Bruiser

13) EMPHATICALLY

My brother’s an idiot.

Sure, Tennyson’s smart, but he’s an idiot in all the other ways that matter. Such as when he forced his way into our miniature golf game and intimidated Brewster just because we went out on a date. It wasn’t even an evening date; it was a middle-of-the- afternoon date, which as anyone can tell you, is barely a date at all. The problem with Tennyson is that he has to be in control of everything. It’s like he’s worried the whole world will fall apart if he’s not holding it together. He thinks no one can survive without the protection of his iron fist, least of all me.

Well, in spite of what Tennyson might think, I am not entirely void of common sense, thank you very much. I deal with boys far better than he deals with girls. Don’t believe me? Then take a nice, long look at his current “relationship” with Katrina, who has the right name, because she’s got natural disaster written all over her.

I, on the other hand, know that with any boy it’s important to truly get to know him before the dates get serious. Not that I have all that much experience, but I’m blessed with friends who do. Their lives are like caution signs in the road, warning me against all the ill-advised things they have done.

1) From Carly I learned never to go out on a date with the younger brother of the most popular guy in school…because he thinks he has something to prove, and he’ll try to prove it on you.

2) From Wendy I learned that playing ditsy and stupid will only get you boys who are stupider than you’re pretending to be.

3) From Jennifer I learned to avoid any boy with an ex-girlfriend who hates him with every fiber of her being…because chances are there’s a reason she hates him so much, and you may find out the hard way.

4) From Melanie I learned that, while it’s true that guys have one thing on their mind, most are greatly relieved and easier to deal with if you make it emphatically clear right up front that they’re not going to get that one thing in the foreseeable future. Or at least not from you. Once that becomes clear, either they go after some girl who never learned the warning signs, or they stick around.

I tried out point number four on a boy last year, and it worked. His name was Max—my first and only boyfriend before Brew—and we got a whole series of necessary milestones out of the way. First date, first kiss, first conniption fit from my parents for breaking curfew. He got the first suspicious look from my father, and I got the first suspicious look from his mother. With all those firsts out of the way, we were free to live normal lives.

We eventually broke up, of course, because all training-wheel relationships must die if we ever intend to graduate from the sidewalk into the bike lane. We’ve remained friends, though, which has been very good for him socially (see point #3).

As for me, popularity was never something I worried much about. I’ve always been as popular as I needed to be with the people I cared about, and fairly well liked, too—if you don’t count a handful of evil, insecure Barbies who call me Man-Shoulders because I’ve got a slightly developed upper body from swim team. I take comfort in knowing that while I often come home with gold around my neck, all the Barbies can ever hope for are rocks on their fingers.

So then, with all that taken into account, I felt I was entirely conscious of the risks, and fully prepared to date Brewster Rawlins.

I was spectacularly wrong.

14) IBEX

As much as I hate to admit it, my brother, Tennyson, was right about what first attracted me to Brewster. It was the stray dog thing.

I’ve always had a dangerously unguarded place in my heart for strays. There was the time when I was ten and brought home a seriously psychotic shih tzu, which proceeded to attack everyone’s ankles, drawing more blood than so little a dog should be capable of doing. We named him Piranha and gave him to an animal rescue center that has a no-kill policy, although later I heard that Piranha almost caused them to change their policy.

Regardless, I’ve discovered that nine out of ten strays have issues that are not life threatening, so I have no desire to change my ways, thank you very much.

When it came to Brewster Rawlins, he might have had a home, but he was a stray in every other sense of the word.

It all began the day he showed up in the library.

I was a library aide at the time, which involved a lot of hanging around while the librarian tried to come up with busywork for me to do. I didn’t mind, because it gave me time to read, and be among the books. Do you know that if you take the books in an average school library and stretched out all those words into a single line, the line would go all the way around the world? Actually, I made that up, but doesn’t it sound like it should be true?

Part of my job was to help other kids find books, because not everyone has a keenly organized mind. Some kids could wander the library for hours and still have no idea how to find anything. For them, the Dewey Decimal System might as well be advanced calculus.

I figured that here was one of those kids, because I found him lurking in the poetry section looking like a deer caught in the headlights. A really big deer— maybe a caribou or an ibex.

“Can I help you find something?” I asked as politely as I could, since I’ve been known to scare off the more timid wildlife.

“Where’s the Allen Ginsberg?” he asked.

It took me by surprise. No one came into our school library looking for Allen Ginsberg. I began to scan the poetry shelf alphabetically. “Is it for an assignment?” I was genuinely curious as to which teacher might assign radical beatnik poetry. Probably Mr. Bellini, who we all secretly believed had his brain fried long ago by various and sundry psychedelic chemicals.

“No assignment,” he said. “I just felt like reading Ginsberg again.”

That stopped me in midscan. In my experience, there are three reasons why a boy will want to take out a book on poetry:

1) to impress a girl 2) for a class assignment 3) to impress a girl.

So, thinking myself oh-so-smart, I smugly said, “What’s her name?”

He looked at me, blinking with those ibex eyes. A nice shade of green, I might add.

“Whose name?” he asked.

At this point I felt embarrassed about having to explain my assumption, so I didn’t. “Never mind,” I said, then quickly found the book and handed it to him. “Here you go.”

“Yeah, this is the one. Thanks.”

Still, I found it hard to believe. I mean, Allen Ginsberg is not exactly mainstream. His stuff is out there, even by poetry standards. “So…you just want to read it for…pleasure?”

“Something wrong with that?”

“No, no, it’s just…” I knew it was time to give up entirely, as I was truly making a fool of myself. “Forget I said anything. Enjoy the book.”

Then he looked down at the book. “I can’t really explain it,” he said. “It makes me feel something, but I don’t have to feel it about someone, so I get off easy.”

It was an odd thing to say—so odd that it made me laugh. Of course, he didn’t appreciate that and turned to leave.

Something inside me didn’t want our encounter- among-the-stacks to end like this, so before he reached the end of the aisle, I said, “Did you know Allen Ginsberg tried to levitate the Pentagon?”

He turned back to me. “He did?”

“Yes. He and a whole bunch of Vietnam war protesters encircled the Pentagon, then sat in the lotus position and started meditating on levitating the Pentagon at the same time.”

“Did it work?” I nodded. “They measured a height change of one point seven millimeters.”

“Really?”

“No, I made that part up. But wouldn’t it be wild if it were true?”

He laughed at that, and now seemed like a reasonable time to hold out my hand invitingly and introduce myself. “Hi, I’m Brontë,” I said.

“Yeah, I know.” He shook my hand, which almost disappeared into his. “Probably named after the writers Charlotte and Emily Brontë. I’ve never read them, but I know the names.”

Truth be told, I was actually glad he’d never read the Brontës. That would have made him a little too odd. “My parents are professors of literature at the university. My brother, Tennyson, is named after a famous poet.”

“He must hate that,” he said, “being a meathead and all.”

“You know him?”

“By reputation.”

Which made sense. My brother’s obnoxious reputation precedes him like, oh, say, hail before a tornado. “Actually, he loves his name. It keeps people confused. He likes keeping people confused.”

