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BREWSTER

24) INJURIOUS

I saw the weak hearts of my classmates shredded byconformity, bloated and numb, as they iced thewounds of acceptance in the primordial gym,hoping to heal themselves into popularity,Who have devolved into Play-Doh pumped through asleazy suburban press, stamped in identicalmolds, all bearing chunks of bleak ice, comet-cold in their chests,Who look down their surgically set noses at me, theboy most likely to die by lethal injection with nocrime beyond the refusal to permit their swollen,shredded cardiac chill to fill my heart as well,Yet out of this frigid pool of judgment steppedBrontë, untainted by the cold, radiating warmth ina rhythmic pulse through her veins, echoing nowin mine, just as the slice across her palm is nowmy burden, taken by accident, yet held withpurposeful triumph,As I now reach to double-check the unreliable lockon my bathroom door, which gives no privacy,least of all from Uncle Hoyt, who, in fits ofparanoia, must know everything,everything that goes on beneath his termite-ridden,shingle-shedding roof,Where I now carefully peel the bandage from myhand, revealing shades of brown and red, fleshdamaged and bruised, hoping to redress thewound before my uncle can find out, the woundthat I have no idea how Brontë got, for in my fuzz-brained love haze, I forgot to question,Which will heal without mystery or magic at thenormal pace of life—in a week, two weeks, three—like the raw-knuckle scabs of her brother, nowmine, too, like the bruises, breaks, and scrapes,the scars of a lifelong battle that defines me,Like the fresh wound that cannot be concealed asmy uncle swings open the maliciously disloyalbathroom door, and getting a healthy look at thefresh red line sliced across the heel of my hand,knowing from my unmet gaze that I’m holding asecret, which gives him permission to hold mehostage.“Get that cut today, did you?”“Yes.”“Didja take it from Cody?”“No.”“That boy’d cut his head off with safety scissors.”“I didn’t take it from Cody; it happened at school.”My uncle knows about the things I can do—the painthat I take—and knowing makes him still crazierand more protective, but of himself, not of me.I muffle the screaming wound with a white gauzesquare; but nervous, tense, I press too hard andwince, a small twitch almost imperceptible, andhe’s looking at me with searing intensity, seeingall.“Hurt?”“No.”“You’re lying.”“It’s nothing.”“It don’t look like nothing.”“It’ll heal.”“You gonna tell me how you got it?”He, with zero trust, zero tolerance,zeroes in on my eyes that once knew only how to betray me butlately have learned the wicked wartime trick ofholding secrets in a darker place and codingthem to a cipher my uncle isn’t clever enough tocrack.“I told you it’s nothing. Some girl in the hallway.”“Some girl?”“Coulda been something sharp on her backpack; I don’t know.”“And you’re saying I should believe that?”“I’m saying you should take your dump and let me be.”And, as I leave the bathroom, my uncle hurls awarning scowl to remind me that mouthing off willbuy me a world of punishment, but not today,because it’s not worth his time, then he closes thedoor to take the call of nature, leaving me tostride, giddy with relief, down the hall and into theroom I share with my brother,Where Cody plays with plastic army men, and he,the general of a pigsty battlefront,glances at my bandaged hand but asks no questions, sibling-smart in his willful ignorance, knowing he can’tknow, because eight-year-olds don’t just tellsecrets, they sing them on every unwantedwavelength, and since Cody’s mouth betrays himeven more often than my eyes betray me, hedoesn’t ask, because he knows he can’t sing toour uncle the things I haven’t told him,So the wound remains secure as I lie on my bed, likea blood oath aching a sweet reminder of thesecret I share with Brontë, this moment markingthe first time I’ve seen my gift as a wonder andnot a curse,For standing between Cody and his pain is myobligation, and standing between my uncle andhis pain is my rent, but the pain I coax from Brontëis my joy.

