Confessions of a Teenage Leper

by Ashley Little

  He took off his belt and waved it over his head. “We can use this!” He was super drunk and being even more obnoxious than usual.

  Looking through the banister, I could see Aaron on the couch, macking on a petite brunette junior who had just transferred to our school from Calgary. I watched Dean watching Aaron. Aaron put his arm around the girl’s shoulders and she snuggled into him. Dean stared at them and took another drink. He was drinking Wild Turkey, straight from the bottle.

  The party dragged on and on. If I had actually been down there, it probably would’ve gone by fast, but since I couldn’t go downstairs or talk to anybody, it felt never ending. The lights flickered for a moment when a big crash of thunder thudded through the house. Some girls screamed. I hoped that the power would go out because then it would be so dark that no one could see me and then I could go downstairs and party with everybody. But the lights never went out for more than a millisecond. Jason Redpath and a tall girl I didn’t know came upstairs, probably looking for a place to make out, but I scooted back into my room and shut the door before they could see me and moved my chair up against the doorknob.

  Mom and Dad wouldn’t let us have locks on our bedroom doors because they said it wasn’t safe. What if something happened to you? How would we get in? But at that moment, I wanted nothing more than to be locked inside the sanctuary of my room, away from every pretty, happy person at that party, away from the whole world. I didn’t want anyone to come in. Ever.

  I lay down on my bed and closed my eyes. I must have dozed off for a while because when I woke up, the rain had stopped and the only sound was a CD skipping on Mom and Dad’s ancient stereo downstairs. I opened my door a crack and looked out. I couldn’t see anyone so I stepped out onto the landing and peeked over the banister. The rosy light of dawn seeped through the windows. A guy with no pants on was passed out on the couch; a blonde girl with huge boobs was asleep in the rocking chair, her mouth hanging open; and Aaron and the Canadian brunette were wrapped in a blanket on the floor. I tiptoed down the hall to Mom and Dad’s room and pushed the door open with my finger. No one was in there. Thank God. Then I checked Dean’s room. It was also empty. I went to his window and looked out over our backyard. The lawn was a lake. It had rained a lot. Some people had parked in the back alley behind our house but I didn’t see Dustin’s car anywhere. I hoped it was okay. He drove a hybrid car: half-electric, half-gasoline. Some guys made fun of him for it, called him a tree hugger and crap like that, but I thought it was pretty cool. I stared out the window. A sodden black cat scrambled over the top of our neighbor’s fence. I watched as it shook itself off, spraying spirals of water into the morning air.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a patch of something red moving just inside the door of our shed. It seemed to be flailing, convulsing. I flashed on a memory of Dean waving his belt over his head. He had been wearing his red skate shoes. I got a queasy feeling in my stomach. I felt weak and sick. Something was wrong with the red thing, whatever it was.

  I moved through the house like I was walking through Jell-O. Everything around me was slow and thick. Then I was standing in the shed.

  Dean lay propped against a bag of soil, covered in vomit. His face was a pasty green. Pale chunks coated his mouth and chin and there were piles of puke on the ground beside him. His shirt and jeans were encrusted in what looked like pink oatmeal. The shed reeked of rotten milk, acidic orange juice and pee. Dean had pissed his pants! Loser! I covered my nose with my arm.

  “Dean.” I nudged him with my foot. “Get up. You’re a mess.” I nudged him again, a little harder. “Dean!”

  He didn’t move.

  I knelt down and pulled open his eyelids. His eyes were rolled back in his head. I slapped his face. Once, twice, three times, hard. Nothing. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t moan. He didn’t move. “DEAN!!! WAKE UP!!!” I dug through the layer of puke on his neck to find his pulse. I couldn’t feel anything. Then I watched his chest and belly and put the back of my hand in front of his nose. I couldn’t feel anything. “Shit shit shit.” I looked around. There was no one outside, no noises even. There was only the steady drip of water draining from the eaves. Everything was in slow motion. This was it. This was the moment of truth.