He still hadn’t introduced himself. Since he knew my name, I wanted him to think I knew his name, too.

“I’ll need your ID card to check out the book,” I told him.

He handed it to me, and I glanced at the name quickly as we made our way to the circulation desk. “Well, Brewster, if you want my advice on other poets, let me know.”

“I just like the angry ones,” he said. “Know any more?”

“Plenty.” Which was not entirely true, but I knew angry poetry was highly Googleable.

As he left, I tried to size him up in full view. He was large, but not fat, sloppy—not grungy. His clothes seemed worn, but not stylishly so; they were actually worn, and the legs were short enough to prove they’d been around for at least two inches of growth. And although most boys look pretentious in a distressed leather bomber jacket, it seemed natural on him.

It was then that I made the connection—and made it so powerfully, I almost gasped. Brewster Rawlins. This is the boy they call the Bruiser! Always a little too big to be picked on, a little too mad-creepy to be in anyone’s clique. He was always just there, through elementary school and middle school, lingering in the background. I’d been in a couple of classes with him over the years, but it had been like we were on different planets.

It was hard to reconcile the memory of that kid with the boy I met that day—but one thing was certain: Brewster was a stray, and someone most definitely needed to take him in.

15) HOWLINGLY

In defiance of Tennyson’s campaign to remove Brew from my life, I made every effort to see him as much as possible. All right, I’ll admit my motives were mixed, but they didn’t stay that way for long. Spite against my brother, compassion for a stray, and general curiosity quickly gave way to something deeper—something more real and maybe even more dangerous, because when you truly start to care about someone, you become vulnerable to all sorts of things. I think Brew knew that better than anyone.

Our first date at Wackworld was a disaster thanks to Tennyson’s meddling, and I was determined that our second date would be a success. But what would that date be? During school that week we saw each other at lunch, and he offered to take me to the movies, as most guys do. The movie-date must have been invented by a guy: no possible way to have a conversation, and a darkened room suitable for other activities. Right.

“We’ll get to that,” I told him. “Maybe. But for now, how about doing something where I get to see your eyes?”

He started to look a little nervous, and his hands retreated into his pockets. I knew what he was thinking: He thought I wanted to be taken to a restaurant—and I knew enough about him to know that money was an issue.

“I was thinking maybe a picnic,” I told him.

He was visibly relieved. “Could be fun,” he said, then added, “as long as your brother doesn’t come popping out of the picnic basket.”

I laughed—a little nervously, because I didn’t put it past Tennyson to find some way to sabotage it if he knew. Keep in mind, this was right after the Wackworld incident, so I had every reason to fervently believe Tennyson was the enemy.

“My brother won’t know about it,” I said.

And he didn’t. No one did. That Saturday, as far as anyone in my family knew, I was off to meet some friends at the mall; and since I’m such a bad liar, I made sure it was the truth. I did exactly that; I stayed at the mall with friends for a whole twenty minutes and then took off for the head of Mulligan Falls trail. My backpack was full of sandwiches and condiments, and a blanket. Brew was bringing the beverages—“Considering that your name’s Brew, I think it’s appropriate,” I had told him, although I did have to clarify that I wasn’t suggesting he bring beer.

When I arrived at the trailhead he was already there, pacing back and forth, perhaps worrying that I wouldn’t show. I said hello, giving him a hug. He smelled very Mennen; just the right amount of mildly scented antiperspirant, which, in my book is far more enticing than a boy who reeks of cologne. I find cologne suspicious. Like carpet deodorizer.

“I had to tell my uncle I’m at Saturday school,” he told me, “so that gives us a few hours.”

Hearing that surprised me. “Why can’t you just tell him the truth?”

“Weekends are family time. He prefers me home.” And that’s all he said on the subject of his uncle.

We took a look at the trail map. “You sure you want to do this?” he asked. “After all, I was voted Most Likely to Receive the Death Penalty.”

“Oh… you heard about that?” I felt a bit embarrassed to be part of a student body that would behave so hurtfully. It never made it into the yearbook, but everyone knew about it. “Actually,” I told him, “I feel safer with you than with most other boys in school.”

“Thanks… I think.”

We took the trail up and out of our community. Housing developments disappeared behind towering trees, and in just a few minutes it felt like we were hours from civilization. It had been an exceptionally wet winter, and the falls were so powerful with the spring thaw, we could already hear the roar even though we were still half a mile away.

“So, tell me something I don’t know about you,” I asked as we walked. I tried to make eye contact with him, but the question made him self-conscious, and he looked away.

“What kind of thing?”

“Anything,” I said. “That you have webbed feet or a vestigial tail. That you’re color blind, or a sleepwalker, or an alien lulling humanity into a false sense of security.”

I thought he’d laugh, but instead he just said, “I’m none of those things. Sorry.” He helped me over a jagged boulder, thought for a moment, then said, “I’ve got a photographic memory, though.”

“Really!” It was much more interesting than any of the things I had suggested, except maybe for the alien—but all things considered, I much preferred that he be terrestrial anyway. “So if you’ve got a photographic memory, by now you must know the poems in that Allen Ginsberg book by heart.” I was just kidding, but a moment later he launched into “Howl,” reciting it word for word. And this is no short piece—it’s one of those poems that goes on forever. I was impressed, but also unsettled, because, like he said, he liked angry poetry, and “Howl” is a regular fury-fest. Rage against the establishment and all that. As he spat out the words, they became more and more caustic, like a volcanic blast. I imagined I could see superheated steam venting into the air around him as he spoke.

Then when he got to the part about drinking turpentine in Paradise Alley, he forced himself to stop. He was out of breath, like he had just run a sprint. I could tell he was still marginally volcanic inside, but he quelled it quickly.

At that point any other girl would have said, “Thank you, it’s been interesting,” then shot up a rescue flare. But I’m not any other girl. “Very impressive,” I said, then added, “Howlingly so.”

“Sorry I got a little carried away.” He took a deep breath and released it. “Sometimes I feel things very deeply, y’know?”

“How deeply?” I asked.

“Bottomless, kinda.”

And I believed it, too. There was something about his sheer intensity, and the way he could harness it, that captivated me. Controlled danger. A safely chained extreme. Was anger the only emotion he experienced so powerfully, or was it that way with everything?

I found myself leaning forward to kiss him. Why, you may ask? Well, don’t ask, because I don’t have an answer—I just couldn’t stop myself. It was just a peck, really, and I moved so quickly that our teeth bumped. Not exactly romantic in the traditional sense of the word, but I don’t think traditional was in either of our vocabularies.

He was stunned for a moment, then said something he probably hadn’t meant to say out loud. “You’re a very strange girl.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I try.”

I turned to continue down the path, but I’ll admit I was partially stunned myself, because I didn’t look where I was going. My foot slipped on a boulder, got wedged in a crevice, and I went down. I felt a sharp, searing pain in my ankle even before I hit the ground, and I yelped. My blanket-stuffed backpack kept the rest of me from getting hurt, but the rest of me didn’t matter if my ankle was out of commission.

“Are you okay?” Brew hurried over to me as I freed my foot with a pained yowl that made a flock of birds take flight.

