I Will Save You

by Matt De La Peña

  Mr. Red knocked again and called out: “Hey, Jess!”

  “Who’s Jess?” I said.

  “Met her around six months ago at Seaside Market in Cardiff. We both reached for the same melon and our hands touched. One of those things, I guess.”

  I looked back at the fence, wondering why Mr. Red wanted to know so many different women. Me and him were the opposite about that. He wanted to know a million, and I just wanted to know one.

  “Do you like her?” I said.

  He looked at me. “Who?”

  “The woman in there.”

  He nodded a little, said: “She’s great.”

  “Do you like her better than Maria?”

  He got a frown on his face and just looked at me.

  I remembered how Mr. Red and Maria would always be laughing when they were together, and how me and all the other kids at Horizons said they should get married.

  He pulled off his sombrero and ran his fingers through his hair, said: “Look, Kidd. Maria’s the best woman I know, all right? Out of all of them.”

  “She is?”

  He nodded. “That’s why we can’t be together.”

  I looked at him, confused. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Actually, it does,” he said. “She deserves better than me.”

  I was about to say something else, but right then the gate swung open and a pretty Asian woman dressed in a zoo work outfit stepped toward us and said: “Hey, Red!”

  She gave him a big hug.

  He looked past the back of her head and winked at me.

  After Mr. Red introduced us, Jessica took us behind the scenes and we saw two huge tigers in separate cages, pacing back and forth. Their heads were giant up close. Their paws, too.

  Jessica pulled out some keys and jingled them and both tigers roared so loud me and Mr. Red jumped.

  “Get a hold of yourself, big guy,” Mr. Red said, straightening his shirt. “They’re in cages. They can’t get to you.”

  Jessica put away her keys and said: “Don’t worry, Kidd. Red actually hid behind me.”

  We laughed and I pointed at Mr. Red and said: “See? You were scared, too, sir.”

  He frowned.

  Jessica gave us a tour of the zookeeper offices and we met two other keepers, and they told us about the history of Tiger River and how it was the first to be its own section, but now almost the entire zoo was that way. And then the keeper with the beard, Al, gave me a tiger whisker and said it was good luck.

  “You’ll see,” he said. “One day it’ll change your life.”

  “He’s right,” Jessica said.

  “Thanks,” I told him.

  I looked down at the whisker in my fingers, thinking how I wanted my life to change.

  I pictured Olivia.

  Jessica took us down this long hallway and pulled open a thick metal door and looked at me with a big smile. She rattled her keys and two little tiger cubs poked their heads out from behind a giant stuffed bear.

  They were the cutest-looking animals I’d ever seen. They tried to hiss and growl at us, but their growls were so tiny it just sounded funny.

  “Here,” Jessica said, handing me a thick rope with a knot tied on both ends.

  “What do I do?” I said.

  “They love to play tug-o’-war. Max, the one with the light ears, will go at it for hours.”

  I took the rope and tossed half of it to the baby tigers. At first they backed off and growled at me more. But then Max darted at the rope and gripped it with his paws and bit it and tried to pull it out of my hands. The other one bit the rope, too, and suddenly I was pulling against two little tiger cubs. It was unbelievable.

  I never thought I’d ever be so close to baby tigers.

  We played together for over a half hour, while Mr. Red and Jessica stood behind and talked. Jessica gave me a glove for my right hand and I let the baby tigers bite into it. They grabbed and hissed and I batted them around, but we were just playing.

  As we got up to go I realized I loved those baby tigers. I really did.

  Like how I loved Peanut.

  Back in the office part we got water and sat in chairs. Then Mr. Red stood up and looked at Jessica and she nodded and he said he had to go to the bathroom. When he was gone Jessica touched my arm and said: “You were really good with them.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I can’t believe I got to do that.”

  She smiled. “Red tells me you might be interested in working with animals one day.”

  I set my water on the table next to me. “I never thought about it.”

