The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley

  But I don’t tell Rusty those reasons, because then he’ll know that I may not be able to keep all my promises.

  “What about you?” Rusty asks. I almost don’t hear his question because I’m too busy thinking about tomorrow night.

  “What about me?”

  Rusty fidgets with the ends of the blanket. “You got a boyfriend?”

  I shake my head slowly. “Not currently,” I say. “I had one once, but it didn’t last. He had issues.”

  “Oh,” Rusty says.

  The mood in the room has shifted. Things are different now, and I’m not sure what’s changed. My feelings for Rusty are intertwined with my fear and it’s so confusing. I have to be his friend first, regardless of my own feelings.

  “My friend Emma told me once that kissing is the best part of a relationship. She said that if the kissing wasn’t the best part, I should run. Isn’t that the weirdest thing?”

  Rusty blushes. He gazes intently at every object in the room, while avoiding me. “I wouldn’t know,” he says finally. “I’ve never kissed anyone.”

  “Not anyone?” I don’t mean to sound so condescending, but I’m shocked and can’t help it.

  “No, no one.” Rusty stares at his hands. “Nina always tells me that I might not even be gay. She thinks it’s not possible for me to really know until I’ve kissed a guy.”

  “So why don’t you kiss one?”

  Rusty finally looks at me, and he’s got this fire in his eyes, this determination that scares me. I was right about him: There’s fire hiding in his bones. “I want it to mean something. Like with Trevor and Lexi.”

  Silence fills the spaces between our words, and the spaces grow unbearably long.

  “What’s it like?” Rusty asks. “Kissing, I mean.”

  Now I’m avoiding Rusty’s eyes. It feels odd talking to him about a guy that I only dated for a few weeks. But I can feel his stare, so I say, “It was okay, I guess. Let’s just say that, with Nate, kissing wasn’t the best part.”

  I’m so uncomfortable now that I want to crawl out of my skin and run away. But there’s something about Rusty that makes me stay. That always makes me stay.

  “How about I read some Frankenstein?” I say. The suggestion clears the awkwardness between us, and Rusty nods—a little too enthusiastically. I retrieve the book from his bedside table and find my place. “Are you sure you don’t want me to get a less gruesome book?”

  “Nah. This one is great.” I’m about to start reading when Rusty says, “Oh, by the way, some woman came up here asking about you.”

  I gape at him, openmouthed, and fumble the book. It hits the floor with a smack that makes both Rusty and me jump.

  “Woman?” I ask, coughing.

  Rusty nods. “She was asking all sorts of questions about when you visited and what I knew about you. She seemed really curious. I didn’t tell her anything.” He glances at me sideways. “Everything okay?”

  “Of course,” I say, regaining my composure, picking up the book from the floor. “Everything’s fine. The best.”

  Love is for saps.

  At least, that’s what I used to think.

  My parents were in love. I knew it subconsciously, but I didn’t recognize the million little ways they expressed their love for each other. Like how my mom always bought my dad’s favorite kind of cheese, Swiss, even though hers was Havarti. Like the way my dad forgot their wedding anniversary but remembered the songs that played on the radio the first time they kissed and the first time they made love and the first time my father drove my mother to the hospital to give birth. To me.

  My parents didn’t buy each other fancy gifts or take expensive vacations or plan elaborate surprises. They were simple people who showed their love in minute ways every second of every day.

  That’s how I know that Trevor and Lexi are in love. The way Trevor lowers the volume of his voice ever so slightly when he’s talking about Lexi, as if he doesn’t want anyone else to hear—not because he’s ashamed but because he doesn’t want just anyone to have those precious words. The way that Lexi opens Trevor’s blinds when she goes into his room—not because she wants to see the world but because she wants to remind Trevor that it still exists, so that maybe—maybe—they can escape one day and see it together.

  I see their love in the things they do that they aren’t even aware of. Tiny touches and half winks and how one is always on the other’s mind. Always.

  Love isn’t for saps. It’s for people like my mom and dad. People like Lexi and Trevor.

