Page 7 of Sending Love Letters to Animals

Davud’s golden cheeks picked up a rosy tint.

“Yeah,” he said. “I missed you too, man. You know. The hospital. Every time I go, they…it’s a lot, you know?”

Again, we stared at each other. Ever since the car accident the summer after junior high, Davud had been going to a specialty hospital in Chicago once a semester for a week. The specialists there would test him, talk about “options,” and try to figure out if he’d ever walk again. Davud never came back with hope. Just more disappointment.

Once one of the most popular kids in school, athletic, funny, a guy the girls loved to moon over, he had found himself mostly forgotten. Largely ignored. He had his wheelchair, unexplainable pains coming from legs that couldn’t feel anything else, and a lot of disappointment twice a year. Besides Jules, he was one of my very best friends. Though, I had to wonder if we would have ended up best friends if he hadn’t had his accident. We’d always been good friends, but things might have gone differently if he had also been a jock in high school. More than likely, he would have been one of the uber popular sports guys who didn’t have time for me. I never knew if I should be grateful that we were friends, or disappointed. Our close friendship only existed in the reality where Davud was disabled.

“Well,” I said, “maybe we need to revisit the parameters of this arrangement?”

Davud’s disappointment melted from his face and was replaced with curiosity.

“We’ll just recommend movies we love,” I suggested with a shrug. “No other rules.”

“Ugh,” Davud groaned. “I’m going to be watching so many musicals.”

“Take it or leave it, my good man,” I teased. “It’s my final offer.”

I extended my leg to nudge the wheel of his chair again, though it merely jostled his chair since the brakes were on.

“All right,” Davud said with an exasperated sigh. “But you’ll be sorry! I love so many action and sci-fi flicks. You don’t even know.”

“I believe you.”

The two of us were laughing as Ms. Tabatabai breezed through the meeting room door, a Starbucks coffee cup in her hand. Along the walls of the meeting room hung posters that Spirit Committee had made for school events and organizations. They actually fluttered in the breeze Ms. Tabatabai created as she whisked herself into the room. As she was setting her arm full of folders and her coffee cup on the podium, the posters were starting to settle back into place. Davud and I turned our attention to the podium, but it took Ms. Tabatabai clearing her throat for everyone else to follow suit.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Ms. Tabatabai began, “I don’t have a lot of time today, so let’s make this a short one, huh?”

We all mumbled our agreement with varying degrees of excitement.

“Great,” she said. “I think we’ll switch things up with beat assignments this semester—”

Groans erupted from six mouths at the prospect of our assignments changing halfway through the year. Typically, as we’d all gotten used to during our time in Journalism Club, we’d get an assignment at the beginning of the year, and that’s what we’d stick with for the entire school year. “Beat assignments” were the “beat” each of us was assigned to from August through May. Athletics, academics, extracurriculars, teacher/student relations, Student Council and other school political goings on, and special interests—for anything that didn’t fall into another category.

I’d had Student Council and politics since August and things were going fine. For the first five months of school, before Christmas Break, I’d covered Student Council meetings, School Board meetings, Parent-Teacher Conference nights, and similar events. It was always the cushiest of beats because adults generally behaved when I was in the room and Student Council members knew better than to act up around the press. I merely had to show up, take notes, write a decent article, and things went well for me in Journalism Club. I wasn’t pleased at the thought of having to delve into something more time-consuming or hectic in the last five months of my high school career.

“Ugh.” Davud shifted in his chair as he murmured out of the corner of his mouth. “She’s going to take special interests away from me.”

Grimacing, I gave Davud my most sympathetic look. Special Interests was another cushy beat. Most things fell into one of the other categories, so Davud’s workload wasn’t as big as everyone else’s. Not that Davud wanted to be treated differently—nor did anyone want to treat him differently—but being in a wheelchair made it harder for him to go to as many events as everyone else. His mom or dad always had to drive him to his assignments if he couldn’t get a friend to take him, too. Doing his part in Journalism Club meant Davud had to work and plan twice as hard as everyone else.

Taking Special Interests from him would have been incredibly shitty of Ms. Tabatabai.

“Davud,” she said, as if reading my mind, “we’ll put you on Student Council and politics, okay?”

“Oh.” Davud grinned. “That works. Okay.”

Ms. Tabatabai smiled without looking up.

Okay, so our club adviser didn’t screw Davud over. The realization that it was likely Davud and I would switching beats had me sitting up straight in my seat. Having the easiest beat assignment in club for the rest of the year was definitely not the worst-case scenario.

“Jillian, you’ll take special interests,” Ms. Tabatabai announced quickly.

I slumped. Jillian agreed enthusiastically. Why wouldn’t she? She’d just been assigned the easiest beat for the last few months of her time in Journalism Club.

Asshole.

“Ben, you’re on Athletics. Barry, Academics. Marcia, we’re putting you on…teacher-student relations,” Ms. Tabatabai fired off quickly.

They all agreed as my stomach sunk.