If Things Were Different

She looked at the skin on her knuckle where the paper cut was. She took her other hand and ran her finger nail deeply into the cut making it bleed. The blood oozed out of the cut and ran down her finger, filling in the cracks in her hand. She took her bleeding hand to her mouth and licked it clean.

Toby stared at her from the opposite end of the room as she did this. He just couldn’t stop looking at her beauty, her grace as she licked her hand. He had wanted her since the first moment he had laid eyes on her, nearly four years ago, and with each passing year the cravings worsened until now where they’ve become nearly unbearable.

But Toby wasn’t like the other kids at school. He grabbed his joystick in his contorted hand and moved it around so his wheel chair would start heading towards the direction of the pencil sharpener. Blackie, his specially trained Labrador Retriever took notice of his movement, and she wasn’t the only one. As his chair moved across the room a small humming sound was heard. It was almost silent, but in the deadness of the classroom it was as loud as a baby’s scream. Toby hung his head and refused to look at anyone, especially August. The gorgeous girl with the bleeding knuckle.

You would think that by now people would quit staring at me. Toby thought to himself as he approached the sharpener. Beads of sweet started to appear on his forehead. Even though he wasn’t looking, he could feel the eyes of his 32 classmates upon him. Watching him. What are they watching for? Do they think I’m going to fall over? Do they want me to fall over? Do they want something interesting to happen during their otherwise shitty day so they can go to the lunchroom and have something to talk about to their friends over cold pizza and Dr. Pepper? Find another freak show.

He shook the thoughts out of his head, he didn’t have the room or the time for the negative energy, or at least that’s what Dr. Byrne would have told him if she were there. He had to concentrate on the task at hand. But he soon realized that the task at hand was going to be more of a hassle than he had realized before. From the back of the room (the place Toby’s used to sitting, since that’s the only place where there’s room for his chair and dog) it looked like the pencil sharpener was low enough on the wall so that he could reach it without much problem. But now that he was up here next to it, he realized that while he would be able to fit the pencil into the hole, he wouldn’t be able to crank the lever all the way around to sharpen his pencil. Sitting down he was just too short.

“Fuck,” he said quietly, thinking no one could hear him. But someone did. It was August. Her seat was right next to the pencil sharpener. He knew that. That was the whole reason he went over there in the first place. He just wanted to be near her. Closer to her. So he made up the lame excuse that his pencil needed to be sharpened, he didn’t realize it was going to cause so much trouble.

“Do you need some help?” She was turned in her chair, her long, red hair cascading down her shoulders like a flow of lava down a mountain. She was beautiful. A group of jocks sitting beside her started laughing a little. Half-assedly covering up their mouths with their hands. Toby, who was already not looking at August, looked even further away, his face as red as her hair.

“No, I’m okay. Thanks.” But August stood up anyway and walked over to where Toby was positioned near the pencil sharpener. She took the pencil from Toby’s hand and stepped beside his wheelchair. Leaning over him slightly she took the pencil and placed it into the hole and began rotating the lever around and around making that grinding sound that is so familiar in high school classrooms. Pencil shavings were falling in Toby’s lap. But he didn’t notice. What he noticed was what any high school boy would notice. When August leaned over to sharpen his pencil he could see right down her shirt. He looked away quickly, he didn’t want to be accused of anything he hadn’t intended on doing. And while, yes it was true he had gotten up to use the pencil sharpener only to be closer to August, he never intended to look down her shirt. But he looked anyway. He couldn’t help it. He was seventeen years old and he’d never looked down a girl’s shirt before. Thinking badly of himself the whole time he savored every moment of it.
But then, before he knew it, August was handing Toby back his pencil. “There you go.” She went back and sat down.

“Good going helping the cripple,” one of the jocks said and they all laughed, even August. Toby took his pencil in his hand, his joystick in the other and went back to his desk and his dog with his head hanging low.

