The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley

  Frankenstein is sweaty in my hand.

  I wave at Steven as I pass through the ICU’s double doors and head straight for Rusty’s room. When Steven’s not around, I have to be sneaky, but that doesn’t happen often anymore. I guess we share the same mission. I’m not sure I trust Steven to stop Death from taking Rusty, but he’s better than nothing.

  Something is out of place. I notice it right away, before I take ten steps into the ICU. It’s laughter.

  Usually the ICU is a mechanized symphony, an orchestra composed of IV drips and heart monitors and respiratory machines. It is the music that keeps the patients alive. There’s rarely laughter. There’s rarely anything to laugh about. But there it is: an airy chuckle darting through the sterilized air on hummingbird wings. Zoom, zoom, zoom.

  The closer I get to Rusty’s room, the more distinct the laughter becomes. And then I see the girl. Nina. My instinct is to run, but my feet ignore my brain’s flight response, and I barrel right into Rusty’s room with my sketchpad in one hand and Frankenstein in the other.

  Nina is in bloom. Her brown hair hangs loose upon her shoulders, and she’s wearing a tight-fitting tank top and some hip-hugging jeans. This is not the same girl I saw a little while ago barking at reporters on the telephone, nor is it the same shattered soul who accompanied Rusty into the ER that night. This girl is fun and flirty. She’s the kind of girl who shops first and worries about the credit-card bills later. Is it an act? A mask she wears for Rusty? Or were her other two faces the masks?

  Rusty breaks into a smile when I blunder into the room. I’m not used to seeing him in so much light. He’s wearing these pressure bandages over his regular bandages that look like black sleeves. Steven tried to explain it all to me once, the details of Rusty’s burn care, but I didn’t want to know. Details are how doctors make patients less than human, and I don’t want to dehumanize Rusty.

  “Well, hello there,” Nina says. She stands tall, almost as tall as me, and folds her arms over her chest. “I think you might have the wrong room.”

  “This is my friend Drew,” Rusty says.

  Nina looks me up and down, her lips pursed. She disapproves; that’s her job. “You’re the one who’s been reading to him.” She relaxes a hair, but I sense that her ease has little to do with me and everything to do with maintaining her current mask. “Isn’t it a bit odd, you being here so late all the time?”

  I feel like a burglar who has bungled the job and is standing at the business end of some seriously pissed-off homeowner’s shotgun. One wrong move and Nina might decapitate me and slam-dunk my head into the hazardous-materials bin.

  “I work in the cafeteria,” I say. “And I want to be a doctor, so sometimes I volunteer in the emergency room. It’s only for the summer. It’s not like I live here or anything.”

  Rusty snorts and starts coughing. Nina’s right there with water, and Rusty sips some out of the straw. He reminds me so much of Trevor; they’re on the same road traveling in opposite directions.

  “What’s your name?” I ask.

  “This is my bestie, Nina.” Rusty seems to have recovered, but he keeps glancing in my direction.

  I told him that I lived here in the hospital. I also told him that I killed my parents. But he hasn’t asked me questions about any of that stuff in the week that I’ve been coming up here to read to him. I assumed it was because he wanted the favor returned.

  Nina sticks out her hand, and I shake it. She’s got a firm grip hiding inside her tiny fingers. I don’t flinch. “You really shouldn’t come here so late, Drew. Rusty needs his rest. He’s got interviews tomorrow.”

  “I told you that I’m not doing any interviews.”

  “People need to know what happened to you,” Nina insists. She’s wearing her other mask now, the soldier. “How are the police ever supposed to arrest those boys if you don’t talk about it?”

  Rusty turns his face from Nina. His heart-rate monitor spikes, and tears form on the edges of his lids, collect there like raindrops on a windowsill. “Don’t you have to get home?” he asks, his voice gruff.

  The muscles in Nina’s jaw pulsate. She’s going to crack a tooth if she’s not careful. She glances at me, and I can’t tell if she’s looking for backup or someone to blame. Finally, she sags. Defeat lops two whole inches from her height. I feel bad for her, but my relationship with Rusty is tenuous. I read to him. I protect him from Death. It’s not like, over the last week, we’ve become soul mates.