  Out there they’d be together—of that I’m certain. But it’s different in the hospital. Their fear isolates them. Even when they share the same space, breathe the same air, they’re alone. Lexi has her sights set so firmly on the future that she’s afraid to embrace anything in her present, and Trevor is so certain he hasn’t got a future that he’s scared he’ll drag down anyone he cares about.

  They’re both idiots. But I’m going to change that.

  Arnold still won’t let me return to work, but he and Aimee agree to help me with the date. I only ask to borrow the cafeteria for a couple of hours, but when I tell him my plan, he insists on putting together a special meal. I’ve tasted heroic portions of Arnold’s “special meals,” and I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m worried. Though I suppose if food poisoning is how the date ends, we’ll count ourselves lucky that we’re already in a hospital.

  Jo and Emma volunteer to decorate the cafeteria before their shifts begin. They ask me for ideas, but I haven’t got any and tell them to go wild. They’re gleeful—manic pixies with more ideas than time or money will allow. Maybe I should rein them in, but I haven’t the heart. Not even when Emma mentions her disco ball again.

  Lovers infect those who surround them. Young lovers especially. And tonight, Arnold, Jo, and Emma are all terminal.

  Convincing Steven to help is difficult. It’s his night off, and he doesn’t want to set foot in the hospital. I’m not too proud to beg or to admit that my entire plan falls apart without him. I strike straight at his ego. And it works, because it’s true.

  Navigating the hospital is more complicated now that Death is on to me. Even with my parents’ file gone and that Missing poster destroyed, the hospital feels smaller. I peek around every corner, tiptoe, sneak. Death could be anywhere, everywhere, and I must be careful.

  There’s still so much to do.

  Father Mike is kneeling in the front pew when I walk into the chapel at seven in the evening. I’m not meeting Steven until eight, but my construction-room prison was too confining. The shadows were too long, the ceiling too low. If I’d stayed down there one second longer, peering into the contents of the metal box, searching the faces in the photograph for some hint of absolution, I’d have gone stark-raving. I’m beyond forgiveness—not even God could pardon me, not that I believe He should.

  Father Mike doesn’t hear me, or he’s too deep in prayer to bother with me, so I sit beside him and stare at the crucifix on the altar. It writhes. Squirms. Should I feel revolted? I’m uncertain. I prayed to God for Trevor, and it worked. This morning, he was alive and alert and bugging Nurse Merchant for second helpings of lunch, which was a lovely beef broth served with a side of apple juice and Jell-O and morphine. We didn’t talk about the seizure, and I tried to erase it from my memory the way Patient F would have. Maybe I should pray for other things. Everything. But something tells me that I should hoard my prayers for dire times.

  “How’s your friend?” Father Mike asks. He looks like he’s still praying.

  “Taking the long way around.”

  “Good.” Father Mike’s words are clipped, and I feel like I’ve intruded on something important. He slides into the pew and looks at me. His eyes are spider webbed with red veins, and the lids droop, as if it’s too much effort to keep them open. “Do you need something?”

  I shake my head, wishing I’d gone to check on Emma and Jo rather than come here. “I wanted to thank you, I guess.”

/>   “I didn’t do anything.” Father Mike sighs heavily.

  “God, then,” I say.

  He chuffs. “Yeah. God.” There’s something hollow in his voice. A hopelessness that I find unsettling.

  “I didn’t mean to bother you,” I say.

  After a moment, Father Mike shakes his head. “You’re no bother.” The tension in his body releases, and a smile even creeps to the corners of his mouth. But it’s not wholly real. It’s an act for my benefit. “I’m glad your friend is okay.”

  We stare at the crucifix for an uncomfortable span of time. I want to leave, but I think maybe this could be one of those dire times and that Father Mike might need my prayers or, at the very least, my company.

  “I’m kidnapping Trevor—that’s my friend—and setting him up on a date with my other friend, a girl named Lexi.” I don’t know why I tell him this, but his fake smile becomes real.

  “That’s nice of you. Really nice.”

  “Yeah. You can come if you want. Some of the nurses are already helping me, but more hands would be great.”

  Father Mike looks into my eyes, and it feels like he’s looking deeper than that. He’s a vulture picking over the corpses of my secrets. “I have to go home. But thank you.”

