Broken Identity

by Ashley Williams

  “You just don’t know when to quit, do ya? I’ve already made up my mind. I’m not goin’ back. As soon as I get this stupid leg back to walking again, I’m gone.”

  Andrew wondered how long his patience would hold out. The needle felt like it was teetering on the edge of empty. “Do you know why I took Ronnie in, Drake?”

  “Look, I don’t need—”

  “No, hear me out. I took Ronnie in because I saw a need and I met it. If you’re telling me you don’t have a need, then maybe I’m the one who’s deceived. The motive for me helping you isn’t so that it will in some way make me feel better, as if I’ve done my good deed for the month. I want to help you because I care. I want to see you happy like I see Ronnie happy, and you’ve done nothing but fight me the entire way.”

  Drake glared at him. “I’m leaving because I never wanna see that look on Ronnie’s face again. I can’t. When he looked at me last night…it hurt. He trusted me. Me, the one who had put him there.” He shook his head. “But he doesn’t see that. You obviously don’t see that either.”

  “The only thing I see right now is hurt and anger in your eyes. Don’t try to hold it in, Drake. It’ll only hurt you.”

  “What’s one more bruise?” Drake said caustically. “I’ll get used to it.”

  “Drop the ego, Drake. If you don’t want my company, fine. But don’t go through life walking with your head high acting as if nothing ever bothers you. Everyone hurts. I’m not trying to make light of what you’ve been through in the past. All I’m trying to do is point you in the direction of your future and support you with positive words instead of negative ones.”

  “Future? Like…”

  “Like playing the piano. Don’t roll your eyes; you know it’s the truth. Drake, your playing is excellent. You know me well enough to know I wouldn’t lie to you. You are so full of talent, and the sad thing is, you don’t even know it. Sometimes I don’t even think you care.”

  “You don’t think I care?” Drake flared back, wanting to yank every IV out of him and find his strength again. “You don’t think there’ve been nights when I’ve soaked my pillow with tears because the pain inside hurts that bad? You don’t think I wanna change? I’d trade my life with you in a heartbeat, but life doesn’t work that way, does it? You deal with what you got stuck with and go on.”

  “It doesn’t have to—”

  “No, I’m through fighting it. I’m empty. I’ve wasted my life doing my own thing my own way, and it’s done nothing but hurt me and those around me. There is no turning back. I’m sorry I used you, because that’s the reality of it. I used you because it was good for me, but even the selfish person deep inside knows that using you for even one more day is wrong. I’m not going back. I’ll only hurt you again.”

  Andrew stood. “Well, even if you’re calling it quits, I’m not giving up on you. I know I may be nothing more than an old-timer to you, and I also know that Ronnie can sometimes rub you the wrong way, but we love you. Ronnie may not be your definition of a friend, but I assure you that that seven-year-old over there would do anything in the world for you. If not for me, stay for him. He really needs a friend right now.”

  Drake found himself speechless. He was unsure whether he should feel angry or humiliated. He had never expected the conversation to end like this, and though he usually had a sharp comment to fire back as the last word, he was left feeling empty. Ashamed. And yet strangely, he felt incredibly thankful.

  No one had ever talked to him that way before. His dad had yelled at him plenty of times, but Andrew was oddly straightforward and caring at the same time. Was it possible that it was all true? Why couldn’t Andrew have just called him the foulest name in the book and left with a thunderous door slam? That’s what he deserved. But this? Andrew going as far as telling him that he loved him? When was the last time someone had told him that? The thing that really bothered him was that Andrew actually sounded like he meant it.

  Andrew gently nudged Ronnie, waking him from his sleep. “Ronnie, get up, buddy. Time to go.”

  Ronnie rubbed his eyes and sat up straight. “I want to talk to Drake first.”

  Drake forced his eyes closed. No, just go away, Ronnie. I wouldn’t know what to say if I talked to you.

  Andrew shot a quick glimpse at Drake. Better luck next time. Right now, he was gone. “Not now, Ronnie,” he whispered. “Drake needs his rest.”