  “Tomorrow, Rusty.” Nina gathers her purse and mopes toward the door. Before leaving, she turns to me and says, “If you keep him up too late tonight, I’ll pull out your fingernails one at a time. Capisce?” She sounds like she’s trying to mimic a mob-movie villain, and she’s doing a damned good job.

  I wait for her to walk through the automatic double doors of the ICU ward before I finally exhale the breath I’ve been holding. “Well, she’s interesting,” I say.

  Rusty chuckles. This is the most I’ve seen him smile since we met. “She means well. Ever since . . . this . . . she’s started acting like everyone who comes within ten feet of me is an enemy. And she’s always trying to pressure me into talking to reporters.”

  I watch Rusty when he speaks. It’s an effort for him to move air through his lungs. Steven told me that Rusty was lucky he didn’t burn his airway badly, but it still pains him. “Why don’t you do the interviews?” I take my usual seat on the floor by the bed.

  Rusty shrugs.

  “But maybe if people see how hurt you are, a witness might come forward.”

  “Drop it,” Rusty says. His voice is clipped and cold, but he shakes his head. “Nina can be exhausting.” The laughter that filled the room when I arrived has fled with Nina. Maybe she’s better for Rusty than I am. Or maybe the smile he wears when she’s around is a mask too. Maybe they’re both pretending to be happy for the other’s sake. Either way, I can take a hint.

  I look up at Rusty and smile. A real smile. “I told you I’d come.”

  “You bring the book?” He reaches over the side of the bed, and I give him Frankenstein. “First 1984, and now this. I didn’t peg you for a classics guy.”

  “I borrowed it from a friend.”

  This is how our conversations go. Small talk followed by reading. I’m afraid to know too much about him—or to let him know too much about me. Knowing leads to caring. And I lose everyone I care about.

  “Do you really live here at the hospital?” Rusty leans over the side of the bed, looking down at me with those hazel eyes of his. They fluctuate. Sometimes they’re more green than brown, sometimes more brown than green. But they always look like the ocean this one time I saw it in the summer, blanketed by massive clouds of nomadic seaweed.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I suppose.”

  “Why?”

  I bite my fingernails, a habit my dad helped me break when I was little by dipping the tips in Tabasco sauce. “Why do you want to know now?”

  Rusty shrugs, but he doesn’t stop staring at me. He’s trying to read me like the books I read to him. “It’s just odd. You spending so much time in the hospital, and that nurse guy out there seems okay with it.”

  “He’s got his reasons.”

  “What are yours?”

  There’s no way Rusty’s going to let this go. He’s used to getting what he wants. You can always tell that about a person. Most people aren’t direct when they want something. They try to bribe you or guilt you or scare you into bending to their will. But people used to getting what they want are direct. They know you’ll give in eventually; no subversive tactics are necessary.

  “This is the last place my parents and sister were alive.” Saying it out loud doesn’t hurt like I thought it would. It hurts more. “There was a car accident and they died and it’s my fault. This place, it’s all I’ve got.” I don’t realize I’m crying until I taste tears on my lips. “I was supposed to die too, but Death was late to get me. I hid then, and I’ve been hiding ever since. If she
discovers me now, she’ll take me away, and I’ll never see my family again.”

  “Why wouldn’t you see them again?” Rusty asks. He’s still trying to read me, and I wish he’d stop.

  I answer anyway. “Guys who kill their families go straight to hell. No passing Go, no chance for redemption.”

  “Oh.” Rusty lies back, and any moment now he’s going to call for Steven. He’s going to tell him that I’m a psycho who needs to be pumped full of mind-numbing drugs and locked away for the rest of my life.

  I tense my muscles to run.

  “Do you know why I don’t want to leave?” Rusty asks.

  I blink at him, confused by the turn in the conversation. After a long moment, I say, “Because you’ll die out there.”

  Rusty looks at me again. It was the right answer, but maybe it wasn’t the one he was expecting. Maybe he expected me to say something about fear or pain, but we both know the truth: Death is the only thing waiting for Rusty McHale beyond these walls.

