Andrew Smith: Winger

Did it. I took off back down the trail after Annie as fast as I could.

I almost fell three times sprinting down that trail when my feet shot out in front of me, rolling over loose rocks. But after I came around the corner of the final switchback, before the trail flattened out through the forest, I saw Annie ahead of me.

And part of me wanted to just stay back and watch her, seeing her legs and arms move so smoothly while her black hair swung from shoulder to shoulder like a pendulum. She was one of those girls who never seemed to sweat. Everything about Annie Altman was perfection.

The shade beneath the pines was cool and fresh, and the air smelled like summer and freedom, the smell of never having to go home.

“Hey!” I called out.

She turned back, looking over her tan shoulder as her hair brushed across the line of her jaw. I couldn’t tell if she smiled, but she did slow down to a jog so I could catch up to her.

“You’re hard to catch,” I said between gasps.

“Did you go to the top?”

“Yeah. It was awesome.” We slowed our pace even more. “Look, Annie, I’m sorry about not running with you. I was mad, I guess.”

“I know,” she said. “You think I couldn’t tell?”

“It’s nothing.” And then I told a major lie. “I’m just mad about being in O-Hall. Away from my friends.”

Our eyes met. She had that same look she had in her picture, like she knew the truth.

“You know what we’re going to do this year?” Annie said, and my heart just about stopped cold, because I was really scared she was going to say something, well . . . scary. “I’m going to find you a girlfriend.”

I stopped running, and Annie took about three more strides and stopped too, but she kept on talking. “What freshman girl wouldn’t just die to go out with you? I mean, it’s the best of both worlds: You’re the same age, plus you’re an upperclassman and a varsity rugby player. Don’t worry, West, I’ll find you the best one.”

“What if I don’t want a girlfriend?” I said.

Then she got this smirky look and said, “You want a boyfriend ?”

And I know she was just teasing me, but I turned away and walked off the path and into the trees.

I heard her following. “Come on, West. Don’t get all I-can’t-take-a-joke on me. I’m just looking out for you.”

“Don’t do me any favors, Annie.”

I stopped, knee deep in ferns, sweating, at the edge of the circle of stones.

“Hey, it’s still here,” she said.

“I looked for it on the way up.”

I wouldn’t look at her. I was still mad. But I felt her heat; she was standing so close to me.

Stonehenge wasn’t much like Stonehenge. The rocks were small enough to position with just the four of us working on it. Sure, some of the outer rocks were fairly heavy—they were the ones stacked in threes, a ring of doorways like the monument on Salisbury Plain—but it wasn’t, like, an amazing feat of engineering to get them there. It was more a feat of boredom last spring as we all got ready to go off in separate directions for a break from school.

In the middle of the circle was a spiral path; two lines of evenly spaced smaller stones that wound around and around, coiling in on themselves until the path ended right in the center of the ring. That was the part of our Stonehenge that took the longest time to create. We started in the center and worked our way out, and when we finished, I think the path might have been a quarter-mile long if you could stretch it out straight.

Annie proclaimed it a wishing circle and told us if you walked it all the way in and then all the way out without saying anything, you’d get your wish. Of course I knew she had just made that up, because I’d only ever wished for one thing whenever I walked in and out on that path, and that one thing never came true.

“I don’t want you to do it, Annie,” I said. “I don’t want you to look for a girlfriend for me.”

“Suit yourself,” she said, shrugging. “I was just trying to help.”

“Like you said, things are going to be different this year. But I’m going to do it for myself.”

“Okay.”

We stood at the opening to the spiral path.

“You want to do it?” she said.

You know, there have been times when I would have just about cut a finger off to hear Annie, or any girl for that matter, but especially Annie, ask me that question. Do you want to do it? Of course I knew she was only asking if I wanted to walk the pathway with her, but on that Sunday just before the school year started, I guess I was feeling pretty down about things. And I almost said no , but then I decided to do the usual Ryan Dean West retreat from reality and try to make her laugh, just so I could take my mind off of things, off of how I felt.

I noticed she was looking at me. She was staring at me.

“Oh, yeah,” I said, holding my arms out and turning my open palms upward. “It’s not easy getting all this going. Every day, all over the world, countless men endure the pain and humiliation of laser treatments and waxing to achieve a body like this. It really is a burden.”

I flexed.

Annie laughed. I liked the way I could so easily see the water building in her eyes when she laughed. It was a real laugh.

“You know, that’s the only thing I even like about this craphole school,” she said.

“What?”

“Having you as a friend.”

“Shut the fuck up, Annie.”

Okay, well . . . yeah, I didn’t really say “Shut the fuck up,” because I honestly don’t cuss. But I wanted to. I think, in reality, I raised my finger to my lips and said, “Shhhhh,” so she wouldn’t say anything else as we spiraled into the center of that wish circle.

“OKAY, DOUCHE BAG.” CHAS SHOVED me, sending me back against the doorjamb as soon as I crossed the threshold into our room.

Now, this was the Chas Becker I had been expecting earlier that morning.

“I had to pick your shit up off the floor— your stinky socks, your sweaty underwear—and put them away all nice and folded like your mommy, or we’d be restricted by Farrow. And, not only did you leave your shit all over the floor, you left the door wide-fucking open too, so he could see how WE left it. This is O-Hall, Winger. You don’t get caught doing stupid shit like that.”

That doorjamb really hurt between my shoulder blades. And Chas was standing so close, the only thing I could do besides watch his fist clenching just at the bottom of my field of vision was offer him a semiwheezing but fully sincere, “Uh. God. I’m sorry, Chas.”

Chas pushed me again, his hand pinning me against the jamb. And I estimated, hand, door frame . . . I am about three and a half inches thick right now. Maybe less.

“Yeah, well, this is the one time. The one time , Winger. If you were someone not on the team, I would probably kill you right now. But Coach would get pissed.”

He slackened his pressure on my sternum. I thought about saying thanks, but I just kept my mouth shut and my eyes down. I went over to my cubbies and pulled out some clean clothes and a towel and disappeared down the hall for the showers.

It was time for dinner, and I missed my friends.

I FOUND SEANIE AND JP seated together in the mess hall. They were already on dessert, or maybe their entire meal consisted exclusively of desserts.

One of the only good things about PM was the food, because nobody stopped you from making poor choices. Our rugby team had a “physio,” which is what we call a nutritionist-slash-doctor, though, and during season, there were only certain things we were allowed to eat and drink, and he’d keep watch on the mess hall from November until May.