  Drake heard paper crumpling as Ronnie said, “Can I put this up first? I want Drake to have something to look at when he wakes up.”

  Andrew examined it. Sometimes the simplest words of a child were enough to shake someone to the truth. “It’s beautiful, Ronnie. Of course, you can.” He grabbed a role of tape he saw one of the nurses leave earlier and tore off a piece. “Here, show me where you want it and I’ll hang it up.”

  Ronnie put a finger to his lips as he inspected the wall. “How about right there in front of his bed?”

  “Sounds perfect.” Andrew adjusted the picture and taped it to the wall. He patted Ronnie on the back and discreetly tried to press down the rooster tail that had shaped in his hair while he had slept. “Maybe we can come back and see him tonight.”

  “All right,” Ronnie said dolefully, lowering his head.

  Andrew grabbed something and moved next to Drake, noticing he was still pressing his eyes closed. “I’ll leave this with him, just in case he wakes up and needs something to do.”

  Drake felt something weigh down on the bed near his hand, but he refused to look until Andrew left the room.

  “Goodbye, Drake,” Ronnie said, lightly touching Drake’s hospital gown. “Make your leg get better soon so you can come home with us. But even if it still hurts when you wake up, I hope the bear I got you will help. I know you can’t hear me ’cause you’re sleeping, but I’ll go ahead and say I love you anyway. Thanks again for saving me.”

  Tears burned in Drake’s eyes. Just go. Please, go.

  “Come on, Ronnie,” Andrew said, slipping an arm around Ronnie’s shoulders. He led him from the room, but couldn’t help but glance once more at the person he wanted so desperately to find peace. I leave the rest in Your hands, God. He gently pulled the door closed behind him.

  Drake opened his eyes, a sea of tears distorting both corners of his vision. Beside his bed, almost touching his fingers, lay a Bible.

  Chapter

  17

  ONE SHEPHERD

  Like a never-ending cycle, nurses came in and out of Drake Pearson’s room every half hour to check on him. The lunch they brought him of chicken noodle soup and tasteless crackers was so disgusting that he didn’t even try to make himself eat it. The only thing that tasted normal to him was the Mountain Dew. He swirled the liquid around with his straw, watching the fizzing iceberg of crushed ice drown in his foam cup. Welcome to the pits. When a bobbing chunk of ice becomes fascinating, life has officially reached rock bottom.

  The nurses encouraged him to drink the broth, going off on a long spiel about how his body needed fluids, how his recovery was determined by the health of his body, blah, blah, blah. Did he ask for a lecture on medical science? Drake told them he wasn’t hungry and pushed the tray away, hoping they wouldn’t bother him about it anymore.

  “Is there anything else I can do for you?” each nurse would ask before leaving the room.

  Drake’s answer was always the same. “No, but thanks anyway.” He was ready to get out of here. He was jumpy on the inside and wanted above anything else to have a change of scenery. However, the nurses had already forewarned him that he had to stay until late in the afternoon for further observation, making sure he didn’t have a reaction to the medicine they had given him or develop an infection.

  “But that’s crazy,” he had protested.

  “That’s protocol,” the doctor had replied with a smile.

  “I feel almost completely normal now. Just help me out of this bed and I’ll show you.”

  “Sorry. I know you’re eager, but I doubt you�
��ll be walking on that leg without the help of crutches.”

  “Crutches? How long will I have to use those?”

  “A week to ten days maybe, but don’t worry. You’ll be back on your feet again soon enough.”

  Drake doubted it. He had tried arguing, insisting that he felt perfectly fine, but nothing worked on these bloodhounds. He learned from the doctor that he had been shot in the upper thigh, just as Andrew had said. The bullet had torn through muscle and soft tissue, barely missing his bone, and exited the other side. They had cleaned the wounds thoroughly, put him on some oral antibiotics, and had given him large doses of pain medication—which he soon discovered he needed more than he had realized. He looked forward to tonight when he could finally be up on his feet again, even if he did have to use crutches.

