Bruiser

by Neal Shusterman

  How am I supposed to focus on today’s game with the image of them sharing a crème brûlée burned into my retinas like a cattle brand? I know she must have seen me. And I know she won’t say anything about it when I get home tonight.

  The only shred of hope is that the suitcases are still in the basement, and nobody’s packing. Sure, Dad’s moved into the guest room—but he did that last year when he was the one sharing desserts with a total stranger. “This will pass,” I tell myself. I just wish I could believe it.

  But I’ve got to put it out of my mind—I have a game to think about.

  We’re on a winning streak, and I intend to keep it that way.

  When I get to the field, Katrina’s there to cheer me on, along with Ozzy O’Dell and his stupid swim-shaved body and a half-dozen other classmates. What interest Ozzy has in lacrosse, I haven’t got a clue. I really don’t feel like talking to anyone right now, but Katrina comes up to me.

  “So Mr. Martinez is all like ‘¿Dónde está su tarea?’ and Ozzy’d memorized like ten different excuses for not having his homework—in perfect Spanish—so nobody else in the class knows what he’s saying; but it makes Mr. Martinez laugh so hard, he’s all like ‘That’s even better than homework’—and not only does Martinez give Ozzy a homework pass, he gives him extra crédito, which is extra credit in Spanish, and—Tennyson, are you even listening to me?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Extra credit. Very funny.”

  In my current state of mind, the last thing I want to do is play lacrosse against the Gators, whose sportsmanship quotient is one step below the World Wrestling Federation. They send someone to the hospital every other game. But I’ve been hot for the past few games—strong and focused—playing better than I’ve ever played before. I can’t let this whole thing with Mom take away my edge.

  Brontë shows up, I think because she’d rather be here than at home these days. I’m about to tell her that I saw Mom with some short, hairy guy, but I decide to spare her the pain.

  “Let me see your knuckles,” she says.

  I groan in frustration. “They’re the same. Healed. So leave me alone—I don’t go asking to look at your nonexistent cut, so don’t insist on seeing my nonexistent scabs.”

  Brontë finds it amazing that I can just accept Brewster’s ability without question.

  “How could you not be freaked out by the impossible?”

  “He does it,” I tell her, “so obviously it’s not impossible.”

  My answer just infuriates her. I love it when that happens.

  The truth is, I don’t have room in my skull to spend endless hours obsessing over what Brewster can do. I have enough to deal with, between school, lacrosse, and the fact that Dad sleeps on a foldout and Mom’s having lunch with the Missing Link. What’s worse is that Mom and Dad won’t talk about what’s going on. In my book that’s far more surreal than anything Brew can do.

  The game begins and I get right into it, living in the moment, putting everything else out of my mind. I’m an attackman—the front offensive line—and the Gators are a formidable foe. I’ve got to be quick and alert if I’m going to score against them.

  The whistle blows, and we scrap for the ball. One of our midfielders gets it and passes to me. I tear down the field, cradling the ball in the pocket of my stick. I dodge the Gators’ defenders and toss it to our right wing—who should pass it back to me, since I’ve got a clean shot; but instead he goes for it himself, and misses by a mile.

  The Gators’ keeper is on it in an instant and hurls the ball deep into our territory. It suddenly strikes me that even though Brontë is here, neither of my parents has made it to a game this year.

  Suddenly the whistle blows. The Gators have scored. I was so distracted by my own thoughts, I didn’t even see it, and I’m furious at myself. I have to stay focused!

  “Don’t worry,” I call to my teammates. “It’s just the first quarter. We’ll get it back!”

  I line up for the face-off, taking my anger and molding it until I’m a controlled ball of fury, using the lost goal to propel me toward victory.

  With possession of the ball again, I barrel through an opening, toward the Gators’ goal. I’m almost there when out of my blind spot one of their defenders races in to me. He’s big, beefy, and checks me so hard I go flying. There’s a pain in my gut and panic in my chest, like the air has been sucked from the planet. The wind’s been knocked out of me, and I know I’m going to be down for a good thirty seconds.

