Huge (40 page)

I finished my chores, took a fast shower, went into my room, and threw on a swimsuit, a white tank top, and my canvas sneakers. Thrash was still seated in my wooden desk chair, where he’d been for the past couple of days. We hadn’t spoken since he’d shut me out on Wednesday night, but I’d gone to bed without him both the past nights for the first time in almost five years and still slept like a baby. We’d been through so much over the years that I didn’t want to leave things in a bad way between us, but when I tried to explain to him everything that’d gone down, I realized I just couldn’t. I guess I
could
have, but I knew Thrash would
never
understand. He’d get some of it, like the plots and counterplots, the scheming and anger, the violence, fighting, and revenge, but all the rest, all the real important parts, would sail right over his little green head. So I didn’t bother telling him anything. I just lifted him up from the chair, took one last look at his wide plastic eyes, his goofy grin, his dangling pink tongue, said my good-byes, placed him in the back corner of my closet, and closed the door. I didn’t drag it out, or get all teary-eyed and mushy either, because I didn’t know if it was good-bye forever or only good-bye for a while. It was just good-bye, see you later, time to move on.
I hopped on
the Cruiser and tried to set a new land-speed record on my way over to Staci’s. She was waiting at the curb for me when I got there, wearing flip-flops, denim cutoffs, and a pink bikini top, with a plastic beach bag slung over her shoulder. Yeah, she was skinnier than a Pick Up Stick, flatter than old soda, and not all that pretty, but she still looked great to me. She hopped on the Cruiser; I drove us to the pool, locked my ride to the bike stand in front, and grinned from ear to ear as Staci flashed her member’s and guest badges to the lifeguard. I was finally inside the Sunnybrook Pool Club—with Staci Sanders on my arm no less—and it’d just opened its gates like two seconds ago, so nobody else was there yet. We pulled two chairs over and dropped our stuff in the far right corner where she usually sat, then I stripped down and headed straight in. I didn’t wait for Staci; I wanted to be first. It seemed like a good idea to be up to my chest in water by the time she’d finally wriggled out of those shorts, to camouflage the sight of my periscope going up, which it was pretty much bound to do. What could I say? The Lookout had a mind of his own, and it was one-track all the way.

Whatever. I did a one-and-a-half off the high board and Staci dove in after me. We swam around together and did handstands and backward somersaults in the low end, had a friendly splash fight, pretended we were gonna dunk each other, fake-wrestled a little, and during our breath-holding contest, she cheated and kissed me underwater, so I cracked up, blew bubbles, and lost. Yeah, there was all this cutesy, cuddly, corny-assed kid shit going on all over the goddamn place, and I knew I should’ve excused myself for a second and kicked my own ass for acting like such a lovesick, sissified dork, but for some reason I didn’t. Christ, I wasn’t even thirteen yet, and I was already going soft.

But somehow I wasn’t having a blast either, and that didn’t make
any
sense. Sure, it might’ve been completely sappy and all kinds of
gay, but this was
exactly
what I’d
always
wanted, what I’d hoped and dreamed for, and no matter how it looked to anyone else, I should’ve been having
fun
. Shit, I should’ve been having the goddamn time of my life. But I wasn’t. It was like I was there, but not really. Part of me was holding hands with Staci while we lay on lounge chairs by the pool, enjoying being with her and getting to know her and eating it all up, and part of me just wasn’t. That other part of me couldn’t have been further away; it was on the other side of the globe, and my mind was somewhere else.

I knew what it was. I was thinking about Orlando. I thought that was all over and done with, that I’d cut the ties clean, but it was still gnawing at me. I sighed and looked upward as I lay on my back, and saw that the sky above me was mixed; it was partly sunny or partly cloudy, whatever you wanted to say. It was the kind of midmorning that might clear up in a few minutes or bring down a storm, but that hadn’t really decided what kind of day it wanted to be yet.

