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Ricky skates to school every morning.
His parents used to drive him every morning when he was younger, but then they got busy, and they would argue over who needed to take him and--
Ricky started skating to school every morning. He had a few scrapes and bruises, at first, because he wasn’t entirely sure how to balance himself, and how to swerve around cracks in the road.
So by all accounts, Ricky shouldn’t be making rookie mistakes and falling on his face because he ran over a rock.
This feels like more than a rookie mistake, however, when he wakes up with the weird feeling of disorientation that he has lost time. He sits up, groaning. Of course, the one day he has to forgo his helmet (because it’s in the kitchen where his parents are fighting but it’s fine it’s better if they’re here, and they’re fighting, it’s better than mom being far away and unreachable, and in Chicago, it’s fine), he falls off his skateboard and brains himself on the sidewalk.
Ricky runs his fingers gingerly over the bump forming at the corner of his forehead. He hisses at the contact and wipes the little dribble of blood that comes away on his fingers onto his jeans. God, his head hurts. He has a whole day of school ahead of him, and then scene blocking afterward with Nini and EJ and Gina and god knows who else. He’s not sure he has the energy for all that, but if he doesn’t go to school, then he has to go home and--
So, school it is. His head feels swirly and foggy and sort of spinny, pulsing with pain from the point of contact with the sidewalk.
In a haze, Ricky finds himself staring into his locker at school. He doesn’t remember the journey there, and he feels like he should be more concerned about that, but he isn’t. He can’t dredge up the energy to care about it past the pounding in his head and bickering of his parents still swirling around his head.
(His mom is going to be gone after Friday, she said she might stay longer but she never does, she doesn’t want him or his dad or to stay here--)
He bends to the floor, picking up his skateboard and jamming it in with mechanical movements. The edges of the board scrape against the locker’s edges in a way he usually wouldn’t allow, but if he even wants to think about making it all the way through today he needs to get that added weight off his back.
He stares into his locker for another long moment, trying to remember if he needs anything else for his classes today. What classes does he even have today?
It’s Friday. Which means…
Ricky’s not sure what it means.
Friday, however, feels like an English day, in his head. So Ricky follows his feet on autopilot to where he thinks his English class might be.
“Ricky!”
Ricky spins around and then has to balance himself with a hand on the lockers to his right as his head continues to spin after his body has stilled.
“Red.” he managed blankly after catching sight of Big Red. His friend frowned at him.
“Ricky, your first class is in the E hall, why are you all the way over here? The bell’s gonna ring in a minute or two.”
“E hall,” Ricky repeats. Big Red gives him a weird look.
“E hall.” He confirms. He walks around Big Red, who stays where he is, and heads towards where he’s pretty sure E hall is. He’s learned better than to trust his feet by now, though, and he makes sure to glance at the signs above the doors.
E Hall rooms 101-109
Jackpot.
Ricky follows his feet, more willing to rely on them, into Mr. Jackson’s classroom. Ricky slumps into his usual desk three-quarters of the way back and presses his head against the disgusting school desk. The coolness of the fake wood feels amazing, and Ricky closes his eyes, sighing into the wood.
7 more hours to go. He can totally do this.
___________________________
Ricky, predictably, cannot do this. His head is pounding in a way he didn’t know it could. He had considered, briefly, heading into the lunchroom to have lunch with the rest of the cast as normal, but stepping even into the doorway of the cafeteria made him feel as if he was going to drown under the tidal wave of sound, so that idea was vetoed with maximum prejudice.
Ricky didn’t have many friends. Nini and Big Red were his two best friends, but they’d only known each other in high school, having transferred from different middle schools. More recently, he had the cast from HSM: The Musical to count among his friends. (Well-- they were friends. And they were friends with Nini and Big Red, and since Nini had insisted he try out for the musical ((because, “If I’m going to be forced to kiss a guy, it should at least be one I like.”)), they were sort of obligated to like him because they liked Nini.) But Ricky had spent the majority of his time in middle school getting bullied or trying to avoid bullies. One more lunch in the bathroom wouldn’t kill him.
