by Cat Jordan
Nate’s mom came on the line. “Hi, sweetie, Nate just wanted to touch base with you, but he’s really got to rest. We’re in San Diego now, should be back tomorrow. Love to your family, okay?”
The call ended and I stared at the phone in my hand. It was real. He was real.
CHAPTER nineteen
It didn’t take long for the whole town to find out when Nate’s plane was arriving. Word quickly spread and by midafternoon, the Binghams’ house was filled with friends and relatives eager to welcome him. At one point, each room on the first floor was packed to capacity and I could barely turn around.
“Middie!” I heard Haley shout my name from the front hallway. She squeezed through the crowd, hands reaching toward me. I grabbed her fingers and pulled, wrenching her free from the group as if I were snatching her from the grip of quicksand.
“This is insane,” Haley said as she stood in a circle and turned around, admiring the WELCOME HOME, NATE sign my sister and I had put up. We’d also taken all the flowers and plants people had sent Nate and arranged them in the windows so the sun shone on them as if they were an indoor garden. I thought we’d done a pretty good job.
I felt a crush of people behind and around me as more guests entered the Bingham home, jostling us against each other. Haley giggled when her chin bumped into my shoulder. “This is fun. Kind of like a mosh pit without the sweat.”
She was right. The house buzzed with energy: Scotty and the twins were back from their grandparents’ house, shouting and running through the house with their friends, while my own parents were enjoying playing hosts in a really nice kitchen.
Suddenly there was a sharp yelp and the front door flew open. “He’s here!” someone shouted. The crowd surged around us and I lost Haley in an avalanche of guests.
My heart started to race as the seconds and minutes ticked past. There were so many people blocking my view that I couldn’t see a thing! And rising on my toes like Haley did wasn’t enough for me. Just as I heard a commotion on the outside landing—
“Nate! You’re here!”
“Oh my god, Nate!”
“Nate! Dude! Awesome!”
I felt a hand grasp mine and tug me back a step.
“What the—?” My head whipped around and I came face-to-face with Lee. He gripped my fingers tightly even as he glanced over my head at the door. “What are you doing here?” But in asking that, I heard the jealousy in my voice. Nate was Lee’s best friend; why wouldn’t he be here?
“I came to check on Rocky, make sure he got fed.” His gaze was not on me as he spoke but on the door.
“Oh. Well, I think so.”
Lee pressed his hand against my back; I felt the air sizzle between us and I wanted to lean into him, but I didn’t dare give in to the temptation. Nate’s parents were wheeling Nate in, and the guests parted to make way for them. I caught a glimpse first of the wheelchair and then Nate’s feet in his sneakers. My gaze traveled up to his legs and waist and his hands resting on the chair’s arms. He looked like he was swimming in his jeans and T-shirt—so thin and frail—and then I saw his face and gasped. He was gaunt, nearly skeletal after weeks in the jungle and sick with fever; his hair had been cut very short very recently, so it stuck up awkwardly over his ears. His eyes were sunken, hollowed out like the eyes of a jack-o’-lantern. He appeared overwhelmed by everyone in the house, although he managed a weak smile.
And then he saw me and his haunted eyes lit up. My name was on his lips and he reached for me. I let go of Lee’s hand and rushed forward, throwing my arms around Nate’s shoulders, careful not to break him. I heard scattered applause and a couple of wolf whistles when we kissed. Even Nate’s lips were fragile: thinner than ever, cracked and dry.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” I whispered to him. “You’re alive. You’re really alive.” I buried my head—carefully—in his neck and breathed him in. He smelled like Nate, like he always did. Same deodorant and shaving cream and shampoo. A flood of memories came back to me with his scent, and it was as if he’d never left.
“Middie, god, I missed you.” His voice, although low, was strong and clear. His bony fingers wrapped around my wrists and his eyes found mine.
“Me too,” I said, quickly averting my gaze. I did miss him, but I felt awful saying it. Allison was right: I was a terrible person. But I would make up for it.
