“I’ll go now,” Mom says, grabbing her keys. “Brooks, do an Internet search for the best neurosurgeons and doctors who specialize in head trauma. Look at clinical trials, alternative medicines—everything.”
Dad nods, and as Mom tries to brush past, he pulls her into him and clings to her. At first, Mom doesn’t hug back. Her arms hang free and limp. A few seconds in, her hands climb up Dad’s burly arms. She buries her head deep in the collar of his shirt, and as Sarge and I watch, we hear her sniffles escape into the air. It’s this feeling of watching a broken heart be put back together, stitch by stitch. Dad looks like he’s never going to let her go and I’m almost hoping he won’t. I don’t know how we got here, how they became so broken and fragile the last couple years. But seeing them now, I feel there’s a chance we can save Benny.
When Mom peels herself off, Dad wipes a smattering of tears from his face and moves down the hall to their bedroom. Sarge pats my shoulder with a firm grip. “See that?” he says. “They’re just bent, not broken. We’ll get it figured out. That’s what family does.”
Seeing them like this makes me think of new beginnings. Before all of this, they argued. A lot. Didn’t know if they’d make it work or not. But now, things feel different; another shift in the formula. I pull the cardboard box of Christmas ornaments from the corner to unstring the tangled lights. My fingers carefully intertwine with the strands, pulling apart each layer. The big, yellow moon glares through the bay window where Brynn’s handprints are forever etched. I can see down the driveway, onto the highway, and the irony hits me. But I refuse to be stuck. I unwrap the ceramic and glass bulbs from the old newspaper and twirl the lights from top to bottom, pushing them partway into the branches to hide the cord. I then step backward, about ten feet, noting any light or dark spots.
“You’re such a nerd,” Brynn says, spying from the hall. I ignore her and hang the ornaments. I start at the top and calculate how much space is needed between each one for a uniform appearance. She grabs a couple of old bulbs from when we were babies, her eyes looking mostly sad, but kind of happy. She remembers the good, too. And as she reaches to hang those memories, she looks at me and grins.
The world transitions into a new light. Not like the past hasn’t happened, but more like it happened and we’re still here, fighting. Not long after, Sarge shuts the TV off and helps, too. None of us talk, but I feel like we don’t need words. We’re almost finished when Dad walks out of the bedroom, laptop in hand. His eyes expand as he sees what we’ve done, and behind his eyes, there’s gratitude.
“I was wondering who would cave first,” he says.
Brynn points to me. “She couldn’t help herself, Dad.”
I shrug as Sarge puts an arm around my shoulder and squeezes. Dad’s eyes light up as he presses the switch to illuminate the dying baby cypress in the most glorious of ways. “Thank you for this.”
We stand in the glow of the tree—Nan’s tree—for a while, soaking in its beauty. When we finally part ways, I fidget in the dark corner of my room for my phone charger that’s stuck in an outlet. When the screen lights up, there are a few new texts.
VIOLET: I HOPE YOU’RE JOKING.
VIOLET: ARE YOU JOKING??
VIOLET: IF I DON’T HEAR FROM YOU IN FIVE MINUTES, I’M GETTING A SEARCH PARTY.
VIOLET: SPOKE TO YOUR DAD. SAID YOU’RE AT WORK, YA WEIRDO.
UNKNOWN: HOPE YOU’RE STAYING WARM. -BASH
I ignore Violet, biting my lip as I wrestle with a reply. My stomach drops. Five minutes pass. Type, delete, rewrite. Type, delete, rewrite. And finally, Send. Gulp.
ME: HOW’D YOU GET MY NUMBER?
BASH: STALKING.
I smile, touch my lips with the tip of my finger.
ME: YOU SAID THAT’S A FELONY ☺ BUT … THANKS AGAIN FOR THE HELP WITH MY CAR.
I pull out the bear drawing, unfold and smooth the edges, laying it on my bedside table propped up against the lamp so I can see it clearly. He doesn’t write back; I don’t expect him to, but I stare at his words for a long time, until I fall asleep sometime in the night. When I wake up, I’m still wearing his jacket, a smile beaming across my face.
And Chomperz pawing at my hair.
LESSON OF THE DAY: Some reactions take hundreds, maybe even thousands, of years, while others can happen in less than one second.
