by Liane Shaw
“No thanks. I’m good,” I tell her. That’s not true. I’m not good at all. Benjamin is lying somewhere in this hospital with his head split open, and I don’t know why.
“Well, let me know if you change your mind. I’m going to go over and see what I can find out about your friend.” She walks away, and Ryan shakes his head in a quick little movement as if he’s trying to dislodge a fly or something.
“Déjà vu all over again,” he says.
“What?”
“I just had a total flashback to the day you…you know…”
“Sent both of us to the hospital?”
“Yeah, I guess that’s one way to put it. I remembered my mom saying pretty much those exact words when we were here to have my shoulder checked. I was scared shitless.”
“About your shoulder being hurt?”
“That too, but I meant I was scared about you. Seeing you. My parents figured I’d want to know how you were and that I would want to go and see you. Which I didn’t. I was terrified of talking to you. I had no idea how to speak to someone who just…”
“Tried to float away down the river on a one-way cruise,” I finish for him, too tired to be polite. He looks at me with a startled expression and then flashes a quick grin.
“Yeah, that. Everyone figured we were friends, but I didn’t even know you. I didn’t know how to talk to you.”
“Yeah, that was pretty obvious.”
Ryan smiles ruefully. “Benjamin is your friend, so you must be really worried. Such a shitty accident to have happened to him.”
“I hope it was.”
He looks at me, eyebrows pushed together in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, what if it wasn’t an accident? I’ve been sitting here thinking about it. What if those assholes decided to teach the gay guy a lesson? Like gay bashing. Get him when he’s away from school and his mom’s not around.” Saying it out loud is even worse than thinking about it. Is it possible? Could anyone be so filled with hate that they’d actually risk someone else’s life to make some warped point?
Which is such a naïve question. And I do know the answer. I live in the real world. I can read. This crap has gone on forever. I know that there are likely still more places in this world that wouldn’t accept me for who I am than places that would. I know that there are still countries where there are laws against homosexuality—with punishments that even include death in some places. As if being gay is the same as being a serial killer.
How can it be against the law to fall in love?
“I never even thought of that. That would be seriously warped. I hope that isn’t true. But…” Ryan’s voice trails away into thought and he closes his eyes for a second.
“But it’s possible or more likely probable that someone was trying to hurt him, or at the very least scare him.” I spit the words out of my mouth, but I can’t get rid of the disgusting taste they leave behind.
“Yeah, I think it probably is. And I know someone who might know something about this.” Ryan opens his eyes as his voice gets angrier with each word.
“Don’t go off and start yelling at Cody. I don’t think he’d do something like this.”
“Me either, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t know something about it. He hangs out with a lot of supreme assholes. Some of the guys who have been total shits to Benjamin ever since he told everyone about rainbows. And to you since forever. I’m at least going to talk to him.”
“Okay. Just don’t get into another giant fight with the guy over me.”
“It’s not really about you this time though. Benjamin is a nice guy. No one should be hassling him, whether they actually tried to hurt him or not. This shit has to stop. I don’t care if this is a small town, it doesn’t mean we have to be Neanderthals, bashing each other over the head with clubs.”
I get this crazy mental image of Ryan wheeling around chasing Cody with a club. For some reason that makes me laugh, a sound that surprises both of us so much that Ryan laughs too.
“I guess I got a bit carried away,” he says.
“Maybe, but you’re right. Benjamin keeps saying that things will never change if no one tries. But how do you try in a place where all of the assholes are bigger than us?”
“I guess we have to use our big mouths instead. Or find some big clubs.”
“I don’t think any size clubs would work on some of those guys. Their heads are so thick the club would just bounce off.” Ryan starts to laugh but stops quickly as his mother walks over to us with a serious look on her face. My heart does a quick lurch in my chest and my hands start to sweat.
“He’s still unconscious. That’s all they could tell me. I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
I usually love the way she calls me honey and sweetheart, but today it makes me feel like she’s feeling sorry for me, overcompensating because she thinks that things are really bad with Benjamin but doesn’t want to say anything.
“Mom, I’m going to just sit with him until his mom gets here, which should be soon, right? I’ll just meet you at the car,” Ryan says to her. She looks at me and then nods. She leans over and gives me a quick kiss on the cheek and then runs her hand over Ryan’s hair before heading off.
Ryan looks at me, just waiting. I don’t know what for.
“It’s okay to be scared,” he says.
“That’s good, because I am. I don’t know what to do. I mean, it’s not like we’re actually…anything to each other. It’s not like they’re going to tell me anything or let me in to see him. We had one pseudo date, and it turned into this.” I wave one hand at the waiting room full of sick and sad people. A little girl in pajamas waves back with a sweet smile and I suddenly feel a lump in my throat.
“You’re friends. They let me see you, and we weren’t even that.”
“Yeah, but you were the big savior of the year.”
“I think that title just passed on to you.”
What is he talking about? “What?”