“Sorry to break up the lovefest,” Mr. Bingham said with a grin. “Let’s get Nate over to the couch so he can sit there instead of on this metal contraption.”
“Oh! Sorry!” I stepped back to allow Nate’s dad to wheel him into the living room and I fully expected to find Lee not far behind me, but when I turned to look, he was gone. I didn’t have time to wonder where he went because Mr. Bingham needed help with Nate. I jumped in to assist and earned a grateful nod. It was the least I could do.
Once Nate was on the couch, no fewer than five people offered to fetch a drink, a pillow, a plate of food, and to each, Nate smiled and said thank you. He patted the spot beside him on the couch and I sat, feeling like the queen next to her triumphant but world-weary king. I held one of his hands with both of mine. It felt so natural to have him next to me, shoulder to shoulder, his hip pressed to mine.
Could this be a dream? I wondered. Could it be true he was home? I gently squeezed his fingers and he squeezed back, catching my eye with a subtle grin.
“Nate,” one of Nate’s old basketball friends called to him. “You gonna tell us how you kicked ass down there, or are we gonna have to wait till they make a movie about it?”
Everyone laughed, including Nate, but I could tell they were anxiously awaiting Nate’s tale. And so was I! The more we knew about how he survived, the more real it would become to have him home.
But Nate’s mother intervened. “Nate can’t talk for very long. He tires quickly, so not too many questions, okay?”
The crowd grumbled good-naturedly, but they accepted Mrs. Bingham’s word as law. They would take whatever crumbs they could get.
Nate sipped water from a glass someone handed him and then cleared his throat before he began. “I thought I was dead,” he said. “The fire, the guns . . . But the worst part was the screaming. Children were crying for their parents; moms and dads were shouting their kids’ names. It was . . . it was awful.” Nate paused as if he were hearing those voices again.
The room fell silent until Nate went on. “They thought I was dead too. But I’d only broken my leg when a wall collapsed on it.” He hesitated again, and we could see on his face that he was reliving the scene. I wished I could stop him, tell him to forget all those terrible things, since he was home now and safe, but I too was desperate to know what had happened. “I managed to grab my backpack and escape when they’d left my hut. Two men were with me for about a half mile, but, um, they didn’t make it.” He bowed his head.
“Where did you go?” Nate’s cousin Brad asked. He was perched on the couch arm on the other side of Nate, hanging on every word. “How far did you run?”
Nate looked down at his lap. “I think . . . I think the final figure was twenty-five miles? Something like that. It was pretty far,” he said with a laugh. “My leg was killing me!” He tapped his left thigh with his palm. “This is the one. Broke my femur.”
“Ouch!” one of his friends said. “Your femur? That’s a total bitch, man.”
“Brutal,” Nate agreed. “I could have bled out if my femoral artery had ruptured.”
“Doctor Nate, heal thyself!” someone shouted and there were scattered laughs.
“Yeah, well, not yet,” he said ruefully. “They say I might have a limp for the rest of my life.” He turned to me with a smile, an optimistic grin that said nothing was going to get him down. “I don’t believe it. I think I’ll be back to my morning runs with Middie in no time.” He leaned over and kissed my cheek and the group in the living room sighed, “Aww!”
No sooner had Nate begun his tale than he started to fade from the effort of speaking
. Mrs. Bingham swooped in like a mama bird and began to shoo everyone into the kitchen or outdoors. She opened her son’s hand and dropped in a half dozen pills: narcotics for pain, antibiotics for the virus. He swallowed them with his water and settled down into the couch.
Many of the guests started to leave, recognizing Nate’s need to rest. I wondered if I should go too, but Nate held fast to my arm.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, nestling my head against his shoulder.
“Neither am I,” he said. “Ever again.”
“Emma will be happy to hear that. She told me she wished this had never happened and now that you’re back, that means her wish came true.”
“That’s cute,” Nate replied. “I guess.”
“I think she wants to marry you,” I teased him.
Nate cocked an eyebrow. “Is she a Girl Scout now?”
“Not yet.”
