But that night, when Seth and I went back to the hospital to check on Jake and give him the stats of the game, he didn’t exactly throw his arms open.
“ ‘Break a leg,’ ” he said as his eyes drilled into me. “That’s what you said before the game.”
“Come on, bro. Even you’re not superstitious enough to believe in that crap,” I said. “Besides, you didn’t break your leg. It’s not like I said ‘Tear an ACL, boys.’ ”
Jake smacked his hand on the hospital tray, and the whole thing shook like it wanted to shatter. “I’m in the hospital, and you can’t even take this seriously.”
“I’m serious as a heart attack.” I slapped my hands to my face. “Oh, shit, now you’re probably going to have a heart attack, and it’s all my fault.”
“This is my season. My future. Can you stop joking for once in your life?” He sat forward and gripped the side rails of the hospital bed. “Can you just say sorry and admit this is your fault?”
“I’m not joking. I’m straight-up telling you that this isn’t my fault. It’s your fault. You should have hung back to play D instead of trying to save the day with your crap rebounding skills. You want me to be serious? How’s this: stop trying to blame your problems on everybody else. Oh, and it’s not just your season. Did you even realize you said that?”
Jake looked like he might climb out of the bed and stab me in the face with his IV needle. Seth stepped between us, one hand on my chest and the other out toward Jake.
“Jake, I think we’d better let you get some rest,” he said. “We’d rather win that tournament with you, but we’ll go out there and win it for you instead.”
* * *
—
The crazy thing was, we did. We won that trophy two days later and delivered it to Jake the night before his surgery.
“Thanks, guys,” he told us, wearing the same goofy, drugged-up grin he’d had when we’d first seen him in the hospital. “I’ll see if I can smuggle it in under my gown.” He shoved it under his blanket, making it tent up in exactly the wrong place.
Jake laughed like he’d lost it. He was so proud of the joke, even though it wasn’t that funny, and I was sort of proud of him for letting go enough to joke about stuff as serious to him as basketball and surgery.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “This thing is definitely good luck.”
Good luck, bad luck. I’m still not sure I believe in either. But the next time we met in our own locker room, when we looked up at the rectangle on the wall where the paint hadn’t faded quite so much and realized Coach had left the HEAD HEART HANDS sign at the tournament a state away, you didn’t even have to be that superstitious to get the feeling our season was headed in the wrong direction.
Coach Braithwaite knew the hospital well. The official form always showed his full name, but even here nobody called him anything but Coach B.
He had never been in a hospital before the war, had counted himself too strong and healthy for any of that. But there was still shrapnel—even in his face—that nobody dared take out, so here he came every time he woke up with blood on his pillow to visit his friends in the ENT clinic and get his wounds cauterized before things opened up too wide.
Coach B had made peace with the nosebleeds and frequent visits. He’d even made peace with the shrapnel. There were certainly worse ways to carry the war with you for the rest of your life. He’d lost friends to some of them. To PTSD, most of all, and the ways people tried to silence it.
This day, though, he turned away from the ENT clinic and headed toward Med/Surg, where he’d visited friends and players recovering from all sorts of things. He carried a jar of daisies his wife had cut for Jake and, as he always did on one of these visits, a small envelope.
“Thanks,” Jake said, looking grateful even though he clearly wasn’t sure what to do with the flowers. “And tell Mrs. Braithwaite thanks too.” But his smile was dim, even under the fluorescent lights of the hospital room.
Maybe it’s the medication, Coach B thought. And there’s a mental trauma that goes along with an injury that’s every bit as great as the physical. Sometimes greater for a kid like Jake, who carries the weight of the world—or the team, at least—on his shoulders.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, knowing the answer, but also knowing the value of Jake putting his truth into his own words.
“Fine, sir. Really good. It was all pretty minor.”
Unfortunately, none of this was the truth.
In fifty-one years at the same school, Coach B had gotten to know a lot of young people. They graduated. They left town, or they stayed, or they left and then made their way back. They found true love or something like it, built careers, had kids. In a few cases, he’d even gotten to coach those kids. He’d had no regrets about walking away when the time came.
But, oh, he would have loved to coach Jake Foster. Not because of his ability to read the opponent or his accuracy and consistency as a shooter or even his sheer will to win, although those were the sorts of things you could build a championship team around. The boy was grateful and teachable and just plain hungry. He reminded Coach B of himself when he was younger, and Coach B had been around enough to know that today’s teenagers were on a battlefield of their own. That some of them were sustaining wounds they’d be tending to for the rest of their lives.
Coach B held out the envelope, wishing it were more. Surely the medical bills would bury Jake and his mother. But his own bank account was nearly empty; his own medical bills felt like a precarious slope before a landslide.
No, there was no money in the envelope.
“I wrote you a poem.”
Jake had seen Coach B, sitting at his kitchen window, writing poem after poem for friends, former players, journalists—anybody whose path he had crossed who came upon a hard time. But he had never been on this side of the tradition, had never even read one of the poems.