25) EPIC

I will not give inTo an interrogationEven from BrontëOn a day in the park where wind-torn clouds sweepa frenetic sky in vivid Van Gogh strokes, whileBrontë and I read Homer on the grass, studyingfor an epic exam of cyclopean proportions, I willnot give in to the interrogation,As Cody jumps from a tree, oblivious to the strain heputs on my shins, then climbs again recklessly, nothought of consequences, his survival skills acasualty of his painless existence, I will not give into the interrogation,While Brontë leans into my lap, and I read TheOdyssey aloud, feeling her need to know growstronger the longer I avoid it, until she notices thatI’m reciting the book entirely from memory, andshe finds the first question to begin the barrage—but just as Odysseus resists the sirens,I will not give in to the interrogation.“You memorized The Odyssey?”“So what? Homer did it, and I’m not even blind.”“The whole thing?”“Only the parts I’ve read.”“That’s amazing, Brew.”“It’s just something I do.”“Like the healing?”“It’s not healing; it’s stealing.”“Excuse me?”“The pain doesn’t leave; it just jumps to me.”“How do you explain that?”“I don’t.”As the sun hides behind the shearing clouds, thetemperature plunges and frustrated mothers raceto their children, coats at the ready to battle theschizophrenic day, and Brontë ignores thebreeze, knowing the sun will strobe on again in amoment; yet if she’s cold she does not care,because she’s begun the inquisition,And I wonder if her need to know is strongerthan my need to remain unexposed.“How did it start?Do you choose who you heal?How do you choose?Who do you choose?Does anyone know?How does it work?Do you have to be touching?Why won’t you answer?Aren’t you listening?Brew?”Even as I offer Brontë nothing but silence, her handventures beneath my shirt, roaming my back tomake a gentle accounting of my wounds—askingme if it hurts, telling her that it does, just a little—then her hand moves around to my chest, and justas I realize she’s not feeling wounds anymore,she tickles my neck, giggles, and pulls back herhand, and I think how different this is—how I’venever been teased, at least not like this, not theway a girl teases her boyfriend,And the raw power of that thought makes me surrender,giving in to the interrogation,willfully spilling forth things I’ve never told a soul.“For as long as I can remember I’ve stolen,Ripping all the hurts from the people I love,And from no one else.I don’t choose it,I don’t want it,But because they found a place in my heartI steal their pain as soon as I’m near them,And all because I got caught caring.But those others,ALL the others,Dripping their disapproval like summer sweat,They’re on the outside,And I will never let them in.Never.Let them keep their broken bones,Shed their own blood,I hate them.I have to hate them, don’t you see?Because what if I didn’t? What if I suddenly started to care?And their friends became my friends,And every ache and pain,Every last bit of damage,Drained from them to me,Until I was nothing but fractures and sprains,Cuts and concussions,But as long as I keep them on the right side ofresentment,Despising them all,I’m safe.”Listening keenly, passing no judgment, Brontë takesit all in, then leaning close, she kisses my ear,healing me in a way she will never understand,and she whispers, “But you did choose to careabout Tennyson and me. You let us in, Brew.”So I nod and whisper back: “Promise you’ll close thedoor behind you.”

26) ENUMERATION

Here are the ten thingsI will never tell BrontëOr anyone else:1) My father could be one of five men I’ve met,And after having met them,I don’t want to know.2) Cody’s only my half brother, but he doesn’t know it.I once knew his father, but not his last name,Or where to find him.3) Men were constantly falling in love with my mother,They thought she took away their innermost pain.But that was actually me.4) We once joined a cult that eventually changed its nameTo The Sentinels of Brewster.I don’t want to talk about it.5) My mother developed ovarian cancer.But I couldn’t take it away;I have no ovaries.6) She left us with Uncle Hoyt when she first got sick;She knew if it spread to other organs,I would get it, too.7) She called me every day until she died.I still talk to her once in a while.When no one’s listening.8) Someday I want the government to find me,And pay me millions of dollarsTo sit near the president.9) Someday I want to be on a Wheaties box,Or at least on the coverOf TIME magazine.10) Someday I want to wake up and be normal.Just for a little while.Or forever.