“You saved him. When we first got here and asked where you were, the nurse said ‘Oh, you mean the boy who saved that other boy’s life.’”
“I only did what I had to do.”
“Maybe, but the point is that you got down to where he was and stopped the bleeding. She told us you got back up to the road and managed to flag down a truck. And you saved him. That makes you a hero. Like me.” He points at himself with both thumbs, grinning a little. I give him a small one back, shaking my head at the same time. Am I Benjamin’s hero?
“It wasn’t that big a deal.”
“Yeah, well that’s what I kept saying after the day at the bridge too. But it is a big deal. And his parents will likely let you see him once the doctors okay it, because they’ll want to thank you. It’s the first thing your mother did with me.”
“But would he want to see me? If this was you and Clare back at the beginning, would you be the person she would have wanted to see?”
“I don’t know. You’d have to ask her. I think I’d want to see her if I was the one in that bed. Anyway, here comes your mother, so I guess I’d better fly. I’ll call you later.” He wheels away, stopping briefly to talk to my mom. She’s still in her waitress uniform, and I can see a brown stain on her skirt where it looks like some of the cook’s disgusting excuse for gravy must have landed.
“Jack. Are you all right?” she asks as she sits down beside me. A whiff of grease comes from her apron. Definitely gravy—three parts bacon fat and one part dishwater.
“I wasn’t hurt. I was the witness. This is just because my shirt got wrecked.” I pull at the shoulder of the hospital gown.
“I’m not talking about that. Look at your legs!”
We both look down to the scratched up, dirty mess. I can see tiny stones embedded in some of the deeper scratches. It looks gross but it’s nothing compared to Benjami
n’s head.
“They don’t really hurt. I just slid a bit when I was trying to get down to him. They told me he’s still unconscious.” My voice hitches.
“They told me you saved him.” She touches me on the tip of my nose. She looks proud of me.
“Ryan said that too. I didn’t have a choice. He was bleeding and I had to stop it. Then I obviously had to get help.”
“Well, I think you were brave and level-headed to get to him, stop the bleeding, and manage to get help. Ryan’s mother told me the staff here believes he would have actually bled to death if you hadn’t done what you did.”
I shrug my shoulders. It’s nice that people think I’m a hero, but I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Benjamin is still unconscious, and Ryan has gone off to see if he can find out if this was an accident or something so much worse that I can’t stand thinking about it.
“If Benjamin is still unconscious, there probably isn’t much you can do here right now. I think we should go home and get you cleaned up. Unless you want to wait here and have a doctor look at those legs.”
“No! No doctors. I’m fine. We can go home, I guess.”
She stands up and reaches her hand out to me. I don’t really need help getting up, but I take it anyway. She keeps hold of me all the way out to the car. She doesn’t ask me anything else about Benjamin. She doesn’t ask me anything at all.
fifteen
Ryan was right about Benjamin’s parents. Mrs. Lee hugged and kissed me, thanking me over and over again. She told me I could be in his room whenever I wanted and cleared it with the nursing staff so that no one would hassle me when I showed up. She even said that Benjamin talks about me a lot and that he’s fond of me. That’s the word she used. Fond. Not exactly the word I’d be looking for, but I suppose it’s better than nothing.
I come here every day after school and just sit. This is day five, and he’s still just lying there. There’s swelling in his brain because of the force of the impact when he flew down the embankment. His head must have hit first. He also has a fractured hip and some swelling along his spinal cord.
This room looks exactly like the one I ended up in last year and it reminds me of the first conversation I had with Ryan as if it were yesterday.
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I was more tired than I could ever remember feeling. Which is why I was doubly pissed when I heard my mother talking to the guy who saved me. The great rescuer of people who would rather be left alone.
I listened to her thanking him for being a hero and to him sounding all humble. When my mother asked him what happened, my heart lurched a little, and I turned toward him. I figured he was revving up to tell her my secret so that my worst nightmare could continue.
Except he didn’t. He told my mother that I had fallen off the bridge and he’d gone in after me. That was it. End of story.
He lied for me. I couldn’t understand why the hell he would do that.
Then, making things more awkward, my mother suddenly got up and left us alone.
“Why?” My voice came out into the room without my permission.
“What?” He seemed startled that I could talk.
“Why?” I repeated.
“It looked like you were drowning. I couldn’t just sit and watch.”
“No. Not that. Why did you say I fell?”
“I…didn’t know what to say, I guess. I wasn’t sure what really happened.”
“You saw me?” I looked up at the ceiling, embarrassed that he’d probably seen me dancing in my mother’s skirt. The implications of someone catching me like that were so devastating, I couldn’t bear to think about it.
“Yeah.”
“Did anyone else see?” My voice trembled a bit, and I bit down on my lip to force some self-control.
“No. Just me. I took your…um…stuff off and hid it.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I thought you might not want anyone to see it or something. Just a guess.”
“Okay.” I closed my eyes. I figured he was playing up the superhero crap for all it was worth, talking to everyone who’d listen: my mom, the doctors, his friends. Not to mention the cops.
