Noggin

by Whaley, John Corey

  “Okay.”

  “Promise not to tell anyone?” I looked right into his eyes.

  “Dude, who am I gonna tell? You’re one of about three people who listen to me.”

  “Fair enough. So you know Kyle?”

  “Kyle Hagler. Your best friend. Yes.”

  “Yes. Him. So before I died or went away or whatever we’re calling it, he told me something.”

  “He was sleeping with Cate?” Hatton perked up, his eyes huge.

  “No. Shut up. Listen.”

  “Sorry. Go on.”

  “He told me he was gay.”

  As soon as I said it out loud, I felt like the worst friend in history. I’d betrayed Kyle’s trust. But what was I supposed to do? I wanted to help him, and I didn’t think I could do that and get Cate back without a little help of my own.

  “Oh, okay. That’s cool, I mean, whatever,” Hatton said.

  “And, see, he said I was the only one who knew. So when I saw him the other day, for the first time, he brought up having a girlfriend. A girlfriend. I don’t get it.”

  “A beard.”

  “What?”

  “He’s got a beard.”

  “No, he doesn’t. What are you talking about?”

  “Travis, a beard is a girl who dates a gay guy to . . . you know, cover up the fact that he’s a gay guy.”

  “Oh. I get it. Beard. Yeah, he’s got a beard. Shit.”

  “Have you seen her yet?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “I bet she’s ugly. If she’s beautiful, then he’s not gay anymore. It wore off.”

  “Can that happen?”

  “I dunno. Probably not. I just know that my uncle Jimmy had a wife when I was a kid, and then one day Mom tells me he’s getting a divorce, and then he showed up to Thanksgiving dinner with my new uncle Terry and everyone just rolled with it.”

  “Awesome.”

  “Yeah. And kind of sad, I guess.”

  “For sure. I just feel like I should help him or something.”

  “You mean like, sexually?” Hatton smirked.

  “No. Good Lord. I just need him to know that it doesn’t matter. Right?”

  “Have you ever been gay, Travis? Of course it matters. Don’t be stupid, man.”

  “Well, I know it matters, but not to like, the good people, you know?”

  “I was watching this show the other night,” Hatton began. “On CNN. It was this roundtable of experts—a scientist, a surgeon, a couple of politicians. And they were talking all about you and Lawrence Ramsey.”

  “Oh yeah? What’s new?”

  “And the reporter guy, you know the one with the weird name? He was asking them if they thought it was right. Not if they thought it was good for science or anything like that, but on a personal level, if they thought that bringing people back from the dead or whatever was right. If they thought it was okay.”

  “What’d they say?” I asked.

  “Well, the scientist and the surgeon sort of had a hard time answering it without getting technical. One said he was devoted to saving lives and that he looked at this as a medical breakthrough or whatever. And the other, she agreed with him and said she thinks we’d all jump at the opportunity if it meant we could spend more time with our loved ones. But the politicians, they were different.”

  “Republicans?” I asked, rolling my eyes.

  “One was a Democrat, actually. And you know what he said?”

  “What?”

  “He said despite all the arguments and all the evidence and even seeing you and Lawrence Ramsey alive and healthy, he just can’t seem to wrap his head around the idea of it. Said it still feels like one step too far to him and he just can’t get over it.”

  “Why are you telling me this, Hatton?”

  “Because I think you and Kyle might have a lot more in common than you realize.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yeah. I mean, you’re both living these lives you didn’t choose to live with a world full of people telling you what that’s supposed to mean. It’s messed up.”

  “Damn. I hadn’t really thought about it that way,” I said.

  I called Kyle after school and invited him over for dinner. He said he needed to study, but I told him it was really important and that I was going through a hard time and needed to talk. Maybe I was being dramatic, but I thought it was okay to guilt my best friend into spending time with me since I’d been, you know, preoccupied for so long. When he got to the house, we played video games for a while before sitting down to dinner with my parents. Dad told us about this new interactive dance game at Arnie’s that was supposed to “blow our minds” but, if I’m being honest, sounded pretty lame.

  “I think it sounds amazing, Mr. Coates,” Kyle said.

  “Well, you two should go by there sometime soon. What do you think, Travis? Might help you feel a little more at home again?” Dad nudged me with his elbow.

  “Yeah. We’ll do that soon,” I said.

  But I was too distracted by my mission to really add much more to the conversation than that. And my parents wouldn’t leave us alone long enough for me to talk to Kyle about his secret, or anything for that matter. They were like this for a while after I got back, just clingy and too involved. I probably would’ve appreciated it more had it not felt like I just spent the last several months stuck in that house with them. By the time we finished dinner and they shut up, Kyle had to go home and study.

  “I’ll walk you out,” I said, following behind him.

  He was inside his truck with the window down by the time I went for it and just asked him what I’d wanted to ask him all night.

  “Kyle, what’s the deal, man?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The girlfriend, Kyle. You know I remember what you told me.”

  “Look, Travis. It’s way more complicated than you think. Things just change sometimes. I think I was just confused or something.”

  “And what if you weren’t?”

  “Well, I’m dating a girl now, so it’s not like it really matters.”

