Bash’s hands were by his side. Out of the hoodie. He nodded. “Okay.”
I took a breath and continued. “I think you are really... I think you’re great. I think you’re really great, Bash, I’m not gonna hide that. It’s been easy. And, yeah, today wasn’t my best and I’m going to apologize for getting mad, I really am, but... I need you to apologize with me, dude.” I took a step closer. “Because whatever we’re doing, whatever this is... I need to know you’re in it with me. Even when it isn’t easy. Or simple. I need to know that you’re not just fucking around with me and by November you’ll—”
“Sandro.”
“You’ll just go back to making fun of guys like me with guys like them.”
“Sandro. Stop.” Bash took a step back. He looked almost sick. He nodded at Birdie on the street. “Let’s go for a drive. Okay?” He looked back at the duplex. I don’t know which side he looked more afraid of. “Can we go for a drive, Dro? Please?”
I nodded. It didn’t sound like an ask. More of a plea. So, we went for a drive. It seemed aimless at first, like he just wanted to catch his breath and get away from the house, but eventually we made our way to the farmlands. He parked along this dead cornfield, this cropped lot on the edge of the Sticks, and I knew something was really weighing on him. Like he knew what he needed to say, what he was ready to talk about, but didn’t know how. So, we just sat there for a while. Like tenth period, all over again. Only this time, I wasn’t saying anything. Like that might help him get it out.
“...This was my mom’s favorite spot.”
“Oh.”
“She used to take me here a lot. To talk. Or not. She loved it here.”
I looked around the field. It looked like someone had salted the earth. Not an inch of green to be found for miles. Just dead cornstalks and barren rows of dirt. “It’s...cute.”
“It’s not supposed to be pretty.”
He pointed around the field. All that quiet, dead corn. A scarecrow’s graveyard. “They let this field die. End of every season, farmers set aside a certain section of their crop just to let it die. It’s more helpful that way. Fuel. Glue. Cow food. Works better than the pretty stuff. You just gotta let it die first.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“...There’s probably a metaphor in there, huh?”
Bash shrugged. “Probably. I’ve been trying to figure one out for years. Lemme know if one pops up.” He stared at the dead corn for a little while longer. Chewing on his thumbnail. “I’m sorry about that. On the lawn. I got in my head. I thought someone might be listening to us and... I just had to get out of there.”
“Someone like Lucy?”
He sniffed and shook his head. “...Del.” He wouldn’t take his eyes off the field in front of him. “I know we’re not okay, okay? I know I should be better with him but I just...it’s not my fault.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“But you think it. You think it’s my fault, Sandro.”
“Hey.”
He rolled his eyes. “You got family shit too. Since you wanna talk about it all the sudden. I could say shit about your family too, Dro, I could blame you too.”
“I’m not... Bash, I’m not blaming you. Stop.” I turned in my seat to face him. “But would it be the worst thing? Talking to him? Del knowing what you’re going through?”
“Not all that. You were saying a lot, Sandro. That was a lot.”
“I was trying to be real with you. That’s the point, isn’t it?”
“The point?”
“The point. The point of you and me. Saying a lot. Opening up. Talking.”
After a bit, Bash nodded at his steering wheel. “And that’s...that’s something you want? You want to hear that sort of stuff? The heavy stuff? Stuff that’s not...easy?”
“Yeah, Bash. I do.”
He stared at the windshield for a long while. Our breath was fogging up the glass. He swallowed. “Because...like, I have something. If you want to hear it.”
“I do.”
“Okay. Yeah. Okay.” Bash nodded and took a steadying breath. “I might stop. I don’t know.”
“Okay.”
He was gripping the steering wheel hard enough to break it. He cleared his throat. “Um. So, when Del knocked on my door, I was sleeping at my desk. I’d been filling out some Rutgers app stuff and I guess I nodded off. And I was having this really...it was a really shitty dream and I thought I might’ve been... I don’t know. Screaming. Whatever. I thought Del had heard me.”
“What was the dream about?”
Bash exhaled, real slow. “I, uh... Sometimes...” He swallowed and tapped his temple. “Sometimes there’s this, like, replay thing my head does. Like my brain’s too tired to make something new up so I just sit in memories instead. And sometimes it’s great. And quiet. And easy. But this time...”
I could see his jaw moving under the skin. Grinding away.
“When my mom... Fuck. Toward the end, I was hanging out at the hospital a lot. I’d just read a bunch. Sometimes to her. I think I got through twenty books altogether. And there was this one night, a school night, she had this real bad seizure. Not one of the usual ones. And the nurses threw me...the nurses made me leave the room.”
He was pushing himself to get it out. To not get upset. It’s a thing his big eyebrows do. They tense up. Almost vibrate. Like he’s focusing so hard, they might crack off.
“That never happened before. I didn’t know where to go so I went to the cafeteria and I, uh... I broke down. I got a cup of coffee and I couldn’t stop... I was just standing still in the middle of the cafeteria and I couldn’t stop crying? And everyone was looking at me like I was this fucking...”
He shook the thought away.
