It still seemed like a dream, a nightmare, but every day that wore on, things falling back into routines, made the dream quality ebb. Things were predictable in a hospital. Meals came at the same time. Nurses and doctors drifted in at about the same time. Even Craig and Marco came at the same time after school, rocking in the visitors chairs, getting up and walking around and Jimmy watched them, felt a sharp pang of jealousy as they walked, and he'd never really noticed the mechanics of it before. How complicated it was. The complex set of instructions from the brain to the nerve endings to the muscles and bones in the legs and feet, all working together to produce the smooth and fluid movement.
He narrowed his eyes at Craig and Marco, thinking about them. Thinking how they never really picked on Rick, were never really involved in that whole thing. He supposed they had other issues. Marco was dealing with being gay. Craig was dealing with…his parents' deaths, his girl disasters. Whatever. As for Marco, he didn't even think it was in him, to target and bully someone else on the paper thin excuse they had used. Craig, he didn't know. Maybe Craig understood something he hadn't, that people were volatile, that they could hurt you so you should be careful. Maybe Craig had learned that lesson and now he had, too.
He tried to be upbeat for them, to be cool. So he couldn't walk, he'd roll. No sweat. But after they left he'd cry, thinking how now he was the crippled friend even though they didn't treat him that way but it didn't matter. What was, was. And there was no way to change it.
Spinner was another matter altogether. His accomplice in crime. Spinner had met him cruelty for cruelty. There were days when they would toss Rick between them like some bruised and battered ball, shoving him against lockers and into dumpsters and calling him names and threatening him. For Terri's honor. He had hurt Terri, their friend. And so it had felt noble. They had to get rid of Rick, they had to teach him a lesson because their friend was hurt. It shrieked of honor and loyalty and friendship and so they could ignore the vicious pleasure that there was in driving someone so ruthlessly. They could ignore the sick fun of punching someone, of making someone moan in pain, of making someone get that look of fear in their eyes.
Spinner had yet to show up. He kept waiting, wanting to see him, wanting to see what blame would be reflected back at him. Craig and Marco didn't understand the extent of it. They didn't know to what degree he had brought this upon himself. Spinner knew. Spinner knew.
His dad would come visit, sorrow in his father eyes. Jimmy didn't know how to alleviate that sorrow. He couldn't walk. He couldn't go back. He couldn't make it better. His dad was faking a cheerfulness and a positive attitude that Jimmy knew wasn't real.
Craig and Marco didn't always come together. Sometimes one would show up first, then leave when the other arrived, making Jimmy think they were covering shifts. Marco was slowly loosing that sad look, getting used to the idea, he supposed. He supposed that they could get used to it a lot faster than he could. Marco would ask how he was, how the therapy was going, what the doctors said, what he was thinking, how he was feeling. Listening with that great ability of his to listen. Craig, on the other hand, talked about his life. Talked about the band and school and Ashley and Joey and Angela. If he mentioned Jimmy at all it was only in how his absence was affecting him, like he wasn't able to make a song work without him or he could really have used him in gym class or he missed him in the study hall they had together. It was okay. Craig's babbling about how Spinner fucked up at rehearsal or how him and Ashley were hanging out a lot was the only time everyone in the room wasn't completely focused on him.
Still, he wanted to see Spinner. He wouldn't mention it to Craig or Marco because they might drag him in, and he didn't want it that way. He wanted Spinner to come of his own accord.