Chapter 14: Graduation's in June

Maxine had taken the news about her college account better than I had.

She said Blaine could keep it, and then she took a second job on Tuesday, folding towels at the rec center after school.

I took the evening shift off and spent it at Alder Street with Stefan.

We pulled wet drywall off my grandmother's kitchen wall.

He wore work gloves and a ball cap and hauled everything out in contractor bags.

I wore Blaine's old coveralls, rolled four times at the ankle.

"You look ridiculous," Stefan said.

"You look like a man who's lost a bet."

"I might have."

He went down the back steps with a bag over each shoulder.

On the third step his bad knee folded.

I heard the crack of the bags hitting the concrete before I saw him go down on one hand.

"Don't," he said, when I ran to him. "I'm fine."

"You're gray."

"It does that. Give me a minute."

I got him to the truck with his arm over my shoulders.

He leaned on me more than he meant to.

He smelled of plaster dust and the soap from his kitchen.

He drove us home with his jaw clenched and the bad leg stretched out sideways.

In the gravel by the garage he cut the engine, and neither of us got out.

"Sit on the tailgate," I said.

"I'll go inside and ice it."

"Sit on the tailgate, Stefan."

He sat.

I found the elastic bandage in the truck's first aid kit.

I brought a bag of frozen peas from the main house fridge.

Then I knelt in the gravel in front of him.

"Roll up your jeans."

"They won't go over the knee."

"Then take them off."

He looked at me.

"Unbutton them to the knee," I said, "and let me look at it."

He undid the top button of his jeans, and it was a long time before either of us said anything.

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