The Brave

by James Bird

  “A month and a half ago.”

  “Seventeen. But you’ve been getting dressed and … Where have you been going every day?”

  “You have enough problems to deal with. I didn’t want to pile more onto your plate. And I’ve been searching for something new, but things aren’t looking so good … I’m selling the house. Like I said, a fresh start wouldn’t be so bad.”

  I hold the young numbers in my head and try to kill them before they bloom. I know they won’t die, but I promised myself I would never stop trying.

  “One hundred and seventy-six.”

  “That many, huh?” he asks.

  “Eleven. Yeah. That many. You know I’m not going anywhere without Seven, right?”

  “Don’t worry. Your dog’s going with you,” he says, knowing it would be a deal-breaker if she weren’t.

  “Twenty-nine.”

  I’m not sure what else to say, so I pull my arm away from him and get out of the truck. I head toward the side of our house and pull the string that unlatches the wooden door on the fence. As soon as it swings open, the only soul who loves me as I am jumps up and nearly knocks me off my feet.

  “Hey, Seven!” I shout, and run deeper into the backyard.

  She gives chase. One of my many childhood doctors suggested to my dad that I needed a companion who would never judge me. So he bought me a black Labrador puppy. Apparently, animals are far more understanding than we humans are.

  Her real name is Numbers. I gave her that name so that word would no longer have a negative effect on me, but every time my dad called for Numbers, I would blurt out “Seven,” for obvious reasons. So now she answers to both names.

  Seven and I do everything together. We are inseparable. I would die for her, and she would die for me. She’s not only my “therapeutic companion,” or my pet, or even my best friend. She is my solid. She is the only solid in my ever-changing life right now.

  I pick up one of her slobbered-on tennis balls and toss it across the yard.

  “Good girl!” I shout as she chases it down.

  She returns and drops the ball at my feet. So I pick it up again and hold it above my head. She barks and bobbles her head, waiting for me to launch it into the air. I wish I got this excited about something.

  For selfish reasons, I hold the ball longer than I should. I don’t count the letters in each of her barks. I like to think even if I somehow could count them, I wouldn’t. I’m just a normal boy with a normal dog doing normal things whenever she’s around.

  But … all that changed today. I wish my life were more like hers. She sees something, and she goes and gets it. She keeps it simple. I don’t judge her by how fast she runs or by the way she picks it up. As long as she’s happy, I’m happy. So why do people care about what I do after they talk? I count. So what?

  I throw the ball again and focus on the distance it travels. I’ll be traveling a huge distance soon. But unlike the tennis ball, I won’t be coming back.

  Duluth, Minnesota … It sounds like a whole new planet. California is my earth. It’s the only world I’ve ever known. I need to find out about this new place I’m about to live in. All I know about Minnesota is what everyone knows about it: that it gets really cold there. So cold that when it rains, the water actually freezes on the way down.

  I’ve never actually seen snow before. I mean, I’ve seen it plenty of times in movies, but everybody knows that movies make everything ten times bigger and more exciting than they actually are. Maybe snow is boring. Still, I’ll need a warmer jacket for Duluth. And besides the town, you know what else I need to find out about? My mom.

  Is she nice? For as long as I can remember, my dad refused to speak about her. He said, “Let the past be the past.” It’s kind of his mantra for everything in life. All I was able to get out of him was that my mom was a twenty-five-year-old Native American girl he met at a rock concert thirteen years ago. And after he knocked her up and I was born, his parents agreed to raise me. He told me it was because my mom already had enough on her plate. This made me feel wary around every plate of food growing up. Like the side of mashed potatoes was more important than me.

