Will’s backpack sat on the floor, just outside in the hall. He bent down, and the blood flowed to his head. His headache pulsed. He unzipped his bag fast. He was shocked to find his bottle of honey was still inside. He reached in and gave it a satisfying squeeze. He didn’t understand. How had no one taken it? They could have gotten away with it for sure.
Will looked down the hall to where some Saints were hanging out, beyond the airtight doors in the front room where the bus had crashed through. They were doing a massage train. The kid in front told an animated story and used his hands a lot because he didn’t have anyone’s shoulders to lay them on.
Will wished the party didn’t have to end. He thought about the life waiting for him in the elevator. Hungry, cold, and alone. Only going out at night. Trusting no one. He’d seen the love between the Saints last night. They worked together, had fun together, and watched each other’s backs. Will remembered what that used to feel like.
But he felt out of place. This wasn’t his gang. He didn’t want to push his luck by hanging out any longer and turning into the annoying house guest who wouldn’t leave. Will zipped up his bag and shouldered it. He headed for the exit.
“Where you going?”
Will turned to see Gates; he was disheveled and shuffling into the hallway behind Will. His eyes were barely open and he looked like he was in just as much pain as Will.
“Figured I should get going,” Will said.
Gates wiped his hand down his face. “Huh? Where?”
“Back home,” Will said. “I really appreciate you letting me hang out last night—”
“Home? I thought your whole gang bailed on you.”
Will didn’t like hearing his situation put so bluntly, but he couldn’t deny that it was pretty much true.
“I’ve got a smaller place now.”
“The elevator?” Gates said. “You’re not going back there. That’s depressing.”
“How do you know where I…”
“You mentioned it last night.”
Will groaned softly. He didn’t remember doing that. What had he been thinking?
“Look,” Gates said. “I know we haven’t known each other long, but, I’m not really one for waiting, in general. We need someone like you, someone who knows this school.”
“You want me to be a Saint?”
“I guess we’re stuck with that name, huh?” Gates said. “Anyway, yeah, that’s what I’m saying. I think you should run with us in the food drop today.”
Just the thought of being on the quad again, in front of everyone, made Will’s hangover double in intensity.
“You don’t want me in your gang.”
“I do actually, that’s why I’m fuckin’ asking,” Gates said sharply. “We’re the new kids, there’s no hiding it. I can’t lead my people if I don’t know how things work, or if I don’t know who I can trust and who’s trying to hustle us in the market… I don’t know all that stuff. But you do.”
The picture was clear in Will’s head. He was seizing in the middle of the quad, everyone was laughing, and the Saints were walking away from him. It would happen all over again.
“I don’t get it,” Gates said when Will didn’t answer. “You don’t want forty pairs of eyes watching your back from now on? You don’t want to get your respect back? Walk out there with us and you could show all of them that they can’t keep you down.”
“I don’t run in drops anymore,” Will said, breaking eye contact.
Gates threw his Nalgene bottle onto the ground, spiking it like a football. Water sprayed up on the door of a neighboring cell. The bottle clattered on the hard floor. Will looked at Gates, confused.
“Dude, what’s your problem?” Will said, throwing up his hands.
“You’re epileptic and it sucks. I get it. I got an earful of it last night. But, you want to hide? That’s what you want to do about it? I know I’m hungover, and my head is fucking killing me, and maybe I’m out of line in saying this, but grow the fuck up. You get seizures. That’s your deal. You have to accept it.” He massaged his temples, clearly in pain. “I’m sorry I’m yelling, but… don’t you want someone there to help you up next time?”
Will stared at Gates. He couldn’t believe what he’d just said, but what surprised Will more was that it didn’t hurt so bad to hear. Everybody usually skirted around the issue of his epilepsy, or tried to make it out to be not that bad. That always bugged him. Nobody had talked to him so plainly about his problem since David.
“All right,” Will said.
“Yeah?” Gates said, his eyebrows rising high. “Fantastic!”
They shook hands, and Gates’s grip was strong.
“You’ll love it. We have a lot of fun,” Gates said.
“I get one of those rooms, right?”
Will remembered a time when he wished everybody in McKinley knew his name. Things change. Will’s head tingled. His sweat was cold. His stomach felt ready to erupt.
He stepped onto the quad with his new gang.
The quad quieted as more people became aware of Will walking with the Saints. Whispered conversations sprung up all around. There was Will, not a Loner, not a Scrap, but a Saint. He locked eyes with former Loners—Ritchie in the Skaters, Mort with the Freaks, they looked stunned. He scanned the Geeks for Lucy, but came up empty. It was almost a relief. He was more afraid to know what she thought than anyone else.
The Saints took their place against the wall where the Loners used to stand. Will was suddenly outside of himself, seeing what everyone on the quad was seeing. A desperate person throwing in with the new kids, who didn’t know any better.
Will glanced at Gates, looking for that same confidence and belief that got him to step foot out here, but Gates’s focus was on the quad, not Will. All of the sudden, Will’s logic was melting away. He wondered if he’d just been talked into something totally idiotic by a dude who didn’t really care if Will lived or died. Maybe Gates rattled off this kind of hype at everybody he came across.
Across the quad, he saw Bobby in front of the Freaks. Bobby mimed having a seizure. He went stiff as a board, then dropped to the ground, and flopped around. The blue-hairs around him laughed and pointed at Will. Colin and Mort were the only ones who didn’t. They covered their faces and turned away instead.
“Try breathing. It makes you look less like a corpse,” Gates said with a smile.
“Ha, right.”
Will breathed out in a long, anxious exhale. It made him feel a tiny bit better. He was with the Saints now, and he had to play it out and hope for the best. There was no backing out without looking like a bigger fool. Will looked up to the empty sky.
“When’s this damn thing gonna start already?” Will said.
A hubbub over by Varsity drew the attention of the quad away from Will. It was strange that they stood at the neighboring wall, rather than their usual post, across from the old Loners’ spot. Sam was strangling Terry on the ground. Varsity guys converged on Sam and pulled him off. They restrained him, and he thrashed in their grip, as Terry got back to his feet.
“That’s the last straw, Sam!” Terry shouted. “You’re done!”
“You can’t kick me out of Varsity!” Sam said. “I made Varsity!”
Terry ignored Sam and turned to face the entire school. “I want everybody to know, Varsity is heading in a new direction, and it’s away from Sam Howard.”
“You’re losers!” Sam said. “You all just made the worst decision of your life.”
Sam’s words lost their power in the wide open quad, with a wall of Varsity staring back at him, unmoved. Sam frantically rubbed his hands through his hair; he snapped his gaze up to the roofline.
It felt monumental to Will. Sam was officially alone. Gangless. Powerless. And Will had the Saints. In an instant, the tables had turned. His hangover nausea started to fade as Will’s heart pumped with excitement. He zeroed in on Sam’s face, which was defined by a new frantic quality. As soon as the food dropped, Will would rush Sam. He didn’t have a plan other than that he had a gang behind him now, and Sam couldn’t do what he did to Will last time. He felt an overwhelming craving to hear Sam cry in pain.