Brighter Than the Sun

  The kid with the bomber jacket is standing behind Kim. He’s not gaping like the others, and I notice a knife in his hand. Was he coming to help me? Or, perhaps, Kim?

  The struggle has reopened some of the nastier slashes. Two long, thin bloodstains spread across my shirt. Every gaze is laser-locked.

  The one holding Kim lets her go at last. She runs to me. Throws her arms around my neck as the guy grabs my hoodie and holds it out to me. He wants to hug me as well. So bad, it hurts.

  I take the hoodie and turn away. He’s good-looking as hell, but his desire is unwelcome. If we were alone, I would tell him the right guy will come along. And if that were not a lie. The right guy never comes along, and he commits suicide in less than two years. I know this because Gabriel finds out about him. Beats the shit out of him. Is branded for hell because of it. Because his actions lead to the death of an innocent.

  I turn toward Gabriel. He scowls at me, and I realize I could save the kid. I could kill Gabriel right then and there. Before he beats up a friend for something that is completely beyond the boy’s control. The boy who doesn’t know it’s okay to be attracted to members of the same sex. It’s not a sin. If it were, every gay person I came across would be branded for hell. They rarely are. When it does happen, it has nothing to do with their lifestyle.

  But who knows if the boy will really commit suicide anyway? The situation is too much of an unknown. Too risky. I have another job today, so I decide against intervening. I can’t risk being arrested before completing my first objective.

  The others stare in silence as Kim and I turn to leave. The kid with the bomber jacket does the same. After a few feet, he slips his jacket over his shoulders. The back of it reads AMADOR. I commit it to memory.

  Celeste calls out to me. “What’s your name?”

  “Alexander,” I say over my shoulder.

  Kim turns back to her. “Reyes,” she says, and I question her with a raised brow. She squeezes me harder. “Your name is Reyes. Reyes Alexander Farrow.”

  I suppose it is.

  12

  We walk to the edge of the park and wait. I am there for a reason, after all, and that reason is walking through the park as we speak. Gillian, the nurse who ruffled my hair in the hospital, is walking toward us. If she hadn’t been so nice to me, I would never have tried to find her again. But she was, and now I can’t let it go. I just can’t.

  She is on a cell phone, laughing, completely unaware that she is about to be stabbed to death in her own house.

  We follow her, keeping back a ways so she doesn’t notice. She’s pretty, just as I remember, with dark blond hair and a wide smile. When we get to her house, I tuck Kim behind a group of bushes, stand at her back door, and wait. This is the moment I saw in the hospital. The orderly is in love with her, but she just wants to be friends. He is not taking it well.

  Then again, things could’ve changed. I’m hoping that they did, in fact. I’m not sure if fate is set in stone, but I figure any number of things could have happened that would set the orderly, Donald, on a different path. That was years ago. Maybe he found someone. Or has learned to take rejection a little better. Or died in a freak defibrillator accident. Surely someone has to clean those.

  Sadly, that is not the case. I can feel him. He’s already inside.

  I try the door. It’s locked, naturally. I shove it with my shoulder. Normally, knocking in a door wouldn’t be a problem, but since I’d recently gotten the shit kicked out of me, the door was proving more of a problem than I’d expected. By the time I push hard enough to crack the doorframe, Donald has stabbed her.

  They are in her kitchen. She is screaming as he raises the knife again. Pleading with him to stop. I walk up behind him. She falls back against the refrigerator, and he is just about to plunge the knife into her heart when I say, “You’re going to hell eventually anyway. Why put off the inevitable?”

  He stops and whips his head around, which helps the momentum when I snap his neck.

  Gillian is horrified. She gasps and throws blood-covered hands over her mouth. Then, as Donald is crumpling to the floor, I slam his head into the countertop.

  “He was hiding in your house when you got home,” I say to her, letting his body slump the rest of the way to the ground. “He attacked you.” I pull his legs out a little so it looks like he fell. “You fought back.” There is a glass of water on the counter. “Pushed him.” I throw the contents on the floor. “He slipped. Fell against the counter. Broke his neck.”