  That would make her thirty-eight now. As much as I hate numbers, this condition does make me rather good at math. At the time they met, my dad was twenty-six. Which makes him thirty-nine, although he looks much older. Maybe it’s the stress of having me for a son, but his face looks like he’s pushing fifty. Or maybe it’s the drinking. His nose is constantly red, and his cheeks are always swollen. Once, a few years back when he was asleep on the couch, I took a marker and tried to blend in the rest of his face, making every inch of him red. He didn’t notice until the next morning. I was not allowed to draw for two weeks after that … And it took a whole month for him to give me my red marker back.

  Not all his nights of drinking were bad, though. One time, he actually let a few details about my mom slip out. He mentioned that my mom was very pretty and very funny, but back then, their worlds were just too different to merge their hearts together. My dad came from a wealthy family. They weren’t too pleased to hear about their only son getting mixed up with a girl from the other side of the tracks. They nearly cut him off financially when they found out he got her pregnant. But their tune changed when they found out the baby was going to be a boy. I was the only way to keep their last name alive. So they made my dad a deal he couldn’t refuse. He was to have a son and bring him back to California so they could raise me, completely shutting out my mom’s side. They argued that he was too young to be a father and that she was way too poor to raise a child. They told her they could give me a better life. A life full of opportunities and promise. I guess my mom agreed, because that’s exactly what happened. Little did they know I’d come with so much baggage. And that’s pretty much all I got out of him that night before he passed out.

  But when I asked him about it the next day, he didn’t know what I was talking about and refused to admit saying all of that. Truth is, I don’t think they were in love. And if love didn’t make me, how could either of them actually love me? My dad kept me so he could keep his parents happy, and my mom, well, I don’t know why she gave me up. I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

  My grandparents kept their word about raising me for the first six years of my life, but after a dozen failed attempts by a bunch of speech therapists and doctors, they handed me back to my dad and told him it was high time he grew up and faced reality. They thought raising a kid might steer him away from the bottle. They were wrong. I think they just wanted to retire, far away from the responsibility of a kid like me and an adult like my dad. So they moved to the Florida coast. I haven’t stayed in contact with them too much beyond postcards sent on my birthday and Christmas.

  I can’t believe my dad tracked down my mother just to hand me off. I’m like a hot potato: No one keeps me for too long. I wonder how he asked her to take me? Did he beg? I bet she regrets answering the phone. Did he even tell her about my counting problem?

  Seven barks, reminding me to live in the moment. She’s right. She’s always right. I wrestle the ball out of her mouth and throw it again.

  “Collin!” my dad shouts from the sliding glass door at the side of our house.

  “Six. What?”

  “Come inside. We need to … go over the plan.”

  Before I can respond, he shuts the door, so he doesn’t hear how many letters were in his last sentence. This is a technique he adopted early on. I guess it makes him feel a little better. Out of sight, out of mind.

  “Thirty-one,” I say anyway.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE PROMISE   (22)

  Dear Reader,

  I know we haven’t personally met, but hopefully one day we will. Believe it or not, I love meeting new people now. After you read the rest of this story, you’ll understand why. But before you read on, I want to thank you for getting here. Most people would have left me by now. In fact, the time you’ve spent with me thus far would’ve be
en one of my longer friendships … well, besides with Seven, of course.

  The truth is, I know how annoying this counting thing of mine is. And if I could turn it off for you, I would. But at this point in the story, you’re just going to have to bear with me a little bit longer.

  I know, I know, you’re only two chapters in and want to tear your hair out and tell me to SHUT UP, right? I get it. Don’t feel bad; it happens to everyone I speak to. But before you throw this book across the room, I would like to make you a deal.

  Here it is … From this page on, I will give you the numbers in new situations. But for people we’ve already met and spoken to, I will mostly keep the numbers in my head except … when I can’t. This way, you don’t have to be as annoyed as whoever I am talking to. How does that sound?

  But every deal has two sides. I just told you my part of the deal. Now you’ve got to live up to your end. If I do this for you, you have to also make me a promise. You must promise to do what I ask you to do when you reach the very last page of this book. Do we have a deal?

