She nodded and ran off to deliver the finished posters to the display lot. I walked over to where James stood, nostrils flaring, speaking vehemently to Fel while his friends stood off to the side.
“Are you seriously trying to justify bullying Daniel?” James asked.
“I wasn’t bullying him!” Fel insisted. “I just told him I didn’t want him to hang out with us. He kept trying to be next to us, listening to our conversations. It was annoying. I’m not under any obligation to be friends with everyone in school just because I’m on the student council.”
James pinched the bridge of his nose. “Obviously, you don’t have to be friends with everyone. But you know Daniel is shy. It wouldn’t have hurt you to just let him stand next to you.”
“We were talking about things that are none of his business. Football team stuff. Who we’re going to ask to the dance. It doesn’t make me a bully because I don’t want Daniel to hear about that,” Fel whined.
“First, you called him a ‘loser.’ That’s beyond just asking him not to stand next to you. Second, exclusionisbullying. It’s not just giving people swirlies and throwing them into lockers.”
Fel rolled his eyes. “Mr. Wymack, am I in trouble? Are you gonna give me detention because Daniel got his feelings hurt?”
James executed a superhuman ability to remain calm as he replied, “No, Fel. Not because you don’t deserve it, but because that would probably make this whole situation worse for Daniel.”
“Cool.” Fel started to back away.
“Fel?”
“Yeah?”
“It ends here. I don’t want to find out that this situation escalated. I don’t want you talking about Daniel to anyone, putting anything online, or doing anything to make him feel worse than he already does. Clear?”
“Sure, Mr. Wymack.” Fel put his fists in his pockets and went back to his buddies. Their mouths moved and their arms gestured animatedly in our direction. Fel looked back to see James’s narrowed gaze on him before he shrugged his shoulders at his friends and re-directed their attention to the poster boards.
I brushed James’s shoulder. “Good work.”
His eyes shone as he whispered, “Fel is such a little dick.”
We both liked Daniel and had spoken many times about the introverted student who dealt with clinical anxiety. A late bloomer, Daniel looked like he could still be eleven years old. He ate lunch alone every day in the hallway alcove. His loneliness was palpable, painful for the faculty to watch, knowing there was little we could do.
Still, the intensity of James’s tone took me aback. His arms clenched and his neck muscles flexed. He gazed at Fel with an expression bordering on contempt.
Something clarified in my mind. Since he’d come to Coleman Creek High, James had attempted to engage students who existed on the outskirts of the school’s social order. Student interest clubs needed volunteer faculty advisors to be sanctioned and receive school resources. James had agreed to advise both the Dungeons & Dragons group and the Esports team, helping create social spaces on campus for pockets of students who’d previously had none. In the hallways, I’d seen him make a concerted effort to connect with the quiet kids and the loner kids and the kids who consistently got in trouble.
I pulled us to the shadows where the students couldn’t see, with me facing his back. Looping my arms around his belly, I squeezed into the softness there as I rested my head between his shoulder blades.
“What happened to you, James?”
He stayed quiet at first, placing his hand over mine and leaning his tall frame back into my embrace. He tensed when Daniel exited the school, relaxing once Nan guided the shocked sophomore over to where she and Penny were working.
“I got through it.”
Chapter ten
James
Ineededtotalkto Marley. My reunion was next week, and after seeing how I’d reacted to Fel and Daniel, I knew she had questions that couldn’t wait any longer.
Part of me worried she wouldn’t understand, even if I explained.
From everything she’d told me, she’d had a decent high school experience. That’s why I wondered whether she realized what we’d witnessed with Daniel might have long-term implications for him.
Those of us who’d spent our teenage years barely putting one foot in front of the other knew. That shit stung. Maybe forever.
I hadn’t said much during the rest of our shift at the tree lot, but I’d asked to come over and make dinner for us at her place the next night. So we could talk. Bambi and I lived in a run-down one-bedroom—pickings for rentals were slim in Coleman Creek—and we usually ended up at Marley’s. I’d gotten used to cooking in her kitchen.
At Walmart, I considered something fancier, but ultimately decided on the tried and true. I grabbed a pack of the black bean burgers Marley liked, ingredients to make a salad, and a bag of frozen waffle fries. At the holiday display near the register, I picked up new chew bones for the dogs, vaguely labeled “Christmas Flavored.”