“Next thing I knew I was burning off laps in a parking lot next door. Jumping around cars. Trying not to get hit. Burning. Just fucking...just screaming.”
His voice cracked a little. It was taking a lot out of him, telling me this. His jaw had locked up and I was worried his teeth were gonna grind to dust. All because I wanted him to open up more. He was hurting and it was my fault and I didn’t want him to hurt anymore so I touched him. Just on the wrist. How I touch GJ when he’s having a night terror. Just enough to remind some part of him that I was there.
“I was really fucking scared, Sandro.”
And he let me. He let me touch him. And he eased up on his brows. His jaw. He stopped clenching Birdie’s wheel so tight and I thought, for a second, that Bash might take my hand. And I had this sleepy memory of sitting in the back seat of Pop’s van, coming home from a day at the Atlantic City beach. Gio was driving and his high school girlfriend Eunice was in shotgun and they were holding hands. I was maybe ten and I thought: One day. That’s gonna be me. I’m gonna know what it feels like to hold someone’s hand. Feel how warm it is. Feel someone’s pulse on mine.
But Bash didn’t take my hand. Instead, we took a breath.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry.”
I don’t know who said it first.
After I apologized for Matty, after we got to joking about it, even after Bash drove me home and we said our good-nights, I sat in my bed that night and thought of the different Bashes. And I wondered which Bash was there with me in his truck. In his mom’s field. Who was that kid? Was that the real Bash or was it someone new? Someone he’s becoming?
I don’t know. But I’m learning more about Bash every day. He likes early 2000s horror movies, strawberry shakes, rain over snow, dogs over cats, and Carole King (a surprise). But as for his larger traits, which Bash is the real Bash, I’m still in the data-collection phase. Sure, as a devoted student of math, I have my theories. It’s just a matter of breaking down his issues and solving for Y. Collating the different Bashes and finding a common denominator.
The Ex lets me know that he has intervals. He can adjust. That if he trusts someone, he doesn’t need to be as Flashy. The Flash lets me know that he has a need to be the best and that need makes him miserable. Moody Booty tells me he knows when too much is too much. When the volume gets too loud, Moody Booty knows how to shut it all down. How to save face. How to stay cool.
With the congruent factors between these three integers being his overall need to please, the obvious conclusion would be that Bash bases his self-worth off how others see him. But these integers aren’t the complete set. There’s also the worst dude, the Stepson. That variable is throwing off my theories. Because if Bash needs to be liked, then why wouldn’t he put it on for his stepdad? If his mom’s death left this gaping wound in his side, why can’t he open up about it with the person who’d understand most?
Inconclusive. More data required.
bash
oct. 28
branch
Dro was falling asleep at his desk in Ms. Morgan’s classroom. He was going on nod #8 in the vicious cycle of nod/drift/snap back to it and I suspected that one was going to take him. He’d been up all night helping GJ make a last-minute family tree for school and I knew he was working with three hours of shut-eye, tops. I would’ve nudged him or thrown a shoe at his head but we sit on opposite sides of the room.
“Mr. Miceli?”
From the reflection in the window, I watched Sandro straighten, all faux-casual, and smile up at our AP English teacher.
“Yes, ma’am?”
Ms. Morgan only looked slightly amused. “Mr. Reyno just popcorned you to read?”
From the other corner of the room, Phil Reyno tried to contain his chuckle and flipped Sandro the subtlest of birds. I scoffed. Cheap shot. Sandro cleared his throat and nodded, committing to the reality that he wasn’t just caught napping. “Sorry. I was just...absorbing.”
He picked up his copy of Daniel: Last Forever and flipped around the pages. I sighed. The guy was completely lost. He caught me watching him in the window reflection and made a face. Just as subtly, I motioned to him like a third base coach.
1
1
9
Ms. Morgan was losing patience. “Mr. Miceli, we are on page—”
“Page 119, I know. I’m there. Just giving everyone...a moment.”
Sandro turned to the right page and stared at the book. Shit. How could I tell him what line Phil left off on?
“Miceli, Jesus Chriiiiiiiiiiiist.” I saw Ant Lewis’s blond bro-hawk whip around from the front row. “AP still stands for advanced placement, right, Ms. M?”
Sandro went completely still. I now know that’s his way of keeping himself from getting red. He’d much rather look like an unplugged robot collecting dust in some storeroom than give an overstuffed prick like Anthony Lewis the satisfaction of seeing him embarrassed. And he was embarrassed.
Ms. Morgan gave Ant a look. “Well, Mr. Lewis, if you’d like to run the show, why don’t we hear how you’d read it?”
Ant stifled his groan and got to it. Sandro gave Ms. Morgan a quick appreciative smile then buried his face in his book. I watched Dro in the window for another few popcorn rounds. Waiting for him to look at me. Waiting to give him a smile.
But he stayed in his book. Sandro is one of the smartest guys I’ve ever met but will fold the second someone makes him feel stupid. He’s literally taken every single math class this school offers, aced them all, but I guess a GPA isn’t strong enough armor when you’re surrounded by people who call you the Italian Yeti. When you’re raised in a house that treats you like an unpaid intern. Sometimes your bad won’t let you hear your good.
