Chapter 1: The Graduation Speech
The bicycle was a blur of silver and green, and then it wasn’t. There was the shriek of brakes, a hollow thud, and the world snapped into a series of still frames: asphalt rushing up, a scattering of textbooks, a car bumper skewed at a wrong angle. The pain was a white-hot circuit through his arms, branching into his shoulders, his neck. Ritchie lay on the warm pavement, watching a cloud drift in a perfect blue sky, thinking, You have got to be kidding me.
That was three weeks ago.
Now, the high school auditorium smelled of lemon-scented disinfectant and the faint, ghostly aroma of stale popcorn. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, bleaching the color from everything. Ritchie stood at the podium, his voice bouncing off the empty bleachers. He felt like a bug under a microscope, pinned and displayed.
Two fiberglass casts, plaster-white and heavy, encased his arms from fingertips to biceps. They were strapped into a double sling that held everything crossed and useless against his chest. He’d practiced the speech for months, perfect gestures included. Now, he couldn’t even turn a page.
“We stand on the precipice of the future,” he read from the angled binder his vice-principal had set up, his voice flat. It was supposed to be inspiring. It felt like a recitation of a grocery list. A dull, persistent itch flared on the bridge of his nose. He tried to rub it against his shoulder, but the sling held him fast. The itch burned. He blinked, forced a smile he didn’t feel. “Our paths are our own to choose.”
His eyes swept the crowd. His classmates were a sea of blue caps and gowns, their faces blurry without his glasses. He saw his mom, Naomi, in the third row. Even from here, he could see the tight concern around her eyes, the way her knuckles were white where she clutched her program. His dad, Daniel, sat beside her, giving a thumbs-up that was too enthusiastic, too loud in the quiet.
Ritchie finished. The applause was a wave of polite noise. He nodded, a stiff, awkward jerk of his chin, and carefully descended the steps with the help of the principal, Mr. Daly, who hovered like a worried sparrow.
The reception in the gym was worse.
“Dude! Double-fisting the pain, huh?” Brandon Choi punched him gently in the shoulder, then winced. “Oh, shit, sorry. Can you even feel that?”
“Mostly just pressure,” Ritchie said, the fake smile already making his jaw ache.
“So, like, how do you…” Brandon’s eyes darted downward for a split second, then back up. He grinned. “You know. Pee and stuff.”
“I have help,” Ritchie said, deadpan.
Brandon’s eyes went wide, then he laughed, a little too hard. “Right. Right. Wow. That’s, uh… medieval, man.”
It was. It was exactly that. A procession of well-wishers followed, each with their own brand of awkwardness. His aunt gave him a careful side-hug, smelling of lavender. “My poor brave boy,” she murmured, as if he’d survived a war, not a Taurus running a red light.
His grandfather clapped him on the back. “Tough break, kid. Literally!” He chuckled at his own joke.
His little cousin, wide-eyed, just pointed and asked, “Are your arms broken off?”
Through it all, Naomi was a constant, quiet presence at his elbow. She held a plastic cup of punch for him, tilting the straw to his lips when he nodded. She wiped a drip from his chin with a napkin, her fingers quick and soft. He hated it. He hated needing it. Every time she leaned in, he caught her scent—vanilla laundry detergent and something else, something uniquely her. It was the smell of his childhood, of comfort, and now it just underscored his utter helplessness.
“You ready for pictures, sweetheart?” she asked. Her ginger hair was tied back, but a few fiery strands had escaped, framing her freckled face.
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not really.” Her smile was sympathetic, but firm.
They posed under the wilting balloons and a cardboard banner congratulating the graduating class. Ritchie stood stiffly, the casts a monstrous white bulk in every frame. His dad threw an arm around his shoulders. Naomi stood on his other side, her hand resting lightly on his sling. The flash made him see spots.
“Beautiful,” the photographer said. “One more! Smile, Ritchie!”
He bared his teeth.
Later, in the parking lot, the June heat was a physical weight. Daniel fumbled with the keys. “Great speech, son. Really heartfelt.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Stanford’s gonna be a blast. You’ll be all healed up by fall, good as new.”
Ritchie stared at the car door handle. He couldn’t open it. He waited.
Naomi slipped past him, pulled the door open. He angled himself inside, the casts making it a slow, clumsy ballet of ducking and twisting. He couldn’t buckle the seatbelt. Naomi leaned across him, her body briefly covering his, the softness of her breast pressing against his cast for a half-second as she clicked the latch. He held his breath, looked out the window at the fading school building.
“All set,” she said softly, withdrawing.
At home, the rituals began. The sling had to be unbuckled. The shirt, a button-up he’d struggled into that morning with her help, had to come off. He stood in the middle of his bedroom, head bowed, while her fingers worked the buttons. The backs of her knuckles brushed against his chest. He was intensely aware of his own body, of a new, restless energy humming under his skin that had nothing to do with frustration and everything to do with being eighteen. It was confusing, a static in the background of his pain.
“I’m sweating like a pig,” he muttered, as she peeled the fabric from his shoulders.
“It’s a hot day,” she said, her voice focused. She balled up the shirt. “Do you need the bathroom before you lie down?”
He nodded, a flush of pure humiliation heating his neck. This was the worst part.
In the bathroom, he stood before the toilet. She stood behind him, a steadying hand on his hip, looking fixedly at the wall, giving him what shred of privacy the situation allowed. The sound was deafening. He closed his eyes, wishing for a sinkhole to open in the linoleum.
“Done,” he whispered.
She helped him with his sweatpants, then guided him back to the bed. The evening light was long and golden through his blinds. The itch on his nose returned, maddening, centering all his frustration into one tiny point of agony.
“Mom.”
“Yeah?”
“My nose. It’s itching. I can’t… I can’t stand it.”
She sat on the edge of the bed. “Here.” She scratched it gently for him with her fingernail. The relief was instantaneous, almost euphoric.
“A little to the left. Yeah. Thanks.”
Her touch was careful, clinical. But she was close. He could see the pale dusting of freckles across the bridge of her own nose, the faint lines at the corners of her eyes. She finished, but her hand didn’t move far. It came to rest on his forehead, pushing his messy brown hair back. Her thumb stroked his temple once, twice. It was a maternal gesture, one she’d done a thousand times when he was sick as a kid.
But he wasn’t a kid now. And something in the quiet of the room, in the vulnerability of his broken body and her unwavering care, made the air feel thick, charged with something unnameable. Her eyes held his for a second too long. A faint pink bloomed on her cheeks. She looked away first, clearing her throat.
“Try to get some sleep,” she said, her voice slightly hushed. “It’s been a long day.”
She stood up quickly, smoothing her dress. She left the door open a crack, as usual. He heard her footsteps fade down the hallway, then the distant, comforting sound of his dad in the kitchen, clattering pans, asking about ordering pizza.
Ritchie lay in the twilight, the ghosts of itches dancing over his skin. He was trapped in this room, in this body, for the entire summer. The thought was a cold stone in his gut. He shifted, the bulk of the casts making it difficult. The sheet rubbed against him. A different kind of awareness, a persistent, physical urgency that had become more frequent and less manageable since the accident, stirred, trapped against the rough fabric of his sweatpants.
He couldn’t even take care of that himself. Not even that.
He stared at the ceiling, listening to the mundane sounds of his family’s life continuing without him. The ache in his arms was a dull, familiar throb. The other ache, the one full of confusion and a strange, guilty heat, was new. He had nowhere to put it. He was just supposed to lie there.
And the summer stretched out before him, an endless, airless corridor of days just like this one.