“No!” I shouted, my frustration overtaking the pain. “I’m not okay!” It wasn’t just that the day would be ruined; there was a huge swimming tournament coming up, and ankle troubles are just as bad for a swimmer as they are for any other athlete. “This can’t happen now! I can’t have a sprained ankle!”

“Let me see.” Brew knelt down. By now the sharpness of the pain had subsided—it didn’t hurt when I didn’t move—but I could feel heat and pressure around my ankle. It was already beginning to swell, and Brew said, “I’ll bet it’s not sprained; you probably just twisted it.”

“Don’t touch it!”

“I’ll be careful.” He gingerly took off my shoe and then my sock. I held on to the hope he was right and that it wasn’t as bad as it felt. He held my foot and rotated it to the left.

“Ouch!”

“Sorry.”

Then he rotated it more gently to the right. “Better?”

“A little.”

“I know some acupressure points,” he said as he massaged my foot and ankle. “How does that feel?”

“I don’t know,” I said. But that was a lie. It felt good. Better than good. I watched as his fingers moved confidently across the bruising skin, caressing the bone beneath and stroking the tendons. A strange and powerful feeling of well-being radiated from my foot out to the rest of me.

“It’s called reflexology,” he said. “Some people believe the feet are the mirrors of the soul.”

I nodded. At that moment he could have said the earth was made of chocolate pudding and I would have believed it. I could swear I felt his heartbeat in the tips of his fingers, but maybe it was mine—and I realized that this was well beyond anything that should be attempted on a second date. Brew rotated my ankle again.

“How’s that?”

“Better.” It tingled, it felt a little bit numb, but it didn’t hurt. It was more like the feeling you get when you hit your funny bone. In a moment the sensation began to go away.

Then he let go. “Like I said, you just twisted it. You’ll be fine.”

I stood up and put some weight on it. He was right. I’d been lucky.

“But just in case,” he said as he stood up, “maybe we should have our picnic here instead of hiking anymore.”

“But… but what about the falls? And we haven’t even gotten up to the good views.”

“It’s okay,” he said, and offered a little grimace. “To be honest, I’ve outgrown these shoes—and they’re not exactly hiking shoes anyway. They really hurt.”

He took a couple of limping, grimacing steps, and I grinned. “You think I don’t know what you’re doing?” I said. “You’re just trying to make me feel better about not making it to the falls.”

He shook his head. “No, I’m serious.” He limped and grimaced a little bit more. I could see that he was sticking to his story, so I decided not to argue. I took the blanket and spread it out in a clearing, and we had our picnic.

We talked as we ate and drank, and had a truly wonderful time. It felt good, and I didn’t want it to end. I’m not going to be so stupidly sentimental as to say we were suddenly in love or anything, but something did happen that day. Somehow we had become linked. Entwined. It was out of the ordinary, and out of my control.

That’s when I realized that I had been wrong from the start: Brewster wasn’t a stray at all. If anyone was lost, it was me; and I could feel nothing but gratitude at having been found.

16) KEELHAULED

It took a day for that strange feeling to fade, although it never wore off entirely. Eventually I was able to hurl enough reason at it to camouflage it against a background of protective logic. It was hormones. It was adrenaline. It was the endorphins released by the acupressure. There was nothing out of the ordinary going on at all, and I was entirely in control of the situation. Right.

The following Sunday I invited Brew to join me swimming, and things took a troubling turn.

On weekends our school opens the pool to the public. It’s an outdoor pool, even though we live in a geographically iffy part of the country when it comes to weather. Why? Because some über-genius decided it was cheaper to heat an outdoor pool through the winter than to put a building around it. In early April few people come to the pool on Sundays, except the diehards. That was fine. I figured it would give Brew and me some space. The rumor mill was cheerfully rolling out reams about us; and I, for one, didn’t want to feed it more pulp by making a grand and glorious public showing among the masses. Knowing that Brew’s dictatorial uncle worked a night-shift kind of life, I planned it for morning, when he’d be asleep.

“I watch my brother on Sundays,” Brew told me when I suggested it. I told him to bring his brother along.

“I don’t have a bathing suit that fits,” he said. I told him shorts were fine.

“What if it rains?” he asked. I told him he didn’t have to come if he didn’t want to.

“No… no, I want to come.” And there was genuine enthusiasm in his voice when he said it. I was relieved, because the way he was trying to worm out of coming made me worried that he had changed his mind about going out with me. Maybe the ankle massage had been one step too close for him. Maybe he now saw me as the flytrap ready to spring closed around him. But he did want to come, and he meant it.

I had just finished swimming my laps when they arrived. Now, the only other person in the pool was one of the regulars—an old lady I call the Water Lily due to her flowery bathing suit and the way that when you look at her, she never seems to be moving forward, like she had somehow taken root in the pool tiles and all that dog paddling was for naught.

Brew was still favoring one foot as he walked, a whole week after the hike, and I remember thinking how one day in bad shoes can ruin you for a week.

I swam to the edge of the pool to greet Brew and his brother and peeled off my swim cap, because it’s not humanly possible to look good in a swim cap. Then I did a quick drop to the bottom and pushed off to the surface so that my hair became a shimmering waterfall instead of a tatty ball of nastiness.

“This is Cody,” Brew said. “Cody, this is Brontë.” I reached out of the pool to shake the boy’s hand. He looked up at the snarling dinosaur painted on the wall behind the pool—our school mascot—and read the team name beneath it. “Are you a raptor?” he asked.

“No,” I told him. “I’m a Brontë-saurus.”

He laughed at that. Then he removed several layers of mismatched clothes until he was down to his bathing suit and leaped wildly into the pool without even checking the water—which was cold, even by competitive swimming standards. Brew shivered with a sympathetic chill when his brother hit the water.

“Did you see me?” Cody asked excitedly when he resurfaced. “Was that a cannonball?” And although it was more like a mad leap from the Titanic, I said, “Wow, you made quite a splash,” which told him precisely what he needed to hear without lying to him. Then I turned to Brew, who still stood there with his hands in his pockets.

“Come on in; it’s not that cold once you get used to it.”

Cody, who had migrated down to the shallow end, called out to us. “Hey, watch me do a handstand!” He disappeared beneath the surface, produced some whitewater, then stood up again, arms spread in “ta-DA” position, seeking universal approval. “How was that?”

“Try it again,” I told him. “It’s easier if you keep your feet together.”

While Cody occupied himself with underwater handstands, Brew strolled along the edge of the pool toward the shallow end, and I kept pace with him in the water.

“Are you coming in?” I asked. “Maybe later,” he said. “I just ate.”

“Come on; it’s not like you’ll be swimming in a riptide,” I told him. “If you get a cramp, I promise I’ll save you.”

Reluctantly he went to the steps, took off his shoes and socks, then waded gingerly into the shallowest part of the pool. The water didn’t even come up to his waist. He wore a long-sleeved shirt, and it was already soaking up water at his waist and wrists.

“Aren’t you going to take off your shirt?” I asked. Even before he responded, a spasmodic brain cell sparked out something Tennyson had said: “Have you ever seen him with his shirt off?” I mentally pinched the brain cell like a gnat and extinguished Tennyson’s unwanted intrusion.