  “It’s a really great job. Every morning I look forward to coming in and seeing them. Even the big guys.”

  I picked up my cup again and looked in it, and then I looked at Jessica. “Do you like your job?”

  “I love animals, that’s for sure. And I like that I get to wear shorts to work and spend most of the day outside. Every job has its bad side. The crowds get on my nerves. And sometimes I think it’s really wrong to keep animals in a zoo. They’re better off in the wild, you know? But since we’re here I try to make it the best it can be for them.”

  I picked up my cup again, even though there wasn’t any water left, and pretended like I was drinking.

  Mr. Red walked in. “You should see the way Kidd takes care of this old beat-up dog at the campsites,” he said.

  He poured himself some coffee. “Feeds him twice a day, makes sure he has water, picks up all his poop. Walks him on the sand.”

  “It comes naturally to some people,” Jessica said.

  Mr. Red sat next to her and pulled off his sombrero. “I promise you, Jess. He’s turned that old dog’s life around. It’s amazing.”

  Jessica smiled. “I was that same way when I was young.”

  Mr. Red patted me on the back and said: “Guy works hard, too, Jess. Never complains.”

  “I’m going to ask you something,” Jessica said to me. “Would you be interested in the zoo’s summer intern program? It doesn’t pay a lot, and you’d have to wait until next summer, but it’s a great way to get your foot in the door.”

  I sat up, excited. “They’d really let me, ma’am?”

  “I could write a letter of rec.”

  I looked at Mr. Red, who was smiling bigger than I’d ever seen him. “What do you think, big guy?”

  “I’d love it,” I said.

  “I do have a little pull around here,” Jessica said.

  “Hey, Kidd,” Mr. Red said, leaning forward in his chair.

  I looked at him.

  “I want you to listen, okay? ’Cause I’m only gonna say this once.”

  “Okay.”

  He pointed at me, said: “I believe you can do anything, Kidd Ellison. Anything you put your mind to.”

  “You do?”

  “Anything.” He turned to Jessica and smiled. “Guy’s got a bright future.”

  “I have a good feeling about him,” Jessica said, winking at me. She patted Mr. Red’s arm and took his empty coffee cup and walked toward the trash to throw it away.

  I knew Mr. Red was still looking at me so I looked at the ground and thought about what they’d just said about me.

  At first I felt so good. ’Cause maybe I could do a job at the zoo. For the summer. And maybe I even had a future like they said. But then this heavy sadness went over me. Making it impossible to breathe right. It was exactly how I used to get at Horizons. When I’d stay in bed all day and sleep. When I couldn’t eat. ’Cause I realized something.

  It was actually really bad to have Mr. Red say I could do anything.

  ’Cause he was wrong.

  And eventually he’d find out, and he’d be let down. Like when he tried to teach me how to surf. Only this would be ten times worse.

  My stomach felt nauseous as I stared at the floor.

  The backs of my eyes burned.

  “All right,” Mr. Red said, standing up, putting his sombrero back on. “Let’s let Jess get back to wo
rk.”

  I couldn’t look at him.

  “Come on, big guy.”

  I stood up.

  “Let’s go get us a burrito,” Mr. Red said. “That sound okay to you?”

  I still couldn’t look him in the eyes. Or tell him yes.

  I had to just nod.

  There were riptide warning signs posted all over the beach. Only strong swimmers were allowed to go in the water.

  Devon didn’t care.

  He squeezed my wrists and pulled me in with him, talking the whole time about me needing a rebirth.

  “And you hate those parts, don’t you, Special?”

  I let him drag me into the current water ’cause when I really thought about it, I did hate parts of me.

  The exact ones he was saying.

  Devon spit over his shoulder, said: “I watched you the other night, you know. With that rich chick.”

  “Where?”

  He kept dragging me. “Does it matter? Maybe I was on the roof of that stupid coffee shop. Or under the steps. The point is, I saw how you were acting. And it made me sick.”

