A Heart to Heal. Allie Pleiter

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СКАЧАТЬ fifteen-year-old—I’ve faced far worse, Max assured himself as he punched the assistive-entrance button and listened to the door whoosh open in front of him. At least schools usually had all the adaptations right. He’d had to sit there feeling stupid the other week when a restaurant had to literally move four tables in order to let him sit down with JJ and have lunch. Then the server had asked JJ what her “special friend” would like to eat. The nerve of some people! He’d given the server such a loud piece of his mind that they’d comped his lunch just to get him out of the place.

      He rolled into the entrance, marveling at how high school was still high school. The bang of lockers, the smattering of posters for dances and sporting events, the echo of shouts from a distant gymnasium—it all flung Max’s mind back to those years. Hockey team. Prom. Working on his first car. Life was one big game back then, a never-ending stream of escapades, pranks and good times. He’d loved high school, been a master of the school scene—the social side of it, that was. Academics weren’t ever his thing, though he’d managed to graduate just fine, despite a few...dozen...trips to the principal’s office.

      Funny that it was his first stop now—or rather, the guidance counselor’s office, which was practically the same thing.

      “I’m Max Jones, here to see Heather Browning.” Max swallowed his annoyance that he was calling toward a counter over which he could not see. Well over six feet when he could stand, he was especially annoyed by tall counters now that he navigated the world from about three feet lower.

      A gray-haired lady—school secretaries evidently hadn’t changed one bit since his varsity days—popped up from behind the blue Formica to peer at him over the top of her glasses. “Mr. Jones?” She did the double take Max always enjoyed. Somehow people never expected to see a guy in a wheelchair looking like him, and he got a kick out of leveraging the “Hot Wheels” persona to challenge their assumptions.

      Max flicked an Adventure Access business card up onto the counter—shiny black with flames along the bottom with his name and title, Company Spokesman and Adaptive Gear Development Specialist, screaming out in yellow letters. “In the flesh and on the roll.”

      Her wrinkled eyes popped wide for a moment, then narrowed in suspicion. “Is she expecting you?”

      “Yes, I am” came a female voice from behind Max.

      Max spun around and sucked in a breath. The high school guidance counselors he remembered didn’t look like that. Maybe this wouldn’t be such a rough gig after all. “Well, hello, Ms. Browning.” He didn’t even try to hide the pleasant surprise in his voice. Where had JJ been hiding this “friend”? If he’d had a counselor like Heather Browning trying to lure him into higher education, he’d be working on his PhD by now. She had fantastic hair—long, honey-colored curls tumbled down to her shoulders in a wave. Bottle-green eyes that—well, okay, they were currently scowling a bit at him, but he could handle that. People scowled at him all the time, and he much preferred it to the diverted glances of pity that some people threw him. Pulling off his driving glove, Max extended a hand. “I am most definitely pleased to meet you.”

      “Thanks for coming.” He could tell she only barely meant it. He probably shouldn’t have squealed his tires pulling into the parking lot like that.

      “Anything for JJ,” Max said as they went into her office. It was filled with all the stuff one would expect of a helping professional—inspirational quotes, pretty pictures, plants and pottery. The only surprising thing was a “flock” of various flamingo figurines on her bookshelf and a metal flamingo statue-ish thingy on her desk. Max picked it up and inspected it. “I’m surprised we haven’t met before.”

      Ms. Browning plucked the metal bird from his hands, returned it to its perch on her desk and sat down. She crossed her arms. “We have. This summer at the church picnic.”

      He remembered that picnic as a rather boring affair, all happy community fried chicken and potato salad. Nice, if you liked that sort of thing, which he didn’t.

      “Mr. Jones, if you—”

      “Max,” he corrected.

      “Max,” she relented. “I want to state one thing right off. This is a serious time commitment, and I’m sure you’re very busy. If you don’t have the time to give Simon the attention he needs, I’ll completely understand.”

      “Hang on.” Max felt his stomach tighten at the low expectation expressed in her words. “I’m willing to make the time. Only I’m not really sure how you go about making freshman year of high school not hard, if you know what I mean. That’s sort of how it goes, isn’t it?”

      “I’d like to think we can do better than that. A senior boy—Jason Kikowitz—has made Simon a target of sorts, and it’s going to take more than a stack of detention slips to set things right.”

      “Kikowitz?” Max chuckled; the name brought up an instant vision of a thick-necked linebacker with a crew cut and four like-size friends. “Why do the thugs always have names like Kikowitz?”

      She didn’t seem to appreciate his commentary. “I want Simon to learn the right way to stand up for himself while I get Mr. Kikowitz to change his thinking.”

      “Only Simon can’t stand up for himself, can he? Wheelchair. That’s the whole problem, isn’t it?” People always talked around the wheelchair—the elephant in the room—and Max liked to make them face it outright. It made everything easier after that, even if it took an off-color joke to get there.

      She flushed and broke eye contact. “It’s part of the problem, yes.”

      “It’s lots of the problem, I’d guess. Look, I’m in a chair. I get that. It’s part of who I am now, and pretending I’m just like you isn’t going to help anyone. It doesn’t bug me, so don’t let it bug you. I can take you out dancing if I wanted to, so I should be able to help this Simon kid hold his own.”

      “You cannot take me out dancing.”

      It was clear she wasn’t the type to like a joke. “Well, not in the usual sense, but there’s a guy in Chicago building an exoskeleton thingy that—”

      “This is not a social meeting. Are we clear?”

      She really did know how to suck all the fun out of a room.

      “Crystal clear, Ms. Browning.” She was too stiff to even match his invitation to use first names. He’d have to work on that. “What is it, exactly, that you think Simon needs?”

      “Well, I’d have to say social confidence. He’s led a fairly sheltered life because of his condition, but he’s brilliant...”

      “The geeks always are.”

      She sat back in her chair. “Can you at least try to do this on a professional level?”

      Max made a show of folding his hands obediently in his lap. “Okay, Counselor Browning. Simon needs some base-level social skills and maybe enough confidence to know high school is survivable. Have I got it?”

      She seemed to appreciate that. “Yes, in a manner of speaking.”

      “And you’re thinking you need something just a little out of the ordinary to solve the problem, right?”

      “Well, I...”

      “Hey, СКАЧАТЬ