“You’re calling this a ‘miracle?’ ” the host asks incredulously.
“A miracle is defined as an event that is not explicable by scientific laws,” the doctor replies. “So yes, I would categorize this occurrence as a miracle.”
Ren gives me a look filled with unbearable hope.
“Doctor, we have to wrap up this story shortly, but there’s one other aspect of your research paper that I think our listeners will find very fascinating . . .”
And just like that, I can’t stand hearing another word. I yank the radio out of the wall socket. The doctor’s brisk, unctuous tone snips into nothingness.
Ren roars furiously.
“No! What? He was about to … Why did you . . .”
He scrambles to plug the radio back into the wall, hands trembling and fumbling with the cord as he crouches near the floor. His eyes are inflamed, blazing gold.
“Why did you turn if off?” he asks, his voice steely and spine-chilling. “Don’t you want to hear the rest? Don’t you want to know?”
In this moment, the beautiful man that I love is hunched by the floor, still fumbling with the socket, overwrought with emotion. It’s the first time I’ve seen him look … ungraceful. I feel sickened, knowing that I did this to him, that I brought this nightmare into his life.
But I can’t. I just can’t.
“I don’t want to hear anymore,” I respond. “I don’t want to know.”
Daggers of dismay and pained confusion shoot from his eyes, piercing my heart.
“But why not?”
Nausea builds in my gut. Instead of vomiting bile, I vomit words.
“Because I don’t want to get my hopes up!” I bark at him, not quite screaming but nearly. “Because I don’t want to listen to some radio doctor talk about ‘atypical responses’ and ‘preliminary findings’ and ‘miracles’ like somehow it applies to me. Because it doesn’t!”
My knees buckle, and I’m sinking down, sobbing and mucus-logged, down onto the ground with Ren, who’s still clutching the plastic radio in his hands like somehow it can save us. It won’t. I curl towards Ren, and he flinches at my touch. That one flinch—so subtle, almost imperceptible, just a ghost of rejection—is the most painful thing I’ve ever seen or felt. Worse than death.
I turn to him, pleading with every fiber of my being, trying to make him understand.
“I am not the freak mouse who miraculously lives,” I choke-sob, crumpled on his lap. “I don’t want to get all hopeful and gooey-eyed and pretend like that. It’s delusional, OK? Don’t you get it? It hurts too much.”
He sets the radio onto the ground and kicks it away with a free leg, pulling me into his arms. I grip his arms, so relieved to be welcomed back home into his embrace. It’s like air after being held underwater. It’s like sunlight after losing yourself in a cavernous underground tunnel. It’s like life.
“I get it,” he says. “I respect your choice. I really do.” The beastly fury has melted out of his voice. “Thank you for agreeing with me.”
“I didn’t say that I agreed with you,” he counters. “I don’t agree. If it were up to me, I’d be listening to the rest of that radio broadcast, then Googling to find the research paper they mentioned, and then buying a plane ticket to England to meet that doctor in person, with a list of about a hundred questions that I want to ask him. Because if there were any chance—even if it’s the smallest chance—that you could somehow stay alive for another fifty-six years, or even another fifty-six hours, I would pursue that chance until the edges of the world. I would want to know. I would NEED to know.”
It’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard. I can just picture it—Ren, boarding a flight to London, racing to catch the train to Cambridge, marching into that doctor’s research facility, demanding answers to unanswerable questions. It’s romantic. Romantic and stupid. Because the answers don’t exist. The doctor said it himself—the mouse survived and nobody knows why. An unexplainable miracle. An atypical response. No answers.
Besides, I’ll be gone before Ren even boards the plane. There’s absolutely no time. Whatever miracle struck that research facility in Cambridge is not going to strike this one-bedroom apartment in Minneapolis.
Romantic, stupid, and heartbreakingly sweet.
“I am not the freak mouse . . .” I repeat again softly, as much to myself as to him.
