Something had to be said for whoever decided the best time for kids to go back to school was before the typical end of the 90-100°F heat wave that often hit Northern Georgia from mid-August until sometimes as late as mid-September. The hot weather made it difficult for even the best of students to stay focused during class, and even more difficult to keep them from going to the washroom every twenty minutes on account of how much water was required to stay hydrated on a hot summer day like today.
It was Murphy's law that the school day felt like it was dragging on much longer than usual now that Ralph had a reason to eagerly watch the clock all the live long day. Knowing Jack was back at his house, working on his own school work with the comfort and peace a classroom setting could never provide made Ralph itch with excitement for the clock to finally strike 1505 hours, to set him free of the sweaty, cramped classroom after each long day.
It had now been three days since Jack was released from the children's hospital up in Dalton, and three nights he'd spent at the Langley house thus far. That was bordering on half a week; meaning there was just over one full week left until the ceremony at the academy and just over one full week and a day until Jack may or may not be going back to Dalton.
Later that day, Ralph threw himself through the door of the house forty-one minutes after dismissal at Eastern Woodland Academy. He collapsed onto the floor in the doorway, breathing heavier than an overtired dog running through the Arizona desert.
"What the hell happened to you?" Jack minimally suppressed the urge to laugh at the boy who was practically drowning in a puddle of his own sweat.
Ralph took a moment to catch his breath before he answered. "Air conditioning's broken on the bus" he panted heavily. "109 goddamn degrees in there. Another minute and I swear I would've passed out."
"You still might" Jack chuckled observantly. Ralph glared up at him standing over his body on the floor. He shuddered at the sight of Jack standing over his weak body, unsure if it was just the heat that was suddenly making him feel so uneasy.
Ralph sat up and immediately pulled his soaked through red t-shirt over his head, tossing it next to the coat rack beside him. Jack stretched his good hand out to him, and Ralph took it, allowing Jack to help him up.
"How am I the one struggling to stay on my feet here?" Ralph asked once he was eye level with Jack. "I'm not the one who looks like he's been crushed by a semi-truck."
"No, you're just the one acting like it" Jack teased him cruelly but playfully. Ralph rolled his eyes as he failed to come up with a viable defense. After all, he had been lying on the ground, gasping for air, only a minute earlier. "What's the plan for tonight?" Jack interrupted his train of though to ask.
"I dunno" Ralph walked over to the couch and let his weight collapse onto it. "I wasn't sure I'd make it to sixth period so I didn't make any plans."
Jack laughed at Ralph's flare for the dramatics. He was just about to sit down beside Ralph when an idea popped into his head. He abandoned the younger boy on the couch to hobble his way into the kitchen. A minute later, he was pleased by the relieved, wide-eyed look in Ralph's eyes when Jack tossed him a frozen popsicle from the freezer.
"You're a lifesaver" Ralph declared with an unwavering sense of appreciation as he tore open the popsicle. Jack could see that Ralph was far too hot to pick up on the irony of what he just said. Jack had the rare experience of having once had other people's lives in his hands, and the record showed that saving them wasn't exactly his M.O.
That unsettling realization was interrupted when Jack turned to watch Ralph forcefully shoved the popsicle into his throat, a desperate act to relieve himself from the agony of the moist, summer heat. Jack smiled with both intrigue and amusement, his eyes fixated on the boy beside him.
"What?" Ralph questioned the amused and attentive stare on Jack's face.
"Oh nothing" Jack said in a dramatized, awkward voice that solidified the fact that it definitely wasn't nothing. Jack turned his head the other way to prevent Ralph from seeing the difficulty he was having at suppressing the laughter in his chest.
"Seriously, what?" Ralph dropped the orange popsicle down into his lap, shooting Jack an evidently annoyed glare.
"Nothing, nothing" Jack turned back to him with a sheepish smile. "Just eat your popsicle."
Ralph was too hot and tired to fight him on it, so he simply settled for rolling his eyes at the blond boy before turning his attention to whatever was playing on the TV in front of them.