“Is it okay if I keep it on?” Brew said.

“Sure,” I told him. “Did you know that in the old days, men’s bathing suits included shirts?”

“I’ve heard that.”

“And if a man took it off in a public place, he was thrown in jail.”

“Really?”

“No, but I wouldn’t put it past people in those days. The Victorian era was very uptight.” Apparently I didn’t snuff out Tennyson’s question fast enough, because it had acted like a pilot light, igniting my own curiosity. Why didn’t Brew want to take off his shirt? It’s not unusual for people to be shy about their bodies. They might feel their flesh tone is a little too pasty or their love handles are, shall we say, a little too “Michelin” in nature. I knew one boy who had a scar down the center of his chest from open-heart surgery as a baby. He hated taking off his shirt. Could it be something like that? Well, whatever Brewster’s reason, I would deny my curiosity and respect his modesty. Truth be told, I found it charming.

“Did you see that handstand?” called Cody; and since I had actually seen feet flipping heavenward out of the corner of my eye, I said, “Much better. Keep practicing.”

The water lily lady climbed out of the pool and smiled at me as she left, probably thinking Ah! Young love, as old people do. Now it was just the three of us in the pool.

Brew was leaning back against the pool edge, content just to stand there. I reached toward him, and he reluctantly came away from the wall. “It’s best if you dunk all at once,” I suggested. “Get the shock over with; otherwise you never get used to the water.”

“I’m fine this way.”

Now that he stood in slightly deeper water, the edge of his shirt grazed the surface, becoming darker as it soaked in pool water. “I’ll race you to the far end,” I suggested.

“No,” he said. “I’m not very fast.”

“So I’ll just use my arms; I won’t kick.”

“No,” he said, “I really don’t want to.”

I pulled him toward deeper water. “C’mon, it’s only twenty-five yards.”

“No!” he pulled his hand back from mine.

I looked at him, feeling like I had been slapped in the face, but then I realized I was the one who had pushed it. Then before either of us could say anything, Cody chimed in.

“Brew can’t swim, but I can! One, two, three—GO!” And he took off toward the far end of the pool.

I looked at Brew, and he turned away. I could feel his humiliation like ripples in the water. “You really can’t swim?” He shook his head.

“Well, that’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Let’s just drop it, okay?”

And suddenly I had an idea.

“I’ll teach you to swim!” I said. Yes! It was absolutely perfect—and not just the answer to getting out of this awkward moment but also the ideal boy- girl bonding thing that becomes a musical montage in the movie version of our lives.

But before I could figure out where to start our first lesson, Brew said, “I’ll be waiting in the stands.” Then he turned to wade out of the pool.

“But it will be fun! I promise!” He didn’t stop, so I reached for him and grabbed him, maybe a little too forcefully, because his feet slipped out from under him and he went down to his knees.

“Oops…”

We were still in water that was shallow enough so that it wasn’t a problem, and he stood back up right away. But now his shirt had ridden up to his chest; and as he pulled it down, I got a brief glimpse of his body beneath the shirt. There was no taking back that glimpse. We both knew it.

“Did I win?” Cody shouted from the deep end. This time I didn’t even answer him. I gave all my attention to Brewster.

“This was a bad idea,” he said. “We should go.”

I reached for him again—this time more gently— and I took his hand, holding it in a way that I never had before. The same way he had held my ankle the other day. Gently. Like it was something precious and fragile, even though his hand was so large compared to mine. “Don’t go.”

I could tell he just wanted to bolt. If he did, I wouldn’t stop him. I had already pushed and pulled him in directions he didn’t want to go. If he decided to leave, I resolved to let him. But he didn’t.

I looked at his hand: His knuckles had scabs, but they were softened by the water. I gently reached over and touched his shirt.

“Don’t…”

“Please,” I said. “Let me see.”

“You don’t want to see.”

“Do you trust me?” I asked.

In his eyes, I could see the battle going on inside him. The desire to hide a terrible secret fighting with the desire to set it free.

He turned his back to me, and I thought he would leave then. But instead he stood, feet firm on the bottom of the pool, and said over his shoulder, “Okay. You can look if you want.”

I began to lift up his shirt over his back, slowly, deliberately, like the rising of a curtain; and the scene it revealed was almost too much to bear.

His back was a battlefield.

Discolored flesh over old scars. I remembered stories about how they used to punish sailors by dragging them under a ship from one side to another across the rough, barnacle-encrusted hull. Keelhauling, they called it. Brewster looked like he had been keelhauled. Not once, but over and over. It wasn’t just his back, either, because the marks extended around to his stomach and chest; and after I had pulled his shirt over his head and free from his arms, I could see a few marks on his arms as well. Although I couldn’t see his legs underwater, I imagined they hadn’t escaped the devastation either. I hadn’t noticed it when he’d stepped into the pool; but then, I hadn’t been looking.

I rarely feel true hatred toward anyone, but right then I despised the author of those wounds, glaringly written across his body like blunt hieroglyphics.

“Who did this to you?”

“No one,” he said. Why did I know he would say that?

“You need to tell someone. The police, social services—anybody! Is it your uncle?”

“No! I told you it was nobody!”

“If you won’t go to the police, I will!”

He turned to me, furious. “You said to trust you!”

“But you’re lying to me! I have to trust you, too, and you’re lying, because things like this just don’t appear out of nowhere!”

“How do you know they don’t?”

I took a deep breath and clenched my teeth. I didn’t want any of the anger I was feeling to be directed at him. “If your uncle beats you, it will never stop if you don’t do something about it.”

Rather than answer me, he turned to Cody, who was now standing just a few yards away, chest-deep in the water.

“Cody, does Uncle Hoyt beat me?”

Cody seemed scared. He looked to Brew, then to me, then back to Brew again.

“It’s okay,” Brew said to him. “Tell her the truth.” Cody turned to me and shook his head. “No, Uncle Hoyt’s afraid of Brewster.”

“Has he ever hit me, even once?” Brew asked his brother.

Cody shook his head again. “No. Never.”

Brew turned to me. “There. You see?”

Although I still didn’t entirely believe it, there was an honesty in Brew’s eyes. So I had to look for another explanation. The only other logical explanation was something I didn’t want to consider, but I had to. And I had to ask.

“Then… do you do it to yourself?”

“No,” he answered. “It’s not that either.”

I was relieved, but I still knew no more than before. “What then?”

He glanced at his brother, then around the pool, as if there might be someone nearby who’d hear what he was about to say. But we were all alone.

Finally he took a long look at me and shrugged, like it was nothing.

“It’s a condition,” he said. “That’s all—just a condition. I bruise easily, and I’ve got thin skin. I always have. Sorry to disappoint you, but that’s all it is. A condition.” I waited for more, but that’s all he offered. I do know that people with low levels of iron in their blood tend to bruise easily, but it just didn’t ring true. “You mean…like anemia?”

He nodded. I could sense immense sorrow in that nod. “Something like that.”

17) CONUNDRUM

Things were more strained than usual at dinner that night, but it could just have been that my senses were on high alert. Things around me had become confusing; I didn’t know if I could trust my own perceptions anymore, and my thoughts were preoccupied with Brewster.