  She doesn’t acknowledge anything I say. She slides to the floor herself and stares in horror, completely blindsided on two counts: his and mine.

  I go to her. Take her shoulders. Shake her until she focuses on me. “What happened?”

  Her lids flutter. “What?”

  I shake her again. “What happened here?”

  “I— He was in the house.”

  “Waiting for you.”

  “Waiting for me. He attacked me. He stabbed me.” She gasps when she realizes she’s really been stabbed. Starts to hyperventilate. I lift her off the floor and sit her on a chair.

  “What next?”

  “I— I pushed and he stumbled back. He fell. Hit his head on the counter.”

  “You have to slow your breathing.” I put a hand on her back. “You’re going to pass out and you need to call an ambulance.”

  She nods, scared out of her mind, and gradually begins to recognize me. I see it in her expression.

  I change mine. Harden it. Shake my head. She nods again, understanding.

  I lean over her and kiss her cheek. She wants to hug me but she doesn’t. I think she doesn’t want to get blood on my clothes. I’m wearing the hoodie, so she doesn’t know my clothes are already bloody.

  “Call the police,” I say.

  She puts a hand on my cheek. “He would have killed me.”

  “Call the police,” I say again. Then I leave.

  I hear a whispered thank-you as I hurry out the door.

  I can’t see what happens to her anymore. Her future is hers now. Donald was slated for hell the minute he made the decision to take her life, so even though he didn’t get to kill her, he is still going down. I don’t stick around long enough for the floor to open up and swallow him, though. I’ve seen only one person go to hell. I have no desire to see it again.

  Kim and I walk back to the apartment, and I wonder why I did that. Why I stuck my neck out for Gillian. She was supposed to die. I wonder if I’ve thrown a wrench into some cosmic order in the universe. I wonder if that one simple act will cause the destruction of our world in a hundred years. Then again, I could just as easily have saved it. It’s impossible to know what one tiny change will do. What kind of effect the butterfly will have. Maybe the tsunami will happen whether the butterfly flaps its wings or not.

  We get back before Earl does, and Kim washes the blood off me again. Gets me a clean shirt. Makes me spaghetti. She wants to ask what happened, but she doesn’t. Which is good. I’m still coming to terms with the fact that I’ve just killed a man. If I can do it once, why can’t I do it again?

  No. I can’t. I can’t risk going to prison and leaving Kim alone. She would be put in foster home after foster home. At least in our situation, I know I can take care of her. I can be here for her.

  13

  The years go by and we exist. I convince Earl that Kim needs to go to school. I make promises if he will let her go. More if he will let me go as well.

  So a few weeks later, I am in high school. I’ve never been to school of any kind. It’s like being in a foreign country where I know the language but not the customs. Kim is scared when I walk her to middle school and drop her off. I tell her she’s in the same grade as Dutch. I tell her she is going to love it. I tell her I’ll be there to pick her up the minute she gets out.

  She nods, completely unconvinced. Kim has never been to school either, but a group of girls rushes up to us when we arrive. One of them takes her hand and they lead her
to the playground before she can change her mind. I’m grateful and head to my own institution of higher learning: Yucca High.

  The kids stare when I walk on campus, so I put up my hoodie. Only in school, I’m not allowed to wear the hood up, so I get in trouble every few feet. I drop it back, walk a ways, then put it up again. It doesn’t stop the staring, but it helps me cope with it. Like I’m in my closet. In a dark place. Safe. Forgotten.

  I get registered and they hand me a class schedule, so a little while later, I’m standing in a room full of kids staring at me. Again. It’s physical science. The teacher looks at my schedule, then introduces me. To the whole class. I’m floored they actually do that. I can feel my face warming as I shift my weight.

  Thankfully, nobody says anything. The teacher points to a seat. It’s surrounded by the hopeful gazes of sophomore girls.

  “Hood down,” he says, his voice harsher than most of the others’.