I sat up all of a sudden, got dressed quickly, told Staci I was sorry but I’d forgotten to do something that I absolutely
had
to do, that couldn’t wait, and that I’d try to meet her at the pool later. She was obviously surprised and disappointed that I was cutting our date short, but she tried to be a trouper about it; she smiled, nodded her head, and said okay anyway. Man, oh, man, she was
great
.

I was already on the Cruiser and more than halfway home before it hit me that I’d just bolted out on Staci and left her
completely
hanging. More than that, I’d just
lied
to her, too. Jesus, I really must’ve been some kind of goddamn idiot to risk hurting her feelings again, and maybe even losing her over it this time, too. But I just
had
to know; it was eating away at me, tearing me up inside, and if I didn’t do something, I’d never get over it, never let go.

I got home, parked the Cruiser round back, and ran up to my room. It was better to settle it now, right now, to find out whatever the hell I could, deal with it as it came, and then put it to bed. I wanted to get over it. I wanted it
done
. I wanted to move on. All I
needed was an
excuse
, you know, some trivial, half-assed reason that gave me permission to do what I was going to do anyway. We all had excuses for everything we did, and we used them all the time; I knew what my excuse was, what it would be, and I was tearing my room apart to find it. There it was; it had fallen behind my desk. I tossed
Walden
into my backpack, hurdled down the stairs, slammed the back door, jumped on the Cruiser, and was off again.

I raced to Orlando’s place like his house was burning down. I felt this mad crush of urgency, of trouble, dire trouble, like Orlando was in danger. I didn’t know why I felt that way, but I did. Maybe it was because he lived by someone like Razor, or because he’d been teammates with Razor and Tommy Sharpe last year, or because they were the kind of guys that wouldn’t think twice about forcing Orlando into something awful, something he couldn’t get himself out of. Yeah, it occurred to me all of that might be more bullshit; that I just wanted to
think
Orlando was in danger in some way so I could pretend to be a hero again, or believe I was trying to help.

I jumped off at the curb huffing and sweating, walked the Cruiser up to the front of Orlando’s house, and dropped the kickstand. I had no idea what the hell I was doing, or what I was after. I didn’t know if Orlando even liked me anymore, if he had
ever
liked me, if we’d really been friends, or if somewhere along the line he’d realized that I’d lied to him and strung him out and never talked to him about the book he’d given me, was hurt by that, and then we’d never spoken again, and that’s what he’d been left with—nothing, a painful, empty nothing—and it stuck with him, gnawed at him, and tore him up, till it all turned bitter and raw. I didn’t know if that’s how he felt, or if it was just another excuse. I didn’t know if he’d hit me at tryouts on purpose, if it had been an accident, or what he’d meant to say before I’d cut him off: if he’d meant to apologize, to explain, or to lie to cover it up. I didn’t know any of it. And I didn’t know what would happen when I knocked on his front door, if anyone was home, if his mom would answer and chase me away with a
bat, or if he’d open it, take one look at me, and start swinging himself.

All I knew was that it was time for me to return his book. He’d given it to me almost three years ago, and now I was giving it back. I didn’t have much use for it anyway, because I never really understood it. It’d just confused me into thinking that I was different, that I could rely on myself, that I didn’t need anything or anyone, and that I could try to go it alone. But I couldn’t. As cruel and pointless as other people were, I
needed
them, I couldn’t move an inch without them and all of their shit, because when you got right to it, I was puny and frightened and weak, same as everyone else. I thought I could hear someone rustling inside, but I didn’t know who it was, or what would happen. I took a breath to ready myself; I was standing there wide open and vulnerable, but I was getting on with it, trying something new.

I was sick and fucking tired of being the smallest and meanest kid in a small and meaningless town. I wanted to be bigger than I was, better, more grown up. I didn’t know if that was too much to want, or too little, or if there was a single chance in hell that I’d
ever
be able to get it. But I really didn’t give a shit, because I
wanted
it anyway.

I wanted the world and everyone in it to be huge—like me.