  But that’s not what happens. Instead the miserable feeling is gone in an instant. Maybe it’s all the working out I’m doing, because my stomach muscles held out the worst of it. It’s been that way for a few games now. Less exhaustion, quicker recovery on the field. I’ve hit my stride this year!

  The ball’s still in my stick, I’m back on my feet, I fire it, the goalie dives, but he’s nowhere close.

  Goal!

  Cheers from the sidelines. Now I’m in the zone, and nothing else matters. This game is mine!

  I’m still on fire in the second period.

  We let one goal slide—but I score another, tying the game at 2–all. One of the Gators’ midfielders elbows me hard, out of view of the refs. I feel a sudden sharp pang in the ribs. I grimace—but the pain is gone in just a few seconds. I’ve willed it away!

  Halftime.

  Used to be I’d feel the strain of all the exertion by now, but lately it’s like I can run the field forever and never get tired. The coach, who usually pulls me out for the third quarter, sees I’m riding a wave again and keeps me in. I’m the formidable foe the Gators need to look out for now!

  Third quarter.

  The score is 4 to 2. I’ve scored three of our goals. The Gators are getting nervous, playing sloppy, fouling like mad. I intercept a pass from their goalie and power toward the goal—but it’s not gonna happen. Not this time, because one of their defenders plants his foot right in front of me—an intentional trip—and I fly, my stick launching away from me. I hear the whistle blow even before I hit the ground. It’ll cost them a penalty shot; but when I come down, I come down wrong. My head hits at a strange angle, my helmet connecting with a rock that’s hidden in the turf. Not even the helmet is enough to protect me from the concussive shock of coming down right on my head.

  I can feel my brain rattled, but I regain my senses quickly. Too quickly. How could I not have been hurt by that? I’m up, bouncing on the balls of my feet in seconds—even the refs are surprised.

  And that’s when I see him.

  Brewster is here. He’s on the sideline and he’s doubled over, lying on his side in pain. Brontë fusses over him; and suddenly I know why my ribs had hurt for only an instant, and why the wind didn’t get knocked out of me, and why my muscles feel none of the ache of three quarters of play. Because Brewster’s feeling it for me. He’s feeling it all—and not just today, but for every game he’s been at. It’s not my skills that are putting me at the top of my game. It’s Brewster.

  The ref starts play again—I even get a penalty shot and score—but I can’t focus now. I just keep looking over to the sideline until Brew sits up again, recovering from my fall. He might have my concussion for all I know.

  The coach takes me out for half of the fourth quarter, then puts me back in toward the end of the game; but I’m not the player I was ten minutes ago. Now I’m way too cautious, way too slow—because what if I get hurt again? What if I take a blow and Brew absorbs it again? I can’t allow that. So for the last five minutes of play, I just go through the motions, half-heartedly crossing the field like my body is made of eggshells and will fracture with the slightest contact.

  The final whistle blows. We win, 5 to 2. I’m the hero of the team, but it feels empty. It feels like I cheated. Like the game was rigged, and I’m the only one who knows. Everyone’s giving me slaps on the back and high fives—and no one seems to notice how I shut myself down in the final minutes. They probably figure I just got tired from playing so hard.


  The second I can break away from my teammates I tear off my helmet and storm toward Brewster. He’s standing with Brontë, cheering like the rest of them—but I can see the evidence of this vicious game all over him; and maybe I should feel grateful, but all I feel is angry. Angry and robbed. I’d rather play hard and lose honestly than suffer such a despicable win. He stole more than my pain today.

  “Tennyson, you were great,” Brontë says. At first I think she must not get it—she must be clueless; but no, my sister is smart. And suddenly it dawns on me that she knows! Maybe from the first game, or maybe just from today. She knows, and yet she’s okay with it. How could she be okay with it?

  I storm toward Brewster, and I raise my hand—I almost punch him—but I can’t swing at someone who already looks so beaten down. Instead I point an accusing finger and burn him a brutal scowl.

  “Never come to one of my games again!” I snarl.

