“You’re really that sick?” Dad asks me, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. Where the frames usually rest on bridge of his nose, there remain two red dents, like emergency nostrils. Dad readjusts his glasses, then spends a moment studying me. “How do you feel, now?” He draws out the question in slow, weary words, as if stalling for time while trying to remember his son’s name.

“Like crap.”

“Well, what hurts?”

“Everything.”

“Everything?” he echoes skeptically, then scratches his bearded cheeks. “Well, let me have a look at you.” He makes me open my mouth and say “ahhhh” while examining my throat with his penlight. He feels the glands around my throat, neck, and armpits. His fingers are gentle. I try recalling the last time he hugged me, but another memory surfaces: the two of us flying kites together the summer before last on a trip down to the Carolina coast. He was tired even then but somehow that day—with the surf and sky and sun flowing over us—woke him up for a few hours. That day he stopped looking like a sleepwalker and more like how I remembered him with Mom. That day on the beach both of us somehow managed to forget for a few hours that Mom was dead and all we really had was each other. That was a great day.

“Well, you don’t have any swollen glands and your throat and ears look good. Probably just a virus. Nasty stuff is always going around, you know.”

“I know.”

“So, you’ve been out all this week?”

“Yeah,” I say innocently. “I thought you knew.” I didn’t exactly plan it, but every morning when my alarm went off, the first thing I imagined was running into Scott Miller, Tom Jankowski, or Mike Studblatz. Or worse—facing Ronnie. So I kept hitting the snooze button—Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday morning—until it got so late the choice was made for me. Dad always leaves for his hospital rounds long before I get up for school, so I’ve been on the honor system for the last six years.

“I mean, Dad, come on,” I say. “I’ve been in my pajamas every night you’ve gotten home.”

“Hmmm . . .” His lips purse to one side and I know he’s nibbling the inside of his cheek just like I do. “Well, do you need me to write a note for those four sick days?” he asks. “To take to the school office tomorrow?”

“Better make it five days,” I say, then cough for effect and rub my belly like it aches, grimacing the whole time. “I’ll take it in Monday.”

“You wouldn’t want to ruin your streak, I suppose.” He scowls.

“Nope.”

“What about all those skipped gymnastics rehearsals?” he asks, putting his hand around my neck. “Doesn’t that mean you’ll have to miss your team’s recital this week?”

“They’re not rehearsals. They’re practice. And they’re not recitals.” I practically spit the word out on the floor. “They’re meets.”

“That’s right,” he says, tugging me into him by my neck, then ruffling my bedhead. “Practice and meets. Got it. And it’s not your schoolwork and classes you’re skipping. It’s your future.”

I can’t really say anything back, so I don’t. Besides, I like him rustling my hair.

“Well, you should get to bed if you’re sick. Get your rest.”

“I will,” I say. “I’m just going to watch The Late Show first.”

“Danny, sorry to hear you’re under the weather,” Coach Nelson says. “You and Bruce, both. Some sort of bug going around. Half of Coach Brigs’s starters been out sick this week, too. Kurt Brodsky’s still gone. Scott Miller, Mike Studblatz, and Tom Jankowski only returned yesterday.”

“Something’s going around, I guess.” I clench the phone tight enough to break it while Coach lists the names: Bruce, Brodsky, Miller, Studblatz, Jankowski. All of them mashing into my ear. Only one name missing for a royal flush. Ronnie. Poor, miserable Ronnie.

“Yeah . . . well ... I wish that’s why I was calling.” Coach Nelson pauses. “You get yourself healthy. Both you and Bruce. We miss you in the gym. Miss you gu—” and Coach’s voice catches. The line goes quiet for a second. I wait, unsure what’s wrong, somehow scared he knows about the attack, blames me for letting it happen, for not saying anything. Maybe he’s angry about the vomit stench. Maybe I didn’t clean up good enough and he can smell it. Did I leave the lights on? He’d be mad about that, too, threatening to take the gym keys from us. Maybe he never should have left us alone in the gym. Then Saturday never would have happened. My mind races while waiting for Coach to start talking again.

“This is real hard, Danny, and it ain’t right doing it over the phone but there’s no more time,” Coach begins. “We had a team meeting today, gathered before the rest of the school heard the announcement.”

“What?” He’s freaking me out.

“There is no ... there is no easy way to . . .”

Someone told. Ronnie told. Everyone knows. Everyone knows about the attack. Everyone knows! I feel equal parts panic and relief.

“Ronnie Gunderson passed ... Ronnie Gunderson killed himself yesterday.”

“What? How? Where?”

“His father found him in the bathtub. Unconscious. The paramedics couldn’t do anything for him.”

“But . . .” I trail off, having no idea what to say next. My ear feels hot from pressing it to the receiver.

“You still with me, Danny?”

“Yes.”

“I thought he was out sick. Like you, like Bruce,” Coach says. “If I had even an inkling what was going through his mind ... Danny, I’m going over everything and I’m . . .” Coach’s voice fades. I hear him swallow over the phone and then sniff, as if he’s holding back from crying. I’ve never heard a man cry before except in movies. Not even my dad has cried in front of me, even after telling me Mom died, not even at her funeral. Sometimes I got so angry at him for that, told myself maybe he never loved her like I did. Coach Nelson almost crying over the phone into my ear hurts as much as the actual news about Ronnie. It coils around my chest and begins to squeeze, accusing me of cowardice. I should have said something to someone. If I had gone to school on Monday and told Coach what happened, not pretended it never happened, not hated to think about Ronnie facedown in that room screaming his guts out while those guys ... he’d probably be alive right now.

“Danny?”

“Yes?”

“We’ll get through this,” Coach says. “The school’s already contacted a grief counseling service and—”

“Does Bruce know?” I cut him off.

“Yes. I called him first, wanted him, as the team captain, to ... you understand . . .”

“I have to go,” I say, then repeat it. “I have to go.”

“Sure, Danny.”