  “Kyle, it does matter. Of course it matters. Are you happy? With her, I mean?”

  “Yeah. She’s great. I want you to meet her. Maybe next week?”

  “Wait. Stop. I’m not done. Maybe I’ve been gone for a while, but I know you. I knew you back then and I know you now. You’re gay. And it’s fine. So why not just be yourself?”

  “Shut up, please.” He looked around, off behind me, and into the street like someone was just waiting for his sexuality to be called out so they could tell everyone they knew.

  “Is it your parents?”

  “Travis. Stop. It’s nobody. I thought I was gay when I was sixteen. A lot of people think things like that when they’re young. I was wrong. Move on, dude. I know you’re just trying to help me, but let it go.”

  It was the way he said “gay” that worried me the most. His jaws were clenched, his teeth still together, and his eyes were fixed in front of him.

  “I’m young now, Kyle. And I don’t think I’m gay. I don’t think it because I’m not gay. But you are, Kyle. Maybe you don’t want to be, for whatever reason, or maybe something happened that made you scared, but please stop pretending to be someone you aren’t. I’m scared too, man. We can handle this together, right?”

  “You know what, Travis? Fuck off.”

  And he drove away without another word. I knew I’d gone too far, that I’d taken at least two steps in the wrong direction. Maybe part of my brain was still thawing out or something. Or maybe pretending is the only way for some people to be happy.

  “Isn’t that what you’re doing too?” Hatton asked me the next day at school.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Aren’t you just pretending you’re the old you again?”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  YOU AGAIN

  Since I’d missed out on getting my driver’s license the first time, my dad had been eager to restart the d
riving lessons we’d begun before I got sick. So I had to turn down Hatton’s offer to hang out on the Friday before Thanksgiving break to go driving on the interstate with Ray Coates, Backseat Driver. I was nervous as hell because I wasn’t all that great with my old body, and I still wasn’t too sure that this new one wouldn’t just shut down at any moment. I kept imagining my arms and legs going completely limp and the car cruising right off the side of a bridge or something. But Dad was way more relaxed than he used to be.

  “Come on, Travis,” he said. “You’re driving like my grandpa. Just chill out, okay?”

  “You’re making me nervous,” I said.

  He let go of the safety handle above the passenger window and took his foot off the invisible brake pedal he’d been tapping on the floor.

  “Sorry. Now fix your hands. Ten and two.”

  I liked doing things with my dad. He never got mad about anything—always kept his cool even in stressful situations. And he was always telling me some weird tidbit about something you’d never think anyone would know. If he hadn’t been so excited to share these things, I probably wouldn’t have ever wanted to learn them either.

  “Did you know there are about sixty-one thousand people airborne over the US at any given hour of the day?”

  “No, Dad. I did not know that.”

  “I don’t see why people are afraid of flying with a statistic like that floating around. Get it? Floating around?”

  Oh yeah, and he was also a big fan of puns. And when he’d laugh at himself, he’d sort of crouch over a little, holding his stomach. He was always searching for a way to make someone laugh. When I had my first round of chemo, he sat in the room with me the whole time and read aloud from this huge book of jokes. It was awesome in that way that you realize immediately and want to cry because this other person cares about you so much that they’d do anything to make sure you’re okay.

  After our driving lesson Dad and I met up with Mom at the Triton, which was the little indie movie theater where I first told Cate I loved her. You know, the one in the painting. We got our popcorn and soda and took a seat right in the center, me in the middle. We were seeing a movie Mom had read some great reviews for, some coming-of-age teen angsty crap. I mostly came for the popcorn.

  Then, just as the previews were about to start, I saw her walk in. The screen was glowing and flashing on her face, and she looked exactly how she was supposed to look, like time had happened to her more slowly than the others. They saw her at the same time I did, and Mom immediately reached for my hand.

  “What should we do?” she asked.

  “I don’t think she can see us,” Dad whispered.

  She couldn’t. She took a seat in the third row from the front and slumped down the way I knew she would, the way she always did. I needed her to see me the way I saw her. I loved her, and even if those years she’d lived had twisted her memory a bit, had helped her get over me, she loved me too because she said so. She said it wasn’t fair. I heard her say it. She said it so many times. She just needed to see me now so we could fix it. She needed to see that after all this time we could wind up there together in the place where it all started.

  “I’m going up there,” I said, standing.

  “Travis, are you sure?” Dad asked, looking over at my mother.

  “I have to.”

  So I made my way over toward the aisle, tripping over strangers’ legs. That settled it, I thought. She’d see me in this theater, after all this time, and she’d know what to do, she’d know that the right choice, the only choice, was to be with me. And we would set the Earth back on its axis with a dramatic kiss in the glow of the movie screen.

  Then he walked in holding two sodas and a popcorn, and I stopped right in the middle of the aisle. Turner, the fiancé. Shit, this guy was good-looking. Even in the dark I could tell that much, and I could see from the way he walked that he knew it too. Then he sat down beside her and handed her a soda.

  “Excuse me. Are you going to stand there all night?” a woman said from a seat beside me.

  “Yes. I mean, no. What?”

