Winger

This short Prologue opens the first section of the book’s body text, the title of which is “The Overlap of Everyone.” In the Prologue, Ryan Dean relates his friend Joey’s words about not being able to breathe the same air twice. The saying is a metaphor for change and transformation, which will play major roles in the book. 

Ryan Dean shares some back-story on himself and his school. He’s a good student who skipped two grades and is therefore two years younger than his classmates. He attends a boarding school in Oregon for the troubled sons and daughters of wealthy professionals, many of whom are emotionally neglected by their parents as they strive for career success and invest in maintaining their upper-class statuses. Ryan Dean plays rugby and reflects with distaste on his dorm roommate assignment—he is paired with a rugby teammate named Chas, whom he despises. Ryan Dean’s disgust at this arrangement is heightened because it’s the result of being temporarily reassigned to “O-Hall”, or Opportunity Hall, which is where troublemakers are sent. He got into trouble after stealing a teacher’s cell phone to try and make a phone call to Annie, his best friend and crush. None of the students have access to personal electronic devices at the school.

As Ryan Dean finds and settles into his dorm room, Mr. Farrow comes in to tell him the rest of the first-day procedures. Chas shows up sporting a Mohawk haircut that Mr. Farrow says he’ll need to shave before he goes to have the picture taken for his new school ID card. The edgy hairstyle, an imposing 6’4” frame, and a surly attitude establish Chas as a tough, rebellious teenager. After Mr. Farrow leaves, Chas asks Ryan Dean if he has any money, and Ryan Dean nervously answers that he does, afraid that Chas wants to steal it from him. But Chas says that some other boys will be sneaking into their room later that night for a traditional poker game. He invites Ryan Dean to join them.

Ryan Dean reflects on his relationship with Annie as their junior year begins Ryan Dean’s advanced academic status means that he is two years younger than her. Annie calls this Ryan Dean’s “make-it-or-break-it” year socially (19). The two are close, but Annie doesn’t know about Ryan Dean’s romantic feelings for her. 

Ryan Dean catches up with his former roommates Seanie and JP as they all wait in line to have their ID card pictures taken. Afterwards, as he heads off down a lakeside trail on Pine Mountain’s grounds, Annie comes after him, and the two sit on a bench together. The two compare schedules and ID cards and find that they have a literature class together. When she sees Ryan Dean’s ID card, Annie coos that he’s a “cute little boy,” which offends Ryan Dean and makes him feel infantilized. He curtly ends his conversation with Annie, telling her that he has to go back to the dorm and unpack. She invites him to go on a trail run with her later, but he doesn’t commit. 

The narration in this chapter reveals that Ryan Dean comes from Boston and was sent to Pine Mountain after he tried to hijack and drive a public transit train at the age of 12. Back in the novel’s timeline, he sulks alone in his deserted dorm room until he sees Annie go past his window on her run. He quickly changes into his running clothes and goes out after her. He catches up with Annie as she’s retracing her steps back down from a mountain overlook, and her brusque manner makes it clear that she realizes Ryan Dean was mad at her. Ryan Dean joins her on the way back down, and the two stop at a group of stones that they and their friends arranged in the woods the previous school year. They call the arrangement “Stonehenge.”

When Annie says that she wants to get him a girlfriend that coming school year, Ryan Dean brushes off her offer because he wants to date her, not just remain her friend. She misunderstands and thinks he’s angry at her again. In the center of the rocks is a spiraling path that Annie calls a “wish path,” adding that if you travel in and out of the center without speaking, you’ll get whatever you wished for as you walked. The two perform the ritual together.

In his hurry to catch up with Annie, Ryan Dean left his dirty clothes all over the dorm room floor and left the door—which doesn’t have a knob or lock, in keeping with O-Hall rules—wide open. He is greeted upon his return to the room by a livid Chas, who yells at and physically threatens him for leaving a mess that could have gotten both of them in trouble. Ryan Dean thinks with regret about his past roommates and living situation as he apologizes and heads off to take a shower.

As Ryan Dean eats dinner in the cafeteria with Seanie and JP, he nervously eyes Chas from across the hall where the latter sits with his girlfriend Megan. Ryan Dean is attracted to Megan as well as Annie, although he doesn’t know her as well and is baffled at her preference for Chas. Ryan Dean thinks Chas is dumb, while he knows that Megan is a smart, driven girl. He suspects that she’s using Chas for his social status at the school and is actually attracted to more intelligent guys. Seanie and JP warn him to be careful during the poker game that night to avoid inciting Chas to anger again.

The dorm’s lights go out at ten, and Ryan Dean falls asleep while waiting for the other boys to show up at their room. At midnight, the other boys, all seniors on the rugby team, wake him up for the poker game. Besides Chas, there’s a boy named Kevin and another named Joey who is openly gay. The stakes of the game are especially high because the winner gets to choose a “consequence”—usually an embarrassing or difficult dare—for the others. Kevin and Joey smuggle in enough beer for everyone to drink, which makes Ryan Dean nervous because he hasn’t had alcohol before and doesn’t want to get in trouble. Although Joey doesn’t pressure him to drink, Chas makes Ryan Dean drink the beer. The boys play cards for the next two hours, and Joey wins the game, leading to the revelation of the consequence.

The consequence of the poker game is that Ryan Dean has to sneak down to the ground floor of O-Hall, which is traditionally the girls’ floor. However, none of the female students of Pine Mountain have misbehaved and landed themselves in O-Hall, so the floor is deserted except for the female chaperone, Mrs. Singer. Ryan Dean, heavily drunk from the beer with an extremely full bladder, opens the outside window of the girls’ bathroom so the other boys can sneak in and use it. Ryan Dean’s drunkenness and his decision to sing while he performs the dare alerts Mrs. Singer to their presence. Ryan Dean locked the bathroom door, however, and the four boys all sneak back out the outside window and go back to their rooms. 

Ryan Dean wakes up the next morning, the first day of school, with a hangover and upset stomach from the night before. Chas teases him about partying too hard, as Ryan Dean struggles to get himself dressed and ready for classes. He feels awful and has to make multiple trips to the bathroom on his way out to the rest of campus.

Ryan Dean miserably staggers to class and mentally reviews his schedule for the day. His two classes with Megan and Joey worry him because Joey will know that he got drunk the night before. Annie sees him and comments on his obviously ill-looking appearance, but Ryan Dean doesn’t tell her what happened.

During his first class, physical conditioning, Ryan Dean tells Seanie and JP what happened the night before. They are incredulous and somewhat impressed that Ryan Dean got drunk, although they begin teasing him about being an alcoholic.

Still feeling sick, Ryan Dean struggles to concentrate in his classes. In the two classes with Megan and Joey, he picks a seat near them, which will pave the way for future interactions between all of them. As he picks the seat near Joey, Ryan Dean has an internal debate with himself about whether other students will think that he too is gay if he sits next to the other boy, although he chides himself for allowing the thought to cross his mind.

Ryan Dean goes to the class he shares with Annie, who found out he got drunk the night before and is angry with him. She ignores him and brushes him off when he sits near her. Because the students can’t have cell phones, which would allow them to communicate through surreptitious texting during class, they pass notes back and forth to each other. Annie tells Ryan Dean to leave her alone through a note. 

Feeling sorry for himself, Ryan Dean spends the lunch period alone on a bench by the lake and cries because he feels so frustrated and upset about how his first 24 hours back on campus have gone.