by Bryan Bliss
Then he ran, too. West, toward an exit most kids used to sneak out of school early. He ran as fast as he could, his feet barely touching the ground, when all of a sudden the crowd of students changed direction, the way a herd moves to avoid a predator. Two dropped. And then another.
At the end of the hallway, the Medusa. Paralyzing him.
From his left, something massive moved toward him.
The coach ran across the hallway, away from the wrestling room door he’d just closed, and grabbed Brezzen by the collar. He growled out one simple instruction.
Hide.
More shots. The sound of people running and falling and getting back up.
The coach pushed Brezzen under a staircase, next to the two girls—all of them huddled together, closer than he’d ever been to another person, like it was the only thing that could save them.
The last thing he remembered was that same gravelly voice, yelling as he charged forward.
Brezzen woke up screaming, clawing at the covers until he was in the corner of his bed, pinned against the headboard only because he couldn’t move any farther away from the darkness, the shadows that claimed his bedroom.
His parents turned the lights on and rushed toward him, but the shadow was still there in the corners. Under the bed. On top of him and he started wailing, shrieking.
“Brendan—Brendan.”
His mother said his name as his father held him, close to his chest so he could hear and feel his heart—beating just as hard.
Brezzen sat in Dr. Ivy’s office, his hands wrapped around one another. She wasn’t in her typical professional clothing, but jeans and a T-shirt. It was early, not even time for breakfast, let alone a therapy session.
“Can you tell me about the dream?” she asked.
Brezzen could tell her every single moment of the dream. It’s one he’d had since the very first day—but also one that hadn’t happened in months.
“The Medusa,” he said. “The same as always.”
The first month, maybe two, of their sessions had been all about the dream. About the darkness that overtook his mind every time he slept. About waking up, covered in sweat and exhausted, like he’d just run a marathon.
Dr. Ivy nodded. “And how long did it take for you to realize it wasn’t real?”
“A few minutes,” he said. “But I still feel it—like, right now. I can feel it.”
“The Medusa?” she asked.
Brezzen shook his head.
“No. I can feel my heart beating and the blood going through my veins. I’m aware of every single molecule. At least that’s how it feels. Like I’m about to combust. Or maybe turn into a superhero.”
She smiled. “Let’s hope for the latter.”
“Can I—can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
Brezzen sat there for a minute, trying to pick the words from his brain in exactly the right order. Words that would help clarify a question that he’d never really asked.
“Is this going to keep happening?”
Iaophos leaned back in her chair and ran her fingers through her hair, which was not up in its usual ponytail. When she was finished, it looked like she’d just gotten off a ride at the state fair. Out of a car.
“The honest answer is: I don’t know. Maybe? Maybe not?” Brezzen’s eyes dropped and she said his name. “We can’t control everything in our life. All we can do is work on our healing. We can take fifty steps forward, even if there are forty-nine others going the other way. Does that make sense?”
“I didn’t do anything,” he said.
Iaophos was surprised and perhaps a bit confused. Before she could respond, Brezzen said, “I didn’t do anything in the dream. To help. I never do.”
“Brendan—you did. You protected yourself. That’s all you needed to do. And you’re fighting right now, battling to get better. I can’t think of a braver thing.”
Brezzen nodded.
“You are a warrior,” she said.
He tried to brush her off, but she wouldn’t let him.
“No, listen to me. You are a warrior. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Everybody played alt characters, but he had always been class monogamous. There was something about the straight-up brawler, the fighter, the warrior that appealed to him. Something that called to him, even when he wasn’t playing, giving him a weird irrational strength that had gotten him in trouble more than a few times.
Calling out a bully.
Standing up for his friends.
Walking through school, everyday life, being exactly who he wanted to be, no matter what other people said.
Until the one moment when he didn’t.
“Just without the armor,” he said, attempting a joke.
Iaophos moved her head back and forth and shrugged.
“Everybody puts on armor of some kind. A little armor helps get us through the day. It’s just when we forget to take it off that it becomes the problem. When we forget that we don’t always need it.”
Brezzen’s armor was heavy and he wanted to take it off. But what then? How did you live without a constant fear that you were about to get into some shit?
“Just know that you are incredibly strong, Brendan. And you are incredibly kind. And those two things can defeat almost anything they go against.”
Brezzen expected to go to school, but his parents and Dr. Ivy had another plan, so he found himself sitting at Carol’s, picking at a sausage biscuit and trying to read his parents’ faces.
“I’m fine,” he said.
They looked at each other and then at him. The breakfast crowd was long gone, leaving them alone in the restaurant. The walls, once white, were yellowed by grease and, before it became illegal, decades of cigarette smoke. Brezzen could still smell it sometimes when he sat in one of the booths.
“Eat, bud.” His dad pushed the plate a little closer to him. “Get something in your stomach. It will make you feel better.”
He picked up the biscuit, part of it crumbling back down onto the plate, and took a big bite. It was wonderful and it did make him feel better, if only for a second. By the time he took a second bite, the magic was gone.