  “Oh my God, it’s the head kid,” someone beside her said.

  “Please shut up.” I barely looked over at them.

  “From the news? Holy shit. Can we get a picture?”

  “No, you can’t get a picture. I’m busy, okay? Just please leave me alone.”

  “Asshole,” one of them whispered loudly.

  “Travis.” Mom had walked up behind me and tapped my shoulder.

  “What?”

  “We can go. Should we go?” Mom whispered.

  “No,” I said.

  “I don’t think this is right. Just not the right time and place for this, okay?”

  “She wants to see me, Mom.”

  I walked away from her and instead of going over to Cate, I went to the back, through the purple double doors, and sat down on a bench next to the entrance. I was breathing so heavy, and I felt like my face was on fire. It couldn’t be this hard. She was there. I was there. There was no reason we shouldn’t be there together, and there was nothing to stop me from walking right up to her and telling her that, setting everything straight again.

  I went back inside after a couple of minutes with the full intention of marching over to her, grabbing her hand, giving Turner the finger, and walking out of there to start my life the way I should’ve been able to weeks before. The way we always promised it would be. But then when I got close enough to get a clear view of them, I saw him leaning his face toward hers. And she was doing the same. With one little kiss that wasn’t on my lips, I froze again, lowered my head, and returned to my seat, where both Mom and Dad stared at me until I said something.

  “I’m fine.”

  But you and I both know I wasn’t fine at all. I don’t remember a thing about the movie because the only film I was watching was the one playing in the two seats they occupied, the one where they casually passed a bucket of popcorn back and forth and glanced at each other any time something funny happened on the screen. That was supposed to be me down there laughing with her. She was supposed to be whispering things into my ear and leaning her head on my shoulder. This guy stole my life and he didn’t even know it.

  When the movie was over, we waited a few minutes before walking out. I watched as they held hands and made their way toward the front exit. From the way they left so quickly, I thought maybe she’d seen us. But that wasn’t something she’d do. She’d never hide from me.

  Part of me wanted to stand up in the seat and scream out so she wouldn’t leave. I wanted to get it over with already, just tell her and everybody else the real reason I thought I was back. It wasn’t for my parents and it obviously wasn’t for Kyle. It damn sure wasn’t so I could go back and be miserable at Springside High, either. It was for her. I was back there in that theater in Kansas City five years after all reason and all logic and all history collided together to say I was gone forever because this girl needed me just as much as I needed her. The universe made a decision the second Jeremy Pratt’s lungs started breathing my air and his heart started pumping blood up and into my brain. It decided that Travis Coates wasn’t done with what he started. It decided that sometimes you love someone so much that going and doing something crazy like having your head frozen and convincing everyone you’re coming back isn’t as ridiculous as it sounds. So why was it so absurd to think she’d be glad to have me back? Why couldn’t I just show up at her door and take her hand and say thank you? Thank you for still being here.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THANK YOU

  I spent most of Thanksgiving break moping around the house and watching old movies on cable. Hatton was visiting his grandmother in Kentucky for the week, and it looked like Kyle wasn’t talking to me. I couldn’t blame him. Even I wasn’t sure what I was trying to get out of confronting him about his sexuality. Ugh. “Sexuality.” That makes it sound like the opposite of what it is, I think. “Lifestyle” is even worse. No wonder he wan
ts to keep it to himself—nobody seems to understand things they aren’t a part of—I guess that’s why I keep getting called a freak on national television.

  I just wanted him to be okay. I needed him to be okay because, well, I don’t think I was anywhere close to that, and I needed at least one of us to have things figured out. Yeah, maybe I was dying when he told me before and it didn’t matter, but you didn’t see his face after he’d said it. I wasn’t so naive to think it would be all that easy for him this time. I’m not stupid. But I wanted him to realize that he didn’t have to keep hiding who he was, at least not from me.

  And then there was Cate. Seeing her with Turner was like seeing your parents having sex—it’s something you never want to see and after it happens, you’re forever haunted by it, no matter what you do. It’s like someone shaped a branding iron of the two of them kissing in that theater and scorched it right into my skull. The Triton might as well have burned to the ground because it was possessed by the spirits of that night. And I was bound to see her with him again. I knew I’d eventually come face-to-face with the biggest obstacle that stood between us. He’d have to go—that’s all there was to it. Turner who works with computers would have to be a victim of fate. It was inevitable.

  Something else inevitable was seeing my entire family for Thanksgiving. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I liked my family okay . . . I just wasn’t sure how they’d react to the dead guy in the room. I’d already seen my grandmother and aunt several weeks before, and that went okay. But this would be different. This would be little cousins who weren’t little anymore and aunts and uncles who’d visited me in the hospital, who’d helped my parents move on with their lives after I’d gone.

  Everyone in the family volunteered to drive to Kansas City for our big holiday dinner, instead of the usual trek to Grandma’s in Arkansas. I was anxious to see what had become of all these people who’d already seemed to age and change so much between our annual visits back before I was gone. Every year there’d be some new growth spurt to marvel at or a cousin with an accompanying girlfriend or boyfriend to whisper about in the kitchen or after they’d gone to bed.