  I sit down and push my hood back. There is a coordinated release of breath around me. The emotion swirling in the room presses into my chest. I’m not sure I can do it. This. Any of this. My lungs aren’t working right, and everyone is looking at me. Gazes rake up my back and across my skin. Some are so full of longing, I almost feel sorry for them. Some are full of hatred. I do that. Inspire hatred for no reason. I figure it’s part of who I am. Another gift from hell. The hatred, I understand. The longing, not so much.

  The teacher, a Mr. Stone, hands me a book. Points to the page number on the board. But I’ve already read the entire thing cover to cover. He asks a lot of questions about the chapter the class was supposed to read the night before. I know all the answers, but because I’m new, I’m spared the dreaded hot seat. That probably won’t last long.

  All my classes go pretty much the same way, and by lunch, I still don’t have my bearings. I wonder if I ever will. My world has always been so small. So concentrated. This is like a diluted version of it.

  I make my way outside while others are rushing for the lunchroom or the parking lot. There aren’t a lot of benches outside and most are taken, so I head for a quiet corner with a slice of grass that’s still green despite the chill. A voice resonates nearby as I sit on the grass.

  “What’s up, cabrón?”

  I look up. Block the sun with an arm to see a kid standing there. He walks over, and it takes me a minute, but I recognize him from the park. The one with the bomber jacket from that day five years ago. Amador. I wonder if he recognizes me, too, or if he’s just really friendly. I give him a head-nod greeting, so he sits next to me. Unfolds a tube of tinfoil. Reveals a burrito. The scent makes my mouth water.

  He offers me half. I shake my head. I don’t have any money for lunch, but I’m not hungry anyway. At least that’s what I tell myself. He tears off half anyway and holds it out. I drop my gaze and take it.

  Amador is like any other kid there and yet as different from them as Dutch is from me. There is a calmness about him. A stillness beneath choppy water. Being around him is soothing.

  We eat in absolute silence; then he takes my schedule out of my hoodie pocket and opens it up. Nods his head. Passes it back. “We have two classes together.”

  I nod back. “Cool.”

  We lie on the grass and watch the clouds roll by the rest of the period. He is very popular. Everyone who walks by says hi. He waves. Shakes hands. Bumps fists. Whatever the situation calls for.

  The bell rings. We get up and brush ourselves off before heading to our next class.

  He doesn’t introduce me to anyone as we walk inside the building and through the halls, even though everyone is curious. They glance at me, then eye him. Mostly the girls. He ignores them. Changes the subject. Insults them in some humorous way.

  There are only two classes after lunch because we have the B lunch period. The late one. We are in history, and I want to tell the teacher that he is pronouncing King Christian X wrong, but I don’t. Again, I’ve been spared having to speak in class because I’m new. I decide to savor that.

  When the last bell rings, Amador and I clutch hands and lean our shoulders into a half hug before heading in opposite directions.

  “Hey,” he calls to me.

  I turn back.

  “Do you remember my name?”

  I smile for the first time all day. “Amador.”

  He laughs. “Amador Sanchez, Mr. Reyes Alexander Farrow. How’s your sister?”

  “She’s good. See you tomorrow?”

  “Not if I see you first,” he teases.

  I watch him leave, astounded. I’ve never had a friend. Not a real one. I check my watch and realize I’m late.

  When I pick up Kim, she is a mass of jiggling nerves. She’s scared, but school is what she needs. She needs to socialize. To make friends. To be a kid.

  She doesn’t want to go back the next day. I can’t wait. The school counselor is waiting for my school records to be transferred. I figure I can hold her off on that for a few weeks. Shit gets lost in the mail all the time, so I hear.

  In the meantime, she is going to test me. I’ve never had a test. Not a real one. But I learn to love them. Except when Mr. Stone, my science teacher, decides to give me an assessment to test where I am in the curriculum. I ace it. I ace every test. Probably why I love them so much. But he accuses me of cheating. Marches me to the principal’s office. Says no way could I have aced that test; some of the concepts aren’t introduced until college graduate courses. He wants me expelled.