27) ORIFICE

With neck hairs standing on end, secret panictripping in my brain, I cross into the petri dish ofdespair, the chasm of chaos, the schoolcafeteria,Where larval troglodytes of blue and white collarbreeds practice the vicious social skills ofpeacock preening and primate posturing amidthe satanic smell of institutional ravioli,When I reluctantly join the line for food, I avoid alleyes but notice, across the cafeteria, Tennysonand his girlfriend, Katrina,Who cling to each other like statically chargedparticles, and I wonder if Brontë might cling to mein the same way, even while under the judgmentalglare of the hormonal high school petting zoo, ifshe didn’t avoid the cafeteria on principle,When a hairless ape named Ozzy O’Dell forces hisway in front of me as if I’m nothing more than apiece of soy-stretched meat lurking in the ravioliand calls me the nickname he would much rathercall the special ed kids, if he could get away with it.“Hey, Short-bus, make some room.”“No. The end of the line’s back there.”“I don’t think so—we’re in a hurry.”“So am I.”“For what? Freak practice?”While he laughs at his own idiotic joke, I think how, inthe past, I would just let it go, but meeting Brontëhas changed me, and I’m boldly standing up formyself in places that used to give me vertigo, soas the lazy-eyed lunch lady hands Ozzy a plate ofravioli, I tell him how shaving his head for swimteam was not a good idea, because itemphasizes how small his brain is, the same wayhis Speedo emphasizes how small other thingsare,Which makes his friends laugh at him instead of atme, and Ozzy laughs, too, telling me it’s so funny Ideserve to get my ravioli first, because I’veearned it, then he hands over his plate full of theslithery, sluglike pasta pockets,and I’m confused enough to think that maybe he’s sincere,because I don’t know the rules of the game,When he rests his finger on the edge of my tray, notforcefully enough for the lazy-eyed lunch lady tonotice but enough to shift the balance and flip thewhole tray, turning the ravioli into projectile pasta,splattering every available surface, including theexpensive fashion statements of severalspeechless kids,Who believe Ozzy when he calls me a clumsy wasteof life, all eyes turning in my direction as if I’m theone to blame, and I know I’m beaten because asmuch as I want to expel my fury right in his face,as much as I want to play whack-a-mole on hishairless head, I can’t, and wouldn’t they all laughfrom here to the edge of their miserable universeif they knew that the boy most likely to fry wasincapable of lifting a finger to hurt anyone, even ifthe hurt was earned.With nothing left but humiliation and red sauce, I justwant to escape, until Tennyson arrives out ofnowhere, barging his way between us, castinghimself as an unlikely avenger, and says, “Got a problem, Ozzy?”While the lazy-eyed lunch lady, out of touch withanything on the far side of the warming trays,hands a plate of ravioli to Ozzy, which Tennysongrabs from him and gives to me, asking Ozzy ifhe plans to do anything about it because, if hedoes, he should fill out his complaint form intriplicate and shove them in all three of his bodilyorifices,Which Ozzy has no comeback line for because he’sstill trying to figure out which three orificesTennyson might be referring to, if he even knowswhat an orifice is, and even though I don’t wantTennyson fighting my battles for me, I can’t helpbut crack a smile, because now I finallyunderstand what it means to have a friend, andmaybe it’s worth the pain I’ll endure because of it.

28) ANABOLIC

Chest press, shoulder press, lats press, squats;Tennyson is all business in the gym,“Free weights are the way to go. Machines are for girls.”Half an hour in, I’m feeling muscles I never knew I had.Biceps, triceps, deltoids, pecs;I am Tennyson’s new project,“You need muscle mass to take on guys like Ozzy.”Brontë might appreciate some muscle mass, too.Crunches, curls, extensions, thrusts;Tennyson is the trainer from hell,“You want something easier? Go pick flowers.”He tells me it’ll hurt even more tomorrow.Low weight/high reps, high weight/low reps;I’ll learn to love the burn if I don’t puke first,“You think this is hard? Wait till next time.”Tennyson says he’ll make a bruiser out of me yet, and laughs.Elevate heart rate, hydrate, repeat;Better living through anabolic exercise,“Great workout,” he says. “And I’m not even sore.”Right. Because I’m sore for both of us.

29) SURREPTITIOUS

Lacrosse,Soccer’s angry cousin,Football’s neglected stepchild.No cheerleaders, band, or stands,Games are played on the practice fieldIf you want a chair you bring your own,Brontë waves,She’s saved me a spot,It’s Raptors versus Bulls,Dinosaur against beast of burden,I’ve never seen the game played before.We turn to the match, which has already begun.TennysonIs a starting attackman.He’s very good, but not great,He’s a fast runner, but not the fastest,Still, he makes up for it in bullheaded aggression.“He’s always bucking for MVP,” Brontë says, “but never gets it.”A pass,He catches itAnd moves downfield,Cradling the ball in the net of his stick,He shoots for the goal and misses by inches.Then the Bulls power through the Raptor’s defenses;Goal.Disappointment.I feel Tennyson’s frustration,And I know that Brontë is right:He’ll be a team captain, but never the star,Unless he has something to make him invincible.I’m breathlessAs I watch the game,Then I suddenly realize why;Tennyson does have a secret weaponThat can make him the star of the game.I wonder what he’ll do when he figures it out!StealingThe thunderOf a stick checkTo his right shoulder.I bear the pain in silenceFor fear that Brontë might see,Scraped kneeHidden by my jeans,I could leave but choose to stay,To surreptitiously sustain the blows,Because if I am now Tennyson’s project,It’s my right to make him my project as well.Final whistle,A Raptor victory!Tennyson scored three goals,And barely broke a sweat while doing it.I kiss Brontë in the excitement of the moment.Can she tell that I’m drenched beneath my Windbreaker?And what ifWhen I get home,Uncle Hoyt sees me,Notices all the fresh bruises,And knows that I’ve taken things,From far beyond the bounds of our family?I shudderAt the thought of himKnowing about my secret life.I could tell myself it would be all right,That he could do no worse than he’s already done,But there’s a pit in my uncle’s soul, and I’ve never seen the bottom.I hope I never do.