Symptoms of Being Human

  But I can’t say any of this. Not out loud. So I just shake my head and close my eyes. After a while, a nurse comes in to give me another sedative.

  When I wake the next day, the grogginess is gone, but I’m sore all over. My head throbs, my legs ache, and there’s a deep heat in my abdomen, as though I’ve swallowed a burning coal.

  I open my eyes, blink, and then my mother is at my side, straightening my blankets and brushing hair from my forehead and fluffing my pillow and a hundred other things at once, the rustle of her clothing like the flapping of moths’ wings. It doesn’t feel like care, it feels like correcting, as though I should have straightened the blankets myself before she came, and fixed my own hair, made myself presentable so she wouldn’t have to see me like this. As she pulls away to look at me, she fixes me with a soft expression of compassion and remorse, and I suppress a sudden urge to reach up and slap her.

  She leans forward and presses her lips to my forehead. It’s how she used to tell whether I had a fever when I was little. Now her lips feel cold and foreign on my skin, and I just hold still until she’s done. When she sits back, her expression hasn’t changed, but something underneath is gone. The look is somehow emptier.

  “How are you feeling, honey?” she asks.

  “Okay,” I say, fishing for the remote. Mom finds it first and offers it to me. I snatch it away with more force than I intend.

  She flinches. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up.”

  I shrug. “I don’t remember it, anyway. I was too doped up.”

  She smiles. I bite back the urge to tell her it’s a lie. “Do you have my phone?”

  She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, in the rush to get here, we just . . .” Then, off my look of disappointment, “I’ll have your father bring it.”

  I nod. “Are Bec and Solo still here?”

  “Solo stayed until three, but we finally persuaded him to go home and get some sleep. He promised he’d come back today.”

  I nod. “What about Bec?”

  She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, honey. I haven’t seen her. But they weren’t letting any visitors in, just family. I’m sure she’ll be here later.”

  I nod, but I’m not sure at all. Something about the way Bec acted when we got to the hospital, the way she avoided my eyes, makes me think she won’t come.

  “Can I have some more water?” I say. Mom smiles and refills my cup, and then we talk. Not about me, or about what happened, or about anything important. We talk about hospital food, and how it rained last night for the first time since June, and she promises to bring my laptop and some Blu-rays since I’ll probably be here for one more night. It’s all so fake I can hardly stand it, like taking a bite of rice and finding that your mouth is full of hot plastic. I just want to spit it all out, to throw it up and scream at her.

  And then she looks at me, and her face sort of contorts, as if someone is stabbing her. And I don’t know if it’s for me, or for her, or just because she can’t hold in everything she’s feeling for another moment. But for that split second, she’s my mom again. Like before the election. Before Pineview. Before everything. And I stop talking. And she smiles at me. And I start to sob.

  She comes to me, and I drop my water cup on the bed and just let the tears come. She wraps her arms around me, and I feel the tepid water spreading out on the blanket, wetting my leg and soaking through her sweater. I feel her powdered cheek against mine, her earring pressing into my face. The sobbing goes up and up until it becomes a frantic shuddering, and before I know it, a nurse is pulling us apart and injecting something into my IV, and the world goes fuzzy, then white.

  I wake up again in the late afternoon. Mom is scrunched up in a plastic chair, fast asleep with her head cocked uncomfortably to one side. When my dad sees that my eyes are open, he nudges her and they pull their chairs up next to the bed.

  “You slept for a long time,” Mom says.

  “Must be good stuff they’re piping in,” Dad says. He leans in as if to disconnect my IV. “Can I have a hit?”

  I don’t feel like smiling, but I try. The effect on my parents is palpable. My mom lets out a little laugh-sob and covers her mouth. My dad’s shoulders relax.

  “How are you feeling?” he says.

  “I feel like if someone asks me that one more time, I’m going to start throwing things.”

  My parents look at each other. My mother licks her lips, and my dad clears his throat. “Riley, we want you to know that—”

  I cut them off. “Can we not . . . not right now? Not in here?”