“Thank you,” Jake said. “This means a lot to me.”
And now, Coach B knew, he was telling the truth.
“You can read it later,” he said. “While I’m here, let’s talk.”
Jake struggled to sit up in bed. “Who’s going to mow your lawn while I’m out?”
Coach B waved the question away, even though he didn’t have an answer for it. “I’ll find someone, or the grass will grow. You deserve a break after six summers, anyway. What will you do with this chance to slow down? That’s what I’d like to know.”
“Probably write poetry,” Jake said, laughing.
But Coach B didn’t laugh. “Summer is a good time to write poetry. You could do exactly that, if you wanted.”
Jake’s brow contracted a little, just like it did on the court. “I’m going to smash every record for rehab and physical therapy. Even before that, I’ve got a whole lineup of old games to watch on YouTube. And they never said I couldn’t lift with my upper body.”
“Or,” Coach B said, “you could write poetry. Or learn to play the clarinet. Or take up painting. You could let yourself heal and come back stronger. How about that?”
Jake shook his head. “I have to get back out there. Without that ball in my hands, I’m nothing. Nobody.”
Before Coach B could tell Jake how wrong he was, a nurse came into the room, handed Jake a small cup with three pills inside, and watched as he swallowed them. Coach B watched too, thinking how he’d spent too many years taking too many pills and not asking enough questions about them. Even though it seemed true of so many his age, he hated that the body he’d always been able to depend on had become so dependent on chemicals.
But this visit was about Jake’s problems, not his. When they were alone again, Coach B tried to remember what he’d wanted to say before the nurse interrupted. It was harder to remember here—too sterile, too many distractions. He wished they were in the shade of his backyard. Or at hi
s kitchen table, where the words came most easily. Still, he had to try.
“You are somebody, Jake. Please believe that.”
Jake shrugged. “Maybe. But without basketball, I’ll never be enough.”
“ ‘Enough’ doesn’t come on the court, son. ‘Enough’ comes from here,” Coach B said, tapping the tips of his stiff fingers on Jake’s chest. “And in there, your cup runneth over.”
Jake turned away.
He didn’t believe it, but Coach B could see in his eyes how badly he wanted to.
“Thank you for the poem,” Jake said, and Coach B hoped the words in the envelope would reach him better than the ones he had spoken today.
“You’re welcome. And Jake? Give yourself time to heal.”
“I will. And I’ll send somebody over to mow your lawn.”
* * *
—
For the rest of the summer, the boys on the team took turns at the task. Each time Coach B looked out the kitchen window and thought the grass was getting a little long, someone new showed up and made quick work of it, building muscle and character under the hot summer sun.
Even from a hospital bed, Coach B thought, Jake Foster is a leader.
Last to come for mowing duty was Kolt Martin, headphones on and dancing at every turn. Coach B shook his head, smiled, turned back to the blank sheet of paper before him, hoping he could make something beautiful of it. Perhaps another poem for Jake.
A single drop of blood fell to the clean white sheet.
It was time to go to the hospital again.
Jake’s been cooperating, but not because he wants to. Everything just hurts too much to even think about fighting back. He noticed this morning that the handcuffs were gone, and he’s too grateful to risk messing that up.
Still, there’s something else he’s got to do. Something important enough to cut through this fog and fever, and he’ll be sick until he knows it’s done.
“Please,” he begs. “Just let me tell them I’m okay.”
The man scoffs at this. “Are you?”
“I want them to think I am.”
“And how long have you been playing that game?”
When Jake doesn’t answer, the man reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a phone, metallic red with the AHS logo.
Jake’s phone.
“Fine,” he says. “We wouldn’t want anybody to be worried.” He turns on the phone and points it at Jake. “Smile,” the man says, and the flash is so bright after all the darkness that Jake is blind for a moment. He does smile, though. At least, he pulls his mouth up in the way he remembers from before.
“Now for your message,” the man says. “I’ll give you four words, one for every day you’ve been here. And because I’m so nice, I’ll let you send them to four people.”
Has it only been four days? That can’t be right. The man is lying. He has to be.
Jake will think through that later, if he can keep his eyes open. For now, he needs to focus on the message.
“Let me type it,” he begs. He actually falls to his knees, but sharp pains shoot through them both, and he can’t stay there. Each of his knees has endured a trauma that might never fully heal.
The man rolls his eyes at Jake’s weakness and at his words. “Are you kidding me? I’m not sending it from here. What if they trace the signal?”
Jake is confused. “Can they do that?”
The man lets out an impatient breath. “I’d rather not find out. I’ve already had to disable the location encryption on your pictures.” He dangles the phone in front of Jake’s face, taunting him. “So. Your message. What’ll it be? ‘Don’t worry, I’m alive’ or ‘Getting my shit together’? I swear, Foster, I won’t type ‘I love you all.’ You’ve got to give me something better than that.”
Jake thinks it over. Four words, four people. When they get the message and the picture from his phone, they’ll know he’s alive, so “I’m alive” would be a waste of half his words. What is it he wants to say most?
