Page 51 of What You Own
“Yes.”
“He was discharged a few days ago. A broken wrist and a lot of bruises. He was lucky compared to you,mijo.”
“What’s his name?”
Lucinda’s eyes go soft, sad. “Ryan Sanders.”
Everything blurs. The name echoes in my head like a gong, carrying a shock unlike anything I’ve ever felt. Ryan is hurt. Ryan has a broken wrist. Why was I with Ryan? Why were we beaten up? A noise of pure distress rips free of my throat, and she jumps.
She takes my right hand and caresses it, trying to be kind. “He’s all right. You’re both all right, now.”
I haven’t spoken to Ryan in forever. Dad forbade it, and God help me, I went along with it. I turned my back on my best friend. On the better part of myself—a part I feel missing, even now, flat on my back in a hospital bed.
We were together. Did I go to him, or did he come to me? Where did this happen? So many questions.
The biggest question of all: has he come to see me yet?
“What happened?” I ask.
“I don’t know the details,mijo. I’m certain your father or one of the police detectives will fill you in.”
Police detectives. It sounds so ominous put like that.
Dad comes into my cubicle. He smiles at me widely, happy like I’ve never seen before, maybe because I’m so aware. Aware enough to get answers this time, damn it. “Where’s Ryan?” I ask.
His smile disappears. So does Lucinda, and I want her to come back. She’s always been on my side, and I need her here. “Probably at home with his parents. Why?”
“He was with me? He got beat up too?”
Dad steps closer, his face shuttering off like he does when he’s playing cool, sizing up a new client. “Yes, Ryan was there. He’s the reason you were hurt.”
That makes no sense. I’ve never seen Ryan throw a punch at anyone. “He wouldn’t hurt me.”
“Maybe not directly, Adam, but you were targeted because you were with him. What were you doing with him when I expressly forbid you from seeing him? I knew something like this would happen.”
I try to remember, I really do. My last clear memory is of sitting at home alone, wishing I was performing my part inRent. Hating myself for giving up Ryan’s friendship. Missing him, wanting to see him so badly I ached. “I don’t know,” I say at last, because it’s true. I don’t know why I was with him. “What happened?”
“Saturday night you went to the theater department’s cast party at Pizza City.”
I did? I was beyond embarrassed to have quit the play so close to opening night—again, because Dad insisted. He hated that I was in the play itself, instead of doing stage crew, and he hated more that Ryan was in it too. Playing my best friend. The only reason I’d go to the cast party is to talk to Ryan.
My heart jolts with hope. “I saw Ryan there?”
Dad nods, his eyes cold. He still doesn’t like Ryan, I can tell. He liked Ryan just fine up until he found out Ryan is gay. It sucks. “Yes, you and he went outside to talk.”
“What about?”
“I have no idea.”
“Ryan didn’t tell you?”
“Ryan and I have not spoken, and that isn’t likely to change. While you two were talking, three of your peers came over and began harassing Ryan because of his sexual preference.”
I want to scream that it isn’t a preference, that he simply likes men, but I don’t say it. Fighting with Dad on this again won’t give me answers.
“They harassed you, as well, deciding you were gay by association.” Dad looks nauseated when he says that, and something deep down inside me dies a little bit. “The harassment turned physical. During the fight, your arm was broken, and you were hit in the head with a brick.”
“I don’t remember any of it.”