  “You won, didn’t you?”

  “No, I didn’t win—you did.” And I storm away, leaving everyone around us gawking.

  Katrina tries to intercept me. “Something wrong, Tennyson?”

  But I’m not in the mood. “I gotta go back to the team.” Then I run onto the field, trying to put as much distance as I can between me and Brewster Rawlins.

  32) CONTRITION

  “I’m sorry,” I tell Brontë for the tenth time.

  “Don’t tell me; tell him.”

  “I will. On Monday.”

  “No! You go over to his house and tell him right now!”

  “I don’t want to go over there!” I shout at her. “I don’t want to deal with his crazy, freaking uncle!”

  I take a deep breath and pace the living room. Mom has not come home yet, and I can’t help but wonder if she’s still visiting the Planet of the Apes. Dad, who spends more and more time at the university lately, is AWOL as well. It’s not that I want them here at the moment, but I don’t want them out there, either.

  “I will hound you day and night until you apologize to him!”

  I really want to strangle my sister right now, but I restrain myself. “Your temper is not your friend,” my kindergarten teacher used to tell me. It annoys me that I still remember that, down to her squeaky little voice. It annoys me more that she was right.

  “I need to sort things out, okay?” I say to Brontë, trying to sound as reasonable as I can. “If I go over there now, even if I say I’m sorry, I might end up fighting with him about it more.”

  “Why? What did he do that was so terrible?”

  The fact that she can’t see my side of it boggles the mind. “He felt stuff for me!” Even saying it makes me uneasy, like it’s some sort of violation—and in some ways I guess it is. “I got hurt out there on the field, but all that hurt kept vanishing into him! It’s not normal!”

  Now she’s smiling—even gloating. “It’s about time you freaked out about it.”

  “Shut up!”

  “He likes you, Tennyson. You may be the first real friend he’s ever had.”

  “That still doesn’t give him the right to reach inside me. Maybe you’re okay with it, being that you’re his girlfriend and all; but I’m not.”

  “It’s not like he’s doing it on purpose; he can’t help it. It just happens.”

  “He should have warned me—or he should have left!”

  “He didn’t want to. It was his choice to stay.”

  “Well, he should have given me a choice!” I can hear my voice rising again as I think back to the game. It’s great to get all the glory when you’ve earned it; but when you haven’t, you feel like a fraud. Maybe other guys get their kicks by seizing attention they don’t deserve, but not me. “All I’m saying is that you can’t play a sport without the threat of injury! It’s like they say, ‘No pain, no gain’—without the pain, the gain means nothing!”

  Brontë weighs my words and nods, finally admitting that maybe I have a point. “Fine. So explain that to him.”

  “I will when I can stop yelling!”

  Then Brontë, bless her annoying little heart, says the exact thing to put out my fire. She heaves a colossal sigh and says, “Listen to us! We sound like Mom and Dad.”

  And since that’s the last act in the world I want to mimic, my anger is snuffed so completely, all that remains is an intense desire to pout.

  “Are we done here?” I ask.

  “Yes. But don’t stay mad at him,” she says. “That will hurt him worse than any lacrosse game.”

  33) QUIETUS

  Mom and Dad come home within fifteen minutes of each other, both the bearers of ethnic takeout. Mom has Chinese; Dad has Indian. It’s a strange thing for your parents to be sort of separated but living under the same roof. Brontë and I still get the same fast food, but now there’s always twice as much, because both of them feel obliged to feed us. It’s fine when the food comes staggered; but at times like this, when it comes simultaneously, it’s very awkward. Whose food do we eat? And does it imply we’re taking sides? Can we eat equal portions of both without feeling like puking? When an eggroll becomes a crisis, there’s definitely something wrong.

  That night I lie on my bed bloated beyond belief, having eaten enough to feed an entire subcontinent. My brain is bloated, too, and I try to wrap my mind around the events of the day.