At lunch August sat with her group at the long table in the middle of the lunchroom like she always did. Randy was sitting at the far end of the table opening his brown paper sack to see what his mom had packed him. Kevin was sitting next to him with his lunch tray of Pappa John’s Pizza and Coke. Kellie was sitting in-between Randy and Colin putting on some lipstick and then there was August, picking at her own pizza, not really very hungry. When she looked up from her mutilated slice of pepperoni pizza she noticed Toby was sitting at the table across from them. Alone. He always seemed to be alone. Or alone with his dog anyway. What was her name? Midnight? Something like that. She kind of felt bad for him. Always stuck in that chair. Randy must have noticed she was staring

“He’s got it easy. He doesn’t have’ta walk ta class.”

“Randy that was mean,” Kevin said, “I like it!” They gave each other high fives.

Then Randy started taking his napkin and ripping it into shreds. He took each little piece and wadded it up into a little ball in-between his thumb and forefinger. Then he took the balls and started throwing them at Toby. August looked over at him, his back was too her. He just sat there and took it. August thought it was sick.

“You guys are horrible!” she said to them as she picked up her tray and walked over to Toby’s empty table. She walked to the front and slammed her tray down harder than she had meant to. She was angry.

“Hi,” she said sternly, “can I sit here?”

Toby looked up in shock. Not so much that it was August that was at his table, but that it was anyone. No one ever sat with him, except for those rare occasions second lunch and third lunch were combined for an assembly and he got to sit with Rick, but that was like three times a year. And he never sat with a girl. Never a girl as beautiful as August.

“Uh, sure.” He said and moved some of his books around to make room for her tray. Blackie stirred under him, woken up from her nap by the commotion and then went back to her doggie dream world. From behind him, Toby heard Kevin yell, “Aim for the dog!” as a small wad of paper flew past Blackie’s face.

“Why do you let them do this to you?” August was talking to him. She was actually talking to him.

“Oh yeah, like I’m supposed to get up and kick their asses? Look at me! I can’t even walk much less fight someone.”

August sat there silently, thinking of what she should say. He had a point, but it still wasn’t right. She was still angry. So they sat there in silence, August picking at her pizza and Toby eating his ham and cheese sandwich he had packed earlier that morning. Soon, another wad of paper, this one covered in spit, flew through the air and landed in August’s hair. Gingerly she picked it out trying hard not to have to touch it. Toby tried not to laugh.

“It’s not funny.”

“Believe me, I know.” He said. She was silent again. “I just thought it was funny seeing you in my place for once. That’s all.” He took another bite of his sandwich and looked away, suddenly embarrassed.

“Don’t you ever get angry?” she finally said.
“Yeah, sure I do. All the time. But I gotta let it roll off my back ‘cause there’s nothin’ I can do about it. I’m stuck like this so I might as well deal with it, you know? Why are you over here anyway? Why aren’t you sitting with your friends?”

Now it was August’s turn to look embarrassed. “They were making me angry. They shouldn’t throw stuff at you like that. And you looked lonely sitting by yourself.”

“I don’t need your pity.” He took his joystick in his hand and surprisingly quickly moved away from the table. Blackie got up and followed him.

I guess that’s a wheelchair version of “storming off.” August thought to herself. She picked up her tray and went back to her friends. She didn’t know why she went over to Toby’s table in the first place. She didn’t know what she was trying to accomplish, but obviously whatever it was didn’t work out.

“So how are you and your boyfriend?” Randy asked in a teasing way.

“What are you talking about ass-hole? He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Oh no? I saw him looking down your shirt.”

“What? When?”

“When you were being a good Samaritan.”

“Don’t be silly, he wouldn’t do that.”

“Sure, okay.”

August sat down and took a bite of her cold pizza.

Later that same day Toby sat outside at the bus loading dock waiting for his bus to come pick him up and take him home from school. Not just any bus. The “special” bus. The bus he got to ride with all the retards and cripples like him. The kids who drool and pee on themselves. The kids that have to wear helmets incase they start to have seizures or they fall down or something. The short bus. He hated the short bus.

But today he was a little preoccupied. Today Rick, his best friend since freshman year was coming home with him so they could work on a project for they’re American Politics class. They had to make a diagram of how a bill becomes a law or some bull shit like that, and of course Rick chose to be Toby’s partner. Toby sometimes wondered if Rick wasn’t just being his partner because he knew no one else would, but he didn’t dwell on it too long because he knew they were
better friends than that.