  “For what?”

  Father Mike doesn’t answer me. He gets up and walks toward the altar and disappears behind a curtain. I don’t know if I’m supposed to wait for him to return, so I give him a minute. As I get up to leave, he reappears holding a bouquet of daisies and sunflowers. They’re so alive, it’s painful.

  “Your friend should have flowers for his girl.” Father Mike hands me the flowers and vanishes again. This time I know he’s not coming back, so I go meet Steven. Guilt tugs at me for abandoning Father Mike, but his crisis will have to wait for another day. He’s not dying and in love.

  Steven is waiting for me in a hallway, leaning against the wall, a bag slung over his shoulder, checking his phone, trying to pretend that he has a place in the world out there, though I suspect that he, like me and Nurse Merchant, really only exists in this hospital.

  “I can’t believe I agreed to this.” Steven punches buttons on his phone and slides it into the pocket of his scrubs, where it hangs low and heavy. “Nice flowers.”

  My guts are a quivering mass of excitement. This is about more than just bringing two friends together. It’s my last-ditch effort to keep Trevor alive for a little bit longer. If anything can keep his heart beating, it’s Lexi.

  “Everyone knows Nurse Cho has a massive lady boner for you,” I tell Steven. “She’ll do anything you ask.” I beg him with my puppy dog eyes, hoping he’ll do anything I ask, and only feel slightly guilty about it. “Do you have the stuff?”

  Steven rolls his eyes like I should know better. He tosses me his bag. “Hurry. I haven’t had a night off in three weeks, and I actually have plans.”

  I don’t call him on the fact that his plans probably involve a large pizza for one and a Star Trek marathon, because I really do need his help. Instead, I catch the bag and dart into the bathroom to change. Cho needs to believe that I’m a nurse or an actual volunteer or something. Of course, if Steven plays his part well, she’ll be so distracted that she won’t even notice I exist.

  I don the blue scrubs and check myself out in the mirror. It’s been so long since I’ve given my reflection more than a glance; I’m surprised by the sight of my own face. Hell, I could have left that sketch in Death’s office and it wouldn’t have mattered. I had this image in my mind of what I looked like, how I smiled, the stupid dimple in my chin. But that face is gone, replaced by something gaunt and hollow. I’ve aged decades in weeks. I search for me in the mirror. The real me. The me that had a sister and a mother and a father. The me who killed them and ran away. Only, he’s not there. He doesn’t exist. Maybe he was a mask and I’m what was left underneath.

  I slide on the final piece of my disguise: a pair of black-rimmed glasses. I don’t know where Steven stole them from, and I don’t care. I push them up the bridge of my nose and imagine that I am Patient F: a man who is not a man. A gallimaufry of spare bits of other people and other creatures sewn together with twine into the semblance of a man. A man with no future, no past, and nothing left to lose.

  Steven whistles when I exit the bathroom. My clothes, bag, and the flowers are stashed in a stall, behind a toilet. The janitors won’t clean this particular hallway until about three in the morning: plenty of time.

  “Schnazzy,” Steven says. “Scrubs suit you.”

  The scrubs hang off my body like loose skin. The shirt’s V-neck plunges too low, revealing the sunken-in hollow at the base of my neck, while the ass and crotch of the pants sag like a dirty diaper. “Did you steal these from a fat man?”

  “They used to belong to Jo.” Steven’s laugh cannonballs into the hallway. It’s a great laugh, but I feel a little weird wearing Jo’s old clothes.

  “We should take off,” I say as I lead the way. Steven falls in line behind me.

  When we arrive at Peds, Nurse Cho is filling out paperwork. She’s a hyperalert young woman who manages to look simultaneously bitter and eager. Her movements are brisk, precise, while her red cheeks and lips carry a lingering smile. I don’t come here at night, so I don’t have a relationship with her like I do with Nurse Merchant. I don’t even know what Cho’s first name is.

  The one thing I do know is that she’s got a crush on Steven and a raging case of gay blindness. He could kiss an entire chorus line of men right in front of her and she still wouldn’t have a clue.