  I had fantasized many, many times about killing my brother, or him being in an accident, about what it would be like to be an only child, life without Dean. I knew it would be peaceful. Serene, even. I stared at him for a moment. I hated him most of the time, but when it came right down to it, I actually did love him and I didn’t want him to die. Not now, not ever.

  I took out my phone. The battery was almost dead. I dialed 9-1-1, my hands shaking. I had just enough time to tell the operator I needed an ambulance and our address before my phone died.

  Then I scooped the vomit out of Dean’s mouth, pushed him onto his back and leaned over him to do CPR. I knew how to do CPR because I’d had about five training courses in it, between babysitter training, lifeguarding, cheerleading camp, my first aid course and learning it at school, I was pretty sure I could do it on a real life person, not just a plastic dummy.

  I tilted Dean’s forehead back to open the airway, plugged his nose and made a seal over his mouth with my own mouth, which is nothing like kissing so you can just stop thinking whatever you were thinking about me making out with my own brother. Ew. I gave him two breaths then started pumping hard and fast on his chest. What is the song? What is that stupid song? “Come on, Dean, what is the song?” I squeezed my eyes shut tight. Come on. I know this.

  “Ah. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Something, something,” I whispered.

  They say that if you pump someone’s chest to the tune of that Bee Gees song, it’s the right number of beats per minute to start the heart again. Disco saves lives. Who knew? I couldn’t remember all of the words. But I knew some of them. And I sang along as I pushed on my brother’s chest, again and again. “Now it’s alright, it’s okay, something something, other way….” Pump. Pump. Pump. Pump. Two breaths. “Stayin’ alive. Stayin’ alive.” I felt a sickening crack beneath my palms. I knew I had probably broken one of his ribs, but I didn’t stop. I was going to keep doing it until he came back to life or I died, whichever came first.

  After four rounds of CPR, Dean began to splutter and cough. Relief flooded over me in a hot wave. I rolled him onto his side and shoved him into a sitting position. I leaned him against the wall. “That’s it. That’s it, brother,” I said. He vomited into his shirt. “Okay, well…that’s okay,” I said, nodding. He was breathing, that was the important part. I wiped my face with my shirt. He looked at me, drool running down his chin. His eyes were glazed and vacant.

  “Can you hear me, Dean?”

  He stared at me.

  “Water. Do you want some water?”

  He stared at me.

  I ran into the house to get him a glass of water. The guy on the couch was stirring, and Aaron and Calgary were mumbling inside their blanket, but I didn’t care who saw me now. I had just saved someone’s life, everyone else was hung-over. Clearly, I was dominating here.

  I raced back out to Dean. I held the glass to his lips but he didn’t take any water. He coughed and drooled some more. He smelled awful. I heard the sirens and ran out to the driveway. I led the two paramedics to the shed. They asked me a bunch of questions while they loaded Dean onto a stretcher. I told them I had found him about ten minutes ago, called them and then done four rounds of CPR, and he started breathing again on the fourth round. The bearded paramedic smiled. “Good job, kid. You just saved his life.”

  The other paramedic nodded. “Well done,” she said. “You did exactly the right thing.”

  “Okay,” I whispered, hugging my arms against my body. I didn’t tell them that I had hesitated for a split second when I first found him lying there, helpless and unconscious. But maybe those are the kind of secrets you take to your grave.

  “You want to sit up front or in the back?” the blonde paramedic asked. They had already loade
d Dean into the back of the ambulance.

  I looked at the house, then back to my brother. “I’ll sit back here with him,” I said, and climbed in. The two of them got in the back and banged the doors shut. The driver took off, sirens wailing. They hooked Dean up to some machines, put an oxygen mask on him and stabbed an IV into his arm.

  “What’s that?” I said.

  “Epinephrine,” said the bearded paramedic. “Brings his heart rate up.”

  “I think I broke his rib,” I said. “Maybe more than one.”