From the corner of his eye Toby noticed Rick’s huge JNCO jeans running down the concrete towards him. Over his head he was hold a piece of poster board and his backpack. Rick skidded to a stop right before he would have collided with Blackie who was sunning herself on the hot pavement next to Toby. Rick was out of breath as he spoke to
Toby. “Did we miss the bus?”

“I would have left your ass here if the bus came.”

“Some friend.” Rick handed Toby the poster
board. “I got the last piece they had. We better not screw the fucker up. It cost me 80 cents too, damn it. I was gonna get a Snickers.”

“You don’t need a Snickers,” Toby said as he patted Rick on the stomach, Rick slapped him across the back of his head.

Just then the short, yellow bus pulled up close to where Rick, Toby and Blackie were waiting. It screeched to a halt, it’s breaks obviously in need of some repairs, and the side door lowered the wheelchair lift down. All around the bus loading dock high schoolers stopped what they were doing to watch the show.

Miss. Jane got out of the driver’s seat and waddled around to the wheelchair lift while Toby rolled over and positioned himself into the latches. Rick took Blackie’s leash and stood watching, but not the way the other kids were. Rick was observing, the other kids were ogling. Miss. Jane finally arrived at the lift and stopped for about a minute to catch her breath. During this intermission some of the crowd lost interest in the show and went on about their business, others just became more fascinated.

Toby sat and waited, staring at the little red button that Miss. Jane needed to push to send Toby soaring upwards to the bus’s door. If he could reach it he would have pushed the Goddamn thing himself instead of waiting on the fat bitch. More than he hated riding the short bus he hated to have to wait to ride the damn thing. And even more than that, he hated to make his best friend, his only friend, wait to ride the god-
awful thing.

But eventually, Miss. Jane caught her breath and walked the last two or three steps to the red button and pushed it, sending Toby towards the door. She then turned and looked at Rick. “Ya gotta note?” As she said it her chewing gum rolled around in her mouth causing her spit to escape its enclosure. Rick moved away from Miss. Jane’s furry upper lip and handed her the note that was needed for him to ride the “special” bus. She took it, gave it a once over and then let him on the bus followed close behind by Blackie.

Once on the bus Rick found a seat that was near to where Toby had situated himself by anchoring his wheelchair onto the floor. Behind him were two little kids with Downs Syndrome who were singing “Bingo Was His Nameo” really loud and next to him was a girl in a wheelchair, but she was different than Toby. She definitely had something wrong with her. She kept swaying her head back and forth and making a weird moaning noise. And there was a puddle of drool on the tray in front of her wheel chair. She looked like she was about the same age as he was. Rick turned
around really fast.

Rick had ridden on the short bus before a couple times, never really because he wanted to. He always felt weird ridding on it. Like the other kids on the bus were looking at him and were hating him for being better, for being “right” or something. He couldn’t explain it. It was like he wanted to get up at the front of the bus and tell them he was sorry that they were all like the way they were, and he didn’t think he was better than any of them. But he knew from talking with Toby that that would just piss them off. So he kept his mouth shut and tried to enjoy the ride.

Behind Rick, Toby sat in his permanent chair and stared out the window. He never looked at the other kids on the bus if he could help it. Looking at them just made him feel worse than he already usually did. He liked the old days better, before his mom went back to work and she would come and pick him up from school. He wouldn’t have to ride the bus then. He wouldn’t have to sit near Susan and watch her drool all over herself, and moan incoherently about nothing. He especially didn’t like to look at
Susan. Susan scared him.

He didn’t like to say that, in fact he never told anyone that she did. There’s an unspoken rule on the “special” bus. Everyone is supposed to accept everyone else just the way they are. And Toby tried with every fiber in his soul to do just that. But with Susan he just wasn’t able to. When he looked ahead of him and saw the two second-graders with Downs Syndrome he saw two little kids who just happened to have some kind of problem. Just like he did when he looked in the mirror. But when he looked at Susan, well, when he looked at Susan, he barely saw anything human at all.