  My mom’s face falls. My dad looks relieved.

  “Okay,” Dad says. “Yeah, of course.” He glances at the door. “Riley,” he says. “The police want to take a statement.”

  “No,” I say.

  “Riley, sweetheart, the longer you wait, the more chance they’ll—”

  “No!” It’s almost a shout.

  Mom puts a hand on Dad’s knee. “Okay, honey,” she says. “Not till you’re ready.”

  “Thank you.”

  Dad glances at the door. “I don’t know if you’re up for visitors, but Jason Solomona is out there waiting to see you. If you’re ready.”

  “Yeah. I want to see Solo.” I run a hand through my hair and touch the bandage on my cheek. I turn to Mom. “Mom, can you . . .”

  “Of course, honey.”

  Dad leaves, and Mom grabs a handful of paper towels from the bathroom, wets them, and wipes my face. After fidgeting with my hair for a few minutes, she shrugs and smiles as if to say it’s hopeless. She helps me adjust the bed to a sitting position, gives me a cherry-flavored antacid from her purse, and kisses my forehead again before leaving and closing the door behind her.

  Solo peeks his head into the room and looks around. When his eyes land on me, they widen for just a second, and then he recovers himself and pushes open the door. He’s carrying a brown shopping bag.

  “Okay if I come in?” he asks.

  “Yeah. But can you turn off some of the lights?”

  Solo finds the switches and flips off one bank of fluorescents. “Better?”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  He pulls up one of the chairs, sets down the shopping bag, and puts his elbows on the bed. I flinch a little, and he withdraws.

  “Sorry,” he says, his face going pale.

  “No, it’s okay. I’m just twitchy today.”

  Gingerly, he leans against the bed again, and this time I don’t flinch. He starts to say something, but I cut him off.

  “Please don’t ask how I’m feeling.”

  He digs into his pocket. “Actually, I was going to ask if you want a Starburst.” He holds up a fistful of pink candies and flashes me his goofiest grin.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  There’s an uncomfortable silence as the two of us chew our Starbursts. Finally, I break it.

  “Did Bec come with you?”

  Solo starts to speak, then stops and shakes his head.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Last night, after they admitted you, she . . . she said she was sorry, and that she had to go.”

  “Have you talked to her today?”

  “I’ve called her and texted her about a million times. She’s not answering.” He shrugs. “I don’t know what’s going on. Maybe it was all just too intense for her. I mean . . .” He trails off, looking embarrassed.

  A cold, gray ache creeps into my head. She’s disgusted. That’s the thought that comes into my mind. I know it’s probably wrong, but I think it anyway. She knows what happened, and she’s disgusted by me.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” I say it suddenly, and more fiercely than I intended.

  Solo’s eyebrows go up. “Okay.” He shifts in his chair, then glances around the room as if inspecting it. “I just came to make sure the hospital kitchen is meeting your culinary needs as a vegan.”

  I roll my eyes. “I don’t think the hospital kitchen is meeting anyone’s culinar
y needs.”

  Solo laughs, then reaches into his shopping bag and pulls out a stack of DVDs. “I have all the Harry Potters, the first four discs of Battlestar Galactica, and season seven of Doctor Who.”

  “What, no Star Wars?”

  Solo sighs. “I wanted to bring the original, unaltered Episode IV, in which my namesake shoots first, as our Lord and savior intended.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I only have it on VHS, and my dad’s old VHS player broke halfway through the summer.”

  “Well, I’ve never watched Doctor Who.”

  Solo drops his jaw, then covers his mouth in mock concern, as though I’ve just told him I have a terminal disease. “We’re going to get through this,” he says, laying one big hand on my arm.

  I know he’s joking about me not having watched Doctor Who, but it sort of lands on me wrong—and all of I sudden I’m crying again. I pull my arm away and cover my face.

  Solo doesn’t touch me, but he leans in close. He speaks softly, but his voice isn’t pitying or sad; it’s just matter-of-fact. “I think this is going to happen for a while,” he says. “Things making you cry for no reason. There’s nothing wrong with it. My mom says crying is just your body expelling all the bad stuff. Like a sneeze. Like your soul sneezing.”