Jeffery got home before his wife that night, and after feeding the boys supper, he insisted they get started on their homework and reading assignments for the night. It was a dreadful hour of nothing but work, work, work until they were finally allowed to go out and get some fresh air as the sun stared to go down, relieving East Point from the freakish 93° heat.
Ralph and Jack walked down the sidewalk about a block and a half from the house. Ralph linked his arm through Jack's good one as they walked. Though this wasn't because Jack needed his physical support. Ralph was actually pleasantly surprised by how quickly Jack was adjusting to walking on the knee brace. If the brace itself wasn't so large and obvious, one would've had to pay a particular amount of attention to Jack to notice the ever-so-slight limp in his step. The sling, however, was harder to miss.
"Please don't tell me you're actually that stupid" Ralph declared once they arrived at the park, staring judgementally at Jack as the latter grabbed hold of the metal ladder in front of him with his good hand.
"Not stupid, just testing the waters" Jack dismissed his concern without turning around to see the judgemental look he could vividly picture on Ralph's face right now.
"Climbing playground equipment wasn't part of the doctors orders" Ralph flatly pointed out.
"Well doctor's got another thing comin' if he thinks I'm gonna spend the next six weeks sitting on my ass" Jack countered as he stepped his good leg up onto the ladder against Ralph's advisement. He pulled himself up on it, lifting his weight off the ground and onto the first rung of the ladder.
"You've got another thing coming if you get yourself hurt again, Jack. I'm talking permanent damage. If you aren't careful, you could risk your chances of ever walking properly again" Ralph warned him with a twinge of worry mixed in with the frustration.
"And it's my choice to decide whether to take that risk, not yours" Jack reminded him as he started to scramble his way up the ladder without using either of his injured limbs. Ralph watched as a wave of judgment and horror passed through him. Jack finally hoisted himself off the ladder and up onto the platform. "See?" he turned around to face Ralph, "no reason to get your panties in a bunch."
"I don't wear panties" Ralph irrelevantly countered.
"It's a figure of speech, dumbass" Jack scoffed as he ventured over to the wobbly wooden bridge at the end of the platform he stood on. "I know what kind of underwear you wear" he smugly reminded him.
Ralph folded his arms over his chest, annoyed and unamused by Jack and his sexual innuendo. "Fine, do whatever you want, get hurt for all I care. Just don't ask me to push your wheelchair for the rest of our lives when you paralyze yourself jumping off that bridge because why the hell not!"
"Jesus Christ" Jack sighed, throwing his head back with an exaggerated eye roll. He carefully found his footing on the wobbly bridge and made his way across. He plopped down at the top of the little slide and pushed himself down, landing on his good leg as he held the injured one up.
He approached Ralph where the younger boy sat sideways on the dinosaur spring rider near the edge of the playground. Ralph looked up at him for a split second, an angry look on his face, before glancing back down into his own lap.
"Hey" Jack said gently, stopping directly in front of Ralph, an uncomfortable absence of space between their bodies. "Come on, I'm not going to paralyze myself or anything stupid like that, alright? I'm not that reckless."
"Clearly you are" Ralph negated hotly, lifting his gaze slightly to get a glimpse of the boy's pleading face. "I wouldn't have agreed to come here if I thought you were reckless enough to experiment with how much pressure your body can take before you snap another bone or two."
"A two year old could climb that ladder, Ralph, that platform is like three feet off the ground. You gotta stop worrying so much" Jack tenderly countered.
"I don't want you see you get hurt again" he raised his voice a little as he looked up to stare Jack challengingly in the eye.
"Y'know, I could get hurt anywhere, anytime regardless of what condition I'm in. So could you, or anyone else. I could get hit by a car crossing the street, slip in the shower and crack my head open, get jumped by a robber, slip on a fucking banana peel and break my back, or die of heat exhaustion in a cramped un-air-conditioned school bus for Christ's sake. Danger is everywhere, Ralph, whether you choose to see it or not. If you're going to live in fear, you might as well live in fear of every possible threat you could come across" Jack declared in a melodramatic manner.
"All I'm asking is that you take it a little easier than you're used to while you're in recovery" Ralph recentered the argument. "I don't want to fight with you about this for the next six weeks."