  I can hear them talking through the wall. The principal tells him the counselor also tested me, and my scores were off the charts. I sit smugly, not realizing what that might mean for me.

  I find out two months later when men from the government show up to do some tests of their own. I fake the flu. It’s not hard. My temperature naturally runs a little hot most of the time. I sprint all the way to Kim’s school, check her out, and hurry home.

  So, my stint in high school lasts only three months, but I convince Kim she can keep going. Then we move again, and it’s too far for Kim and me to walk. She’s scared to death of buses. I want to ask her why, but I figure she’ll tell me when she’s ready.

  There is a middle school not far from our new apartment. We get her registered, and I walk her there every day. It’s the same at first: She is scared. Doesn’t want to go. Doesn’t want to start all over. But after a while she is fine and looks forward to school. It becomes an escape for her. One she desperately needs.

  Amador and I keep in touch. He skips school and visits about twice a week. We go to the skate park or the mall or hustle cash for lunch. When he’s not around, I will go find a quiet place and enter Dutch’s world. One day, she is sitting by herself outside, reading. A soft breeze is pushing strands of her hair into her eyes. They get stuck in her lip gloss. What’s left of it. She keeps pulling her lower lip between her teeth.

  She tucks the hair behind an ear only to have it work loose about five seconds later, but she is so engrossed in her book, she hardly notices.

  At first, I’m mesmerized by her. By her hair and her fingers and her legs. And by the fact that she reads without moving her lips. She is wearing a plaid skirt, a button-down, and Mary Janes. Classic Catholic schoolgirl apparel. I stay out of her line of sight but get close enough to see what she is reading. Whatever it is has her dripping wet. Her abdomen tightens. Floods with heat that rivals the fires of hell. Throbs with longing. And I have a hard time concentrating on anything other than the fact that her knees are parted and her breaths are coming in quick, short bursts.

  I finally make out the title—Sweet, Savage Love—and make a mental note to get my hands on that book.

  If I could, I’d materialize right then and there and see to her needs. Make her writhe. Make her explode. Since she’s terrified of me, I decide against it and leave her to her own devices.

  I have to see to my own needs when I get back before picking up Kim from school.

  This is a golden time for us. Earl doesn’t bother
me so often. He goes through spells, and as long as I can survive them, as long as I’m breathing at the end, I endure for Kim’s sake. Every once in a while, his dark side rears its ugly-ass head, and I get more than I bargained for. He is more violent now. The drinking and drugs are slowly eating away what few brain cells he had, and his moods turn on a dime. There are a few days that I look so bad, I can’t even walk Kim to school or meet up with Amador. But not many.

  One day after school, Kim is shaking. Amador is with us, but he doesn’t notice the state she’s in. He gives her a hug and jogs off to catch a bus back to the war zone. When he’s gone, I ask Kim what happened.

  “I had to go to the office today.”

  I’m instantly alarmed. The blue under her eyes is darker. The white of her skin paler. I put my hands on her shoulders and force her to face me. “What happened?”

  “Nothing. They just called me to the office.”

  “Why?”

  She lifts a shoulder. “It was the counselor. She was nice, but she asked a lot of questions.”

  Dread creeps up my spine. It feels like when ice is so cold, it burns. “What did she want to know exactly?”

  “She—” Tears flood between her lashes. “She asked me if I felt safe at home. If I get enough to eat. Stuff like that.”

  I turn away from her and curse under my breath.

  “I told her I was fine. Everything was okay.”

  If they take her away, I won’t be able to protect her anymore. Some foster homes and children’s homes are no better than what we already have. At least with Earl, I can keep an eye on her. And he doesn’t touch her. His tastes don’t lean in that direction.

  Before I came along, he was all about boys. He would go through a boy every two years, and then he’d sell the kid to one of his friends. But he kept me. He never tired of me, even when I got older than his usual demographic. Even when I got much older.

  So I know that as long as we are with Earl, she’ll be safe from that type of attention. If the authorities suspect anything, they could investigate. They could take her away from Earl. From me. They could put her in a much worse situation.