  The water was up to my waist now. Up to my belly button. The current pulled at my legs. I tried to think how I acted with Olivia as Devon kept pulling me out farther and farther.

  I went to pull my wrist away, but Devon gripped harder and said: “Why are you like that?”

  I shook my head.

  “Answer me,” he said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “It was pathetic. You were pathetic.”

  “I didn’t do anything to you,” I said in a soft voice.

  “Actually you did,” he said. “You embarrassed me. And you know what, Special?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You embarrassed yourself, too. Isn’t that right?”

  My stomach started hurting, and I couldn’t look at Devon. My eyes burned. The water was up to my chest.

  “Special. Look at me.”

  I looked at him.

  “She doesn’t like you for you, man.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Devon spit in the water behind him. “She’s doing charity work, dumbass. She’s slumming it for the summer.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “She doesn’t wanna be with you, man. Soon as school starts back up it’ll be game over. You’ll never cross her rich-chick mind again.”

  “Olivia’s not like that.”

  “And you know what the worst part is?”

  I tried to pull my wrists away, but he kept ahold of them.

  “The worst part is you wish you could abandon yourself, too.”

  “No, I don’t,” I said. My eyes stinging, the current pulling.

  “I want you to be honest,” Devon said. “Can you do that for once in your life, Special?”

  I stayed looking at him as a small swell broke in front of us. We had to jump to keep our heads above water.

  “You hate yourself, don’t you?”

  A lump went in my throat, and I looked away.

  “Say it, Special! Say you hate yourself!”

  “I hate myself,” I whispered, and I instantly felt so broken tears came down my cheeks and blended with the ocean water.

  “I know you do,” Devon said. “I can see it in your eyes. You’re so tired of pretending.”

  I thought of Mr. Red saying I could do anything.

  And be anything.

  Him saying I had a bright future.

  “I’m tired,” I said, feeling like I was gonna throw up. ’Cause Mr. Red just didn’t know me yet. Soon he’d figure out how wrong he was.

  Devon’s head went slightly under as the current sucked us out. He came up and spit water and said: “Today we change you. We make you real again.”

  I went under, too.

  The pull of the water was so strong it swept us both off our feet. We couldn’t touch anymore. I started hyperventilating ’cause I couldn’t swim.

  But Devon didn’t care. He grabbed my face and said: “When your mom pulled the trigger that day, and her body fell, your body fell, too, Special.”

  I closed my eyes and sucked for breaths.

  “When those ambulance people came and scraped her off that woman’s rug, they scraped you off, too.” Devon splashed me in the face and said: “Open your eyes, Special.”

  I opened my eyes.

  He slapped me.

  Hard.

  The pain a total shock. The loud ringing in my ear. I touched my fingers to my tingling skin and looked at him, barely keeping my mouth and nose above water ’cause of the current.

  He grabbed me by the hair and looked me in the eyes. “Do you even know what it feels like when a girl says she doesn’t like you anymore?”

  “We have to go back,” I shouted. “I can’t swim.”

  He yanked my hair, said: “It feels like somebody shot you in the chest. It feels like you can’t breathe. Like right now. You want this the rest of your life?”

  I splashed my hands all around to keep my head above water. I was crying. But in the ocean you couldn’t tell.

  “That’s what this rich chick is gonna do to you. Soon as she finds out how you really are.”

  He took my wrists again, said: “Look at me.”

  I looked at him through blurry eyes.

  “That dude you work for, too. When he realizes how fake you are he’s gonna walk away, too. He’ll never talk to you again.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut and kicked and tried to imagine I was something else. Seaweed or a bird or a blowing leaf. I wanted to be anything but Kidd Ellison from Horizons.

  “If you trust me, though,” Devon said. “I’ll make it so you can never be hurt again.”

  He shoved my head under.

  I thrashed around under the soundless ocean.

