Left Out by Tim Green Page B

and sat on the edge of his bed. She pointed to his ears in their drier on the nightstand and then motioned for him to put them on.
    He huffed and mouthed a word he could only sense through the movement of his lips. “Really?”
    She nodded yes and motioned again.
    Landon sighed, set down his book, and put on his ears. Genevieve waited patiently and didn’t speak until he had them on and asked her, “What?”
    She gripped his leg through the covers and leaned toward him. “I don’t want you to quit.”
    Landon jerked his head back and lowered his chin. “You mean football? Who said I quit? I didn’t quit.”
    Genevieve held up her iPhone as evidence. “Megan said you did one tackling drill and carried the water bottles around for the rest of practice. Landon, you can’t quit. I know you can do this!”
    Landon stuttered, the words piling up in his mind, unable to get them out through his mouth fast enough to explain everything. It wasn’t as easy as it looked. A manager was a valuablepart of a team. Coach Furster wanted him to do it. He’d felt joy hearing and seeing people thank him. And d’Artagnan! D’Artagnan had served the other musketeers before he could become one.
    It all got garbled.
    Genevieve scowled and shook her head, showing him her phone. “Look, Skip texted Megan that you’re a big powder puff. I want you to smash that jerk, and I know you can .”
    Landon looked at the whole text. “Yeah, but see? He says, ‘Landon is a great kid.’ He says that first, before anything about being a powder puff, so . . .” He looked at her weakly. “Skip’s my friend.”
    Genevieve grabbed the front of Landon’s pajamas and yanked him close. Her creamy face was blotched with red and her eyes burned like gas flames. “He’s not your friend , Landon.”
    â€œHe’s not mean,” Landon shot back.
    â€œThat’s not a friend. A friend isn’t someone who’s just not mean . A friend is someone who’s nice. ‘Hey, Landon. How you doing, Landon? Come hang out with us, Landon.’ When are you gonna get that?”
    She released him, jumped up, and paced the floor. “You are not a powder puff. I know you’re not. Now you have to show people you’re not. Landon, you’re a giant and you’re strong.”
    Genevieve stood in the middle of his room, hunched over, and smacked a fist into her open hand. “You have to smash them and smash them, over and over, until they respect you!”
    Landon’s head got warm and his stomach complained. He reached for his ears before Genevieve saw him and shrieked, “ Don’t you unplug! You listen to me!”
    She threw her eyes and her hands toward the ceiling and started to move around the room like a wild thing in a cage. Then she turned on him, glaring. “If I could be you for a week , for a day , for an hour ! I’d crush them! If I had what you have they’d run from me! They’d whimper ! They’d hide.”
    He thought she was going to come at him again, but she stopped at the edge of his bed, her face mottled and contorted with pain. Tears coursed down her cheeks, glittering in the yellow light that seeped through the shade from his nightstand lamp. They dropped onto his blanket, and he knew that if he weren’t deaf, they would make a sound he could hear.
    And then Genevieve held up something from when they were little.

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    From her shorts pocket, Genevieve removed a gold medallion strung from a red, white, and blue ribbon. She sniffed and let the medal dangle from the ribbon so that it wobbled back and forth, and even in the yellow light of his reading lamp, it flashed brightly. “Remember this?”
    Landon turned his head away. “Yeah. I remember.”
    She tapped his arm. “Here, I want you to have this, Landon.”
    â€œWhy would I want your gold medal for