  “You know what happened to me?” he asks.

  “Yeah. But I’d like to hear it from you.”

  “I’m so tired of telling people about it.” Rusty’s voice is languid, tangled in the pain medication. It’s often a battle for him to keep from succumbing to sleep, but I want to keep him here for a while longer.

  “I told you about my parents.”

  Rusty frowns. “Was any of it true?”

  “All of it.” Something about Rusty makes me want to tell him more—everything, maybe—but right now I think what he needs is someone to listen.

  It’s difficult for Rusty. He clears his singed throat and tries to prop himself up higher, but the effort makes him wince. As drugged up as he is, pain still bleeds through the haze. He’s like Patient F on the operating table, surrounded by the men in red lab coats. He can’t escape the pain; it’s woven through the fabric of him.

  “People always guessed that I was gay.” Rusty starts off slowly, choosing his words with care. “Not like I’m flaming or anything—or that it’d be bad if I were. It was just the worst-kept secret at my school. I never dated girls, Nina was always my bestie, and I sucked at sports.”

  I laugh. I can’t help myself. “Sucking at sports doesn’t make you gay.”

  “No, but it makes you a target,” Rusty says, and the smile dies on my lips. “The bullying started freshman year. I took this AV class. I’m totally into movies and filmmaking, and I thought it would be fun. I read the morning announcements over the TV system, and I guess I talk kind of funny—”

  “No you don’t,” I say. “You talk nice. I like the way you talk.”

  Rusty looks at me looking at him, and he doesn’t smile the way I expect him to. Maybe he’s not sure whether I’m telling the truth or just humoring him. The thrum of his voice and the way it curls around the edges makes me think of the whitewater rafting trip my dad took us on last summer. Of this one waterfall that tumbled us all over the edge, leaving us soaking and laughing so hard. When Rusty speaks, it reminds me of a time I was happy. How could I not like that?

  “Anyway,” he says, “I wound up on this hit list that a bunch of kids were passing around. It had the names of different students on it and a corresponding number of points you could earn for punching them in a public place. Bonus points for pulling it off in front of a teacher. Double bonus points for doing it in class.”

  “That’s nuts,” I say. “There’s no way anyone got away with that.”

  “Rich kids can get away with anything.” There’s acid in his words. “The rest of us are on our own.”

  I bow my head. “So you ended up on this list. . . .”

  “Fifty points,” Rusty says. “That’s how much the beatings I took were worth. Each. Their favorite place to punch me was in this long hallway that connects the two campuses of my school. It’s so narrow that you can stand in the center and touch both sides. And it’s dark, too. I’d be trying to get to class, and the punch would come from out of nowhere.” His voice breaks, but he continues. “Usually they’d punch me in the nose or eye. Occasionally a cheap shot missed and clipped my ear. I started taking the long way around, but they always found me.”

  I try to brush Rusty’s hand, but he flinches and pulls away. “We can just read.”

  “You wanted to know.” Rusty’s fighting the lure of his pain meds, and I’m torn between wanting to know what happened and wanting Rusty to rest, to stop hurting for a little while.

  “The bullying continued sophomore year. Teachers and the administration caught on to the list, but the guys, they just moved to something else. For the first part of eleventh grade, it was a game called Sack Tap. I got hit in the balls so many times that one of my testicles nearly ruptured. I wore a cup to school for the rest of the year.”

  Rusty sips his water. “It was always something. I lived in constant fear of what was going to happen next. Do you know what that’s like?”

  I nod. I do.

  “I doubt it.” Rusty frowns. “Anyway, it was Fourth of July, and I’d been invited to a party at this guy’s house. They never invited me to anything, so I figured it had to be a prank. But Nina told me that her friend Lena said that everyone felt bad. That we were about to be seniors and it was time to put the past behind us.

  “By then, my being gay wasn’t even a secret anymore. I hadn’t dated any guys, but if someone asked me, I told them the truth. You know—” Rusty’s words catch in his throat, and I’m poised to call Steven.

