Cupid Painted Blind

by Marcus Herzig

  Zoey gasps and squeezes my hand so hard it hurts. “Oh God.”

  “He got beaten up in school the other week,” I say. “It didn’t seem that bad at the time, although he did get a bloody nose.”

  The doctor looks at me. “Did he see a doctor?”

  I shake my head. “We wanted to take him to the school nurse, but he didn’t want to go. He said he was fine.”

  “I see.” He strokes his chin. “Well, it’s impossible to say for sure, but it may have contributed to his current condition.”

  I take a deep breath, trying to fight two competing emotions in my stomach, anger and guilt. Anger at the four assholes who have beaten up Phil and, as it now seems, nearly caused his death, and guilt because I didn’t insist on taking him to the school nurse to have her take a look at his bleeding nose. All right, she’s not a doctor, but maybe she would have told Phil to go see a doctor, and maybe he would have done it and maybe then none of this would have happened.

  “Can we see him?” I beg. “Please?”

  “He’s resting now,” the doctor says. “But yes, you can see him. Maybe not all of you at once, though. No more than two people at a time, and only for a few minutes.”

  I look at Phil’s parents, and they look back at me. “Go on, you’re his parents. I’ll wait my turn,” I say even though I’m dying to see him. They both nod and smile at me before they follow the doctor behind the glass door into the ER. I turn to Zoey, and when I look in her eyes a dam breaks and tears start running down my face. She puts her arms around me and holds me tight.

  “I was so scared,” I sob into her shoulder.

  She pats my back. “I know. He’s gonna be fine, though.”

  I let her hold me for a while as I dry my tears on her shoulder. Behind us, Phyllis is sitting next to Ricky, her arms around his shoulders. They talk quietly. Nurses keep scurrying around, their sneakers squeaking on the linoleum floor as the intercom keeps calling doctors to their stations.

  After a few minutes, Phil’s parents return.

  “Matthew,” his mom says, “you want see Philip, you can go in now.”

  “Thank you.”

  I look at Phyllis. Reading my mind, she asks, “You want a few minutes alone with him?”

  “Would you mind?”

  She shakes her head. “Go on.”

  “Zoey, can you text Alfonso? Let him know Phil’s okay?”

  “Sure,” she says. “Now go. Tell Phil I said hi.”

  “Thanks.”

  I walk through the glass door and down the hallway along a long line of windows, behind each of them beds with people in varying degrees of sickness, until I reach Phil’s room. He’s lying in his bed, his eyes closed. He looks fragile and pale. When I open the door he turns his head and opens his eyes. The hint of a smile crosses his lips. It turns into a frown when he realizes I’m still in my sweaty track kit.

  “Hey,” I say as I walk up to him.

  “Hey,” he says. His voice sounds weak.

  I grab his hand as I bend over him and kiss his forehead.

  “You smell.”

  “Well, excuse you,” I say, “but I ran all the way from Lincoln High.”

  “No you didn’t.”

  “But I could have.”

  He looks me in the eyes. “Have you been crying?”

  “No?” I pull up a chair and sit down, still holding his hand.

  “Liar.”

  I swallow to get rid of the lump in my throat.

  “I thought you were gonna die,” I say with a shaky voice.

  Arching his eyebrows, he slowly shakes his head. “Why would I do that?”

  “Because you’re Philip Thongrivong and you do all sorts of silly stuff.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “I was so scared I was gonna lose you.”

  “Now look who’s being silly.”

  “I know,” I say. “I’m an idiot for loving you, but here we are.”

  He looks at me with big fawn-in-the-headlights eyes. “What did you just say?”

  I replay my words in my head, and only then do I realize what I have indeed just said. I didn’t mean to say it but I’ve meant what I’ve said, and since there’s no point in denying it, I say it again. “I love you, Philip Thongrivong.”

  He swallows hard, averting his gaze.

  “I mean it,” I say.

  After a few moment he looks at me again, his eyes glazing over. Squeezing my hand, he says. “I love you too, Matthew Dunstan.”