Like this infuriating variable I can’t quite figure out.
Named Bash.
BASH
My guilty reflection in her glasses.
That’s the only image in my mind; the way my eyes stare back at me, the way hers plead to know me. I couldn’t sleep thinking about her. This isn’t just dangerous, it’s lethal. A chemical combination that shouldn’t mix, ever. A parallel to Kyle’s and my relationship.
Explosive, possibly deadly.
She left my jacket, scented with something floral and girly, at the rink. It was carefully nesting a chemistry printout with practice equations and answers, along with a note saying Vinny gave her a few days to be with her family. The scent overcomes me like a freakin’ schoolgirl with a crush, and I know I’ve got to quit her in a bad, bad way. This can’t be happening, I won’t let it.
I heard what they’re asking for, what they need to happen for the kid to live another day. So last night, when I’m closing the rink by myself, and the lights are off and everyone’s gone, I sneak another twenty from the drawer and put it in an envelope. Vinny will survive, minus twenty, and if he doesn’t, well, tough shit. I sniffed the damn jacket all night, until my nose nearly bled, and now know exactly what I have to do.
This morning my thoughts are tornados spinning up in the air, spitting debris all over everyone, and pretty soon, they’re going to crash down so hard, the impact alone will kill us both. So why do I have to feel these … things for her? She’s not like Layla. She’s different, good. When Ma goes, I’ll have nothing, but Birdie still has her family. It should be whole, not broken. So if I can salvage one of our lives, it might as well be hers.
“Mr. Alvarez,” Mrs. Pearlman says, snapping me from my daze, “care to join us here on earth?”
The class laughs. Sebastian A., class fuckup, never fails to impress. I’ve been doodling lovestruck bears, some ending in death with wooden stakes through the heart. So, as the beast of chemistry approaches, her tight curls frolicking across her cheeks, her squinty eyes narrowing down at me, I quickly hide my etchings with a cupped hand. “Sorry.”
She reaches beneath my hand, pulls the sketch into view with a smirk, and leans down into my personal space so close I can see the coffee stains on her teeth. “If you could learn as well as you draw, you’d have graduated by now.”
I back into my seat as far as I can, but her breath is a long string of air that bites into me. “Thanks?”
One hand on each side of the paper, she rips right down the center, breaking the two biggest bears apart, and the whole class erupts with a collective “ooohhh.” She struts back to the front of the class like she really got me. I’ll just draw another, no biggie. Everyone’s eyes are on me like they can’t look away—the freak who draws, flunks chem—what will he do next? Entertain us.
“Back to what I was saying,” she continues. With my hand shielding my eyes, I ignore Kyle’s deadpan stare and whatever he’s trying to telepathically tell me, and manage to get through class without another incident.
“Next time, detention,” Mrs. Pearlman says, grabbing my backpack strap as I’m pushing past. Nearly breaks the damn thing. I say nothing, grunt so she knows I heard, and find my locker. I’m two numbers in when Kyle pulls on the back of my collar as if I’m some little runt on the playground.
“I’ve been texting you,” he says. “Why haven’t you answered?”
I think back to the inbox full of messages I haven’t read because, as I told him a million times, it uses up all my data, and I’m running low on minutes (and patience). These are just minor details to him.
“Sorry,” I say, grabbing the next period’s
books. “What’d ya want?”
He leans in closer, too close, and whispers loudly in my ear. “I was snooping around Dad’s office and saw an old picture of the Benz with one of those car ornaments on the front hood, and I can’t remember if it was there on the night I drove it or not.”
I want to throw my book at him, but I don’t. “What does that have to do with anything?”
He gulps. “It’s gone. Realized it when Steve sent me those pictures he took.”
I sigh at him angrily, because he’s more of an idiot than he or I realized, which I didn’t think was possible. “So you’re saying … we lost it.”
His fingers comb through the slimy strands of his hair that keep falling out of place. “Yeah.”
“Well that’s it now, isn’t it?”
He falls back against the metal and rubs his hands over his face. “I know,” he sobs in a totally fake way. “I should’ve listened to you. I don’t know what to do.”
