Stand-Off Read Online Free PDF Page B

and that, as far as I was concerned, was that.
    I stood inside the door, shifting my eyes from Sam Abernathy to the television (he was actually watching a cooking show), to the open window, to the bathroom door that I practically tripped over, and then back to the Abernathy without saying anything to him.
    So Sam picked up the pleasantries on his own.
    â€œDo you want to watch TV with me, Ryan Dean?”
    I took a deep breath. I gave the airsacs in my lungs frostbite.
    If I could give a score to the degree to which I wanted to use a choice swear word at that point, it would easily be a five out of five skinny-dipping sessions with Annie Altman on the Ryan Dean West Scale of Things That Ryan Dean West Had to Deny Himself the Pleasure of Doing.
    Because I am responsible, and also mature and in control. After all, I’m fifteen and a senior, right?
    So I said to him, “I do not cuss, Abernathy. I want that to be known up front.”
    Sam Abernathy lit up like a six-month-old Christmas tree on the surface of the sun.
    â€œI don’t cuss either, Ryan Dean!” he gurgled.
    Okay. I’ll admit that I sometimes take liberties with the truth, like when I drew my Sam Abernathy comic for Annie. But the kid actually was wearing pajamas. Not the kind with built-in feet, but still . . . Sam Abernathy’s pajamas had soccer balls on them. Actual soccer balls. And he was wearing the pajama top, too. No boy in high school wears pajamas, much less full-set pajamas with soccer balls on them.
    I sighed a swirling cloud of angry fog.
    â€œWhat I mean to say, Abernathy, is this: It is thirty-five insert-appropriate-swear-word-here degrees Fahrenheit outside, and youhave the insert-appropriate-swear-word-here window open.”
    Then I dramatically stormed across the room, which, architecturally speaking, was not suited for dramas involving flailing teenagers storming and such, so I ended up bashing my right shin into my desk chair, which then caused a domino-type chain reaction involving gravity, a fifteen-year-old storming senior, and both of our desks.
    â€œOh my gosh!” Sam Abernathy, who was probably having an internal dialogue about the swear-worthiness of exclamations that included the word “gosh,” said, “Are you okay, Ryan Dean?”
    And the level of niceness and concern in the Abernathy’s voice was so infuriating, I thought I might actually burst into flames. I sprang to my foot (my left one, because my right one may have actually been severed, it hurt so bad) and grabbed my desk chair in both hands and started to lift it.
    Thankfully, I controlled myself before raising the chair even half an inch. Any higher than that, and I would certainly have snapped and thrown the thing out the goddamned window, or possibly—probably—at Sam Abernathy’s face.
    Another deep breath.
    â€œSam,” I said, my voice quaking, “it . . . it’s just really cold in here. Sam. Abernathy.”
    And I hobbled over to the open window. Did he actually remove the screen, too? There was no screen. I’ll admit that it kind of creeped me out, going to the window, because you know how when it’s darkoutside you can imagine all these terrible and horrifying things that aren’t really there. They aren’t really there, are they?
    â€œYou took the screen off?”
    He didn’t need to confess. I could clearly see the screen lying on the ground right next to where the footprints of the monster were.
    Sam didn’t say anything. He just grunted softly, like he was being stabbed or something, when I slid the window shut and latched it. Then I limped around the debris field between our beds and shut the bathroom door, and Sam Abernathy whimpered again.
    In the flickering light of a television program about reducing a sauce and pan-seared something, I stripped out of my shoes and clothes, threw them on my upended miniature desk, examined the purple mark on my