  And just like that, my sobs turn into laugher. It’s a sort of horrible, hysterical laughter, but it’s better than crying.

  “Soul . . . Soul Sneeze . . . ,” I say, gasping for air, “is the name of my new punk band.”

  We eat roughly a metric ton of Starbursts and watch five straight episodes of Doctor Who. Dad comes in after an hour and tells me he has to leave, but that he’ll be back before dinner. I tell Mom she can go with him, but she insists on staying. She doesn’t come in, though. She sits in the waiting room, “catching up on her magazine reading.”

  I text Bec, but she doesn’t reply.

  When dinner comes, Dad pops in to say hi, then leaves us alone again. Before he closes the door, he gives Solo this look that makes it completely obvious that he now thinks Solo is my boyfriend. I wonder silently if my parents will ever understand anything. Nurses come in twice to give me meds and check my vitals. Solo eats my Jell-O.

  Finally, a nurse comes in and tells him he has ten more minutes before visiting hours are over. When the door shuts behind her, Solo turns to me, his eyes serious.

  “I want to say something,” he says.

  I say, “Okay,” but I’m not sure I want to hear it.

  Solo glances at his lap and presses his lips together, like he does when he’s playing video games, then looks up at me. “I’m sorry for what I said.”

  I frown, confused. “What you said about what?”

  “Back at the Reagan Years.” His voice is deeper than usual. “I told you that you—that you invited it. By the way you dress. Remember? I told you that you were asking for a fight. Inviting people to . . .” He clears his throat. “And I want you to know . . . that’s bullshit. And it was not okay to say that.”

  I look at him. His face, usually cheerful—even goofy—is now grim. “Thank you,” I say. “For saying that. And for being here.”

  Solo smiles. Then he reaches into the shopping bag at his feet. When he comes up again, he’s holding a furry brown bundle. For a moment, I think he’s brought an animal into the hospital—and then I realize what it is: his Chewbacca backpack.

  “I want you to have this,” he says, but his grip on it seems to tighten.

  I reach out and stroke the soft, plush fur, remembering how Solo made it sound like no big deal that he stopped wearing it; but he kept it. After all the harassment, he kept it.

  “No way,” I say, shaking my head. “That’s your freak flag. I’ve already got one.”

  He frowns at me, then looks down at the plush Chewbacca face. His frown relaxes, and slowly, the corners of his mouth turn up in a relieved smile. He was ready to give it to me—but I think he really wanted to keep it.

  “Solo,” I say. He looks up. “How did you—I mean, you got there right when . . . How . . .”

  “How did we know where to find you?” he asks.

  I nod. “How did you even know something was happening?”

  “Bec called me. She saw on the internet what happened at your dad’s fund-raiser. She was kind of freaking out. Said you weren’t answering your phone. She told me to come get her, so I did.”

  “And you came straight to me?”

  Solo shakes his head. “We went to your house, but your parents said you had already left. We got really worried. I wanted to try Bec’s house again; I figured you would go there.”

  “I did,” I say. “But I went to Bullet Hole first.”

  “We checked there, too. We must have barely missed you. But, when you weren’t there, Bec just seemed to know where to go.” Solo swallows hard. “She was acting weird. I mean, I was worried, too—but she was freaking out, like she knew something bad was going to happen.” He looks up at my IV pole. “She was right.”

  I stare down at the pale-green sheet covering me. How could she have known?

  “Did you know she had a transgender sister?” I ask. Solo nods. “Maybe that has something to do with how she reacted.”

  Solo blinks at me as if he’s processing the information. “Maybe,” he says. We sit quietly for a minute, and then he reaches into his bag again. “Last Starburst?”

  We split it, and Solo promises to come over and watch more Doctor Who with me once I’m home.

  When he leaves five minutes later, Solo is wearing his backpack.

