Crush

3

Monday afternoon Jonathan walked into English class and felt an uncomfortable tug in his chest. A substitute teacher stood at the front of the room, drawing on the blackboard. She was a fine-looking woman, wearing black slacks and a red blouse. But seeing her just made him think about Mr. Weaver. He’d watched the news over the weekend and saw the reports of Mr. Weaver’s death, but it didn’t seem quite real. Not until now, not until he saw the man’s replacement scratching out couplets with colored chalk. He felt awful.

Emma O’Neil was sitting in her chair when Jonathan entered the room. He passed by her, hoping she’d say hi, but her head was down. He could see a sheen of tears on her cheeks. She was mourning for Mr. Weaver, and it made Jonathan feel worse. He crossed the room to his desk near the back, sat down, and rested his chin on his hand.

In his thoughts he didn’t go to his chair. No. In his mind, where he could muster bravery, he stopped at Emma’s desk and knelt down beside her, put his arm around her shoulders. “It’s okay,” he said. “Mr. Weaver is in a better place.” This made Emma cry, purging the rest of her sadness as she pushed in close to take comfort from Jonathan’s embrace. He felt the spiky locks of her hair on his cheek, smelled her perfume, which he imagined smelled like flowers. “I’m here if you need to talk,” his brave mind-self whispered.

The daydream warmed him. He wished he could be the person he imagined. Emma looked so miserable, and he wanted to do anything he could to make it stop. She shouldn’t be unhappy.

Once the other kids arrived and took their seats, the substitute, Mrs. Taylor, said, “I’m sure you’re all very upset about Mr. Weaver’s passing, but we’ll try to honor his memory by continuing his work.”

That’s all she said about his dead teacher. It didn’t really seem like enough, though Jonathan couldn’t say he wanted to hear any more. Checking on Emma, he saw that she was barely keeping it together, and perhaps the less said about Mr. Weaver, the better.

To add to his unease, Kirsty Sabine looked at him during class. Not once. Not twice. But three times Jonathan glanced toward the window and caught the girl looking his way. She was slightly turned in her chair, peering from the corner of her eye. The moment Jonathan noticed her, she looked down or toward the window. Her attention made him uncomfortable, but it wasn’t a bad kind of uncomfortable exactly. He may not have thought she was an eight like David did, but a girl was looking at him, and she wasn’t pointing or laughing. She was just checking him out.

SWIM, Jonathan thought. Now she’s swimmin’ with the guppies, boy.

After class Jonathan stood in the hall by the door, checking up and down the hallway for the Roid Patrol before he attempted to drop off books at his locker. He watched Emma emerge from the class and wander, head down, away from him. His heart ached with each step she took. Classmates filed past him, chatting excitedly about Mr. Weaver or their weekends or both. Finding the coast was clear—no Toby or Cade or Ox in sight—he entered the stream of students moving along the halls. He made it to his locker with no bone-jangling collision and shoved his English text inside. Retrieving his geometry book, he felt an odd tingle rise up on the back of his neck, as if someone were dancing their fingers very near the skin there.

Jonathan closed his locker and was surprised to see Kirsty Sabine. She stood ten lockers down, pushed tight against them as the river of students passed. She looked right at him and, this time, didn’t turn away when he noticed.

Instead, she smiled. She lifted her hand in a shy wave.

He nodded his head and quickly looked at the floor, then at his shoes. When he looked up, he turned his head, pretending to watch the herd of students, searching for Kirsty in the corner of his eye.

But she was already gone.

Jonathan scanned the wall where Kirsty had stood but didn’t see her. He didn’t even catch a glimpse of her in the crowd.

Then Toby Skabich came up from behind and rammed Jonathan with his shoulder. Jonathan lifted off the ground and hit the wall of lockers.

The audience of padlocks applauded.

“Are the Roid Patrol still doing that?” David asked. “I thought they stopped.”

“They never stopped,” Jonathan replied. He adjusted the phone against his ear. “I just stopped talking about it.”

“Well, if it’s any consolation, Toby and his boys are going to grow up to be used-car salesmen. Their greatest achievement will likely be beating a series of date-rape charges.”

“I’m really getting tired of it.”

“I thought your school had a zero-tolerance policy.”

“What my school has is a winning football team, the first in like a thousand years. No one is going to do a thing unless there’s actual bloodshed. Besides, if I narc them out, they’ll just hit me harder.”

“I say grab a gun and PAC.”

“Knock it off, David. Those guys are graduating this year. As long as I can make it to June without a concussion, I’ll be fine.”

“Well,” David said. “Someone should do something.”

From The Book of Adrian, Mon. Oct. 10:

The notion that man has advanced beyond animal instinct is disproved at every turn. It is never more clear than in their cruelty and posturing. Just as a lion will fight to lead his pride, assuring him of the best mate; just as rams will butt heads to win the favor of does; just as a peacock unfurls its tail feathers to attract, men engage in conflict to gain attention and approval of their female counterparts. They fight and preen and pose. It is a fundamental part of the breeding instinct.

In a species set apart by intellect, it seems odd that such base and brutal traits are still coveted or, at the very least, believed to be. Intelligence and imagination should be the aspirations. They should be the peacock’s plumage and the lion’s might in a species that claims intellectual superiority. Yet they are not. The lions still fight. The rams still butt heads.

Isn’t that right, Toby?