Pt 13 Stay With Me- The Get Well Card

The next morning William awoke with a happiness that surprised even him so he tried to reason out its creation and meaning as he went about his morning routine.  He concluded as he drove to school that the happiness was because of Shane.  For once he had someone with whom he could share his life.  They had been up until one o’clock in the morning texting back and forth to each other about their childhood, television and movies they’d seen, and their hopes for what they wanted to be, what they wanted to do after high school.

Shane had said he wanted to be an artist, or at the least work in the arts.  It would be easy for him to be gay in that line of work, William thought.  Maybe not if he was an actor or something, though that was changing, but Shane hadn’t said anything about acting.  He was more the painter type, or else maybe a writer.  Shane had said he like photography, and William had kidded him about really meaning pornography.  William laughed to himself because for once he could make a joke, a gay related joke, and it was funny not humiliating.

He pulled into the parking lot and to one of the last spots where he parked his car, picked up his two books with the homework folded inside, and headed toward the school.  Most everyone else had been waiting around for over half an hour because they had taken the bus or else walked but he had worked it into a science to get nearly the last spot and walk into the building just before the bell rang.  He was headed to homeroom when he spotted Mrs. Gallagher at the principal’s office, for a moment he looked away so he could pretend he didn’t see her but she waved to get his attention, summon him to her.  He grunted then headed to where she stood with another teacher.

“Good morning,” he said to them both.

“Good morning,” she responded.  “Do you have a minute?”

“I’m headed to homeroom,” he said.

“I’ll walk with you,” she replied.

They walked along the hallway and his happiness was quickly replaced with increasing levels of fear.  What did it mean to walk down the hall with her?  What would it mean if it had been Shane?  Just days ago he had tried to break off any kind of friendship with the boy and just last night they had texted like the best of friends.

“Talk to Shane much?”

“Yeah, he’s doing alright,” William said.

“I got a card for him.  I was going to try and get everyone from the group to sign it then see if you would take it to him.”

He perked up at the sentiment of what she said and looked to her as she smiled back at him.

“Why don’t you stop by at the end of the day?”

They stopped at the doorway to the classroom and William suddenly became aware that he was holding his books to his chest as if he were a smitten girl in a movie so he dropped them around his waist then tucked them against his side in one arm.

“Yeah, no problem,” he said.  “I’ll stop by.  I have his number too so I can give that to you.”

“Good,” she said.  She began to reach out for a moment to touch his elbow but stopped herself.  “Well, I’ll see you later then.”

They turned away from each other.  William stepped into the classroom and Mrs. Gallagher walked away down the hallway.  The rest of the morning William wanted to text with Shane but he had a feeling his friend was sleeping in, plus he didn’t want to get caught.  He waited until lunch where he had to play it casual with his friends as he sent his first message but when he didn’t get a response by the end of the period he powered off his phone and waited until study hall to check his messages.  There was a series of texts:

Decided to go shopping.  Went to thrift store.  Cashier woman thought I was skipping school.  Looked pretty conspicuous in my glasses and hat.  But I couldn’t stand being in the house.  Almost made me wish I was in school.  Not really.

William laughed to himself.  No one missed school, he thought.  He looked at the tile flooring, the aluminum shelving, and the steel framed windows, no one would miss it.  This was a place where only the teachers stayed year after year, each class more like the last.  He looked to the ceiling and sighed, one more class he told himself, only a few more months.

The last five minutes of the period were agonizing and then he managed to forget most everything for the first thirty minutes of his last class until the class had been given an assignment to write for the last ten minutes then take home with them if they hadn’t finished.  William managed to sneak a peak at his phone as the teacher read from a newspaper but there were no more messages from Shane.  He looked to the clock but there were two minutes left so he looked back to his paper where he had managed to write the first paragraph but didn’t feel like writing anything else.

Then the bell rang and William folded the paper and stuck it in his book.  He headed back to his locker to get a second book from earlier in the day then headed to Mrs. Gallagher’s classroom where he found she was alone at her desk grading pop quizzes.

“Come on in and have a seat.  I have the card but I’m still waiting on Brittany to come by and sign the card.  She said she walks home so she could do it after school.”

William was bothered by the thought of staying another minute let alone ten minutes to wait fro Brittany to sign the card but he shrugged his shoulders and made his way to the desk where he sat as she resumed her work.  He pulled out his phone and decided to text Shane that he would be headed over soon but when there was no immediate response he set the phone on the desk and looked to the doorway.

“Oh,” Mrs. Gallagher said.  “Could you write down his number?  Did you ask him if it was okay?”

William shrugged and said he didn’t think it would be a problem before he took out a piece of scrap paper from the back of one of his books and wrote out Shane’s phone number.  The world felt infinitely big, time slow, and all of his meaning empty for a moment before Brittany walked into the classroom with a smile on her face and full of cheer.

“Hey Mrs. Gallagher, hey William,” she said, “sorry to keep you waiting but I had to take care of some things.”  She walked to Mrs. Gallagher’s desk where Mrs. Gallagher had set out the card.  Brittany looked at the front then said, “awe that’s sweet,” before opening it and reading through the other signatures.  “It’s so sad,” she said before she pouted for a moment then reached into her purse and produced a pink pen.  She used the desk to write out a quick message then sign her name then handed the card to Mrs. Gallagher who too it in hand and read over the messages then furrowed her brow with a sudden realization.

“William, you haven’t signed this,” she said.

William perked up at the words then got up from the desk and crossed to where they waited for him.  Now suddenly he was the one taking up their time, he thought, and foolishly too.  He took the card and looked at the messages but somehow the words didn’t make sense as he looked them over, none of the messages really mattered to him, it wasn’t his card.  He wanted to write something clever and meaningful but was a loss for words and he realized he didn’t have a pen with him.

“Um, I need a pen,” he said.

“Here use this one,” Brittany said, “it’s pink.”

William frowned at her words making the two of them smile but when he thought about how he had reacted he opened his mouth and parted his hands in an act of confused apology to which Brittany laughed more and Mrs. Gallagher handed over her red pen.  William took it in hand and said it would work before he leaned down to write out his message but nothing sounded right and he didn’t want to take up any more of their time so he just wrote, ‘get well soon” and signed his name before handing the card over with the pen.

“Great,” Mrs. Gallagher said.  She placed the card in the envelope and sealed it.

“Hey do you think I could get a ride with you?” Brittany asked.  “I live right in Shane’s neighborhood.  Maybe I can even visit for a little.”

William said that it wouldn’t be a problem even though he felt the opposite.

“Great,” Mrs. Gallagher said, “you can both carry his books.  I didn’t know which ones he had at home to do his work so I borrowed all of them from his teachers.  He’ll need to bring them back of course.”  She pointed to the shelf by the window where eight books sat piled in the sunlight.