When Ricky got to the bathroom, he slid to the floor in the biggest stall gratefully. The floor here was undoubtedly more grimy than his desk had been this morning, but he just doesn’t care. He closes his eyes, breathing through his nose slowly in an attempt to alleviate the pain in his head. After a moment, he opens them again, dragging his backpack into his lap. He unzips the big pocket, where he usually throws his sandwich and chips, before digging through the mess that has grown there since the beginning of the year, one which he has never bothered to do anything about.
Except, there’s no food. A quick check in the lesser-used pockets of his bag shows their absence their too, and after a moment he groans in frustration, resisting the urge to toss his backpack across the stall. If he tosses it, he will have to go get it.
He remembers, ever so clearly now that he’s already searched for it extensively, that there was no sandwich to be found in the first place, because he didn’t make one today. His mom had offered to make him one today, an olive branch from the tumultuous last few days in their household. He had accepted, happy to attempt to memorize the sight of his mom flitting so effortlessly around the kitchen and ignore the reason he needed to try and memorize such a mundane sight.
Then his dad had come in and asked what his mother was doing. She had replied cooly that she was making lunch for her son if he didn’t mind?
He did mind, he thought his son was too old to be babies by his mother. He told her so, in increasing volume. His mom had replied in kind, and the two of them began to grow louder, and Ricky didn’t stay to hear who won the argument, just hightailed it out of the house. (Trying desperately not to think about how he had made his parents fight again).
Ricky sighs, zipping his backpack up again. He pulls his phone from his pocket, squinting his eyes against the pain the dimly lit screen causes. He quickly swipes through his phone, setting a timer for 15 minutes from now so he can wake up in time for class.
A notification pops up on his screen, dated a few hours ago. Ricky swiped down, revealing a text from his dad telling him that he’ll be home late that night and that Ricky might need to make himself dinner.
There’s no mention of this morning. No apology. But Ricky has long learned to read between the lines of what his parents actually say.
No mention of Mom. Dad’s gonna be home late, and Ricky will need to feed himself because there will be no one else there to feed him.
Mom’s gone. Back to Chicago, probably.
He checks his texts, but there’s nothing from his mom, like usual.
This has happened before, and Ricky doesn’t expect his Dad back before Sunday at the least.
Ricky sets his head against the wall again, shoving his phone back into his pockets. He leans back, resolutely determined to nap instead of thinking about his parents. Its never changed anything before.
The burning in his eyes is because of his phone, and absolutely nothing, nothing else.
___________________________
The burbling noise of his alarm wakes him up 15 minutes later. His eyes are bleary as he struggles to turn off his alarm, the sound of it piercing his ears. He has history class, next, and hopefully, his teacher isn’t expecting too much of him because he doesn’t have much to give. The fogginess that’s been crowding his head all morning seems to have migrated into his vision. The stall around him swims and dips, swaying from side to side, and he swallows hard against the rise of bile in his throat.
He wraps his hand around the grab bar behind the toilet and starts to leverage himself up, eventually closing his eyes to stop the swooping of the room around him. He makes it to his feet by some miracle, but when he bends to pick up his backpack from the floor, his stomach decides it has absolutely had enough, and the bile rising in his throat refuses to be forced back down.
Vomit splatters across the porcelain seat of the toilet, splashing into the bowl. He shudders, vomiting again.
After a few more moments of dry heaving, he spits into the toilet bowl, before taking a wad of toilet paper and wiping at his lips.
Ricky sends up a silent apology to the janitors, before carefully scooping up his backpack and slipping out of the stall.
Gina’s there.
Ricky yelps in surprise, startling back a step. Gina doesn't move, a slight frown on her face. Her brow was creased, ever so slightly, and she had her arms crossed.
She looked very intimidating.
"Gina," he croaked out. "Hey."
"Hey." She replies flatly. They stare at each other, and Ricky feels increasingly awkward. She didn't look even slightly bothered.
"Wanna tell me what all that was?" Gina asks coolly, and Ricky stiffened painfully in surprise. His head pulsed a faster beat.
"What all what was?" He asked. Gina gave him a flat look, flatter than the one she had been wearing before. Ricky tries not to flinch back at it. She flicks a lazy hand towards the bathroom stall he just vacated, and a quick look over his shoulder tells him the door is open enough that they can both see the mess he's left in there. He winces.