My parents, who used to be so much more observant, had absolutely no clue that anything was troubling me. Their own personal universes had developed a shell so thick, I don’t think anything was getting through from the outside.

“Are you done, Brontë?” Mom asked, reaching for my dinner plate, not even noticing that I hadn’t eaten a single thing. Carbs, protein, fiber—it all just sat there, as appetizing as plastic to me.

“I’m done,” I told her. She took away my plate and scraped my dinner into the disposal. I guess if I wasn’t so focused on Brew, I might have realized how “off” things were, how our whole family was on the verge of a landslide. Right then I wasn’t seeing anything, though. But Tennyson was. He was the one who noticed that Mom and Dad didn’t say a word to each other all evening—how Dad just ate in silence. Tennyson even noticed my lack of appetite.

“Starvation diet?” he asked.

“Maybe I’m just not hungry,” I said. “Did you think of that?”

“I guess it’s contagious,” he said. Only then did I realize he hadn’t eaten much either. In fact, all he had eaten were his vegetables.

“Since when are you a vegetarian?” I asked.

He looked at me, taking great offense. “Just because I don’t feel like eating meat lately doesn’t make me a vegetarian. I’m not a vegetarian, okay?” Then he stormed away from the table.

After dinner I tried to do my homework, but I simply couldn’t focus. I knew why. I had avoided talking to Tennyson about Brewster, but I couldn’t put it off any longer. He was, unfortunately, the only one I could talk to.

I found him in the family room, watching basketball. He was slouching in the man-eating sofa —the one that, when we were kids, we could sink into and practically disappear. It looked like Tennyson was still trying to do that; but the older we get, the harder that is.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to call you a vegetarian.”

“Apology accepted,” he said without looking at me. And when I didn’t leave, he said, “You wanna watch the game?”

I sat beside him and let the sofa pull me in. We watched the game for a few minutes, and finally I said:

“I saw it.”

He turned to me, only half interested. “Saw what?”

“His back,” I told him. “He took off his shirt, and I saw his back. And it’s not just on his back; it’s all over.”

Tennyson shifted forward out of the folds of the man-eating sofa and raised the remote, turning off the TV, and gave me his full attention. I was grateful that this was more important to him than the game.

“So, what do you think?” he asked. “Do you think it’s his uncle?”

Well, I know what I thought, but Brewster swore up and down that it wasn’t true. “I don’t know,” I told my brother. “He’s a conundrum—and there’s still a piece missing from the puzzle.” Whatever that piece was, there was a part of me telling me not to get involved —that it was too much to handle. That you shouldn’t go out on a limb unless you’re absolutely sure the limb can support your weight.

But a stronger part of me wanted to know everything about Brewster Rawlins and become a part of his story, no matter how harsh that story was.

Tennyson opened his mouth to speak again, but I didn’t let him.

“I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say ‘I told you so,’ then you’re going to look at me with that smug expression you get whenever you’re accidentally right.”

Then Tennyson did something he rarely does. He caught me by surprise.

“No,” he said, “I think you should keep seeing him.”

I tried to read the expression on his face, but with the TV turned off and only dim lights in the room, I couldn’t. “Are you being sarcastic?” I asked. “Because it’s not funny.”

“No,” said Tennyson. “I mean it. If you care about him, then you should keep on seeing him. Do you care about him?”

I didn’t answer right away. I’ll admit that Brewster had started as a project, but he had quickly become more than that. The question wasn’t whether or not I cared about him; the question was, how much? I’m glad Tennyson didn’t ask that, because then I’d have to ask myself; and I already knew the answer. I cared far more than was safe.

“Yes,” I told Tennyson simply. “I do care about him.”

Tennyson nodded and, without an ounce of judgment, said, “Good. Because he probably needs you. And I think you’re going to need him, too.”

I didn’t quite know what he meant by that last part, but I was still processing the fact that Tennyson felt this was good.

“I thought you hated him….”

“I did,” Tennyson admitted, “but if I wanted to keep hating him, I needed a good reason; and I couldn’t find one.”

This was not the Tennyson I knew. It’s amazing how people can surprise you. Even brothers. “So, now you’re friends?”

“I wouldn’t go that far.” Then Tennyson lifted his hand and made a fist. I thought he was making a point; but no, he just studied his knuckles with a creepy kind of intensity. “Tell me something, Brontë by any chance did you hurt your foot last week?”

It threw me because I didn’t expect him to know about that. How does he find out these things? “Yes,” I said. “I mean, no. I mean, I thought I sprained my ankle, but I didn’t.”

“And the Bruiser was with you?”

“Were you spying on us again?”

“No, I just had a hunch.”

“So, then, he told you about it?”

“Nope.” And then he added with a grin, “Maybe I’m just a mind reader.”

Now this was more like the Tennyson I knew. “The only thing supernatural about you, Tennyson, is your body odor.”

He laughed at that. It eased the tension, but only a little. Then he got serious again. “Just promise me that you’ll stay away from his house and from his uncle…and if things start to get weird, you’ll tell me.”

“What do you mean by weird?”

“Just promise,” he said.

“Okay, fine. I promise.”

Then Tennyson leaned back into the man-eating sofa and turned on the TV, signaling the end of the conversation.

I left feeling more unsettled than before. It was easier to deal with Tennyson when he was fighting me; but having him on my side was frightening, because now I didn’t know who the enemy was.

18) PERIPHERALLY

In horse racing they put these slats on either side of the horse’s head, blocking the creature’s peripheral vision. They’re called blinders. They don’t actually blind the horse, but they allow the horse to see only what’s right in front of it; otherwise it might freak out and lose the race.

People live with blinders too; but ours are invisible, and much more sophisticated. Most of the time we don’t even know they’re there. Maybe we need them, though, because if we took in everything all at once, we’d lose our minds. Or worse, our souls. We’d see, we’d hear, we’d feel so deeply that we might never resurface.

So we make decisions and base our lives on those decisions, never realizing we’re only seeing one-tenth of the whole. Then we cling to our narrow conclusions like our lives depend on it.

Remember how they imprisoned Galileo for insisting the earth revolved around the sun? You can call those people ignorant, but it was more than mere ignorance. They had a lot to lose if they took off their blinders. Can you imagine how terrifying it must be to suddenly realize that everything you believe about the nature of the universe is wrong? Most people don’t realize how terrifying that is until their world is the one being threatened.

My world always revolved around our nuclear family. Mom, Dad, Tennyson, and me. It was an atom that might ionize once in a while, erratically spewing electrons here and there; but in spite of that, I always believed it was fundamentally stable. No one expects nuclear fission within the loving bonds of one’s own family.

My blinders didn’t allow me to see it coming.

19) GASTRONOMY

I promised Tennyson I wouldn’t go to Brewster’s house, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t invite him to ours.

It was Friday, and I was already cooking dinner when Mom came home from the university. I had told her and Dad that tonight was the night Brew was coming; but I still couldn’t take the chance that Mom would forget and have to order fast food, or worse, pull out frozen burritos and try to pass them off as homemade. So I skipped Friday’s swim practice and got dinner going myself, thank you very much.