Then he knows. He gives the man the names of the four people he wants the message sent to, and then come the words.
“It’s not your fault.”
The man drives to a lonely hill, covered in sage and bitterbrush that cling to the dry dirt, struggling to survive. He finds the four contacts Jake gave him and sends the four words to each of them.
Because in spite of it all, he is not a monster. He too is only trying to survive.
It’s not your fault.
It’s not your fault.
It’s not your fault.
It’s not your fault.
He tells himself the words are true for him too.
Then he climbs into the truck and gets the hell out of there.
Daphne scrolls the “Find Jake” page, searching for anything that seems even the smallest bit credible or helpful. Nothing ever does.
Kolt stands by the window, spinning a soda-can tab between his thumb and finger. Drops the tab, tells himself it’s nothing.
Luke opens Jake’s nightstand drawer. The little first-aid tin is gone, just like his brother. But nothing in that kit could have fixed much of anything, anyway.
Then four phones light up with the words It’s not your fault and a photo, blurry and washed out, of Jake wearing a pained smile.
They each try to call him then, three shaking hands holding phones to three eager ears, but of course it goes straight to the voicemail message they’ve been hearing since he disappeared.
Daphne, Kolt, and Luke recognize each other’s numbers, but none of them are sure who the fourth number belongs to. When they call it (and they all do), they hear only the automated recording that came with the phone, repeating the number back to them, even though it’s the only piece of information they already know.
Still, none of them call each other.
Each of them sits, alone and wrecked, and reads the words again: It’s not your fault.
Not one of them believes it.
Sometimes I wonder if my defining characteristic is my obsession with drugs.
When I was little, I dreamed of being a doctor. I’d give all my relatives checkups with my plastic kit and boxes of Band-Aids. (When Dad told me I could pick out a treat at the store, I’d pick Band-Aids every time.)
Somewhere along the line, though, I realized it usually wasn’t the doctor who fixed you.
It was the medicine.
Even my seven-year-old self could see that. You go to the doctor, they take your temperature and look down your throat or whatever, and you leave feeling exactly the same. It’s the five milliliters of grape-flavored goodness your dad pours (or your mom, I guess, if she stuck around) that actually make the difference.
Why would you want to be a doctor, I wondered, when you could be a pharmacist? The person who actually delivers the goods?
So when Jake came home after a couple of days in the hospital postsurgery, I put myself in charge of managing his meds. It turned out that was an easy job compared with trying to keep him off his feet. Jake was ready to get back onto the court, and it took all four of us—Kolt, Luke, Jake’s mom, and me—tag-teaming him to keep him occupied enough that he wouldn’t try anything stupid.
Since there’s no off-season for college prep, I tried to figure out things Jake and I could do that were entertaining but still required brain activity, even if it was a stretch. That’s how we ended up playing so many card games and watching entire seasons of Grey’s Anatomy.
“You could be Derek Shepherd someday,” I told him one night as Meredith’s voice-over began against the Seattle skyline. Jake’s injured leg ran the length of the couch behind me, but it was still so comfortable, leaning back against his chest, him resting his chin on top of my head. “You’d be out there saving lives, filling out the scrubs.”
He couldn’t ha
ve sat up faster if the couch had caught on fire, launching me to the other end.
“No way,” he said. “I hate doctors and hospitals and blood. I hate all of it.”
I stared at him. “Jake, we’re on season three. You’ve watched fifty episodes of doctors and hospitals and blood in the last week. Why did you sit through fifty episodes of everything you hate?”
He shrugged. “Because I love you.”
He’d never said it before, and I’m still not sure he meant to say it then, but he didn’t backpedal. He just pulled me close and kissed me, maybe partly so I wouldn’t feel any pressure to say it back.
“Speaking of medicine,” I said, even though that was definitely not the last thing we’d been speaking of, “it’s time for your pain meds.” Jake’s mom had thanked me for keeping on top of it, since he’d been known to try to skip a dose or two.
Jake groaned. “They make me all loopy and nauseous.”
“Nauseated,” I corrected him. “ ‘Nauseous’ isn’t incorrect, but it can also mean you’re causing nausea, and I can confirm that’s definitely not the case. I actually feel quite great when I’m around you.”
He nodded. “Right. So calling a grown-ass man ‘McDreamy’ is nauseous because it makes me nauseated. Is that correct?”
I shook a pill from the bottle and handed it to him, along with his water bottle. “Very funny. And the doctor said you’ll heal faster if you stay on top of the pain.”
“Okay, fine,” he said, tossing the pill back with a swallow of water. “But I can’t guarantee what my digestive system’s going to do if I keep taking these things.”
We spent the next few hours playing cards, with college basketball reruns on ESPN Classic giving us just enough noise in the background. As the medication kicked in, Jake turned back into the kid I’d first met at the courthouse—joking, laughing, laid-back. Maybe this was what he was like when he got a little break from competitive sports.
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