Before It Rains

I got picked up from the hospital the next day by none other than the man I’d seen two months ago at the bus terminal. I groaned. “You are NOT going to make me walk back to the school, are you?” I asked him.

“Well, how else are we going to get there?” he replied as we walked out the main entrance and into the parking lot. I just looked at him as we luckily headed towards a blue pickup truck in the front row of the lot. Thank God.

I had to go to the nurse upon arriving back at the school so she could check my condition and make sure she knew how to tie up my sling incase I needed any help putting it on in the mornings. I assured her it wouldn’t be an issue, but she insisted that I come to her if I needed anything. I’d probably be seeing her for a lot of Advil in the near future.

When I went back to my dorm, there was no one there. Both the beds were made up and everything was pretty much how I’d left it the morning before. My first thought was that it was Wednesday, a school day, but today was a day off for sometime teacher something-or-other, and people should have been around. I began to consider going over to the girl’s dorm to look for Asia instead when I heard a cry come from the room across the hall.

“No way! I’ve gotten Mr. Mint twice already! This is sooo rigged!” Will, obviously. I walked over to the door and opened it with my left hand. The six of them were laying on the floor with Candyland in the center. Since there were only four pieces, two of them were the scottie dog and the top hat from Monopoly. Apparently the game was so intense that none of them noticed me come in. I reopened the door, and slammed it shut behind me again. They all looked up.

“Sam!” Will said. “You’re back!” He looked at my arm. “Damn, what did that kid do to you?”

“It's not that bad,” I told them. Sort of. “I just have to wear this thing for a month.”

“A month?” Max said. “That sucks.”

“Yeah, well,” I said. I looked back at the board game. “Looks like you've all had a productive morning.”

“We have,” they all said together. I rolled my eyes at them. Candyland? Really?

“Well I'm going to go eat. Who wants to come?” No one answered. “Okay, look guys. The one time you don't want food is the one time that I can't actually carry a tray by myself. You are all losers.” I headed out of the room and down the hall to the elevator. Someone followed me out the door.

“I'll come,” Austin called after me. Thank God.

“Are you sure that it's worth losing Candyland?” I asked him.

He nodded. “The game doesn't even have real candy. At least I can get some real food in the cafeteria..”

“I'm flattered.”

Suddenly as we continued down the hall, the other five guys filed out into the hall. “Wait, guys!” Will called to us. “We put Candyland on pause!”

*******

The next hour I received the most attention I had since I'd arrived at I recounted at least seven times what had happened to my shoulder, including to the lunch lady and one of my teachers. Kai carried my tray to our table for me, seeing as I couldn't use only my left hand to do it myself. Asia met us for lunch and seeing as she had only gotten the reader digest version from my brother and an inaccurate dramatization from Shane who hadn't even been there, I told her what had happened too.

It turned out my meal time was going to be a show too. I was used to eating with my right hand, and though writing wouldn't be too difficult seeing as my hand was free, eating involved the use of my arm and I was incapable of using it. My friends tried to keep from laughing, but I could tell they were amused at my frustration. After snapping two plastic forks, I asked a sympathetic lunch lady for a regular one.

By the time we finished lunch, it was almost two thirty and the majority of the group had practices at three. Max and I had rehearsal at two thirty, and once I assured him that I wanted to go and that I wasn't traumatized by the stage incident, we said our goodbyes and headed off towards the auditorium.

We were ten minutes late to practice by the time we got there, and Mr. Samuels had started giving the cast his usual 'pre-rehearsal talk'. Max and I snuck into the back and sat down. Mr. Samuels didn't notice us come in since the rest of the theater was dimmed except the stage and so he continued to talk from center stage.

“I don't have any idea when she'll be back at rehearsal, so we're going to have to start rehearsing an understudy just incase...”

I stood up and waved my good arm around in the air. “Don't bother. I'm good as gold!” I announced. Everyone turned around to look and Max just laughed.

“Sam?” Mr. Samuels asked.

“Yes sir!”

“I wasn't thinking you'd be back so soon... this is unexpected. Are you sure you can handle this?”

“Okay,” I said. “One, I'm not traumatized here. I fell off the stage, but I don't see that happening anytime in the near future, so that's all good. And two, a dislocated shoulder does not in any way affect my ability to sing or speak. So I'd say I'm probably alright.” I sat down. Max was still laughing and I would have slapped him, but he was sitting to my right, and in order to do that, I would have had to reach all the way across with my left hand.

“Well okay then,” Mr. Samuels said. “Scratch that, people. Today the ensemble is going to work on choreography and I guess the leads will work on vocal stuff, now that we know Sam is capable,” he announced winking at me. “Get to it!”

I worked on my song with Jeremy for the next hour in between him apologizing profusely for my shoulder. Finally, I just started ignoring him and he shut up.

By the time we finished up it was four thirty, but Max wasn't finished yet, and I really wanted some Advil, and so I headed over to the nurse's office on the other side of the school grounds, strategically placed next to the athletic facilities. It was more like a nurse's shack anyways. Like an insulated shed. I walked in, got the Advil and started walking back to my room.

“Saaam!” I was passing the soccer fields and looked over to see Austin running towards me with his cleats still on and his practice bag over his shoulder. I waited for him.

“Yo yo yo, how was practice?” I asked him. He was slightly out of breath.

“It was good-ish. Yeah, it was okay. What are you doing over here?” I explained to him that I had been in desperate need of Advil. We walked in silence for a few minutes. As I was about to walk in the entrance to the boy's dorms, Austin stopped me.

“Look, Sam. I kind of tried this once before, and it didn't really work out...”

“What are you talking about?” I stopped without turning around, still facing the door.

“Remember the dance? Like when I asked you to go?” I groaned and banged my head against the door.

“And you had to bring that up again because...?” That was when I realized where this conversation might be going.

“So, that didn't exactly go as I planned. But let me try again. Will you out with me?”

I thought about what Max had told me about Kelsey. How he might or might not have been over her. I thought about Will. I thought about my talk with Leila. I ran all of this through my head in less than thirty seconds.

“No.”

“What?”

“No, Austin, I can't do it. I'm sorry.”

“You like Will, don't you?” I winced and opened the door. He followed me in through the door. “If you're going to reject me again, you could at least answer my question,” he told me. I winced again at the word reject.

“I can't.” He didn't say anything after that. I took the elevator and he took the stairs.

*******

Needless to say, I got up our floor before him. I stared at the door blankly for a few seconds, realizing I had forgotten my key and the room was locked. For the second time today, I banged my head against a door. The door to Will and Austin's room opened, and Will looked out.

“No key?” he asked. I shook my head. “What's the matter?” he asked, finally recognizing that I didn't look normal. I just shrugged. He was the second to last person I wanted to talk to at the moment. “Well you want to come chill in our room until Ruben gets back?”

“Not particularly,” I said, and I went back down the hall, passing Austin on my way to the elevator. I could feel Will watching our encounter, but I didn't look back. I walked over to the A dorm instead, praying that Asia was back from her practice. This was like a repeat of a previous week.