Sure enough, Mom’s mind was beyond elsewhere when she got home, so I had definitely made the right call. “Brewster will be coming at six,” I told her. “Just in time for dinner. Please, please, don’t bring out my baby pictures, or ask him about his philosophy of life the way you did with Max.”

Mom nodded, then said, “I’m sorry, honey, what was that?” like she was somewhere in deep space, where sound waves couldn’t travel. It drove me crazy that I had to repeat myself, and I still don’t know whether she heard.

If it weren’t for my blinders, I might have wondered about the bigger picture, but right then and there it was all about me.

“Please try to make him feel at home. Please try not to scare him away.”

“Did your father call?” Mom asked with an emptiness in her voice that I misread as exhaustion.

“I don’t know,” I told her. “I’ve been out buying groceries.”

Tennyson arrived a bit later, all sweaty from lacrosse.

“Shower!” I ordered. “Brewster’s coming over for dinner.”

He looked worried and said to me quietly, “I don’t think this is a good night.”

“When is it ever?”

“No,” he said just as quietly. “There’s something wrong. Something going on. I could tell this morning at breakfast; didn’t you notice the way Mom and Dad were?”

“No.”

“It’s like…it’s like someone died and they haven’t told us yet. Anyway, whatever it is—”

“Whatever it is,” I said stridently, “it’s going to have to wait until after dinner. I’ve been planning this for a week, dinner is in the oven, and it’s too late to call it off.”

He gave no further argument and went off to shower.

When Dad came home, he opened a bottle of wine, which wasn’t unusual. He’d usually have a glass as he watched the news, and maybe one with dinner if the wine was one that complemented the meal—but never more than that. Tonight he guzzled the first glass with the wine bottle still in his hand and poured a second. I thought about what Tennyson had said but decided that whatever was wrong, a hearty, home-cooked meal would soothe it.

“Dad, save the second glass for dinner,” I told him. “Merlot goes well with what I’m making.”

“You?”

“Yes, me. Brewster’s coming for dinner, remember?”

“Oh. Right.”

Brewster arrived just as I finished setting the table. “Am I too early?” he asked.

“Right on time,” I told him. “You look great.” He was dressed in slacks and a button-down shirt that was a little bit small on him; but that was his own personal style, and I’d come to appreciate it. His wavy hair was so well-groomed, he was hardly recognizable. I practically wanted to put him up as the centerpiece of the table and present him proudly to my parents; but instead I just made introductions, and they all shook hands.

Then, when everyone was seated, I brought the platter to the table. “Voilà,” I said. “Bon appétit.” And I unveiled my gastronomical masterpiece.

Tennyson and Brew just stared at it like it had come from Mars.

“What is that?” Tennyson asked.

“It’s a tri-tip roast,” I said.

Tennyson looked like he might become physically ill. “Where’d you get it?” he asked.

“The store. Where else?”

“I’ll pass.”

“What do you mean, you’ll pass? You can’t pass! I was cooking all afternoon!”

Tennyson turned to Brew, and Brew grinned. “Still not eating meat?”

“I’ll eat it when I’m good and ready,” said Tennyson.

The fact that the two of them had some secret that I wasn’t aware of really bothered me. “Are you going to tell me what this is all about?”

“Not while we’re eating,” said Tennyson, and he loaded his plate with asparagus, announcing that it didn’t make him a vegetarian.

“It’s a lovely dinner, Brontë,” said Mom; but instead of eating, she got up to clean the pots and pans that I had cooked with, refusing to sit down again.

Dad said nothing about the meal, or about anything else. He served himself and picked at the food on his plate, glaring down with an intensity that was both cold and hot at the same time, like he had a vendetta against the roast and hated each and every vicious spear of asparagus before him.

The silence around the table was awful and simply had to be broken, but no one was willing to do it but me.

“It’s not usually like this,” I told Brew. “That is to say, it’s not really this quiet. Usually we have conversations—especially when we have guests. Right?”

Finally Dad took the hint. “So, exactly how long have you known each other?” he asked, but his tone was strangely bitter.

“We started going out three weeks ago, if that’s what you mean,” Brew said. “But we’ve known each other since elementary school. Or at least known of each other.”

Dad shoved a piece of meat into his mouth and spoke with his mouth full. “Glad to hear it,” he said as he cut another piece of meat. “You have my blessing,” he said to me. “Via con Dios.”

It was the most mad-bizarre thing I’d ever heard my father say. I turned to see Mom’s reaction, but she was still busy washing the pots and pans, keeping her back to the rest of us.

Finally I lost it. “What’s wrong with you?” I shouted to Mom and Dad.

No answer for a while. Then Dad said, “Nothing’s wrong, Brontë. I’m just worried about your mother. She’s putting so much effort into that ‘Monday night class’ she teaches, I’m concerned for her health.” He glared at her back like it was an accusation. Suddenly I realized that it was.

For a brief moment I met Brew’s eyes, and there was panic in them. I could see the way he held his utensils tightly in his hands, as if he’d have to use them as weapons at any moment. I turned to Tennyson, whose hands were out, palms down on the table; he was looking at his plate as if he were silently saying grace. No, that’s not it, I realized. My brother’s bracing himself. Bracing himself for what?

And suddenly my blinders fell away, letting the big picture invade my mind in all of its terrible glory.

20) OBLIVIOUS

Enola Gay is the name of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and, three days later, on Nagasaki. It flew so high that when it released a bomb, it took one minute and forty-three seconds for the bomb to reach the ground. Actually, I made that part up; but you know what? I don’t care. I’m sure it’s close.

I wonder what the crewmen were thinking during that time between the act and the result. Were they regretful? Were they frightened? Exhilarated? Numb? Or were they just thinking about getting home to their families?

The thing is, once a bomb begins to fall the deed is done. All you can do is watch helplessly, waiting for the blinding flash.

I never saw it coming, but Tennyson did. I think he watched for the whole minute forty-three. It must have torn him apart inside to know that Mom and Dad were about to go thermonuclear, and also know that he could do nothing to stop it. All he could do was brace himself. He tried to warn me, but I was too oblivious to duck and cover.

Maybe I was the lucky one, because by the time I saw it, the bomb was about to strike the hardpan earth, so I never knew what hit me. And Brew? Well, he was the innocent bystander caught in precisely the wrong place at precisely the wrong time.

21) DETONATION

“How about it, Lisa?” Dad taunted from his place at the table. “Care to share the gist of your Monday night class? Or is it not suitable for children?”

Mom slammed down one of the pots in the sink. “Stop it, Daniel,” she said. “Now is not the time.”

“Of course it’s not,” Dad said. “But why should that ever make a difference?”

And then Dad turned to the three of us—me, Brew, and Tennyson—like we were a tribunal of Supreme Court justices. “Let me tell you about life,” he said. “Life is all about revenge. Getting back at the other guy at all costs; isn’t that right, Lisa? Why don’t you tell everyone about your ‘class’?”

“I’m not talking about this!” But she finally turned to face him, proving that yes, she was talking about this.

“Say it, Lisa. I need to hear you say it. I need to hear it from you.”

“Dad!” shouted Tennyson. “Stop it! Leave her alone!”