  This plan is bound to reinforce Cho’s delusion, but other than pulling the fire alarm, it’s all I had.

  “You’re up, champ,” I say to Steven, and clap him on the back. He glares at me before approaching Cho, who’s already beaming. I don’t know what Cho sees in Steven. He’s balding and bitchy, but she lights up at the sight of him. She drops what she’s doing and touches her hair and her cheeks and her scrubs, checking to make sure that all is perfectly in place.

  While they chat, I zone out. Around the corner, Trevor is resting. I hope that he’s not having a bad night, because that would ruin the plan. It’s the one variable over which I have no control.

  I made a promise to Trevor that I won’t be able to keep. Death is going to take him; I grow more certain of that daily. Even this plan is only a stopgap. If it works and Trevor and Lexi admit their love for each other, it might—might—buy Trevor some days, his foundering soul buoyed by passion.

  But, eventually, Death will come. I’ve been deluding myself to think that she won’t. That love, that anything, can stop Trevor’s inevitable reaping.

  I asked my father once why falling in love is such a big deal, and he told me that one day in love is worth a hundred days not in love. Maybe it’s true. I don’t know. I hope it’s true.

  Steven waves me over. “Sonia, this is Gus. Gus, Sonia.”

  Cho saves her smiles for Steven and glares down her nose at me. Maybe my disguise is transparent.

  No, that’s not it at all. I’m an intruder, interrupting her time with Steven. She’s greedy. She wants him all to herself. I can relate.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “If you get caught,” Cho declares, “I’m saying you kidnapped them.” That’s all she tells me, and it’s fair enough. Steven motions at me to go, so I do, commandeering a wheelchair on the way.

  Trevor is flipping through TV stations when I enter. He looks different in the dark, blanketed in shadows and moonlight from the open blinds. His bones seem to gleam under his skin like long glow sticks.

  “Droopy!”

  I put my finger to my lips and slink around to his side of the bed. It only takes me a minute to transfer Trevor’s IV to the pole on the wheelchair, but significantly longer to transfer him. Trevor doesn’t weigh much, but every movement causes him pain. He winces and groans and sucks in his breath, and I think this was a bad idea and that I should call the whole thing off, but then Trevor looks
up at me, not guessing what we’re up to but anticipating that it’s something exciting and devious, and he grins.

  How can I possibly disappoint him?

  There’s no time to put together a perfect, date-appropriate outfit, so I just grab some clothes and toss them at him. He pulls off his gown, and I flinch when I see his body, pitted and bruised like rotten fruit, but I get to work helping him dress. We roll out of his room in under ten minutes, and Steven nods at me as I pass under the annoyed—but lust-filled—eyes of Cho. She’s so smitten that Steven could have probably convinced her to fill the ward with bubbles.

  Love is weird.

  Trevor doesn’t say anything until we’re well out of earshot, and then he starts chattering on about how great it is to be out of that bed, asking where we’re going, making guesses—though they’re all wrong. His voice is strong, and he hardly seems like the same boy from a couple of days ago, with drool hanging out of his mouth and eyes rolled back into his head. He’s rallying.

  My mom used to say that about my baby sister at bedtime. Cady’s head would loll about on her pudgy neck, and her eyes would be glazed over, asleep where she sat, until Mom tried to put her to bed. “Cady’s rallying,” she’d say when Cady demanded story after story, her appetite for anthropomorphic animals and their wacky adventures insatiable.

  We stop by the bathroom, and I grab the flowers that Father Mike gave me. Trevor looks at me quizzically when I toss them in his lap, but he doesn’t ask any questions. He’s the perfect friend: up for anything and trusting through and through.

  There’s nowhere else to go but the cafeteria. Steven hasn’t arrived yet, so I wait with Trevor in the hall.

  “You look good,” I say. The clothes I picked out in the dark aren’t bad: a pair of jeans and a black polo shirt. They’re too big, but his slouched posture hides it.

  Trevor smiles. “Are you taking me to the prom? I definitely don’t think I’m wearing the right dress for the prom.”

  “Smartass.”

  A pair of doctors walk by, barely sparing us a glance. To them, I’m just a nurse wheeling a patient.