“I do.” I slam my locker closed and think of the tiny bit of cloth I hid beneath my mattress. It’s the only place I could think of. “I’m going to the station today. I can’t hide this anymore—it’s eating me up.”
He shoves his arm against the metal to block me from moving. “No way, dude. I hear the boy is getting better. No point in going to jail if he’s better, right? That was the deal.”
I make a face like what the hell? Something Ma perfected and passed on to me, and duck under his cologne-drenched arm that’s lacking any muscle at all, despite his constant weight-lifting. “They find that hood ornament, they’ll connect it to your dad, then you. We’re toast either way for not coming forward on our own. And the kid isn’t better, FYI. They’re about to pull the plug.”
“How do you know?”
“I just … know.”
His eyes are examining me too closely. Straight, no emotion.
“You’re better than this, Kyle. It could all be over if you’d just trust me. You know I don’t bullshit.”
His expression flattens. “No.”
“No?”
“Yeah,” he says, “just … no.”
Now I lean in, challenge him. “I’m not asking for permission.”
He corners me in the space between where the lockers end and the wall begins. “Why do you care so much?”
I don’t cower. “Why don’t you care? It’s a kid, man. How are you so effed in the head that his life means nothing to you?”
He holds his glare, twists his patchy mustache ends with the tips of his fingers. A thick, gold ring gleams against the bright hall lights. Eyebrows arched, he’s breathing all over me. “What do you want?”
I scoff. “What?”
He reaches into his jean pocket, brings out a stack of fresh bills. “Five hundred? Seven fifty? If it’s a grand, I’ll have to go back to the bank.”
I shove his hand as far away from me as possible. “Get out. I don’t want your damn money.”
He’s chasing me like a farmer after his herd, but I ain’t no naïve cow. I feel him over my shoulder, hot on my heels. “You live in a shit trailer, no electricity, you’re flunking out, not gonna graduate, and your mom’s about to take her last breath.” He waves the money in my face again, tempting me to take it. “Without my money, you have nothing but that old shirt and a pipe dream.”
My eyes water with rage that begins in my toes and erupts, surging out through my fingers. I ball my fist but refrain from punching him (like he deserves). Face frozen in an angry grimace, I stand on the tips of my toes, chest puffed, look him directly in his nervous eyes.
“At least this old shirt and my pipe dream are mine. Take your stripper money and get out of my goddamned space before I do something that’ll get us both kicked out.”
After a tense moment, he releases a slight smile. He’s nodding as if he’s impressed with me. “Balls. That’s what I’ve always liked about you, Bash. You’re a real friend, willing to sacrifice in the name of righteousness. I respect that.”
I release the breath I’ve been holding, pretend it’s cigarette smoke and blow it right up his nostrils.
“But,” he continues, “those balls and that sacrifice are gonna get us into trouble. You turn yourself in, and all roads lead back to me, to my family. I can’t have that.” He shakes his head, ticking between his two front teeth. I didn’t hear the first bell, but now the final bell has rung and we’re late for class.
“It won’t,” I promise. “All those beer cans, my drawings in the house, just leave ’em—they’re not gonna look at you if they find those. Tell Skeevy Steve to back off. I’m going to the station. Call his bluff. Come on, Kyle. You’ve known me forever. You have to trust me.”
He doesn’t want to. I see it on his face. But he releases his body block anyway. “I’ll think about it.”
“Okay,” I say. “We’ll talk later.”
“When?” he asks.
I sigh. “I don’t know. Later.”
He stuffs his sweaty hands into his pockets with a twitch and we part ways. Because of our block scheduling, I don’t see him again the rest of the day, and when school gets out, I race to my car with only one thing on my mind: turn myself in before Kyle loses his shit. I figure if I get there, I can explain, and because I’m a man of my word, if I say I won’t let Kyle take the fall, then I won’t.
On a near empty tank of gas, I coax my puttering car into the trauma center lot. I’m on a stealth mission to blend into the crowd as I sneak onto the kid’s floor without notice. I know it’s the stupidest thing I could ever do (well, not the stupidest, but it’s up there). I’ve got to see him in person, so I know for sure. I wonder if this is what Birdie felt like when she followed me to see Ma. A strange mix of nerves and butterflies—it sucks.