"Food poisoning." He blurts, and at her skeptical eyebrow, he continues. "I, uh, found this stuff in the fridge last night, and I couldn't really remember when it was from? But I ate it anyway, 'cause I was really hungry, but then my stomach hurt all night, and then it just got really bad so I came in here, and--"
"Alright, alright, ok, I don't need to know all that," Gina says, cutting off his rambling. "Next time, just text Nini or Red, they were freaking out when you didn't show up to lunch."
Ricky's stomach sinks a little because of course, Gina wouldn't have cared enough herself to look for him. Red and Nini probably sent her.
(When would he learn to stop assuming people cared?)
"Oh. Cool." He says, avoiding her eyes. After a moment, he turns, heading towards the door. In the corner of his eye, it almost looked like Gina had a hand up like she was reaching for him. But… no. That's stupid. His vision is so blurry he can't trust it anyway.
He pushes the door open and slips out of the bathroom, headed for his class.
___________________________
Ricky has, miraculously, managed to make it through all his classes.
They're studying the second world war in history class, so when his teacher snapped him awake he's able to blearily answer his question and go back to sleep. He couldn't have told you what the two classes he had after that were if you put a gun to his head.
His head seemed to be floating away from his body. And despite how pleasant that sounds, all he can hear in his head is his parents, bickering back and forth, his dad telling him Mom would still be here if it weren't for you, and every other time either of his parents blamed him for their problems.
It was so easy to imagine his parents in front of him saying it's your fault, your fault. But he couldn't recall a single memory of them telling him they loved him.
Ricky tried desperately to come back to his body, sticking his fingers in his mouth as he walked and biting down so hard that he bled lightly.
Suddenly, the copper taste on his tongue was heavy and present, the stinging in his knuckles sharp and clear. He didn't feel so floaty anymore, but he could still hear his parents squabbling in the back of his head.
Good enough.
He pushed open the door to the auditorium, which was blessedly quiet. Their rehearsal today was small, so Ricky wouldn't have to deal with the noise of the full cast. Small mercies.
Gina, Nini, Red, EJ, Carlos, and Ms. Jenn are all there already. He and Nini are there to run a Troy and Gabriella scene, with Gina and EJ shadowing as their understudies. Red, as stage manager, is there to oversee the whole thing. Carlos, while the choreographer, often acts as something closer to an assistant director, so he’s there today too. Ricky figures he can manage six people for two hours, no matter how bad he feels.
“Hey, Ricky, we missed you at lunch.” Nini smiles at him from where she’s seated at the edge of the stage, feet swinging back and forth over the edge.
“Sorry,” Ricky mumbles, dropping his backpack where everyone else has theirs. Nini opens her mouth, but Ms. Jenn claps her hands, drawing their attention.
“All right everyone! Let’s get started! We’re gonna run scene eight again today, so places, everyone!”
Red and Carlos scramble off the stage to stand by Ms. Jenn. Gina and Nini head towards stage left, and he follows EJ as he heads to stage right. Internally, Ricky is trying to force his brain into gear. He can’t think of what this scene is, much less what any of his lines or blocking for this scene are.
He stands, mirroring the position EJ has taken and faces Nini. After a moment of expectant silence, and everyone staring at him, Ricky tentatively calls out, “Line?”
Ms. Jenn’s face twists into a frown.
“Ricky. We’ve talked about the responsibility of your role before. A big role, a big responsibility. I’m expecting more from you.”
Ricky bites his lip, hard, fighting the burning behind his eyes and in his throat.
“Sorry, Ms. Jenn, it won’t happen again.”
“Make sure that it doesn't.”
“Of course.” he chokes out, stomach twisting with guilt.
Ms. Jenn flips through her script, before reading out his line. The words seem to swim in his ears, muddling themselves, but he catches a -ot it? in the end, so he nods woozily. He opens his mouth-- to say the line, maybe, but he chokes. Literally.
His knees give out, and he crashes forward, gagging. His splatters bile, thick and stringy, onto the polished floor of the stage. Ms. Jenn gasps.
Ricky heaves. Someone rubs a hand up and down his back, soothingly, and Ricky groans. Someone is talking, to his left, but everything is edged with gray and he’s unsure what they're saying. His elbows buckle, and for a moment he’s sure he’s going to land face first in a puddle of his own vomit, but a pair of strong arms loops themselves around his chest just in time.