He was ashamed to say so, to even think it. And that’s why he tried to avoid looking at anyone on the bus. He wanted to avoid dealing with those feelings that Susan was “less than human”. Susan scared him because he couldn’t tell what was going on in her mind, and sometimes he wondered if she was even aware of what was going on inside herself. She didn’t seem to have any way of communicating with anyone, besides her moans and flailing arms, he wondered he she was trying to tell everyone something and no one was understanding her. What if she had something really important to tell everyone and wasn’t able to. How would you feel if no one would listen to you? So Toby just decided not to look. It was easier that way.

Before they got to Toby’s house they stopped and let one of the Down’s kids off, who gave Rick a high five on his way down the isle. Then they dropped off a girl who looked completely normal to Rick, but he knew from riding the bus before that she was deaf. And sure enough, as soon as she stepped off the bus she was greeted by her mother who was signing to her a mile a minute. Rick just thought it was so amazing how people could communicate just by talking with their hands.

They did make it to Toby’s house, though and when they did they went straight to Toby’s bedroom, which wasn’t connected to the house at all, but was what used to be the garage. Rick went straight to the bed and plopped his backpack down hard and then he himself settled down onto the bed. Toby took Blackie’s vest off of her and let her roam around at her leisure.

“So, what’cha do today?”

“August sat with me at lunch.” Toby said as he poured some dog food into Blackie’s bowl. He said it so nonchalantly hat Rick almost didn’t realize what he had said.

“Oh cool. Wait. August? You mean your August?”

“She’s not my August. She doesn’t even know I exist.”

“Obviously she must if she sat with you at lunch.”

“She just felt sorry for me ‘cause some guys were throwing stuff at me. I told her how it was and left though. That was it, wasn’t it girl?” He said the last rubbing Blackie’s face and kissing the top of her head. She responded by giving him a big tongue kiss on the face.

Blackie: The only girl he’s ever loved. Well, beside August I guess. Rick thought to himself. “You should have gone for it dude,” Rick said.

“Gone for what?” Toby was now rolling over to his desk to get some supplies out for their big project. His room was big, considering it used to be a two and a half car garage. But since it had been remolded it now had carpeting, it’s own bathroom and a mini fridge and stove/oven. Toby had all the comforts of home right here in his room, he rarely had to go over to the real house, but he did, mostly only for dinner and to see his folks. This was about as independent as he was going to get for awhile, and Toby relished in every moment of it. He never got lonely, Blackie was there for that. And on really bad nights he’d call up Rick and he’d come over and they’d hang out and watch a movie or play Play Station or some shit like that. Rick was a good friend to Toby. They never really talked much about the wheelchair, all Rick knew was that Toby had been born that way and couldn’t use his legs for whatever reason. And for whatever reason Toby didn’t like talking about it, so Rick never pushed it.

“You should have asked her out man.” Rick said with a kind of disbelief in his voce. He couldn’t believe he was having to spell this out to him. He knew that Toby didn’t have much experience with girls, but he thought he at least had some common sense.

“I don’t wanna go out with a chick ‘cause she feels sorry for me.” He rolled back over with a ruler and some markers in his lap. Blackie was chowing down on her dog food in the corner.

“Hey man, it’s up to you. But I think you just let something slip through your fingers. You’ve been digging her since sophomore year.”

“Freshman year,” Toby corrected him.

“Freshman year, whatever. That’s not the point. You just lost yourself your one clean shot at August. Dude, you’re gonna hate yourself later
about this.”

“I already do.”

After school that afternoon August got into her car and drove straight to the mall like normal. She was on her way to meet up with some friends who went to an all girl’s Christian school that was near by, and every day it seemed like that all met up at Archview City Mall to chill and scope out the boys and the threads. She drove with her top down and the wind blew threw her long red hair creating a curtain behind her. As she approached the red light she smiled at the middle-aged man in the Camry next to her. Before he had a chance to smile back, she sped off again and was turning into the mall’s parking lot.
The mall was as it usually was, crowed, but she knew of a parking area not too many other people knew of off to the side of J.C. Penny’s. She’d been to the mall so often it was like her second home. August turned the corner and pulled into an empty space just as Kristi pulled up next to her in her blue, convertible beetle. “Hey!” Kristi yelled over her pumped up speakers in a far too
cheerful voice.