It’s the holidays, so more people than normal seem to saturate the halls. Up the elevator, past the nurse’s desk, I approach the kid’s room just as a couple lingers nearby. There’s a line drawn between them. His hand on her waist, she pulls away. I notice these things, contexts and hidden meanings you won’t see unless you’re looking. This I learned by studying some of the great artists before my time: Picasso, Monet, da Vinci—everyone who shook the norm, broke the rules, lived with a ferocious passion most can only dream of. I’ll never be the next Jackson Pollock or Andy Warhol, but looking at these two and all their restrained heartbreak that is bleeding into these halls, I could grab my charcoal block, fall to the floor, and sketch what I really see, what they’re hiding from everyone else—trust—and debut as the one and only me.
In this real-life drawing etched in black, I don’t just see pain. Too obvious. Look deeper. Something more subtle. My eyes are magnets, stuck on them. Reminds me of all the times Ma tried to hang on to me before she was sick and I pulled away. I couldn’t let her love me, couldn’t let her hold me close. Because that meant letting her see how completely fucked-up I really am. It was easier to stand back, keep her at a safe distance so when I messed up as I often did, and still do, if she loved me less, it wouldn’t hurt so bad—lessons I learned by watching her with my stepdad, I think.
I quickly move to the kid’s door and walk quietly up to his bed. I sit on the edge of the chair that’s nestled up against the bed’s cool rail, pulling the wadded envelope from my pocket. His stillness startles me. He’s so small, it’s hard to believe this is what we hit—this is what we did to him.
“Hey, little buddy,” I say, “got a favor to ask.” I reach for a pen that’s lying on the bedside table and quickly sketch a bear on the envelope’s face. In the drawing, the bear is lying amidst a bed of lush forest greens that grow tall and wild like sunflowers. Tubes spill out of his thick fur from all directions while four foxes encircle, bleeding hearts seeping out of them. This isn’t just any bear; he’s special. Even though he’s helpless, lifeless, in the middle of the wilderness where death looms over like a dark cloud, his eyes are wide open.
I tuck the envelope in between the kid’s free fingers. They’re cold like Ma’s. �
�Time to wake up.”
“Can I help you?” a voice asks, startling me upright. I wipe a tear from my eye, shove the pen in my back pocket.
“No.”
She studies me as I fumble to get out the door. “Only family allowed in here.”
The lights are bright, hot, on me. Putting my head down, I push past the woman in animal-print scrubs. “Saw the story on the news. Sad. I hope he pulls through.”
“Excuse me,” she says, tugging at my jacket. Her grip is tight. “You don’t have a name tag. You shouldn’t be up here at all.”
We make brief eye contact, a silent contract, and I take a huge gulp. “Stay right here.” She rushes in the other direction, toward the stairs, toward the couple—his parents, probably—and I make a break for it. I sprint down the hall, through a slew of distracted doctors and nurses, nearly tripping on a crash cart that’s sitting right here in the middle of the hallway (trying to tell me something, fate?). My finger punches the elevator button repeatedly, and the doors come together just as the nurse approaches the desk nearby. With only a slit of space between us, our eyes meet again, and this time, my face draws itself in her head—a mug shot. My heart is racing; I’m sweating, soaking through my shirt.
Outside I don’t even notice the cold, the flurries sticking to my skin and hair. Three thrashes against the car door, and it swings open. I pull out of the lot too fast, the wheels spinning beneath me on the paved lot. I could argue this is a sign that I’m not ready to turn myself in like I thought. Truth is, maybe I’m not as good as I want to be. Maybe Ma failed. Maybe I’m everything the old stepdad said I would be, everything I say Kyle is.
Everything Birdie should stay away from.
birdie
Time, an unfeeling measure of our pain, is something I’ve lost track of.
Dad’s phone has been permanently stitched to his ear, making conversation not about Benny impossible. He makes call after call, pleads with this new neurosurgeon in Chicago, Dr. Stein. Dad wants him to take on Benny’s case, but again, there’s been resistance. No one believes Benny can be saved except for us. Mom spends endless hours at Benny’s side. She’s become a ghost, a memory of the woman I once knew. To say I miss her would be an understatement. But this isn’t about me.
The Inevitable Collision of Birdie & Bash Page 17