  I’m not usually one to spend endless hours dissecting my own emotions. Brontë does enough of that for both of us. When it comes to such open-heart reflection, I’m a firm believer in the observer effect, which states that anything you try to observe is automatically changed by the mere fact that you’re looking at it. The way I see it, if you try to study your emotions on a microscopic level, the best you can do is understand how it feels to hold the magnifying glass.

  As I lie there listening to India and China waging war in my intestines, I keep trying to analyze the feelings I had at the end of today’s lacrosse game. Perhaps it’s just the observer effect and my perceptions are all changing as I examine them, but it seems to me there was something inexplicable running under the anger I felt toward Brewster. Kind of like the undertow tugging at your feet even as the wave slams into you.

  What I felt was this: an unexpected quietus of everything bad I was feeling. An extinguishing of all my anger and frustration. The numbing came just as I told off Brewster. Once I vented at him, I couldn’t hold on to my rage. By the time I had stormed back to the team, I was feeling okay about everything. But feeling “okay” was absolutely wrong—it felt like another level of fraud on my part.

  I saw him hurrying away then. Hurrying away in fury. Was he angry at me for being angry at him? Maybe. Or maybe it was more than that.

  That’s the real reason why I don’t want to face Brewster quite yet. Because I’m not sure whether it’s just me being weird…or if that undertow is the first hint of a much more powerful riptide.

  34) TRAJECTORY

  Once in a while Dad and I go out to shoot some hoops. He does this because basketball is the only sport where he still has a fighting chance against me since he still has a height advantage. Early on Sunday morning I go over to Brew’s place and invite him to join us. It’s my way of apologizing, because the actual words I’m sorry don’t come easy to me—unless, of course, I’m saying it to Brontë. It seems I’m always apologizing to her.

  We’re on his porch, because Uncle Hoyt is sleeping after a hard night flattening asphalt. Cody’s out in their ugly acre trying to fly a cheap cellophane kite; but the weeds are too tall, and he can’t get up enough momentum when he runs.

  “Consider it the next phase of our workouts,” I tell Brew. “Basketball builds agility—you can’t get that with free-weights.”

  “Aren’t you worried you’ll skin your elbows and make me bleed?”

  To which I respond, “Are you calling me a klutz?” It then occurs to me for the first time why he seemed so exhausted after our weight-lifting sessions and why I didn’t. I start to feel ticked off that he never said anything; but I let it go,
because anger is not our friend.

  “Thanks for the invitation,” Brewster says, “but I can’t. My uncle likes weekends to be family time.” Which is ridiculous, considering the man has a night job and sleeps all day. “It’s easier for everyone if I just stay home.”

  “Easier doesn’t make it right,” I point out. And then I hear a voice from behind me.

  “Tell Uncle Hoyt you won’t like him no more.”

  I turn to see Cody standing there holding that sorry little kite. It’s a typical thing for a little kid to say; but Brew seems to be struck by the words, like they contain divine wisdom. I have no idea why a man like Uncle Hoyt would care what Brew thought of him.

  Brew reaches to a Band-Aid on his forearm. I wonder what kind of wound it conceals. He rubs the wound, mulling over what Cody said. Then he turns to me. “Which park will you be at?”

  I don’t know exactly what Brew says to Uncle Hoyt, but the result is that both Brewster and Cody show up at the park. My dad and I are feeling pretty down, although we try not to show it. Mom wasn’t home when we left; I suspect she’s probably off with her boyfriend, the Muppet. I have no idea whether she’s in the process of breaking it off, making it stick, or just escaping from everything. I don’t think Dad knows either. A cloud of gloom follows us to the court, but when Brew arrives, it seems to dissipate. Maybe because there’s someone else to focus on.

  Cody immediately escapes from the court, having no use whatsoever for basketball. He’s much more engaged by a malfunctioning sprinkler head in the grass.

  It’s immediately clear to Dad and me that Brew’s experience in basketball is limited to the wonderful world of phys ed. He can dribble standing still, and he has just the right trajectory on his foul shots to sink some of them; but he lacks any real-world game.

  “Didn’t you ever shoot around with your uncle?” Dad asks, completely oblivious to the Uncle Hoyt situation.