He holds me and says nothing more. He doesn’t have to. As his breathing synchronizes with mine, as the powdery-pink light of the rising sun fills the room, I know exactly what he’s wondering. What he’s allowing himself to hope for, even though it’s ridiculous, even though it’s only setting him up for inevitable disappointment.
But what if you could be … ?
Hour Twenty-Four
“How about that cup of coffee?” I ask, offering a weak smile. “I was promised ‘mind-blowing espresso,’ if I recall correctly.”
Ren hops dutifully to his feet, heading back over to the machine he abandoned during the news broadcast. Within moments, I am presented with a perfectly frothed latte in a sky blue cup. He has designed a swirling pattern in the foam, something like a cross between a heart and a maple leaf. It’s impressive.
“You’ve got skills . . .” I say, and the compliment makes him glow with pride. In this moment, he reminds me of a lion cub—proud and strong but also yearning for my undivided attention and praise. It’s a cute combination.
“I may have watched a few YouTube tutorials,” he says, by way of explanation.
“Awww. You really need to get a life.”
He laughs and nods. “You’re probably right about that. After teaching six or seven classes at the dojo, and then doing my own workout for the day, I’m usually totally exhausted. I tend to grab something for dinner on my way home, and then I just read in bed or watch YouTube clips or Netflix the rest of the night. I’m usually asleep by 9:30 p.m.,” he grimaces, as if this information is flat-out embarrassing. “I’m basically a senior citizen.”
I can picture Ren tucked in bed, hair loose and freshly showered, gray and white sheets tousled all around, watching a show on his laptop. Maybe some type of show that guys love—something with car chases or drug lords or dragons. Maybe all of the above. Maybe he finishes off his night by masturbating—reaching into his bedside drawer to retrieve the bottle of lube that I suspect is hidden there, working himself into a frenzy, then sinking luxuriously into sleep.
So normal. So ordinary. So boring—but in a completely beautiful way.
I imagine a different variation of that same night—both of us showering together, crawling into bed, play-fighting over which show to watch, perching my laptop on a pillow at just the right angle. I curl into the safety of his body, resting my head on his chest, and he absentmindedly twirls a lock of my damp hair with his fingers, using his free hand to hit: Play. The silvery-blue glow of the screen illuminates our faces. Dragons roar, swords clash, and kings rage onto the battlefield, fighting for their family’s name, land, and honor … And later there’s kissing. And maybe popcorn. We descend into sleep with our arms interlocked, legs tangled, and when I wake up he’s the first thing I see . . .
I close my eyes and allow myself to revel in this fantasy. Somehow, it feels sexier than almost anything I can imagine. Deliciously ordinary. TV and touching and clean sheets and sleep. The type of moment that most happy couples take entirely for granted.
“Another one?” Ren asks, noticing my empty coffee mug. I shake my head.
“I’m good.”
“Want to see something cool?”
He’s beaming like a kid who just discovered how to mix baking soda and vinegar to create a volcano in the sink.
“Totally.”
He springs up from the couch and paces briskly towards the door.
“Come on.”
We move down the hallway towards the ea
stern side of the building. Dawn is in full bloom. Golden light pours through the small window at the end of the hall. The sky is turning from rose to blue, streaked with transparent clouds that trail off like comets.
After a few paces, he stops and gestures towards the wall. There’s a ladder. Old and partially rusted, but sturdy enough.
“It goes up to the roof,” he explains, already climbing upwards. I follow. At the top, there’s a door that swings upward. It’s unlocked and swings open easily like the cover of a book. A cool early-morning breeze greets us as we climb through the opening.
It’s clear that he’s been here before. There’s a yoga mat unfurled on the roof. Next to that, a metal chest. He pops it open to reveal another mat, a blanket, and several pillows. Working quickly, he arranges everything beautifully to create—for the second time today, or possibly the third—a pillow-nest. A soft place for us to land.
The roof has a subtle tilt to allow rainwater to drain off the edge, but it’s mostly flat. We recline on our backs, side by side, and we’re in our own kingdom of light and clouds, invisible to the rest of the world.
“There was a time in my life when I wanted to die.”