“Hey girl!” August called back as she got out of
the car. The two girls ran to each other, arms out, as though they hadn’t seen each other in years, when in fact they just saw each other the day before at the same mall, in the same parking lot, in the same parking spaces. They gave each other hugs and then stretched out at arms length to see what each other was wearing. They both approved and gave each other another
hug. “Where’s Tiffany?”

“She wasn’t at school today. I dunno why. I think she had a test in Spanish she needed to skip. Looks like it’s just you and me today.”

“That’s cool. I’m starving. I haven’t eaten anything all day.”

“Cool.”

“So how are you and Jake?” August asked about Kristi’s boyfriend even though it bothered her to do so. She didn’t like Jake. Not that he was a bad guy or anything. I guess I’m just jealous. She thought to herself. I want a boyfriend. If anyone ever found out that I’ve never had one I’d just die!”

“Ugh! He’s driving me absolutely nuts August! You won’t believe it! He wants me to go with him to this party on Saturday, but it’s the same day as my mom’s birthday, so I told him that I could go to the party after dinner because me and my family were taking my mom out to dinner so I kinda have to go with them ‘cause it’s my mom you
know and…”

But August wasn’t listening. She was thinking about what she had done earlier in the day in the lunchroom. It had seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Aren’t you supposed to stick up for someone when they’re getting shit on?

“I met a guy today.” She totally interrupted Kristi, but hearing that her friend might have a new love interest she didn’t mind.

“You met a guy? Who is he? Tell me about him. What does he look like?”

“We have a class together and he needed help with something today and I helped him with it.”

“Oh like homework?”

“Sorta,” August looked towards the ground,” “I sharpened his pencil for him. He couldn’t reach it.”

“What is he a midget or something?” Kristi almost sounded disgusted.

“No, he’s not a midget. He’s in a wheelchair.” She paused for a moment. Kristi looked down, ashamed at what she had said about him being a midget. “His name’s Toby. He gets to bring his dog to school.”

“That’s cool.” The two of them were quiet until they reached the door to the mall. Kristi opened the door and held it to let August in. The cool air hit them at once and she suddenly wished she had brought something to wear over her tank top.

“So that’s like different then meeting like a real guy then.” Kristi said from out of no where.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I thought you meant you met a guy you’d want to date or something.”

“Maybe I did.”

“You’d date a guy in a wheelchair?”

“Sure, why not?”

“’Cause, wouldn’t that be, I don’t know, kinda weird?”

“I think you’re just closed minded.”

“Whatever. I just think it’d be weird. I mean, how would you go to prom with him? He couldn’t dance with you. You couldn’t go bowling. Or go to a movie or anything. And does he have to a have like a special car? Can he even drive? My god, what if he can’t even drive? You’d have to drive him everywhere. And then he’d get all, like, dependent on you and stuff. That would so suck.”

“It doesn’t even matter ‘cause I totally blew it with him today anyway.”

“Oh, well that sucks.”

“Yeah.”

“So, how about Subway for food?”

“Sounds good to me.”

A couple of weeks later, after parent teacher conferences and the school talent show, Toby was again sitting in class staring at August. While he was looking across the room at his lost opportunity his pencil rested on its point haphazardly on his paper. Too much pressure was being forced upon the pencil’s tip and suddenly it snapped, sending Toby’s arm racing to the desk, and in turn slamming his head (which had been resting on his arm) onto the desk as well. The tip of his pencil was broken. It needed to be sharpened.

Toby took his joystick in his hand and began to move it around, sending him around the classroom until he made it near August’s desk. He looked up to where the pencil sharpener was, but this time he didn’t worry about it. Below it the school had installed a second pencil sharpener that Toby was able to reach after his mother had come for parent teacher conference day and seen that her son wouldn’t have been able to reach the existing one and raised hell about it. His mother was good to him like that. So Toby put his pencil into the hole and started rotating the lever around and around, causing pencil shavings to fall into his lap. Next to him August watched and wished that the new pencil sharpener hadn’t been installed, so that maybe she could have been given one final chance.