But Dad put up his hand with such authority, Tennyson backed down. He’s the only person Tennyson will back down from.

Dad looked at Mom for a moment more, both with matching gazes of accusation and rage… and then it was over. Dad crumbled. He buried his head in his hands and burst into tears that went on and on with no sign of stopping.

I turned to my mother, desperately hoping she could say something to fix this. “Mom?” I said. “What’s going on? What’s Dad talking about?”

Her shoulders went slack; and before her own emotions could choke out her voice, she said, “There is no Monday night class, Brontë.”

That’s when Brewster bolted. He stood up so quickly that he nearly knocked over the dinner table and made a beeline for the door—and since it was easier to go after him than it was to stand there and face my crumbling, dissolving parents, I followed him.

“Brew! Wait!”

He didn’t turn back to me until he was safely across the threshold of our front door. “I shouldn’t even be here,” he said. “My uncle’s at work, my brother’s home alone—”

“I’ll come with you….” I reached for him, but he pushed my arms away.

“I can’t do this!” He was furious. He was terrified. “You don’t understand! I can’t care about them. I can’t care about you!”

“What?”

He backed away, but he held me in his horrible, deep, draining eyes. “That’s right. I don’t care about you. It’s over. I don’t care about you at all.” Then he turned and took off like a thief, disappearing down the street and into the windy night.

22) REFLEXIVELY

There would be no looking back on this and laughing. That’s what people always say, isn’t it? “Someday you’ll look back on this and laugh.” Easy for them to say. I hope they choke on their own advice.

Standing at the open door was like standing at the edge of the earth. I felt myself leaning forward into the April wind, wishing I could just jump—or better yet, just slip out of my body and drift away, leaving all the pain of the evening far behind.

The thing was, if I had found a way to escape— even for just a little while—I knew the pain would be there waiting for me when I got back.

But for now I was shell-shocked. It wasn’t quite escape, but it would have to do.

“Fine,” I said to the stupid, soulless wind, and went inside.

No one was in the kitchen when I returned, and I happily entertained the fantasy that Mom and Dad had been instantly vaporized by their own middle- aged angst and had taken Tennyson along with them. An evil thought, I know; but I was feeling evil down to the core right then—and perfectly entitled to the feeling.

I could hear the TV in the family room. Probably Tennyson. And I heard movement upstairs—Mom or Dad, but not both, because by now they would have retreated to their separate corners of the ring, probably finding the two farthest points in the house to lick their wounds.

And there in front of me were the ruins of the evening on our best china. The waste products of a dinner gone wrong.

I found myself cleaning up, because it was easier to do something simple like clearing the table than to analyze which level of hell I now resided in.

I wasn’t being as attentive as I should have been, however, because as I reached to grab the serving platter, my thumb sliced across the sharp edge of the carving knife. I reflexively drew back my hand, but it was too late; there was a half-inch gash on my palm, near the base of my left thumb, and it was already oozing blood.

“Crap!”

I grabbed it with my other hand and tried to stem the flow of blood, but it didn’t help. Blood dribbled in little vermillion drops all over the forsaken roast, blending in with the drippings.

And that’s when I started to cry.

Of all the stupid things. Never mind that my boyfriend just abandoned me and my family just auto-destructed—there I was, crying about that stupid, freaking roast.

“Brontë?” Tennyson stood in the doorway watching me bleed onto dinner. “What happened?”

I grabbed a cloth napkin from an untouched table setting, pressed it to my bleeding hand, and to my own embarrassment found myself whimpering like a child. “It’s all ruined, Tennyson,” I said. “Everything.”

“C’mon,” he said; and he grabbed my elbow, pulling me toward the bathroom.

He searched for Band-Aids in the medicine chest while I washed the wound, watching the pink water flow down the drain.

“Apply pressure,” he said.

“I know how to stop bleeding!” I snapped. “I took lifesaving, for God’s sake!”

“Okay, okay, I’m just trying to help.”

I cleaned it with peroxide, and he held out a Band-Aid. “At least let me help you put this on,” Tennyson said. “You can’t do it with one hand.”

So I held out my hand and let him stretch the bandage across the wound, smoothing out the adhesive strip.

“There,” he said. “I don’t think you’ll need stitches.”

I took a deep breath. “Thank you, Tennyson.”

“No problem.”

As much as we fought, I can’t deny that at times like this, there’s a closeness between us that I’ve always been grateful for.

We didn’t leave the bathroom. Instead, he closed the door and sat on the toilet lid while I stretched out in the dry bathtub. It wasn’t the most comfortable place for a sibling summit meeting, but there’s something comforting about the tight privacy of a family bathroom. Does that sound weird? I don’t care.

I told him all about how Brewster bailed.

He told me about the times he’d picked up the phone only to be hung up on—and the time he’d overheard Mom talking to someone, saying things she should be saying to no one but Dad.

“Mom has a boyfriend,” Tennyson said. So there it was, out in the open. No hints, just the plain, raw fact.

“It’s because of what Dad did last year, isn’t it?”

“Maybe,” said Tennyson. “Maybe not. Maybe it would have happened anyway.”

Mom and Dad had tried to keep it hidden last year, but Tennyson and I knew what Dad had done. We had been furious about it, because fathers are not supposed to have girlfriends—even if it’s only for a short time. Even if it’s only one time. They’re not supposed to, but sometimes they do. Fact of life. I don’t know the statistics. Maybe I should look them up.

So it happened, and Dad had been left with a choice. He could give her up, whoever she was, and then move heaven and earth to make things right with Mom. Or he could end the marriage. He’d chosen Mom—and Tennyson and I saw how he tried to make it up, not just to Mom, but to all of us. I guess that had been enough for us to forgive him—at least in part. I had thought it was the same with Mom. I never understood the depth of the wound.

All at once, I found my thoughts ricocheting to Brewster. As much as it hurt to think of him, it was easier than thinking about my parents. It was easier to condemn him for what he had done; and the more I thought about it, the angrier I got. I had reached out to save him from whatever terrible things were going on in his world; but when something went seriously wrong in mine, he didn’t just walk away, he ran.

“He just washed his hands of us,” I mumbled. “He washed his hands of me.”

“Did you expect him to be a model of mental stability?” Tennyson asked. “You don’t get a reputation as the resident creepy dude for nothing.”

Still, that wasn’t an excuse. There was no excuse for the way he behaved. If I could be sure of nothing else that evening, I could be sure of that.

“I hate him,” I said, and at the moment I meant it with all my heart. “I hate him.”

Beyond the bathroom wall, we heard the garage door grind open and a car started. Someone drove away. I didn’t know whether it was Mom or Dad. I didn’t want to find out.

“So, what happens now?” Tennyson asked. It surprised me, because between the two of us, he was always the one who pretended to have the answer.

“It’ll get worse before it gets better,” I said.

“The D word?”

“The S word first,” I pointed out. I couldn’t imagine our parents separating. Who would move out, Mom or Dad? Who would we live with? Did we get to choose? How could we possibly choose?