“Tell her she has to wait until she’s a Girl Scout and then I’ll marry her.” He began to giggle over this and I realized the painkillers had kicked in fast. His eyes began to close and his chin bobbed. His laughter was infectious. Pretty soon we were both in stitches for absolutely no reason, but it felt good to laugh, to feel normal with Nate.
“Hey, man, where ya been?” we heard. Lee stood in front of us, hands in the pockets of his jeans.
“Dude!” Nate said. “What’s up, dude?” He sounded buzzed-on-the-way-to-drunk and his eyes blinked slowly. He reached up with both hands for Lee, tried to pull him down into an embrace, but the grab was clumsy and Lee ended up stumbling forward and landing on me with his head practically in my lap. I felt myself blush and hoped Nate didn’t notice. Lee’s gaze avoided mine as he muttered an apology and stood up.
“Oh, sorry, man, you okay?” Nate slurred, his eyes closing.
Lee nodded. “Yeah, I’m good. What about you?”
I watched this exchange like a fly on the wall of a boys’ secret clubhouse. They goofed on each other, joking about Nate’s lame leg and bad haircut. “What’d they use, a scythe? You look like shit.”
Nate’s smile was lopsided and silly and he took the teasing in stride. “You wish you had a Honduran barber, dude. I think I’m only gonna get my hair cut by a Honduran barber. Forever and ever.” And he laughed soundlessly, which made Lee and I exchange a glance before we too burst into laughter.
Finally, Nate began to doze off and his shoulders slumped forward. I felt his hand go slack in mine and knew that he was asleep.
Lee stared at Nate for a long time and then the smile slipped off his face. “See ya,” he said, pivoting on his heel toward the door. I watched him go, feeling an ache in the pit of my stomach.
“Middie?” Nate mumbled. His eyes fluttered open and closed a few times.
“Hmmm? Right here, Nate.”
There was a long pause. “Middie, I love you.”
I pressed my lips to Nate’s forehead. “I love you too.”
Later, as I tried to sleep, images of Nate in his wheelchair fought with pictures of Lee for space in my mind, and one thought kept pulsing through, over and over: He’s home. He’s really home.
With Nate’s return, my life swung into gear and I was suddenly swamped—but in a good way, since it gave me time to help Nate and kept my mind off Lee.
Three of my afternoons each week were spent taking Nate to his physical therapy. The other two I spent at SAT prep classes; the retest was coming up fast and I was nowhere near ready for it—again. Nate offered to barter study aid for driving and I gladly accepted.
Seeing Nate in the wheelchair was the hardest part for me. He’d lost twenty pounds when he was in the jungle, practically all of it muscle. I knew he was still Nate on the inside, but on the outside, he was a different person. A different boyfriend. He would tease me about my vocabulary and then, a minute later, grip my arm with both hands as he tried to stand up.
I felt helpless with him. I hadn’t ever known Nate as anything other than a strong, confident guy. He’d had it all: good looks and athletic skill, brains and humble charm. He would probably always be optimistic—that was in his nature—but now there was an edge of fear. And it was that fear that made me worry for his health, both mentally and physically. More than once, he tried to embrace me but I kept my distance, not wanting to injure him. A soft peck on the lips here, a gentle hug there . . . Eventually we would be back to normal, I told myself. Eventually we would be the old Nate and Middie.
When it was time for Nate’s exercises, I was allowed in the PT room to cheer him on. After a week of observing, his therapist let me guide him as he walked the parallel bars and lifted weights. It was a challenge for Nate at first, because his muscles had lost so much tone, but we kept at it.
“That’s it, Nate! One more set!” I would call to him as he worked his quads, lifting the padded weights with his ankles. “Eight, nine, ten, done.”
When he rested, it was my turn to work out. “Okay, complete this sentence.”
I perched on an exercise ball with a pen and paper. “Go.”
Nate read sample questions from a tablet. “There is no doubt that Larry is a genuine blank. He excels at telling stories that fascinate his listeners.” He pointed at me. “Is Larry a braggart, dilettante, pilferer, prevaricator, or raconteur?”