  All right, I’ll let you get back to reading now. Thanks again for taking the time to hear my story. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed telling it. And who knows, maybe one day I’ll be lucky enough to know your story.

  Your friend,

  Collin

  PS. There are 1,250 letters in the body of this letter, just in case you’re curious.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MY LAST NIGHT ON EARTH   (29)

  Even for us, I’d hardly call that a conversation. He did all the talking—three thousand four hundred and seventeen letters total, to be exact. I sat there and listened as the numbers piled up in my head. After all, how could I respond? I have no say in the matter. The arrangements have been made, apparently before I even knew this was happening. Seven and I will leave tomorrow morning.

  I fit all my drawings into a small box and tape it shut. As I do, my stomach drops. This feels like I’m packing away me. My drawings are my life. I’ve spent so much time alone that my drawings have become my closest friends. I first learned to draw as an exercise to deal with my counting condition. It was intended to pull all my focus into one area and allow my brain to slowly relax as my fingers did the work. It’s like how some people doodle when they want to relieve stress. And if my counting problem was somehow stress related, then drawing should help. Well, it did nothing for my numbers, but I did fall in love with making something with my own hands, all while being silent. So I kept drawing. Most of my drawings are of silent things. Like trees, flowers, buildings, rocks, and the moon. I guess I like them because they are able to be themselves in complete silence. I wish I could be silent after someone talks to me.

  My walls look so naked with only the marks from tacks left. Just a hundred tiny black stars in a four-cornered white sky staring back at me. It looks like the opposite of outer space. I’m like an astronaut leaving my only home planet to discover some distant nine-lettered world called Minnesota.

  I open my closet and stuff all my clothes into my black suitcase. Anyone seeing all the black clothes that I own might assume I attend many funerals. But out of all the colors there are, black speaks to me the most … by not speaking to me at all. Black fabric feels like outer space. And outer space, even though I’ve never been, feels quiet to me. All the other colors are so loud. So I started wearing black all the time, and it was the best decision I’ve ever made because hardly anyone in school walks up and starts a convo with the kid that wears all black. They pretty much stay as far away from me as possible. Which is good, because the last thing I want to do is let them talk just to see that look on their face when I start tallying up their letters. The downside of it is that it keeps me from making any friends. Which sucks, but even if I dressed in every color and made a million friends in one day, by nightfall they’d all be sick of my numbers, and I’d be right back where I started. Wearing black saves me from the pain of being ignored for who I am as opposed to for what I look like. Mostly.

  I wonder if my mom will be shocked when she sees me. Most people are. I look like a vampire and sound like a calculator. I bet it’s pretty confusing for people.

  I hope she doesn’t do what my dad has done, which is insist on taking me shopping for a new wardrobe to snap me out of this gothic look. Sometimes an oversized football jersey of his favorite team finds its way into our shopping cart. To avoid a fight, I appease him and allow a few to hang in my closet for a while, until eventually I dye them all black. Which causes an even bigger fight. But then again, he says my mom is poor, so I doubt we’ll be shopping for a new wardrobe. Good.

  I bet my dad even wishes Seven was another color. He can’t stand seeing his black-haired boy, dressed in all black, playing with his black dog, and listening to what he calls “black music.” But that’s not his problem anymore. Now it’s my mom’s.

  I walk up to my globe near my window and spin it. It revolves half a dozen times before I close my eyes and slam my finger down onto it. If I am meant to live in Minnesota, then it will be right under my finger. I open my eyes. It looks like I’m meant to live somewhere in the middle of the Indian Ocean. I turn it left half a day and place my finger on Minnesota. It looks like it’s in between a bunch of lakes. I like lakes. They are fun to draw. And they’re quiet. And usually surrounded by forests. Which are also really fun to draw. And also pretty quiet.