  “Don’t worry about that. It happens,” he said. “You got his heart started again, that’s the important part.”

  At the hospital, they put a tube in Dean’s throat that was hooked to a breathing machine. Then they put another suction tube up his nose that threaded back into his throat and down into his stomach, so in case he threw up again it would suck out all the puke so he wouldn’t choke on it. Basically, they inserted an alcohol vacuum. Nasty. They also put him on an IV with fluids and electrolytes and all the junk he would need to recover.

  I took out my phone a bunch of times to text Mom and Dad. But I always kept putting it away again. I’m not sure why. It seemed like we had made it through the worst of it. He was in stable condition. He was going to be okay. Their coming back from Mexico now couldn’t possibly help anything. Plus, they’d be mad as hell that we’d had a party and gotten this far out of hand. Maybe I would never tell them. Maybe it would be another secret that Dean and I kept from them. I thought maybe, when we were old, like, thirty or something, and had moved out and gotten our own houses and everything, then we could tell them one time when we came to visit. And we could all sit around and laugh about it. About what a dumbass Dean had been. That seemed like a better time to tell them. Better than while Dean was being alcohol vacuumed. I looked at Dean, tubes running into his nose and mouth and arm. You’re an idiot, I thought. But I am so glad you’re alive. I brushed a tear off my cheek and blew my nose, then went to get a drink from the vending machine.

  Around noon, I went home to have a shower and change my clothes. Everyone from the party had left, and of course no one had bothered to clean anything up. In the past, Marla and Liz had always helped me clean up after our parties. But that was before. There were cans and bottles and plastic cups and empty chip bags all over the place, and dirty smudges and footprints all over the floor. The house smelled like cigarette butts and stale beer and ass. I cranked the stereo and spent a few hours cleaning, then drove Mom’s car back to the hospital. They were going to keep Dean overnight to monitor him.

  “Okay,” I said. “Call me when I can come and get him.”

  They kept him Monday night too. I skipped school Tuesday to bring him home.

  “Hey, Ab,” he said when I walked into his hospital room. His lips were white and cracked.

  “Hey.”

  “Are you here to bring me home?”

  I nodded.

  “Great.”

  “Got a little problem though,” I said.

  “What?”

  “The hospital bill.”

  “Oh.”

  “If we don’t pay it now, it’ll go to Mom and Dad, and then…”

  “Right.”

  “Should we ask Auntie Karen?”

  “No, no,” Dean said. “That won’t be necessary.”

  I looked at him.

  “Did you bring my wallet?”

  “Yeah.” I took it out of my purse and handed it to him.

  “Good.” He pulled out his yellow bank card and held it out to me. “Savings. One, nine, nine, nine.”

  “Dean, it’s going to be thousands of dollars—”

  “It’s okay.”

  A nurse came in then to discharge him. “Alrighty then,” she said. “Let’s get you ready to go, shall we?”

  Dean nodded then turned to me. “Just go pay. I’ll be out in a minute.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yep.”

  “Okay.” I went out to the reception desk, signed all the release forms and handed over his bank card. When I saw the amount being charged I held my breath, positive that the machine would beep, read Insufficient Funds.

  But it didn’t.

  It went through.

  My brother was rich. Somehow.

  We got in the car. I was angrier than I thought I would be.

  “Were you trying to kill yourself?”

  “No.” He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “What’s the matter with you?”

  He stared out the window. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Why? Because I’m straight?”

  “No, because you’re shallow.”

  I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach. I knew he wasn’t just teasing or saying it to be mean. He meant it. And the worst part was, I didn’t even know if he was wrong or not.

  We didn’t talk for the rest of the ride home. When we got back in the house, I heated up a can of chicken noodle soup and made us some toast. We ate together at the table, which we would never normally do if Mom and Dad weren’t there.

  “This is good,” Dean said.

  “Campbell’s.”

  He nodded.

  We slurped our soup for a few minutes.