  Overcome with relief and joy, I lean into Phil and we kiss.

  Then I lean back and say, “Now don’t you ever scare me like that again!”

  “I can’t make any promises. Due to my condition and my medical history I’ll always be at risk.” When he sees that his response isn’t going down well with me, he adds. “But I’ll try not to.”

  “God, I hate when you’re being so reasonable.”

  “I can’t help it,” he says with a sheepish smile.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “So how did the Schoolympics go?”

  “Good. We won the relay final. Or at least I think we did. I didn’t stay. After I passed the baton to Chris, I just kept on running because I had to get here.”

  “You’re such a dork. But I’m very proud of you.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “But enough about me. How did your trip go? I mean, apart from nearly dying on me and everything.”

  He shrugs. “Good.”

  “You like the school?”

  “I guess?”

  My heart sinks because I guess? is philspeak for It was freaking amazing and I loved it!

  “It’s a small school. Only forty or fifty students per year. And they have lots of arts and design classes and whatnot.”

  “That’s great,” I say.

  “Yeah, and they have twenty teachers. That’s one teacher for every ten students, so every teacher has more time for individual students. And the building the school is at is, like, a hundred and fifty years old and by a lake in the middle of a forest. It’s really beautiful and inspiring and—”

  “All right, all right, I get it,” I say. “You want to go, don’t you?”

  “I guess?”

  “Oh for crying out loud, stop guessing already! If you want to go, just say it.”

  He avoids my glare. “It’s a great place. A really great place. And the people … they made me feel welcome. They didn’t just stare at my face. I mean, some of them did, but it wasn’t as bad as here. Some even asked about my condition and actually listened with genuine interest when I told them about it. I don’t get that a lot.”

  I’m trying not to be offended. It’s not like I have never asked him about his condition and shown genuine interest. But I don’t want to rain on his parade, so I swallow my pride.

  “Go for it then,” I finally say.

  He looks at me. “You think?”

  “Of course! This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I don’t even know what you’re waiting for.”

  “I’d miss my family,” he says in a low voice. Then he looks me in the eyes. “I’d miss you.”

  I smile a bittersweet smile. “I know. I mean, I’d hate to see you go and live three million light-years away from me, but … look, you’ll be home for the school holidays and I’ll visit you up in San Dimas. And high school doesn’t last forever, it only feels that way.”

  “It’s three thousand miles, not three million—”

  “Oh shut up,” I say and press my lips on his mouth.

  * * *

  I don’t have much time to get ready for the dance. When we return home from the hospital, I take a quick shower, put on my tux, and bring Mom and Dad up to speed on Phil’s situation while I’m waiting for Zoey to throw on her dress and do her hair. By the time we make it to school, I feel relatively calm and collected. I knew I was going to raise quite a number of eyebrows if I was going to show up at the Sadie Hawkins Dance holding hands with my facially-deformed, special-educatio
n-classes-attending, lipstick-wearing weirdo boyfriend whereas surely not single soul will give a single shit about me, now that I’ll attend the dance with Zoey as my emergency escort, no matter how great I may look in my tuxedo.

  Then again, maybe I’m just not very good at predicting what people are gonna say or do.

  The moment I step into our high-school-gym-turned-dance-hall, heads turn and faces brighten up. Animated conversations cease, giving way to whispers and murmurs that slowly swell up to cheers, and from all sides hands of acquaintances and strangers are coming down on my shoulders. As word of my arrival spreads, a spotlight finds me and triggers people’s natural response to encountering even the most superficial, temporary instances of fame: they burst into spontaneous applause. At first it’s just a few people nearby, then it quickly eats its way through the crowd like wildfire until the whole place is roaring with thunder and somewhere across the gym a bunch of jocks start chanting, “USA! USA!” as if I’d just personally and single-handedly killed Osama bin Laden.

  I turn to Zoey, her eyes as wide open as her mouth.

  “Oh my God, what is going on?” she says.

  I shrug. “Damned if I know.”