  Once Drake regained most of his strength, he—slowly and extremely carefully—used the buttons beside him to elevate the back of his bed. He cringed as another flash of pain struck his leg, stopping him from daring to go any higher.

  Wait, what was that on the wall in front of him? He straightened and leaned his head forward.

  Ronnie’s picture. Andrew had taped it on the wall before he left. Drake felt ashamed for almost forgetting about it. He studied the picture and smiled at the three stick men with arrows under them pointing to the words “my family.” They were all smiling as they stood beneath a colorful rainbow. Drake’s eyes glanced up at the large words written in the clouds, then quickly looked away.

  Jesus loves you. Or so it said.

  Drake looked back up and stared at the words. Jesus loves me? Then tell me where He’s been all my life. He appreciated the thought, but how could he accept something he knew was a lie?

  A nurse cracked his door open and peeked inside. “Just making sure you weren’t asleep before I come barging in on you,” she said, smiling.

  Drake put a hand behind his head. “No problem. Hard to sleep when you got IVs in anyway.”

  “Well, I just thought I’d ask if there was anything—”

  “No, thanks,” Drake said, stopping her before she had the chance to continue.

  She reached for an odd-looking device connected to the bed. “Now that you’re feeling back to normal, you may want to watch some television. This controls the volume and that button allows you to scroll through the channels.”

  “Thanks,” Drake said, taking the device in his hand. “What’s that button for?”

  “It’s in case you need to alert us of anything or have a question.”

  “Oh, OK. Probably won’t need that then, unless I can persuade the doctor into letting me out sooner.”

  The nurse laughed. “Don’t think that’ll work, but we’ll try to get you out of here as soon as possible.”

  Drake flipped through the channels until he finally stopped on a movie that was already an hour into the plot. He fiddled with the device the nurse had given him, trying to find out which button turned off the closed captioning at the bottom of the screen. After trying every button, he gave up and turned off the television. Who cares? I’ve seen it before anyway, and the acting is lame.

  His eyes drifted around the room until they landed again on Ronnie’s picture—specifically on the words in bold. Just leave me alone, he thought. He tore his eyes away from the picture and concentrated on the ceiling. What do I care? Why should it bother me? I know what the truth is.

  He reached over to the tray beside his bed to take another sip of his drink. When he did, however, he noticed Andrew’s Bible still lying beside him where he had left it. Is there nowhere I can go to get away from this harassment? He huffed and weighed the Bible in his hands. Maybe he could just take a peek. After all, it wasn’t like he’d read it and find himself page-turning until the end. His motives were solely because he was bored and had nothing better to do.

  Drake indifferently opened the Bible. John chapter 1 fell open because of a bookmark Andrew had placed there. He looked at the page and wrinkled his forehead. It looked like any other ordinary writing to him. What made this book so special that it stood above every other? Hmm. Guess I’ll just have to find that out for myself, but it’s only because I’m bored and tired of staring at the wall. Maybe if nothing else, it’ll be so boring that I’ll finally be able to go back to sleep.

  Drake haphazardly leafed through the delicate pages of the Bible. After reading several chapters, the stories were just what he had expected them to be—exaggerated, questionable, and completely farfetched. Demons fell down before Jesus, water was turned into wine, people rose from the dead, an insignificant meal was stretched to somehow feed a crowd of five thousand people, water was walked on, and those who were blind saw clearly? Please.

  Even in the short amount of time he had been acquainted with Andrew, Drake had always figured him to be a practical man with a good head on his shoulders. But this? He seriously bought into all this? Maybe there had been a man named Jesus on the earth at one point in time, but what was the meaning of it all? To say that He healed people who couldn’t walk and cast out demons sounded like the definition of a cult to Drake.

  OK, so maybe Jesus might have been a good person who showed compassion for others, but people shouldn’t run with the idea and create a fantastical story based on what He did in life.