  But Rusty barrels on and I’m in awe of his tenacity. “I think maybe I hoped that I could have just one good year. Everyone says that high school—senior year especially—is the best time of your life, and I wanted that. I wanted it so badly.”

  “And they lit you on fire,” I say, trying to cut to the chase to spare Rusty from having to go on.

  He leans over the side of the bed and looks at me, like he’s begging me to let him finish.

  Slowly, he shakes his head. “No. Not right away. At first, it was cool. I had some drinks, chatted with people. I had friends, you know? It’s not like I was a complete social pariah. But I’d never been part of the crowd. It felt damned good to belong for once.” Now Rusty’s whole body trembles. “I don’t know whose idea it was, but some of the guys grabbed me. They stole my clothes, tore them off of me, and just fucking left me there. Naked. In front of everybody. Nina was making out with her newest boyfriend and didn’t even know what was going on. Everyone laughed. People who didn’t even know me thought it was the funniest thing they’d ever seen. I was humiliated. I screamed at them and tried to get my clothes back, but they tossed them around until some genius finally threw them on the roof.”

  “Why didn’t you just leave?” I ask.

  Rusty chuckles, but there’s no mirth in his voice. “It’s so dumb. I’d had a couple of drinks and didn’t want to drive.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “What do you think happened?” Rusty glares at me. “I got my clothes back. I had to use the pool skimmer to drag my clothes off the roof. With everyone watching. You can’t really hide your junk when you’re trying to maneuver a fifteen-foot-long pole.” Rusty gulps more water. Some of it trickles over his chin.

  I don’t want him to finish the story. I know how it ends. I remember his screams. Hearing the whole truth makes it so much worse. Those boys didn’t just jump him and set him on fire. They tortured him first. For years. Rusty had been burning for a long time before they actually set him aflame.

  “Nina tried to find me afterward, but I wanted to be alone. The party was at this girl Cassie’s house. There was a big yard, so I sat out in the dark, trying to sober up enough to leave.

  “That’s when they got me. They snuck up from behind and splashed me with something. I couldn’t see their faces. God, they were laughing so hard. I don’t remember hearing the lighter, but one minute I was wet and the next I was burning. Oh, fuck, I burned.”

  Rusty’s not even trying not to cry. “I never felt
pain like that before. The world compressed into this small, dense pocket of agony. Nothing—nothing—existed outside of my pain.”

  “Rusty.”

  “But you know what the really messed-up thing is?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “I remember this one thought. I remember thinking that as bad as being on fire hurt, at least I didn’t hurt inside anymore.”

  “Rusty—”

  “I don’t remember the rest. Nina says I ran into the pool. The doctors say that saved my life and that it’s a miracle I only got burned on my legs and chest and arm.” He holds up his bandaged arm. “But, you know, this doesn’t feel like a miracle.”

  “Rusty,” I say for the third time. “I don’t want to hear this anymore.”

  “Yeah.” He looks down at me, and if he’s got any pity in him, he’s not showing it. “I just figured you should know.”

  “That I should know what happened?”

  “That you should know why I don’t want to leave,” he mumbles. “It’s like you said. I’m afraid I’ll die out there.”

  I don’t know what to do. There’s nothing left for me to say. But now I know that we both lost something out there. Something that we’ll never get back.

  “Don’t you want to know who did it?” Rusty asks. “I’ll answer if you ask me.”

  I think for a second. If he told me, I could tell Nina and she could tell the cops. Maybe that’s what Rusty is hoping for. But those people can’t hurt Rusty in here. I won’t let them. “The who isn’t important. Only what happens next.” This time, when I put my hand through the bed railing, Rusty twines his fingers through mine.

  “Will you read to me now?”

  “Of course. Although, now, Frankenstein seems like a terrible choice.”

  Rusty laughs, and I laugh, but we can’t clear the fog of guilt and sadness that blankets the room, thick in the air we breathe. I pick up Arnold’s book and read until Rusty falls asleep. Then I read some more.

  Death isn’t taking him.

  Not tonight. Not ever.