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.
Trudging up the stairs, he tried to imagine what kind of magazines a therapist's office would have. If he was lucky, they'd have Cosmo, which always had some guide on how to give the best blow jobs. Obviously they weren't going to have skateboarding or gun magazines. Not that he did much skateboarding these days outside of his own driveway, trying to get his moves back. Failing most of the time.
The first thing Andrew noticed when he entered the waiting room was that there were no magazines. None. Zero. Spread out on the little tables that separated chairs into groups of two were pamphlets. Probably shit like, "How Not to Kill Yourself" and "Are You a Future Serial Killer?" and "Is Your Kid Destined to Be a Total Loser?"
The second thing he noticed was the other person sitting there, staring at one of the pamphlets.
He almost turned right back around and left. Instead, he kept his head down and shuffled up to the desk to check in with the receptionist.
"Hi, I have an appointment at four?" he muttered, hoping the blond guy behind him wouldn't hear him. The waiting room wasn't that big.
"With which doctor?" the receptionist asked.
He looked around, then noticed the two doors. "Uh, sorry, I didn't realize there was more than one. I don't remember her name. This is my first time here."
"Are you Andrew?" the woman asked.
"Yes." God, if the lady already knew that, then why did she ask him who his doctor was?
"Your appointment is with Dr. Greene. You're a bit early. Have a seat, and she'll come get you when she's ready."
He grunted and took a seat as far from the other guy as possible. That was hard, because Mr. Sports Hero had picked a chair in the middle of the room. Entitled assholes like Ryan Sullivan made him sick.
What was Ryan even doing here? That was the better question. He guessed Ryan was waiting for some younger brother or sister who was in the doctor's office right now. Had to be. You couldn't get more all-American than Ryan Sullivan, in his fucking Levi jeans and white t-shirt and letter jacket. Andrew had never even spoken to the guy but he knew all about him. Captain of the football team. Honor Roll. Student Council. In fact, Ryan was probably in the running to be valedictorian too, as if he wasn't perfect enough.
Well, he couldn't sit here and stare for the next twenty minutes. He picked up a pamphlet from the table at his elbow. "Teen Talk About Exam Stress." Ugh. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Ryan glancing over at him. He held the brochure up to cover his face, then drew up his knees so he could actually open the brochure. The things no one ever thought would be hard until you had one arm: opening up a fucking brochure.
"Hey, you go to my school, right?" Ryan asked.
Jesus Christ. Andrew glared at him over the top of the brochure. "Yeah?" he said.
"I'm Ryan," Ryan said.
Andrew rolled his eyes. "We're in, like, three classes together."
"Oh." Ryan's shoulders slumped a bit, and he looked back down at his brochure. Andrew glanced at it, then peeked over at the other brochures on the table. The color on the top was green, which meant Ryan Sullivan was reading "Teen Talk About Body Image."
I am not going to feel bad, Andrew thought, then said, "I'm surprised you don't know me. I'm practically famous." God, what had made him say that?
"What for?" Ryan asked.
"For this." Andrew lifted the empty sleeve and waggled it around. From the look on Ryan's face, he hadn't realized that Andrew had been missing an arm. And there was only one kid at George Washington High School missing an arm.
"Oh! You're Jacky Jennings."
Goddamnit, that nickname. Bad enough when his mom used it. "My name," he said icily, "is Andrew."
"Yeah. Wow, I didn't recognize you with the black hair, I guess."
Andrew rolled his eyes again and glared at his brochure. "Not that hard if you ever actually looked at my fucking face," he muttered.
The rest of the time passed in awkward silence. He could practically see the gears turning in Ryan's head. Probably trying to figure out what else he could talk to me about, Andrew thought. Not like we run in the same social circles. Or maybe he's trying to figure out why I'm being so rude.
He refused to believe he had been rude. Ryan hadn't even apologized about Andrew's arm. Most people did. Or they asked how it happened. But no. Ryan had looked at him like the missing arm was a giant fucking clue, and he'd solved the mystery and deserved a prize. Never mind that he'd called him by the nickname that had turned into a fucking nightmare in middle school. In high school he'd tried to re-brand himself as "Andrew," but instead of helping his social status, it just turned him into a nobody. And then the accident. If people weren't actively making his life a living hell, they didn't even see him.
"Andrew?"
The woman's voice cut into his thoughts and he stood up, tossing the unfolded brochure down on the table. He gave Ryan a little glare as he walked through the door. I dare you to tell everyone at school you saw me here. That's what he hoped his look conveyed. Ryan just got a wounded look on his face and looked down at his hands.
Andrew had gone to therapy before, it wasn't like he had no idea what was going to happen. Dr. Greene seemed like a nice lady, and she made it clear that he could say anything he wanted but that she did have to report anything she thought was a concern. "Now, I've heard the school's side of things. I'd like to hear your take."
He found it easier to talk to Dr. Greene than he had with his previous therapist. Of course, Dr. Schmidt had made him talk about losing his dad and his sister and his arm, which he didn't want to do. He told Dr. Greene all about the assholes at school and the shit they put on his Facebook page until he'd finally just deleted his account. Then they'd found his Tumblr page and started leaving anonymous hate there until he'd blocked them and blocked anon mail, but he rarely went online anymore.
He didn't tell Dr. Greene about the website where he spent most of his time when he did go online.
Since it was a first meeting, he had plenty to talk about, and he didn't have to get too deep. For the most part she listened and asked him a few questions about his feelings when he paused or struggled with what to say. Then the fifty minutes were over and he was free to go.
"I'll see you on Thursday, then?" Dr. Greene said as he opened the door.
"Yeah, Thursday." He made sure he sounded the exact opposite of excited. Two sessions a week? Was that really necessary? He made his escape into the waiting room, and nearly stopped dead when he saw who was coming out of the other door.
Ryan Sullivan.
So Mr. Popular wasn't here waiting for a brother or sister. He was here getting therapy himself. Andrew put his head down and fast-walked out of the waiting room before Ryan could see that he saw him. It felt good to have some dirt on the golden boy.
It was only after Andrew started riding home that it hit him. If someone like Ryan Sullivan wasn't happy, what hope did someone like Andrew have?
Visit this link to download YONDER: https://yonder.onelink.me/6vpb/46a0c21e
(YONDER is available in countries except the North & South Korea, China, Japan, the EuropeanUnion, Cuba, Georgia, Macao, and Sudan.)