  Through the euphoric crowd, parting the masses like a triumvirate passing through the Roman Forum, three familiar faces make their way toward us.

  “There’s my boy!” Chris says, flinging his arms around my waist, lifting me up and swirling me around. When he puts me down, Jack takes over. He throws himself around me, putting one hand on my back and squeezing my butt with the other.

  “I love you, Maddie!” he slurs into my ear. “I’ve always loved you, you know that, don’t you?”

  I pull out of his embrace, gently because I don’t want to offend him, and I look in his glazed-over eyes. “Are you drunk again, Jack?”

  He puts an arm around my shoulder and pats me on the chest. “Hell yeah! You betcha I am! Why wouldn’t I be? I’m in the presence of a freaking hero! I’ve never seen anyone run like that, Maddie!”

  “Thanks, Jack. That means a lot coming from you.”

  Taking pity on me, Chris pulls Jack away from me. “Okay, I think that’s enough, Jack. Let the poor boy breathe.”

  Next up is Jason, giving me a good old-fashioned bro hug and patting me on the back. “That was awesome, Matt.”

  “Thanks,” I say, “but … I’m not even sure what exactly is going on here.”

  “Dude,” Chris says, “haven’t you seen the video?”

  “Video? What video? Sorry, but things have been kinda hectic.”

  He pulls his phone out of his pocket. Zoey and I bend our heads over it to watch a cellphone video of our relay final that was shot from high up in the bleachers of Lincoln High. The video is titled Watch my awesome brother kick ass at the Schoolympics. It’s up on Greg’s YouTube channel and it shows how after passing the baton to Chris, I kept on running and I actually beat the Lincoln anchor runner to the finish line by the length of a nose. It must be the first time in the history of the sport that a single team came in first and second in a race.

  “Wow,” I say when the video finishes.

  Chris nods. “Jack may be drunk as a skunk, but he’s right: you are a freaking hero today. The medal ceremony was delayed by half an hour because Lincoln challenged our victory, but the judges couldn’t find any rule in the book that says you can’t keep running after you pass the baton, so …”

  “That’s just crazy.”

  “By the way,” he says, “I think this belongs to you.” He pulls a gold medal out of his pocket and places it around my neck under the continuing applause of the people surrounding us.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “You’re welcome. And forgive me, but I think as the person awarding you this medal I’m entitled to do this …” He leans into me, placing two pecks on my cheeks, one left, one right, followed by another hug.

  I still like his smell. Minus the nicotine.

  “Now come on and let’s get you some punch to celebrate.”

  Chris leads me through the crowd, and after a thousand handshakes and pats on my back we finally make it to the bar where Sandy and Alfonso are waiting for us.

  “Matt, oh Matt!” Sandy squeals as she throws herself around my neck. After a quick hug her face turns serious and she asks, “How’s Phil?”

  “Thank you for asking that,” I say. “He’s gonna be fine. He’ll have to stay in hospital for a few days, but he’ll be fine.”

  “Oh thank God!”

  Alfonso steps up to me, also giving me a hug. “That was crazy, dude!”

  “Honestly,” I say, “I wasn’t even aware of what happened. I just wanted to get out of there and get to the hospital.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’m glad Phil is doing okay.”

  “Me too.”

  Chris hands me a glass of punch. “There you are, champ. Enjoy.”

  “There’s no booze in it, is there?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Good,” I say and take a swig.

  “Listen,” Chris says, “I’m gonna take Jack outside for a minute. He needs a bit of fresh air, and I need a cigarette. Wanna come?”

  I shake my head, forcing a smile. “I’m good.”

  “All right, then. We’ll celebrate later, okay?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  As Chris and Jack head for the door, we mingle with the crowd. People keep congratulating me, patting me on the back and having selfies taken with me, their hero for the day. A million times I have to recount the race and tell everyone how it happened, how after I passed the baton to Chris I just kept on running. Few people ask me why I did it. They don’t need to know I did it out of love, so I just tell them, “I had to go somewhere.”