My eyes flew open. “What will you tell the cops?”
“I guess that depends on what they ask me.”
“I don’t want anyone to know. Not yet, anyway. Just keep saying I fell off the bridge. An accident. Whatever. Just for now. Please?” The last thing I wanted was to ask him for anything, but the truth would create endless questions that I didn’t have any answers to.
“Yeah, it’s cool. I’ll just say I saw you in the water. That’s mostly true.” He looked like he was scared of me. It was almost funny seeing as I was lying there, helpless.
Ryan did cover for me, but it didn’t help much. The adults in my life took about three seconds to realize that any version of me accidentally ending up in the water at five thirty in the morning was likely some distance from the truth.
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Looking back now, I appreciate the guts it took for Ryan to come and see me. I didn’t make it easy for him. I was too twisted up inside to worry about what he was feeling.
And now I’m still twisted up, but this time it’s because I’m worrying about Benjamin. It’s hurting my heart to just sit here waiting for him to wake up. I want to do something, but I don’t know what!
He is going to wake up. I have to believe that or I’m pretty sure my heart will go from just hurting to completely disintegrating. The doctors are calling it a coma now. I don’t know what the difference is between being unconscious and being in a coma, except that the second one sounds a lot more dramatic. I don’t want to ask or look it up because I don’t really want to know. It doesn’t matter what you label it, he’s sleeping, and eventually he’s going to wake up. He has to.
He wouldn’t like the pale green hospital gown they stuck him in. Benjamin likes bright colors, with crazy combinations that would shock your average fashion guru and look terrible on anyone but him. He also won’t be too happy when he sees his hair. There’s a big section at the back that they had to shave to clean the cut and see the damage. You can’t see it from where I’m sitting though. The rest of his hair is spread across his pillow, all fanned out like some kind of dark brown halo. His mom has been brushing it for him every day. My throat aches each time I watch her carefully taking small sections of hair and working the brush through them until every strand shimmers, making his beautiful brown hair the brightest thing in the room.
He’s so still, silent, and ghost-like under the white blanket, which is tucked cleanly into the sides of the white mattress on the white metal bed. Why is everything in a hospital so white? Do they think it makes it feel cleaner or something? Sterility denoted by a complete lack of color?
I know some people see black as the color of death, but I think it’s white. My mother has this picture of her version of heaven on the wall at home. White, billowy clouds surround several angels who are all dressed in white robes with white wings. Even their faces are white, because apparently when you go to Heaven you get a makeover so you can fit in.
I think I’d rather be in my mom’s idea of hell. At least there’s some color down there, lots of red anyway. According to Benjamin, it’s the color of life. And hell would be warmer than this place that seems to have the air conditioning on high twenty-four seven. It’s springtime outside and winter in here.
I walk over to the bed and stand looking down at Benjamin. My throat starts to swell up again, and I have to swallow several times to get it to stop. I can’t be standing here choking on tears when his mom comes back in. She’s been so incredible—talking to him as if he’s listening, reading, and playing music. Making plans for when he’s better.
All I do is stare. I don’t trust my voice, and besides, I can’t think of anything intelligent to say. It feels like we’re stuck
inside some kind of strange fairy tale and Benjamin is waiting for true love’s kiss to wake him up.
Now I’m staring at his mouth.
“Hey.” Ryan’s voice startles me, and I jump a little.
“Hi,” I say to him, keeping my voice hushed as if I’m trying not to wake Benjamin up when the exact opposite is true.
“No change?”
“Not that I can see. They’re always coming in and checking things, but no one ever says anything. His mom is due back soon, so she might know more.” Ryan nods, looking over at the bed and then taking a three-sixty glance at the rest of the room.
“Man, I still remember coming in to talk to you that day. I so didn’t want to be there.” He smiles a little.
“Yeah, well, news flash. I didn’t want you there. I wanted you to go straight to hell.”
“That was fairly obvious at the time. It was probably the most awkward, uncomfortable conversation of my life.”
“We’ve had a few of those, I think.”
He looks at me for a second as if he doesn’t know what I’m talking about. Then he sighs and nods. “I know,” he says. “I’m awkward and uncomfortable around you a lot. It makes me feel stupid, but I don’t know how to stop.”
“It’s better than it used to be. It used to suck. I didn’t know if you were my friend or my babysitter.” I’m still speaking quietly, glancing over at the bed every time I say anything.
“That’s fair. I don’t always know either. I guess I’ve always been…scared.”
“Of me? Because I’m gay?”
“No. Not that. Not at all! Just…of how sad you were. I thought if I said or did anything wrong that I could push you back.”
“Back into the water?”
“The water or something else.” He takes a deep breath and looks me straight in the eyes. “I didn’t know how to deal with thinking that you wanted to die and worrying that you might want to try it again.” He finally just puts it out there into the room where we both can see it hanging, waiting for a reaction.
My only reaction is an overwhelming sense of relief.