Tennyson and I didn’t talk anymore, because there was nothing left to say; but we didn’t leave the bathroom either, because this was, at least for the time being, our only place of safety. So we sat there in silence, wishing there was some way to sleep through whatever was to come. Wishing there was someone who could come and magically take away all the pain.

23) TRANSFERENCE

It’s strange how we always want other people to feel what we feel. It must be a basic human drive. Misery loves company, right? Or when you see a movie that you love, don’t you want to drag all your friends to see it as well? Because it’s only good the second time if it’s the first time for somebody else—as if their experience somehow resonates inside of you. The power of shared experiences. Maybe it’s a way to remind ourselves that on some level we’re all connected.

By morning we knew that it was Mom who had left, and she hadn’t come home. Dad made us breakfast: credible pancakes, although the blackened evidence of his first batch was buried in the trash.

“She’ll be back when you get home,” Dad told us. He seemed way too confident about that, which made me think that he wasn’t confident about it at all.

As we walked to school, I couldn’t stop thinking about how furious I still was with Brew—how I wanted to make him feel everything I had felt last night: the helplessness of watching my family detonate and the soul-searing feeling of being abandoned in the midst of it, the way he had done to me. I wanted to take everything I was feeling, put it into a cannon, then aim it at him.

I knew I’d see Brew in school that day, and what bothered me most was that I didn’t know what I’d do when I saw him. It was terrifying not to have a perfect and clear-cut course of action. I knew exactly when I would see him, too. His locker was just outside of my second-period class. Usually we looked forward to seeing each other then, even if it was just to say hello. Now I dreaded it.

I suppose he could’ve made a point of avoiding his locker, but he didn’t. And I suppose I could have slipped in through the classroom’s back door, but I didn’t do that either—because as much as I was dreading it, I knew it had to happen.

He was standing right there as I approached the classroom. He didn’t look at me. He just stared into his locker, moving around books.

“Brewster?”

He turned to me and I found my arm swinging even before I was conscious of the motion. I guess swimming made me stronger than I realized, because I slapped him so hard, his head snapped to the side, hitting his locker, which rang out like a bell. It was all I could do to keep myself from pounding on his chest. All of that fury I was feeling needed a way out.

Around us, other kids saw what was going on. Some gave us a wide berth, others laughed, and that only made me angrier. And then Brewster said:

“Is that it? Because I have to get to class.”

“No!” I shouted, “that’s not it!” and I pushed him. I realized I was doing the bully thing that my brother was famous for, but at the moment I didn’t care. The push didn’t do much anyway—Brew had so much inertia, he didn’t even move when I pushed him. Instead, I ended up stumbling backward.

“There are things you don’t know,” he said.

“You think you can hide behind that?” I shouted. “That’s no excuse! What you did last night…what you said—”

“I lied.”

That caught me off guard and I hesitated, trying to figure out just what he had lied about. He’d said he didn’t care about me, or about any of us. Was he lying about that? Did he care after all? Did I want him to?

The tardy bell rang. We were alone in the hallway now. I was about to turn and storm into class when I felt something warm and wet on my hand. It was blood.

“Oh no!” It didn’t take a genius to figure out I had opened the gash on my hand again. The Band-Aid, which was already loose, was now too wet to hold its grip. It slipped off; and when I brushed away the blood, I had trouble relocating the exact spot of the wound. As it turns out, the blood wasn’t coming from my cut at all.

“It’s not you; it’s me,” Brew said, which is one of the lines guys use when they break up with you; but that wasn’t the case here. It was him. He was the one bleeding.

He pursed his lips. “Not good,” he said. “Not good at all.”

My anger didn’t exactly go away at that instant, but it did hop into the backseat. “I must have cut you with my watch,” I said, although I couldn’t imagine anything sharp enough on my watch to draw that much blood. “We’ve got to get you to the nurse.”

As Brew pressed on the wound to staunch the bleeding at the base of his thumb, I reached into my backpack and found a little pocket-pack of tissues. I pressed the whole pack to his hand and hurried with him down the hall.

“I can do it myself,” he said.

“I don’t care,” I told him.

We pushed through the door of the nurse’s office, where some boy I didn’t know looked up at me with feverish eyes and a God-help-me expression, like he thought he might die at any moment.

“Get in line,” he said.

“I don’t think so.” I shoved past him toward the nurse. By now the whole tissue pack on Brew’s hand was soaked through with blood, and the moment the nurse saw it, she went into triage mode. She quickly assessed the damage and began to clean the gash with gauze and antiseptic.

“What happened?”

“I got cut on my locker door,” Brew said.

Is that what happened? I thought. But he wasn’t even touching his locker.

“It looks worse than it is,” the nurse said once the wound had been cleaned. “You probably won’t even need stitches.” She talked about tetanus shots and gave him a thick piece of gauze. “Keep pressure on it.” Then she turned to me and my bloody fingers. “And you need to clean yourself up. There’s a sink over there. Wash all the way to your elbows. Do it twice.” She told Brew she’d be back to dress the wound, then went to deal with the plague-ridden boy by the door.

I went to the sink, crisis resolved, except, of course, for one minor thing:

The wound was gone from my hand.

It hadn’t healed—it was gone, like it had never been there at all. I kept washing my hands, certain I had just missed it and that it would reappear once I washed away the lather, but no. The cut was nowhere to be found.

I could feel something tugging on the edge of my awareness. Something both frightening and wonderful. I was at the barrier of some unknown place. Even as I stood there I could feel myself crossing over that line.

When I turned to Brew, he was watching me. “You didn’t cut yourself on a locker, did you?” I asked.

He shook his head. I sat beside him, not quite ready to believe what had happened.

“Let me see it.”

He raised the gauze. The wound had clotted; the blood had stopped flowing. I could see the wound clearly now. It was my wound. Same size, same place. Only now it was on his hand.

“Do you understand now?” he asked gently.

But how could I understand? This wasn’t an answer; it was a question—and one I didn’t even know how to ask. All I could say was “How?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “It just happens.”

“Always? With everyone?”

“No,” he said. “Not everyone.” The wound had begun to ooze again, so he pressed the gauze to it. “But if I care about someone…”

He didn’t have to finish the thought, because it was there in his eyes. The reason why he ran—why he lied. People thought Brewster Rawlins was a dark unknown, a black hole best kept away from. Well, maybe he was, but what people don’t realize is that black holes generate an amazing amount of light. The problem is, their gravity is so great, the light can’t escape—it just gets pulled in along with everything else.

If he took away the sprains, cuts, and bruises of everyone he cared about, no wonder he’d rather be alone. How could I blame him for running last night as he tried to escape his own gravity?

I could feel my anger and turmoil draining away now that I had at least a part of the puzzle. The brooding expression on Brew’s face truly was inscrutable, so it was impossible to know what he was feeling; but I knew what I was feeling. It flowed in to fill the void once my anger was gone. As unexpected as the slap, I found myself kissing him; and although I heard the nurse protesting from across the room, her voice sounded miles away. I was caught in a gravity far greater than hers.

“I love you, Brew.”

“No you don’t,” he said.

“Just shut up and take it,” I told him.

He smiled. “Okay.”

He didn’t have to tell me that he felt the same, because I already knew. The evidence was there on the palm of his hand.