“Maybe it’s time to go to the police,” Jules’s mother now suggested. “Let them take it from here...?”
Jules glanced at Hobbit, whose face was purenope, butagain he was respectful. “I honestly don’t think they’ll take us seriously, Mrs. Cassidy,” he said.
“You don’t know that,” she countered.
“I kinda do, ma’am,” he said. “The police chief’s my father and he’s... Well, his main philosophy isboys will be boys. Even if we tell him otherwise, he’ll believe that Jules was targeted for being gay. He’ll also think it was a harmless prank. He’s... not very open-minded.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “That must be hard for you, living with him.”
Hobbit nodded. “Just a few more years.”
“Well, you’re always welcome at our house.”
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
She glanced at Jules. “How about Hank Harrison? Maybe he could... I don’t know. Help? Somehow? You really needsomeone who’s more than seventeen to deal with this.”
“We’re being careful,” Hobbit promised her.
“You did just say that to the woman who brought her son to the ER for beingdruggedat aparty.”
“We took good care of him, ma’am.”
“Hmm,” she said.
“We’re really getting close,” Jules pointed out. “I mean, whoever they are, they found out I’m onto them. I mean why else would they target me like that?”
Because you’re gay...?His mother didn’t say it, but the words were there in her eyes.
It was then that the doctor came in, with a screech of the curtain that he then pulled back into place. He was a young man, with country-club hair and a somewhat generically handsome Connecticut yacht club face. Jules was hopeful he’d be sympathetic, until he spoke. “How are we doing in here?” He had one of those Very Important baritones thatresonated throughout the tiny space. This man was far more interested in talking than listening.
“You tell me,” Jules’s mom said. “Did we get the drug test results back?”
“Not all of them, no, that could take a while,” the doctor said. “But blood alcohol levels are zero.”
“Yes, we knew that,” Mom said.
The doctor shot her a look as he picked up Jules’s chart, which was on a clipboard attached to the end of the bed. He flipped through it. “How are you feeling, son?”
Ooph, a dreaded son-caller, made worse by the fact that he was—at the most—only ten older than Jules. Way to push his buttons, Dr. Phony. But both Hobbit and his mother were wearing nearly identicalyikesfaces at that wildly out-of-placeson, and their synchronicity made Jules smile. “Much better,” he said. The IV drip was making him feel almost human again. His headache was almost entirely gone and the roiling nausea had diminished.
“That’s very good news,” the doctor intoned. “When it’s done, we’ll get you out of here. Mrs.—” he flipped back to the first page “—Cassidy, how about we step outside for a moment?”
“My son is an adult—” Mom started.
“Says here he’s only seventeen,” the doctor cut her off. “So.” He pulled back the curtain. “Please.”
Mom shot Jules a look, and he mouthedIt’s okay, but she rolled her eyes, heavy with attitude as she swept out into the main part of the ER. The doctor closed the curtain behind them.
“I love your mother,” Hobbit said.
“I do, too,” Jules said. “Shh.”
They could hear the doctor’s stentorian tones clearly through the thin curtain. “Sometimes,” he was counselingJules’s mother, “when children are under stress—and moving to a new schoolishighly stressful, for even the best students, let alone... the boys who might be... struggling both grade-wise and socially.”
“Oh, fuck,son, I think he just called you both stupid and gay,” Hobbit whispered. His polite facade had apparently left the room with Jules’s mom. “But I honestly don’t think you qualify as struggling socially considering you’ve probably had more—and much better—sex than Dr. Hair-Do’s ever had in his entire life.”
“Oh, my God,” Jules said, laughing in a combination of horror and genuine amusement. What exactly had he said last night? “Shh!”