“So, maybe we rushed you into this,” his mother said, looking at his dad, who agreed. “Dr. Ivy said you might not be ready after all, which is fine! We don’t have to have a timetable!”
Brezzen lifted the biscuit back up to his mouth and took another bite. This one fell into his stomach like a stone.
“Am I going to school today?”
They shared another look.
“Honey, you’re exhausted,” his mother said.
“Let’s just take this one day at a time,” his dad said. “And when we figure out the right decision, we’ll all make it together. The most important thing is that you are feeling supported and ready.”
“What does that mean?” Brezzen asked.
“It—” His dad struggled to find the right words, which was never the case. “Just eat and we’ll get everything figured out.”
Brezzen looked down at his biscuit, only a few bites left. But he wasn’t hungry now. When he stood up, they both jumped out of the booth, too, flanking him like he might go running out of the restaurant screaming.
But he didn’t. He simply said, “I’m ready to go home.”
As soon as he was in the house, he went to his room and got in his bed, not because he was tired, but because he didn’t know where else to go. He didn’t want to talk to his parents, didn’t want to go online, or fall into any of the other routines he’d established over the last year.
He stayed in bed until his mom knocked on his door at lunch and brought him homemade mac and cheese, which he ate without tasting a single bite. When he finished, he put the bowl on his bedside table and eventually his mother came back in and got it, looking down at him with eyes that were so sad, he didn’t know where to start. Outside his window the light began to drop and he still didn’t move, only falling asleep on
accident.
The next knock on his door was so soft that he thought it might be a dream. His mom’s head peeked through the door. She smiled when she met his eyes and whispered, “Are you up for some company?”
Brezzen expected his aunt to come walking through door, or maybe the youth pastor from the church they all pretended to attend. So when the Great Mandolini entered a moment later, Brezzen sat up quickly and, for some reason, smoothed his hair down.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “Your hair never looks good.”
Brezzen laughed as his mom hovered behind the Great Mandolini, before finally leaving and then returning a few seconds later with a package of Oreos and a couple of bottles of Gatorade.
She backed out of the room, smiling at both of them.
“So you weren’t at school,” the Great Mandolini said, picking up the Oreos and popping one into his mouth. “You missed absolutely nothing, I’m happy to report. Well, except Eleanor Boone is officially everybody’s favorite person again.”
At the mention of her name, Brezzen tensed up momentarily. He grabbed a cookie, pulling it apart and then putting it back together before eating it in one bite.
“Oh, well, there was one other thing,” the Great Mandolini said, the tone of his voice changing. “Alaina. She was very worried that you might not be coming back. She gave me this . . .”
He reached out a folded slip of paper with a phone number written in loopy pen.
“That’s the most she’s ever talked to me,” the Great Mandolini said. “So, thank you? I guess?”
Brezzen tucked the piece of paper underneath his Wizards & Warriors player’s manual, which took up the majority of his nightstand. When he accidentally bumped the book, his d20 fell to the floor.
“Eighteen. Not bad,” the Great Mandolini said, reaching down to scoop up the die. He tossed it between his hands as he talked. “So is that what’s going to happen? You’re not coming back again?”
Brezzen didn’t know. But maybe he did. It felt as if his parents—Iaophos, perhaps—had already made the decision and it settled inside his head felt like a dense cloud. Like he had no control over something important.
A die roll wasn’t going to decide this one.
The Great Mandolini sighed. He picked up another Oreo, ate it, and then grabbed two more and stuck them in his pocket. His parents had moved here from Oregon when he was a baby, but that time hadn’t kicked them from their West Coast, vegetarian, “Our kids don’t eat sugar” beliefs. The Great Mandolini, of course, was an addict.
“You can take them all,” Brezzen said. “I’m not hungry.”
He didn’t hesitate. Dumped the entire package of cookies into the top of his backpack, making both of them laugh.
“I can’t bring the package home. It’s not recyclable.”
They stopped talking, listening as Brezzen’s dad yelled from the garage—something about needing a broom. In the silence that followed, the Great Mandolini stood up and shouldered his backpack. A single rogue Oreo fell out of the top and rolled under Brezzen’s bed.
“Don’t worry about it,” Brezzen said. “I’ll grab it later.”
The Great Mandolini turned to leave Brezzen’s, but then he stopped.
“Shit, I almost forgot.”
He tossed the d20 to Brezzen and it landed softly on his comforter, right below his hand.
“Thanks,” Brezzen said, reaching down and picking it up.
“Hey, don’t forget about me,” the Great Mandolini said, cringing at himself. “I mean, you know what I’m saying. I missed having you around.”
“I won’t,” Brezzen said.
But he’d made the same promise when he was first taken out of school last year. And then again, months later when he was feeling more stable—more like himself. But he never picked up his phone. Never sent a text, maybe scared that the Great Mandolini and Bork had somehow moved on without him.
“I still want to run that campaign,” Brezzen said.
“Hell yeah,” the Great Mandolini said. “Hell. Yes. Let’s do it. This weekend. As long as you’re feeling better. What do you think?”
Brezzen looked down at his blanket, wanting to agree. But he wasn’t sure when he might be better—what that even meant.