  “Where did you get all that money?”

  “Can we talk about something else?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like, are we going to tell Mom and Dad about this?”

  “Depends,” I said.

  “On what?”

  “Are you going to pull something like that again?”

  He looked down at his hands. “It was an accident, Abby. I just drank too much, too fast on an empty stomach. It happens.”

  “Yeah, you know what else happens, Dean? People die.”

  He stared into his soup.

  “You would’ve fucking died if I hadn’t found you when I did. Then what?”

  “Then…you’d finally have some peace and quiet…? And a second closet for all your clothes?”

  “Dean!” Tears stung my eyes. “This isn’t funny!”

  “Okay, okay. You’re right. What do you want me to say? I’m sorry I scared you? I’m sorry I’m an idiot and thanks for saving my life?”

  “That would be a start,” I said.

  “I didn’t know that would happen, Abby. I really didn’t.”

  “Well, it can’t happen again,” I said.

  “Okay.”

  “Because what if I’m not around next time to find you, then—”

  “I said okay.”

  “Alright then.”

  He stirred his spoon around in his soup. “So what about Mom and Dad?” he said.

  “What about them?”

  “Are you going to tell them?”

  “Tell them what? That you’re gay or that you tried to drink yourself to death?”

  “I didn’t—I’m not—”

  “Whatever.”

  “So…?”

  “So, what?”

  “So, are you?”

  “I don’t know, Dean. I don’t want to ever have to see you like that again, I know that for sure.”

  “You won’t.”

  I sighed. “If you can swear to me that you won’t ever do anything like that again, I won’t say anything about it to Mom and Dad. But if I even suspect—”

  “Thank you,” he said quietly.

  “Promise me.”

  “Pinkie swear.” He held his pinkie out to me and I hooked mine around his. We shook, but I couldn’t feel it. I thought my hand was asleep. I flicked my wrist a few times and stretched my fingers back and forth. Dean looked at me, one eyebrow raised.

  “Too much texting, I think. My hand goes numb sometimes. It’s kind of weird.”

  “Maybe you just need a boyfriend,” he said. “Then you could give your hand a rest.”

  My brother was back to his old self, for better or worse.

  Auntie Karen came by the next day to check in on us. She brought us six do
ughnuts because, “Growing kids need doughnuts.” She doted over me like a fake mom and held her hand against my forehead and asked me how I was feeling about a thousand times. It was kind of funny because Dean was the one who had just had the near-death experience, but she didn’t even ask him how he was. She asked him how school was, which is not the same thing.

  “Your mom and dad are really worried about you, Abby.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “So worried they had to take off to Mexico for a week.”

  “They’ve had this trip planned for years, Ab. Don’t hold it against them.”

  “No. It’s fine. I get it.”

  “Aww.” Dean made a big pouty-face at me across the table.

  “Have your test results come back yet?” Auntie Karen asked.

  I shook my head.

  “When do you expect them?”

  “Today? Tomorrow? Yesterday?” I said. “It’s impossible to know. They’re so vague.”

  She nodded. “It’s always that way, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Nothing like this has ever happened to me before.”

  “Oh, sweetie.” She leaned over to give me a sideways hug. She smelled like something citrusy, with peppermint mixed in. Her long brown hair fell into my face for a moment and I couldn’t see. She kissed the side of my head then leaned back in her chair, looking at me with her head tilted to the side. I couldn’t help it. I started to cry. Dean left the room.

  “Oh, no. Abby. It’s okay. Don’t cry.” She got up and got me a glass of water. “Here.” She set it in front of me and I drank it between sobs. “What’s wrong? Was it something I said?”

  I shook my head. “I just feel so…ugly!” I spluttered. “Look at me. I’m hideous!”

  “No you’re not, Abby.”

  “You’re just saying that. But it’s not true.” I folded my arms on the table and put my head on them.

  “It is true because I know you and I know that inside you’re a beautiful person.”