Ren’s voice cuts through the idyllic, dreamlike quality of this moment. I curl my fingers through his, unsure if—or how—I should respond to this abrupt and strange statement. Gray pigeons circle overhead and somewhere, several stories below, a bicycle bell chimes. In the end, I don’t have to say anything, because he continues to speak.
“I was nineteen. Everything in my life felt so sharp and ugly. My girlfriend had dumped me—cheated on me with my best friend, actually, and then lied to me about it. It felt like the worst kind of betrayal. Then right after that, I performed terribly at a national karate tournament and it was humiliating. Instead of feeling motivated to train harder, I just blamed everyone else—my sensei, the panel of judges, my opponent.”
I listen silently, wishing I could time-travel back to that tournament to comfort him, even though there’s probably nothing I could have done or said to alleviate his pain: the unique pain of tasting defeat—crushing, public, ego-shattering defeat—for the very first time. Older, wiser adults can offer you all types of inspiring pep talks and motivational slogans but at nineteen? You’re deaf to it all. You don’t believe a word of it. Grown-ups are blathering idiots, and the only thing that feels real is your pain. I remember.
“But that was really just the surface stuff. The truth is that I didn’t think my life was worth anything. I wasn’t that good at school, just average. I wasn’t that good at martial arts, just average. Maybe slightly above average but not good enough to win a national title. I wasn’t ‘excellent’ at anything. Oh, and I had really bad acne back then. Like really, really bad. I know it’s vain and stupid, but every time I looked in the mirror, I hated what I saw. It really wrecked me.”
It’s hard for me to imagine Ren as an awkward, late-adolescent, not-quite-adult man with pustules covering his skin, filled with anger and acidic blame, roiling with unmanaged testosterone. Compared with the calm, beautiful man resting beside me, it feels like he’s describing a completely different person. Not just another person—another species.
“One night after sparring practice at the dojo—which went terribly—I was walking home, crossing the Stone Arch Bridge. Just thinking about how much I hated my skin, hated my ex, hated my life. Thinking about how it felt like there was nothing to look forward to, nothing on the horizon … I reached the center of the bridge and I stopped. I stared into the water down below. It was white and frothy, almost like rapids, and I imagined myself disappearing beneath the surface. Just falling, sinking, forever. It wasn’t that I wanted to die, exactly … it was more like, I didn’t want to feel so disgusted with myself anymore. I didn’t want to feel anything at all. I just wanted to feel … nothing.”
“Then what happened?” I can’t stop myself from interjecting.
The sun is growing warmer, and I kick off the blanket. His eyes are closed. I stroke his forearm gently, and a smile spreads across his face.
“What happened is that … I stared at the water for a while. I thought about jumping. I mean, I really, seriously, considered it. What would it feel like? Would it hurt? Would my legs snap? Or my neck? Would I feel regret as I’m falling—or just relief? If my bones break, would I bleed from the inside? Or would I be knocked unconscious instantly, asleep and unfeeling as I sink into the water . . .”
I shiver in spite of the sunlight. Gruesome images ricochet through my mind. I’ve never been on the brink of suicide, not even close, and it’s hard to wrap my head around what that must be like. What it’s like to feel that level of hopelessness and pain.
“And then,” he continues. “I notice two people walking beneath the bridge. A man and a woman. They were on that little island-like area by the reservoir. I could see them walking together, linking arms. I couldn’t hear them because of the sound of the water, but I could tell they were smiling, laughing. She tilted her head back to the sky, like he’d said something so funny she couldn’t stand it. They sort of skip-walked over to this area where, I guess, they thought nobody could see them. It was almost nighttime. And then she looks over her shoulder. And then she sinks down to her knees. And then—now, OK, bear in mind they’re pretty far away from me, and it’s getting dark—but I am pretty damn sure she’s giving him a blowjob. Like a fast, secret, naughty sort of public blowjob. I mean, what else could it be? And he leans against the barricade, and his hands are all lost in her hair and he’s smiling. Like, smiling so big, I can see it from the top of the bridge. Like this is the best moment of his life, and he literally can’t believe how lucky he is.”