The world fades to black.
___________________________
When Ricky wakes up, he’s in his bed. He knows it by the feel of his flat pillow, and the crumbs from his midnight snack making his skin crawl. He groans, prying his eyes open.
His ceiling is the same plain white it’s always been, but now it seems to dip and sway back and forth. He rolls to his side, worried he’ll be sick, and is startled to see Red, Nini, Gina, and EJ staring at him wide-eyed, sitting on the floor to the left of his bed. He stares back.
“Hey,” Red says. Ricky blinks sluggishly, unable to force his tongue into motion.
“Ricky, what’s wrong?” Nini says, scooting over to the edge of the bed. She brushes her fingers across his forehead, moving his hair, and he hisses in pain when her fingers ghost over the bump from this morning. He pulls away from her hand, forcing the energy into his limbs to sit upright. She stares at him, frowning severely.
“Ricky, why is there a goose egg and a cut on your head?” she demands. Ricky’s hands brush his hair to lay over the bump again.
“There isn’t,” he says stupidly. The look she gives him makes him feel even more stupid, but he doesn’t offer up another answer.
“At lunch, you said it was food poisoning,” Gina interjects. Ricky wants to scowl at her, but refrains.
“I’m fine,” he says, resolute.
“You passed out in rehearsal, dude,” EJ argues. Ricky does scowl at him.
“Sorry to interrupt practice. It won’t happen again.”
“Interrupt practice? Ricky, I don’t care about that. You’re my friend, I’m worried about you.” EJ says heatedly. Ricky freezes.
His friend?
“Your friend?” his addled mind repeats. EJ looks at him in disbelief.
“Of course. We eat lunch together, and we hang out after school, and we talk on the phone. Why wouldn’t we be friends?”
“Oh,” Ricky says, shocked.
“Oh is right, idiot. Why didn’t you say anything to anyone, even if it wasn’t me or EJ?”
“It was my fault,” Ricky says, still somewhat dazed.
“What was, Ricky?” Nini asks, gentle but pressing.
“Didn’t wear my helmet. It was in the kitchen. Behind Mom.”
“Ok, so you hurt yourself skateboarding? I’m sure if you’d asked your mom she would’ve passed you your helmet.” Nini says, a little confused.
“They were fighting over me again. I didn’t want to stay.”
There’s silence for a long moment and Ricky pulls his gaze down from where it unknowingly drifted to the ceiling to look at Nini. She’s still frowning. He’s not sure why she’s still frowning. Maybe she’s mad that he messed up rehearsal?
“Sorry I messed up rehearsal.” he hazards, watching her face. It twists painfully.
“It’s okay, Ricky, you just didn’t feel well. It was out of your control.”
“Ok,” he acquiesces. Nini reaches up to squeeze his hand.
“When will your mom or dad be back?” Red asks. Ricky shrugs.
“Don’t know when Mom’ll be back. Next week, if I’m lucky. Dad, probably Sunday.”
“Jeez,” EJ huffs, sliding a hand down his face.
“Sorry,” Ricky says automatically.
“No, it’s--” EJ cuts himself off, turning to Nini. “Think your moms will let us sleep over? I don’t wanna leave him by himself, he’s probably got a concussion.”
“I’ll call them,” Nini says, fishing in her pockets for her phone. Ricky lays back down, closing his eyes and letting the sounds of the room around him wash over him. After a little while, there’s shuffling, and the opening and closing of what sound slike drawers and cabinets. Ricky doesn’t care enough to open his eyes.
Eventually, someone shakes him by the shoulder. He cracks his eyes open, and Gina is bent over him, expression softer than he’s ever seen it.
“Hey there,” she says. “Time to get up. EJ and I are gonna help you to his car, you can sleep there. Ok?”
“Ok,” Ricky agrees. EJ comes into view, and the two of them put his arms around their necks, practically carrying him outside. He goes without complaint.
There’s a scramble that Ricky doesn’t fully comprehend, and then Gina and EJ are in the front two seats, Red and Nini bracketing him in in the back comfortingly. He slides downward in his seat, laying his head on Big Red’s shoulder before closing eyes.
Safe with his friends, Ricky rests.