When class let out, I headed for the door immediately. Sandro found us a nice post-English rendezvous spot beneath a stairwell that’s great for uninterrupted check-ins between classes.
But before I could get gone, Ant slipped right in front of me. “Yo, yo, amigo. You’re applying to Villanova, right?”
I froze up. My brain had already started transitioning from Diligent English Student Bash to When I’m With Sandro Bash and I couldn’t remember who I was around preppy assholes like Ant Lewis.
“Uh...maybe? Why?” Sandro was standing by the door, unsure if it’d be okay to wait for me.
Ant looked around and got in close. He smelt like the kind of cologne you don’t refer to by name but by price. “My dad’s tight with the alumni board and set up a lunch for me and the Nova coach last week. And he said he remembered you.”
I was confused. Did I remember a Villanova scout? I knew I put up some pretty solid sprints last spring and I remembered a lot of people wanting to talk to me afterward. But I only remembered the Rutgers scout. He was the only one that mattered to me.
“That’s...dope.”
“He said he doesn’t remember anyone. Seriously, bro, the man couldn’t stop talking about Bash the fucking Flash.”
“Great. That’s...why are you telling me this, Ant?”
I felt my phone buzz. I could see Sandro texting me from the hallway. I had to go. I needed to check in with him after all that bullshit with the reading. But Ant just laughed.
“I’m telling you ’cause that’d be sick, my guy! You and me, tearing it up in Nova next year? I’m sure you could get in easy.”
“I mean, I’m kind of set with my college choice—”
“You wouldn’t even need that affirmative action bull, dude, you’re a fucking beast.”
I felt my phone buzz again. Or maybe I didn’t. Maybe the buzzing was me. Maybe I’d been buzzing our whole talk. This whole class. You know, I think I’d started buzzing the second that silver-spooned, boat-shoed, yacht-clubbed dick decided to embarrass my friend.
I cocked my head a little. Completely unbothered. “Why would Nova track want a guy who couldn’t make captain his senior year?”
Ant’s mouth closed. “...What?”
I didn’t blink. I didn’t shrug. I didn’t let that racist fuck off the hook. “Your dad bought you a playdate with the head of a D1 track program, and he couldn’t stop talking about me? Wow, Ant. Sounds like you got your money’s worth.”
Ant looked around the empty room, assuming someone would be there to back him up. But we were alone in there. Just Ant Lewis and a teammate who’d heard enough of his shit.
“That’s...a really messed-up thing to say to me, Villeda.”
“Yeah, well, I’m a messed-up guy. See you at practice, amigo.”
I brushed by him and headed out to meet Sandro. He looked concerned. “What was that?”
I shrugged and walked clean past our stairwell. “You know. Just bros being bros.”
I held open one of the double doors leading out to the parking lot. “Skip Guitar today. Let’s get food.”
“Really?”
“Really. You’re a senior. Call it a privilege.”
Sandro raised a brow and looked around for teachers, scandalized by the potential rule breaking. “I mean...what about your run? The cross-country guys? It’s Thursday.”
I shrugged. “I don’t wanna run. I just wanna talk to you.”
Sandro smiled.
With an open afternoon of endless possibilities, Sandro and I found ourselves back at our usual favorite spot doing our usual favorite shit. Chilling in the ditch, eating some Wawa, and reading Daniel: Last Forever. Well, trying to read. We’d been distracted by our new game and it was my turn.
“...My eyebrows. They’re too bushy.”
“They give you character. The hair on my shoulders.”
“It’s cool. Real macho-like.”
Sandro smiled at his shoulders through the neck of his sweatshirt. “Yeah?”
“Like a bear or some shit.”
“Nice.”
I sipped my Wawa coffee, happy for the warmth, and tried to think of something else I didn’t like about myself. “Hmmm... My laugh.”
“I’ll always be able to find you in a crowd.”
“I don’t laugh like that in crowds.”
“You should. It’s a good laugh.”
“Maybe people should just be funnier, then.”
“Maybe.”
Sandro stared up at the trees. The squirrels watched us, curious why these two humans were intruding in their space so deep into October. “...My smile.”
“You don’t like your smile?”
“It’s goofy.”
“Says who?”
“My brothers. Teachers. That yearbook photographer. This priest, one time.”
He wasn’t looking at me then, but I wished he would. Or maybe I didn’t. I still wasn’t sure if I wanted Sandro looking at me. “...I don’t think it’s goofy.”
“Yeah. Me neither.”
He yawned and his eyebrows started to get heavy. What he barely survived in Ms. Morgan’s class was coming back with a vengeance. Before I could even say goodbye, he was out.
I cracked my book back open and found my spot. I’d been taking my time with Daniel, trying to go at Dro’s speed, but I’ve always had a bad time pacing myself. Sandro’s snoring scored the painfully anticlimactic last pages of Daniel: Last Forever and I closed the book for good. There’s nothing more disappointing than reaching the end of an unsatisfying book. You always hope it can pull itself together and make all the time you spent reading worth it but then you turn that last page and wonder why you bothered.