“Oh my god … wait, what?” I exclaim. This is not where I thought this story was going. I’m bubbling over with about a million questions, but I stifle myself, allowing him to finish.
“And I see this guy’s face, and I think to myself, OK, maybe my life isn’t always going to suck. Maybe one day, I can get a blowjob underneath a bridge from a beautiful woman on a nice summer night. Because that would be awesome.”
There’s a pause. I’m waiting for him to add something more to the story. Some deep spiritual revelation. Some profound personal epiphany. Some pivotal realization that changed everything and careened his life in a new direction. But there’s nothing more. That’s the story. “Because that would be awesome.” The end.
I know it’s inappropriate. I kind of hate myself for doing it. But I can’t help it—I start laughing. Just a few nervous giggles at first. And then—to my great relief—he joins me.
“So let me get this straight,” I recap. “You’re nineteen years old, you’re suicidal, you’re standing on top of the bridge ready to jump, but then you see some dude getting an awesome blowjob, and you’re like, ‘That looks nice. Maybe I should give this ‘life’ thing another shot’? That’s what happened? Just like that?”
“Pretty much,” he replies.
“That is so … so … weird and sad and amazing.”
“We should start an indie band together and write a #1 hit song called ‘Weird and Sad and Amazing,’ ” he tells me, smiling in that way that you smile when you’re suppressing a laugh, but then you can’t stifle yourself any longer and … out it comes.
“Duh, absolutely.”
Our banter melts into giggles, giggles taper off into sighs, and then silence. I roll over onto my stomach, pressing myself closer to Ren so that every possible square inch of my body is connected with his.
“Why did you tell me that weird, sad, and amazing story?” I ask. “If it’s because you’re hinting that you want a blowjob right now, um . . .”
“Is that an offer?” he interjects, with complete seriousness. His face is serene, but his eyes glint with mischief, and I know he’s just teasing me. At least, mostly. Like seventy percent teasing, thirty percent totally down for it. He looks so regal and invi
ting right now, outstretched in the sunlight—honestly, he wouldn’t have to ask twice.
He props himself up on his elbows, and the mischief melts out of his eyes.
“I told you that weird, sad, and amazing story because I want you to know that I’m so glad I didn’t jump off that bridge. I’m glad I changed my mind. And after that day, I’m glad I got therapy. I’m glad I learned how to take better care of my brain. I’m glad I decided to stay on the planet. I’m glad for about a million different reasons—and one of those reasons is because I got the chance to meet you.”
I climb on top of him, straddling him with my back to the sunlight, because after a declaration like that, how could I not?
“I’m glad you decided to stay on the planet, too,” I reply, covering his neck with a trail of kisses.
I feel a thrilling, stiff pressure at the place where our bodies connect. And then—because we’re in love, because I’m about to die, because we’re currently alive, because it’s fun, because it’s sacred, because everything is ending, because it’s all a big disaster, because this is probably the last chance ever, I peel down the top of his pants, cover his mouth with mine, and pull him inside. I move slowly. He pulls my hips down further, deeper, and I’m crying, and he’s crying too, and it’s all just a beautiful mess. Weird, sad, and amazing.
I wring everything out of my body until I’m empty, so empty, emptier than I’ve ever been. My cheek hits his chest, and it’s the most perfect resting place, blissful and silky soft, like resting on a beach that has been warmed by the sun. His heartbeat is the tide, lapping in, lapping out. He’s touching my hair, telling me I love you, I love you, I love you, over and over, hypnotically serenading me, pulling me under.
I roll onto my back and he’s above me, covering me with more kisses. The last thing I see are his eyes, deep brown, molten hazel-honey, framed by dark lashes, framed by his skin, framed by the sky. Sky to eyes, it’s a bullseye of powder blue fading inward to the deepest brown and green—green like the trees by the falls where we swam that first time. He smiles and says I love you once again. He says it with his lips, and then he says it with his entire body as he pulls me close, so close that I’m fading into him. Fading in and out and in.
So This Is the End Page 11