  As good of a deal as that sounded—everlasting life and the whole package that came along with it—Drake was still holding back. He found nothing in it for him. Sure, it was good for the people who had received the healings and miracles, but that was then. What good was the Bible for people today? What good was it for him?

  Drake could clearly see that Ronnie was right—Jesus did have love. Of all the reading he had done, he admitted that much. But Jesus also must have had His favorites. Drake had never seen God work on his behalf, and why? Because he was a sinner, and sinners didn’t go to Heaven. They went to hell. That seemed fair enough, but somehow it bothered him when he saw Ronnie’s picture. Jesus may have loved him at one time, but not anymore. He loved people like Andrew and Ronnie. Good people. People who made Him proud. Drake had failed miserably at that a long time ago.

  Every time nurses came into Drake’s room, they gazed at him curiously as they found his eyes still focused on the open Bible resting on his stomach. “Is your television working OK?” one of them finally asked.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Well…would you like some magazines? We have sports and hunting—”

  “No, this is fine,” Drake answered, offering a smile. He knew they must have thought him strange and possibly even delusional to be reading something for nearly two and a half hours now without putting it down once. Difference is they could walk. He was confined, on the other hand, to his bed with an ancient manuscript that might as well have been written in Hebrew. What else did they expect him to do with his time?

  The nurse just nodded her head politely and left the room, still wearing a confused look on her face as she closed the door behind her.

  Drake turned his attention to the end of the Book of John in the eighteenth chapter. Judas, one of Jesus’ friends, had just betrayed Jesus, and Peter had disowned him three times. What kind of friends were they? Jesus was popular enough; why so many enemies and not enough support?

  For so many years, he had pictured Jesus differently—weak, frail, and without any human feelings whatsoever. But after reading about how He had been questioned unfairly and brought before this guy named Pilate, Drake was beginning to have second thoughts. Just earlier in chapter 17, Drake had read the prayer Jesus had prayed just prior to being arrested. He had said, “Father, I want those You have given Me to be with Me where I am, and to see My glory, the glory You have given Me because You loved Me before the creation of the world. Righteous Father, though the world does not know You, I know you, and they know that You have sent Me. I have made You known to them, and will continue to make You known in order that the love You have for Me may be in them and that I myself may be in them,” (NIV).

  Be in them. Wha
t does that mean? What was Jesus saying when He said, “Father, I want those You have given Me to be with Me where I am”? What an odd prayer. Drake didn’t know Jesus had ever prayed. Never thought He had reason to. Why would the God of the universe take time to pray for those who were about to betray and disown Him? He could have struck them all dead, yet He didn’t. He did the unthinkable and actually prayed for them. Strange. I would have gotten ticked and told them all what I thought of them. Why didn’t He?

  Drake sighed and turned the page to chapter 19. He read to himself just above a whisper, “Then Pilate took Jesus and had Him flogged,” (NIV). He stopped reading and stared at that statement. Flogged? He flipped the page back, speed-reading through what he had already read. Am I missing something? Jesus was innocent, right? I mean, it’s not like I’m actually interested in this…it just doesn’t seem fair. No one could bring anything against Him, at least from what I can make out of all this.

  Unable to find what he was looking for, Drake turned back and continued reading. “The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His head. They clothed Him in a purple robe and went up to Him again and again, saying, ‘Hail, king of the Jews!’ And they struck Him in the face,” (NIV).

  As Drake continued reading, a sick feeling arose in his stomach, and he was unable to continue. He had heard the stories and seen the pictures, but no one had ever told him it was this bad. Even if Jesus was supposedly God-slash-man at this point, He still would’ve had feelings, wouldn’t He? It almost made him mad just reading it. They had whipped Him, they had mocked Him openly, and they had beaten Him without cause. How could anyone ever treat a human being that way, especially someone who was blameless?

  Drake knew what was coming next—the crucifixion. He had always known what a cross was and knew what it stood for, but never before had he known the one who had been on that cross. Now, after almost three hours of reading about Him, he knew who it was who was about to be killed on that universal symbol of shame.