“We need your ax, Brezzen,” the Great Mandolini said. “Remember that.”
Chapter Eight
THE NEXT MORNING BREZZEN WAS UP WITH THE BIRDS. This was the first time, maybe in his life, that he’d woken up without a constant prodding or some kind of electronic, beeping, won’t-be-snoozed, alarm.
At first he considered just leaving the house. He’d leave a note, of course, but he didn’t want to give his parents any chance to dissuade him.
Instead, he made himself some peanut butter toast and sat at the table, waiting for them to wake up. They were notorious morning people, always up at dawn, singing and talking loudly—which always felt strangely aggressive to the normally sleepy Brezzen.
When they finally walked into the kitchen, looking a little more bleary-eyed than normal, they were clearly surprised to see him at the table, eating breakfast, fully dressed.
“Hey, bud. Glad to see you up and at ’em,” his dad said.
“Everything okay? I figured you’d want to stay in bed a little longer,” his mother said.
“I want to go to school,” Brezzen said.
He’d spent half the night rehearsing in order to make sure it came out exactly how he wanted it to sound. Confident, but not desperate. Hopeful, but not scared.
He nailed it.
His parents looked at each other and then at Brezzen, who had already stood up and was putting his dish in the sink.
“You don’t have to push yourself,” his mom said.
“Yeah, bud, Dr. Ivy said it was fine to take few days to, you know, feel better.”
He could hear the fear in their words. That the nightmare the other night was something bigger and—if pushed—Brezzen might crack completely, straight down the middle, and they’d lose him forever. He couldn’t imagine what it took for them to let him walk out of the house now, after everything.
And if this had been last week, he would’ve jumped on the opportunity to stay with them. He would’ve spent the rest of his life moving from his bedroom to the kitchen to the TV room, nothing more.
“I want to go to school,” Brezzen said.
“Honey, you will,” his mom said, rubbing his arm as she spoke. “When you’re ready.”
“Yeah, bud. Taking a few days off isn’t going to hurt anybody.”
But that wasn’t true. And Brezzen knew it.
He tried to keep his voice even but failed. It broke after the first word.
“I—I just.” He wiped his eyes, refusing to let this devolve into something bigger, a tsunami of emotions that would whisk him away. Prove their point. “If I don’t go now, I’m afraid I won’t go back. I’m afraid I’ll spend two or three days here and it will start to feel comfortable. And then I’ll forget.”
“What are you going to forget, honey?” His mom took his hand and squeezed it. “Is it schoolwork? You’ll catch up.”
He shook his head.
“I’ll forget that it’s safe,” he said, not sure if that was the best way to explain it. Whether it was or not, it hit both of his parents like a truck. His mom pulled him into a hug and his dad stood behind them, tears in his eyes.
“Oh, honey. You’re going to be fine. You won’t forget.”
“I will,” Brezzen said. “I will because it’s easier and . . .”
He wasn’t sure if his parents could handle the rest. The realization that he’d been stumbling toward for the past year. But he needed to say it—maybe for the first time.
“I don’t think I’m better yet,” he said. “And that will never change if I stay here.”
Brezzen walked through the front doors of the school, hurrying to make it to Mr. Bruns’s class. He dodged a couple of lost-looking freshman and slipped into the classroom seconds a
fter the bell rang.
Before he could get back to his seat, Bruns stopped him and the entire room grinded to a halt.
“Mr. Hicks. You are late to my class.”
Brezzen nodded. “I know. I was—”
Mr. Bruns raised his hand. “Were you being chased by a hawkbear?”
Brezzen did a double take. Mr. Bruns crossed his arms across his chest and cocked his head to the side, waiting for a response. The rest of the class was more confused than usual. Even if they played Wizards & Warriors, they might not know about the hawkbear. It was the size of a bear, with the beak and talons of a hawk. It didn’t normally fly—too large—but if properly inspired, usually by the idiotic actions of a party member, it could get off the ground. And then you were really in some shit.
But as the Creature Manual expanded, it disappeared—its simple brutality no match for the newer, more complex creatures. So, if you hadn’t played first edition, you wouldn’t know a hawkbear from a harpy.
“Wouldn’t fit in the hallways,” Brezzen said, hoping the tone was right—cheeky, not challenging. This time Mr. Bruns blinked. He uncrossed his arms and gave Brezzen the slightest of smiles, then motioned to Brezzen’s desk.
“Don’t miss my class again. And don’t be late.”
Brezzen nodded and walked back to his desk, where he was greeted first by Alaina and then by the Great Mandolini, who looked positively confused.
“Dude. What are you doing here?” he whispered.
Brezzen shook his head and motioned to Mr. Bruns, who had already started teaching—a rant that was picking up steam, whether they were ready or not, and quickly turned into an hour of their lives.
Once the period ended, the Great Mandolini leaned over and said, “Okay. What happened?”
Brezzen had no idea where to start. And as Alaina stood up, touching his shoulder and giving him a smile, he decided that a few words would suffice.
“I just needed to take care of some things,” he said.