  “When you gotta go, you gotta go,” someone says to me, sowing the seeds of a meme that quickly spreads, and within a few minutes it’s common consensus that I kept running because I had to go pee. It’s the birth of a myth I’m not gonna bother to refute. The people who matter to me know the truth, and that’s good enough for me.

  As the night grows older, we stay young just a little while longer as we drink and dance and celebrate our youth. Everything is perfect, save for the fact that the one person I most wanted to be here is not.

  “Matt?” Sandy suddenly says, looking past my shoulder. “I think there’s someone here to see you.”

  My heart skips a beat, and for a brief moment I’m hoping that by some miraculous healing process Phil has recovered and made it to the dance after all, but when I turn around I look straight into the face of Greg.

  I’ve never been so disappointed, yet at the same time so happy.

  It’s very confusing.

  Of course, being his brother, I can’t let him know how glad I am to see him here. It’s a natural law.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Sorry,” Greg says, his feisty grin turning sheepish. “Mom and Dad wanted to play Scrabble with me. My only way out was having them come here.”

  “Mom and Dad are here too?”

  “They’re parking the car. They’ll be here in a minute.”

  “Right,” I say. “Hey listen, thanks for posting that video.”

  “Dude,” he says, “that was so freaking awesome! And guess what, the video is already going viral. Eighteen thousand views, last time I checked. Some sports magazine with half a million followers posted it on Twitter or something.”

  “Wow,” I say, “that’s crazy.”

  “Uh-huh. Great job, bro. Really awesome.”

  “Thanks.”

  “So how’s Phil?”

  His question makes me smile. “Thanks for asking. He’s still in hospital, but he’s gonna be okay.”

  “I’m glad to hear that. Really.”

  I believe him.

  And I forgive him. Greg is not a bad person. The only reason he’s been acting up against me is because he’s my brother. That’s not his fault. It’s the fault of the two figures who are making th
eir way through the crowd toward me now, but I’m not blaming them either.

  “I see you’ve come to bask in my glory,” I say as Mom hugs me and Dad pats me on the back.

  “Don’t be so full of yourself,” she says. “Although we are very proud of you, aren’t we, honey?”

  “Of course we are,” Dad says, and I can see in his eyes he really means it. No dad has ever not been proud to see his son win a gold medal.

  “Let me get you something to drink,” I offer.

  “White wine for me, please.”

  “Mom, this is a school dance. We have punch and orange juice.”

  “Really?” she says. “I could have sworn I’ve just seen Jack Antonelli throw up in the parking lot.”

  “He brought his own,” I say.

  “Oh well, punch it is then, I guess.”

  “Coming right up.”

  When I return with a tray full of glasses, Mom and Dad have found a table where they’re standing with Zoey and Greg. We sip our drinks, and I tell them all about Phil’s new school, feigning enthusiasm like a used-car salesman selling Mr. Thongrivong’s old clunker to an unsuspecting customer. My parents see through my spiel, but they’re kind enough not to say anything. They know the person I’m trying to convince is me.

  I’ll be getting there, somehow.

  After a while, Sandy and Alfonso come walking off the dance floor and join us at our bar table. They’re holding hands which is an odd but endearing sight. Also, it’s making me feel strangely jealous.

  The DJ puts on some song that must have meant something to Mom and Dad in the eighties or nineties or whenever it was they were still young, so Dad grabs Mom’s hand and pulls her onto the dance floor.

  “God, how embarrassing,” Greg moans.

  With a twinkle in her eyes, Zoey grabs Greg’s hand, and without putting up much of a fight, Greg follows her onto the dance floor.

  Sandy says, “I don’t know about you guys, but I could use a bit of fresh air.”

  Alfonso and I both nod, so we leave the hot and steamy air of the gymnasium behind and make our way outside into the balmy night where we find Chris and Jack sitting on the floor. Jack is hugging his legs, his head resting on his knees, his eyes closed. He’s sleeping. Chris is leaning against the gymnasium wall, smoking a cigarette.