Everyone at school knows Andrew Jennings. Missing an arm. Openly gay. But when he meets star athlete Ryan Sullivan in therapy, can friendship lead to more?
*****
When Andrew 'Jack...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
With a slam, Andrew Jackson Jennings stormed out of his house and picked up his bike from where he'd thrown it down yesterday. "I fucking said I was gonna go," he grumbled to himself. He took a second to pull the hood of his black sweatshirt up over his head, then hopped up on the bike and pedaled away.
Balancing on a bike with his one arm wasn't that hard, and he'd had a couple of years to get used to it. What he hadn't gotten used to was the way people stared at him. The way they whispered. He'd gotten into the habit of tucking his empty sleeve into his pocket just so they might not notice immediately. At this point, though, he was "that one-armed kid" and no one was going to ask him to try out for the baseball team. Or any team.
So what if he'd written some stupid essay for English class that made the guidance counselor say he had "deep-seated trauma" and had made "suicidal threats"? It was fiction. He didn't plan on doing any of the things he had written about. Idiots.
When he'd been called into the principal's office last week, his mom was already there. Crying. He hated that they had made her cry. "We're trying to help you, Mr. Jennings," Principal Novak had told him. "We're aware of what you've been through the past couple of years--"
"Who isn't," Andrew had growled.
"--AND," Principal Novak continued, "we are well aware of the cyberbullying that's been going on, and we have been doing our best to make sure those students are reprimanded for their actions. I want you to look at this as an opportunity."
"I'm so grateful." His voice had dripped with sarcasm. He couldn't even look at his mother.
Principal Novak droned on, outlining a plan that involved going to therapy twice a week and having a free pass to visit the guidance counselor, Ms. Scott, any time he felt he needed it. Then Novak added, "This therapist is required, by law, to inform the authorities if she feels you are a danger to yourself or others."
Great. They think I'm homicidal as well as suicidal, he thought, but didn't say. Instead he clenched his jaw and waited for Novak to finish talking.
As his mother had driven him home, she threw teary questions at him. "Why didn't you come and talk to me, Jacky? You know you can always talk to me, right? After what happened... I understand, baby, I really do..."
Andrew had shut his ears. And he was planning to go to the therapist, he was, but he had waited to leave the house. Who wanted to get to a therapist's office early, and be stuck waiting there forever, while people came and went and saw you sitting there and thought you were crazy on top of having one fucking arm? And that's what was going to happen now. His appointment wasn't until four, and here it was, three-thirty. A half hour to kill.
He didn't even have his phone to distract him while he waited, because he had hurled it at the ground when his name had been called over the loudspeaker. His mother had brought it to get repaired, and really, what was his phone other than a distraction? He never went on social media anymore.