  CHAPTER 31

  I’M FINALLY DISCHARGED THURSDAY MORNING. Mom arranges for a substitute to take her classes so she can stay home with me. Each time she comes to check on me, she insists on throwing open the curtains to let in the sun, and then I have to get up to close them after she leaves; the light bothers my eyes. Finally, I snap at her, and she stops.

  I’m afraid to watch TV or go on the internet. I don’t want to hear what they’re saying about me, and I don’t want to know how badly my situation has impacted Dad’s campaign. So instead, I finish season seven of Doctor Who, and then Solo brings the next two when he stops by after school with my Government homework. I ask about Bec, but he hasn’t heard from her. He acts nonchalant about it—she’s pulled this disappearing act before—but there’s something in his eyes that tells me he thinks this time is different. And so do I.

  That night it takes forever to fall asleep—and when I finally do, I have horrible nightmares. They’re dark and heavy and vivid, but the details evaporate when I wake, and I’m left only with the looming sense that something terrible is going to happen. At one point I wake myself up shouting, and Dad comes in and gives me a sleeping pill.

  On Friday, two detectives show up at my house, but I refuse to see them. Dad argues with me—even lays a whole guilt trip on me about preventing future incidents—but I just shut down and stare at the wall. Eventually, they go away.

  By Saturday I’m able to come downstairs and eat breakfast with Mom and Dad. I want it to be normal, but it’s not. Dad always watches the news in the morning, especially this close to an election. But today, the TV is off—for my benefit, I’m sure—and the silence is unbearable. On top of that, Mom and Dad are acting strangely, leaving a wide berth when they pass each other in the hallway. I hear them arguing at night.

  I’m sure it’s about me.

  I can’t fight the feeling that this is all my fault. That I caused this. That somehow, I provoked him to do this—I don’t want to think of his name—by humiliating him in front of his friends, by rebreaking his arm. By refusing to just be normal.

  My dad was right; I shouldn’t have put my most personal thoughts out in public, where they could be read by anyone. I feel so stupid for not realizing what a risk that was—not just to me, but to him, and his campaign. I’m sure I’ve damaged his chances at reelection. I’m ashamed, too, that my parents have to keep taking care of me; I’m a burden to them n
ow, a broken thing, a weight dragging them toward the edge of a cliff. And they can’t bear to let go, so I pull them down with me.

  Doctor Ann says guilt and shame are normal reactions to what I’ve been through. She encourages me to do my own research online and talk to my parents about it—but I’m not ready for that. The most important thing, she says, is to interrupt my thoughts when I’m feeling those things, and to identify that they’re not true—that they’re just a reaction to what happened. Post-traumatic stress.

  It’s hard to believe her.

  I see Doctor Ann on Saturday, then again on Monday. I don’t feel better, really, just clearer. In my head, I understand what’s happening, and I can see the steps to getting through it. But in my guts, in my heart, I’m lost. Like I’m out in the middle of the ocean, swimming as hard as I can with no hope of land and no sign of progress. I see no shoreline, only an infinite, unbroken horizon.

  And the dark, dark water beneath.

  At dinner Tuesday night, the silence is too much. Dad shouldn’t be home. He should be out at events and press conferences, and my mom should be with him. I’m not ready to face all that myself, not yet—but that shouldn’t hold them back.

  Dad eats slowly, saying nothing. Mom pushes cooked carrots around her plate with her fork. I have to do something, to say something, or things are only going to get worse. Finally, I clear my throat. They look up at me, surprised and expectant.

  “What do the polls look like?” I ask.

  Dad glances at Mom, then back at me. “Riley, that should be the last thing on your mind right now.”

  “I’d rather not think about the first thing on my mind anymore.”

  Dad blinks, swallows.

  I put down my fork. “I want to talk about something else, something real. I want to know.”

  Mom strokes her wineglass nervously with her thumb. “Honey, what’s going on—it’s not your fault.”

  “Just tell me,” I snap. “I’m not a child. I can handle it.” Then, more softly, “Please.”

  They exchange another glance. Finally, my dad looks me in the eye and speaks. “Gutierrez is up twelve points. The pundits are saying it’s going to be tight.”