“Hmm . . . who’s Larry? Friend of yours from the basketball team?”
Nate grinned. “When did we get so funny?”
“Me? Funny?”
“Quit stalling and answer the question.” He picked up a free weight and did a few biceps curls.
“All right, Larry is . . . a prevaricator?”
“Buzzzzz! Wrong! He’s a raconteur. A prevaricator is a liar.”
“A liar tells stories.”
Nate counted out a half dozen more reps before responding. “Yeah, I guess, but it’s the wrong answer.”
I tossed my pen and paper to the floor and helped Nate move to another piece of equipment. “This is why I will fail the SAT. Again.”
“You won’t fail.” His glance at me was stern. “I’m going to help you.”
That was the old Nate, the can-do Nate, the Nate who was determined to continue on his path—on our path. I couldn’t deny him that. He’d suffered through so much. I swallowed my doubt and nodded. “Right. I won’t fail.”
Nate was the very definition of “indomitable spirit.” While he could suddenly become exhausted, which was the residual effect of the dengue fever he’d contracted, he was always upbeat and self-assured. He did every set of reps without complaint. He took his meds and his naps in equal measure. And he responded to a ton of emails and phone calls from people who wanted to wish him well. He’d even gotten an email from a professor at Lewis & Clark inviting him to speak to a group of students in their off-campus study program.
When it became too much, he would sink back on one of the weight benches and close his eyes. “Middie, tell me something. Anything.”
That was when I’d bring out my phone and read to him the text messages I’d tried to send. “This one is just xs and os. You know, tic-tac-toe.”
He laughed. “You are very silly, Middie.”
“Too silly?”
“Just silly enough.”
But I was careful to self-edit. When Nate shared pictures of Honduran landscapes, I showed him Emma in her uniform or my selfies with Haley on our first day of school. My photos of waterfalls and ponds and tree forts didn’t exist, just as his photos of the village children and GO doctors who died didn’t either. We both had secrets to keep.
Watching him work as hard as he did, dedicated and focused and determined as he was, I couldn’t not work hard myself. When I wasn’t with Nate, I threw myself into my classes, studying every night. But one thing continued to elude me: my college application to Lewis & Clark. Nate was so certain we would go together, but I . . . wasn’t. Not anymore.
After three weeks of rehab, Nate had put on ten pounds of muscle and was no longer as gaunt and weak as he’d been when he first
came home. He could walk on his own, using a cane when he was tired, but he still had a limp. The therapist told Nate he was going to cut him back to just two appointments per week and let Nate do some work on his own at home.
“Nate, this is awesome!” I told him on the drive home. “No more daily PT.”
Nate was not happy at all. “This is bullshit,” he said and was silent for the rest of the ride. At his house, he refused my help, slamming the car door and starting up the path to his house by himself.
I offered to make him a snack, but he snapped at me. “I don’t need your pity.” He threw the cane down on the floor and limped to the kitchen where he opened the fridge door and leaned against it, his breathing heavy.
“Why are you so angry?” I couldn’t ever remember seeing Nate upset like this. He was always so mild-tempered that any outburst felt like a total eruption.
He answered without looking at me, his eyes scanning the shelves of the refrigerator. “You heard what the therapist said.”
Had I missed something? “He’s cutting back. That’s good, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s not. And it’s not ‘awesome’ either,” he said, sarcastically. “It means he’s done whatever he can do and that’s it. Twice a week is not gonna help me get any better.”
Bewildered, I simply stood there and let my arms hang. “Two days a week is—”
“Three days less than it needs to be.” He slammed the door shut, but it closed with a soft whoosh. “How can I get back to the way I was if I’m not doing therapy every single damn day? I don’t want to stop until I’m better.”
“You are!” I thrust a hand at him. “You’re walking!”
“It’s not the same! I’m not the same!” He turned and stared at me, and while his cheeks had filled in somewhat from getting his fill of his mom’s good cooking, his eyes were still troubled, still fearful, still at odds with the old Nate. “What do you care? You gave up on me too.”