  Maybe Minnesota won’t be so bad? Or maybe my mom will get so tired of my mouth and send me off to wander into the forest armed with a notepad and markers, and I’ll spend the rest of my days drawing every single tree there is before I die of starvation. Oh wait, it’s super cold there, so maybe I’ll die first from hypothermia. I’ll need gloves if I’m going to draw in the cold. I wonder if my dad told her I draw? Didn’t the Native Americans love drawing? I remember learning something about that in school. How they didn’t write down their language or history. How they preferred to draw them, sing them, and tell their stories out loud. But maybe that was when they lived in teepees and hunted buffalo. They are probably like everyone else now. They go to a job they hate and eat TV dinners while watching football. If that’s the case, I’ll be fine in Minnesota … I have plenty of experience of that kinda life living with my dad … But if it’s not, if they live differently, then I need to learn how to be a Native American.

  One good thing did come out of the lopsided conversation with my dad, though. He said that when he told my mom about my condition, she blew it off like it was nothing. “Numbers never hurt anybody,” she told him. I hope she remembers that.

  I pat down my bed, and Seven excitedly flies up to me and nestles in for sleep. I take one last glance at the room I’ll never see again before I turn off the light.

  Night is my favorite part of the day. Total darkness meets total silence. This is when I lie in bed and imagine I’m normal. Where I can dream about a world without letters becoming numbers. In here, there’s no one talking to me. There’s no myriad of colors reminding me that I dress like a shadow. It’s just me and my dog in the peace and quiet.

  I close my eyes, but I don’t count sheep. By this time, I’m too exhausted by counting. Instead I try to focus on Seven’s heartbeat. I don’t count the number of beats either. I just love having another heart next to mine. It’s like music to me. And it’s by far my favorite song. I play it on repeat every night. I know it by … well, heart.

  She falls asleep much faster than I do, and within minutes, her heartbeat is drowned out by her loud snores … but I don’t mind; I kind of like that song, too.

  I listen to them compete with each other. But tonight, something is off. It doesn’t quite sound right. Her heart is normal. Her snores are normal, but there’s a third song playing.

  It’s a faint tapping. It’s sporadic and desperate. I sit up. Seven doesn’t notice it. She’s probably off chasing a dream rabbit somewhere in an open field by now. But this third song is getting louder and more chaotic. I’ll never be able to sleep to this
music.

  I reach over to my nightstand and turn on the light, but as soon as the light wraps around my room, the tapping stops. Was it my dad at the door? Did he change his mind? Has he realized he can’t live without me?

  “Dad?” I say, loud enough for him to hear, but he doesn’t respond, because he’s not there.

  I turn off the light again and bury my head into my pillow. And as soon as my comfort sets in, the tapping returns. This time, I carefully get out of bed and walk through the dark toward the unidentified pitter-patter.

  It’s near my window. I push my curtains aside, letting the moonlight see me. The tapping stops again. And now I see why. Against the glass rests a butterfly. I don’t remember ever seeing a butterfly at night, and definitely never in my room. I reach out and touch its yellow-framed brown wings, and as soon as my fingertip makes contact, it panics and tries to dig through the glass to escape.

  “You trapped, butterfly?”

  I open my window and guide the stranger out. It springs off the glass and lands on my hand. I don’t know where a butterfly’s eyes are exactly, but I can feel it looking at me.

  I extend my hand out of my window and let the night air invite my little friend toward freedom. Its wings flutter, then it lifts off my skin and takes flight. It darts up and down like a surfer waiting to catch the perfect wave. And it finds one. A light breeze hits it, and the little butterfly rides the wind until it vanishes into the night.

  I close my window and look over at Seven’s face before I release the curtains. She’s lit perfectly by the moon. So beautiful, like a sleeping wolf. I hope my mom has a backyard for her. I can’t believe I forgot to ask my dad about that.

  I crawl back into bed. If I wake up early enough tomorrow, maybe I’ll do one last drawing before I leave … I’ve never drawn a butterfly before.

  CHAPTER FIVE