  I kicked and bit and dug into his skin with my fingernails.

  Devon yanked me up and I gasped for breath.

  “Don’t you get it?” Devon shouted. “I’m trying to save you!”

  He shoved me under again.

  Water went in my mouth and burned down my nose and I thrashed more. My lungs burning. Mind racing.

  He held me under by my hair.

  I reached up for his face and pushed him away and got my mouth above water and sucked in a huge breath.

  I coughed salt water.

  I couldn’t see.

  Devon shouted: “For the past seven years you’ve been putting on this act! Pretending you’re a dummy!”

  “I’m not pretending!”

  “You are!” He shoved me back underwater, and when he let me up this time he slapped me in the face and shouted: “We have to kill that part of you!”

  He pushed me under again, and this time I just wanted to give up.

  Not try.

  Suck in water.

  Be done.

  He let me go. Let the current take me deeper. Take me under. He started swimming away. Fast as he could. Never looking back.

  Left me to drown.

  I got pulled under again. And this time I opened my mouth to suck in water.

  Breathe water.

  Die.

  But something in me didn’t wanna die. Not yet. It wanted me to live. ’Cause when I sucked in water my lungs stopped it, made me spit it out, made me throw it up, suck in air instead.

  I couldn’t see ’cause my eyes were stinging from the salt. From the crying. I couldn’t think. My arms just thrashed and thrashed to keep my head up. To fight the current.

  And then I felt someone.

  Lifting me.

  I pictured Devon.

  But he was still swimming away.

  I pictured God.

  I woke up on the beach with the lifeguard, Christian, kneeling over me and pushing on my chest. I coughed and water came from my lungs.

  I sucked in a huge, frantic breath.

  Then I tried to talk, to see what happened, but I couldn’t.

  My throat burned.

  I didn’t kn
ow if I was okay.

  Somebody was holding my right hand, telling me to keep still. An adult with no shirt on. He said an ambulance was coming.

  My eyes too blurry to see if I knew him.

  But it felt like Mr. Red.

  I tried to feel if I was different, if Devon killed the bad part of me, but I felt the same.

  I turned my head and threw up again.

  There were a bunch of people around me now, looking down, saying things. I tried to get up, but the man held me there.

  I looked up at the sky, saw birds flying around me. Everything felt so confused. My mind wasn’t working.

  All I knew was about Devon.

  And how for the first time he’d tried to hurt me.

  His own best friend.

  Philosophy 4:

  About How Some Things

  Are Meant to Be

  Dear Kidd:

  Some people don’t believe in fate, even people who seem like they would, but you know it’s true from firsthand experience. You should always remember that. Like what happened with the letter mom left under your pillow. She knew exactly what was gonna happen before it happened and thought to leave a letter so you’d understand, too. But it’s not the letter itself you should think about, it’s how you finally learned what it said.

  Remember when you came home from school early that day? With the police and the social-worker lady? I know you try not to think about that, but you shouldn’t just forget, either.

  They wanted you to pack a bag and that’s what you were doing when you saw the letter peeking out from under your pillow. The police were walking around the living room, picking things up and putting them down, but the social worker came in the room with you and kept saying how it was okay to be upset and it was okay to feel angry and confused, but you could barely think about her words. You were too busy slipping that letter in your pocket so she wouldn’t see. And thinking what it might say. And as you packed the lady said how it wasn’t your fault and you shouldn’t blame yourself, and it was okay to cry, to let it all out, even the strongest people got emotional sometimes. But your mind kept picturing the way Mom’s writing might look in the last thing she ever wrote.

  Before leaving you said you had to go to the bathroom and the police looked at the social worker and she nodded and led you to your own bathroom door and you went in and shut it and did the lock, not even thinking how this would be the last time you’d ever be in there. You didn’t go to the bathroom, though, remember? You sat on the side of the tub and pulled out Mom’s letter and looked at it. The writing on the front said: “To My Son.”