"Then don't" Jack asserted. "You're not my fucking keeper, alright? I'm not five, and I'm well enough to determine whether or not I'm capable of climbing a fucking three rung ladder."
"Well enough but maybe not smart enough" Ralph hotly retaliated. "If you're not an idiot about this, Jack, if you can learn to have a little patience with yourself while you get better, you can do all the stunts you want once you're healed. I'm not trying to be a buzz kill, I'm trying to prevent you from having to endure another surgery and more days stuck in the hospital. Because if that does happen, you'll have no one to blame but yourself this time."
"Fuck you, man" Jack spat, using his good arm to shove Ralph firmly but not hard enough to push him off the spring rider. Jack took a couple steps back as Ralph slipped a little but quickly caught himself. Ralph was angry at Jack, angry at his carelessness, angry that he couldn't push the older boy back like he usually would. So he simply tightened his gaze, staring ruthlessly at the reckless boy in front of him. Jack stared back, challenging him, daring him to hit him back.
But of course, they both knew Ralph wouldn't.
Nearly two years ago, Ralph had been the one with his arm in a sling. Jack remembered them play fighting on the beach shortly after they arrived on the island. He remembered his lack of regard for the boy's broken arm, shoving him relentlessly but playfully into the sand. He remembered the wave of panic that had so quickly come over him when Ralph cried out in pain, holding his arm in the fetal position on the ground. Jack had run to his rescue without missing a beat, concerned that he might've made the boy's plane crash injury worse. Luckily, Ralph was playing a simple trick on him; a rouse to get Jack close enough to bring him down into the sand with him. It ended with an eruption of laughter, but only because Ralph hadn't really been hurt. Not like Jack was now.
Jack sighed and took a step forward. He reached down to take Ralph's hand in his good one. The latter kept his gaze down, watching in bitter silence as their fingers intertwined over Ralph's lap.
"I'm sorry" Jack unexpectedly broke the silence. "I'm not trying to scare you."
"Well you are scaring me whether you're trying to or not" Ralph replied resentfully, lifting his gaze to look into Jack's softened eyes.
"Okay, fine" Jack quietly acknowledged, "I'll try to be careful as long as you stop coddling me. I get that you're just looking out for me but I don't need you to micromanage my every move. You oughta let me learn my own limits. I can't do that if you freak out every time I stand up."
"I suppose you're right" Ralph shrugged as he was still somewhat reluctant to agree. "But you mean it when you say you'll try to be a little more cautious? It doesn't have to be forever, just for a little while."
"I promise" Jack squeezed the boy's fingers between his own. "But you gotta trust me. You can't babysit me all day, everyday."
"I know" Ralph sighed heavily. "So we have a deal?"
"So we do" Jack agreed, spitting into the palm of his hand, and sticking it out to Ralph to formalize their agreement.
"Jesus" Ralph shuddered, leaning back in an efforr to distance himself from Jack's saliva covered hand. "I'm not shaking your spit hand."
"Don't you know that's how real men finalize deals?" Jack confidently informed him.
"You're a child" Ralph flatly pointed out.
"Take it or leave it" Jack ignored his comment, continuing to hold his hand out to Ralph. "And you're forgetting that we've swapped spit like a hundred and one times. This isn't less sanitary than that, believe me."
Ralph stared reluctantly down at Jack's hand before making the regrettable decision to man up, spit on his own hand and clasp it in Jack's, shuddering as he did so. Jack had a proud, unbothered smile on his face as he pulled his hand out of Ralph's.
Jack nodded warmly at him as he moved back so Ralph could climb off the dinosaur spring rider. He began to make his way to the swings, Ralph following in tow behind, when he stopped and turned around to face Ralph.
"And for the record, you wouldn't refuse to push my wheelchair around if it really came down to that. You'd love me even as a handicapped freak and you know it" Jack smiled smugly as he turned back around, plopping down on the swing behind him.
"I hate you" Ralph countered with a playful smile as he sat down on the adjacent swing.
"You might hate that you love me" Jack corrected him, "but you could never hate me."
Sometimes, Ralph thought to himself, I think life might be simpler if I could.