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?
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When Andrew 'Jack...
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When Ryan saw Jacky in the hallway at school the next day, the urge to smile overwhelmed him. Ryan normally smiled at a lot of people in the hallway: his friends, his teachers, anyone on the football team, anyone who smiled at him. Maybe, because Jacky had never smiled at him, never looked at him, never did more than glare at everyone in the hallway, Ryan realized he had never smiled at Jacky.
Now, at the door to their English class, Jacky looked up from the folds of his black hoodie, and Ryan smiled at him and let him enter the room first.
Jacky's face scrunched up. "Hey," he muttered.
Ryan took his usual seat near the front and by the window, while Jacky slouched to his desk at the back of the room and collapsed into the chair. He wished he knew of something he could chat with Jacky about. It didn't seem like they had a whole lot in common. And then Monica walked in, and he lost the chance to say anything.
"Did you hear about Alex's Halloween party?" Monica asked.
"Yeah, he told everybody at gym." Ryan pulled out his notebooks and his copy of Catcher in the Rye and a pen.
"Do you know what you're gonna dress up as?"
"No."
"No ideas? None at all?" Suddenly Monica touched his hand. "I'm sorry, I get it. You have more important things to worry about."
Ryan pretended he had to get something out of his backpack as a means to get Monica's hand off him. This was yet another reason why he hadn't told anyone about his mom.
"I mean, all the costume ideas I have are for a couple. Like, I was thinking, Bonnie and Clyde would be really cool. I could wear my flapper dress from the Roaring Twenties dance last year, and my little brother has all these real-looking nerf guns."
"Uh-huh," Ryan said, because Monica had stopped talking and seemed to expect some kind of response.
"I mean, all you'd have to do is wear a suit and maybe a fedora – I have one – and then we'd have a really awesome costume."
"Uh, we?" Ryan looked up.
"Yeah. You said you didn't have a costume. What do you think?"
Ryan was stumped on how to tell Monica he didn't particularly even want to go to a Halloween party, never mind as part of a couples costume, but luckily the bell rang.
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"Everybody take your seats," Mr. Dugan called out. "We have a lot to do today."
Andrew propped his chin up on his hand. He hadn't gotten much sleep last night, and he'd been running late, so no Red Bull to help get him through the morning. Mostly he had felt like an idiot, showing up at Ryan's house, then coming up with that stupid lie that he'd been worried about Ryan killing himself. Well, Ryan acted pretty depressed, but obviously he wasn't suicidal. And Ryan hadn't even let him into the house. Acted like it was none of Andrew's business.
But then today, Ryan just fucking smiled at him.
"...I'm going to split you into groups," Mr. Dugan was saying, and everyone groaned a little. Andrew put his forehead down on his desk and bumped it a couple of times. Fuck. Group projects were the worst. "There will be a couple groups of three and if the groups of two want to combine, I'm open to that."
It became clear, as Andrew was one of the first names called, that Mr. Dugan had split them up alphabetically. Andrew Jennings and Monica Johnston. Monica turned to look around like she wasn't exactly sure who she'd been paired with. When she saw him, glaring at her, she turned back around with a sigh and said something to Ryan, who had turned at the same time as Monica and smiled at him. Again.
Whatever Monica had said, Ryan's smile faded.
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"He's not that bad," Ryan whispered.
"Everybody knows about that thing he wrote. Like, I feel bad for the accident, and I don't want him to—" Monica dropped her voice, "commit suicide or whatever, but he's always so mean. He makes it hard to be nice to him."
Ryan didn't say anything further. Mr. Dugan announced that Ryan would be working with Brian Wallace, who everyone called Wally. Wally was a good guy. A bit serious, but he was on student council with Ryan and they got along.
"We're both groups of two," Monica whispered, as Mr. Dugan called out the last group and then told everyone they could switch seats to be near their partners. "Maybe we can work together."
"I think you'll be fine," Ryan said, hefting his backpack and collecting his notebook.
"Ryan, please."
"Let's at least get the assignment first." He shifted to the next desk over to sit beside Wally.
