“Scared, I guess. Your mom called before they flew to Denver, and my first thought was, What if they bring him back and then he dies all over again? I couldn’t deal with that, Travis. Not again.”
“So you decided to wait it out and see if I’d make it?”
“Well, it sounds a lot worse when you put it that way.”
“I understand, I guess.”
I did understand. He had been there for all of it, for every treatment and its often-violent aftermath. He’d seen my family’s small glimmer of hope squashed over and over again by doctor after doctor, bad results after bad results. He’d told me once, after I’d been through another round of especially painful chemo, that he didn’t understand why I had to get so sick to try to get better, why they had to keep almost killing me to save my life. He’d been so angry that day that he’d kicked a hole in the bathroom door at his house when he’d gotten home.
Kyle Hagler had been my best friend since kindergarten, since the day a game of tag at recess had turned dangerous after Holly Jones decided she couldn’t go home without a kiss from me. I was darting across the playground with her at my heels when Kyle ran up and planted one right on her lips.
“There!” he yelled. “Now go away.”
“She your girlfriend now?” I asked him afterward.
“Holly Jones? She’s everybody’s girlfriend,” he said.
Then in fifth grade Kyle and I skipped guidance class, which was just an hour every Wednesday where we had to watch movies about not doing drugs and having low self-esteem—you know the ones. We skipped class to sit behind the gym and share a pack of peanut butter crackers. This was us being pretty rebellious.
“If someone ever told me they didn’t like peanut butter crackers,” he said, “I’d never speak to them again.”
“What if they had a peanut allergy, though?”
“Doesn’t matter. Take a Benadryl, wussies.”
“I don’t think that’s how it works,” I said.
“People only say they’re allergic to things because they don’t like them. It’s all a big scam anyway,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve been allergic to lettuce since I was six.”
“Exactly.”
I knew, by the time we were freshmen, that Kyle was allergic to girls. It wasn’t in any obvious, stereotypical way, but he was my best friend and I knew him better than anyone. Around the time I started dating Cate, Kyle started acting pretty weird and apologizing for hanging out with us all the time and not having a life of his own. It was strange. Kyle had never been the type to apologize for anything.
When I was dying, I mean in those last few weeks, Kyle would come over and keep me company until really late at night and sometimes into the early morning. My parents had to work, after all, and he wanted to spend as much time with me as he could. One night we were flipping through the channels and stopped on some of that really cheesy, bad music-ridden soft-core porn on Cinemax.
“Ah, every dying boy’s dream come true,” I said.
“Travis,” he said, oddly quiet and reserved.
“Yeah?”
“Can I tell you something?”
“This movie doesn’t do a thing for you, right?” I said.
“Not a thing,” he said, a sour look on his face.
“And did you think I would give a shit about that?”
“Not really. But no one else knows, okay?”
“Well, I’d say your secret’s safe with me, but that’s sort of a given,” I joked.
“I’m serious, Travis. I wouldn’t even be telling you if . . .”
“If I weren’t about to be curtains?”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I understand. Secrets will kill you, you know?”
“You’re a good friend, Travis. Really.”
“Hey, hey. All right. I don’t care if you’re gay, but you don’t have to go spreading it with all this sappy shit.”
When this new Kyle, sitting in my kitchen and telling jokes about all of his former teachers and my soon-to-be-yet-again-current ones, nonchalantly said “my girlfriend,” I suddenly felt like my head had found a way to slightly float just above my new body, barely connected. My parents had been drifting in and out of the room all evening, almost incapable of staying away from us, of seeing us the way we used to be. I nearly blurted out and interrupted him to ask “Girlfriend? Why would you have a girlfriend?” But I caught myself and let him keep going. Maybe he just wasn’t sure if my parents knew about him. Maybe he was just using “girlfriend” as a code for “boyfriend” or “partner” or whatever. He mentioned her again, said she’d been in one of his college English classes. I wanted to know what the hell was going on here. I wanted to know why he was talking to me, me, about a girlfriend five years after he’d told me he had no interest in girls at all. I wanted to know why my best friend was pretending to be someone he wasn’t and why everyone was letting this happen.
When he eventually had to leave and after my mom had hugged him enough to embarrass us both, I walked him outside. I thought this would be my chance to get the truth out of him. I couldn’t let him leave with this huge thing hovering over us.
“Kyle, man. You . . . umm . . . said you had a girlfriend?”
“Yeah. Valerie. She’s cool. You’ll have to meet her soon.”
“Valerie?”
“Yeah, Travis. Valerie. I’m actually on my way to see her now. Running a little late.”
And then I realized I was the only one he’d ever told. There were no secret codes here, no hidden meanings behind his words to protect people like my parents from the truth. The truth was that he was still lying to everyone, including himself. His secret died with me on the operating table, and now it was back staring him right square in the face, scar and all.
CHAPTER SIX
SCAR AND ALL
Kyle eventually had to go, and I was never brave enough to confront him about his identity crisis. Maybe you can be gay and then not be gay a few years later. I wasn’t sure. That didn’t really sound right to me, though. But I’d been asleep for half a decade and was starting high school all over again the next day, so I didn’t have much time to figure it all out for him. Plus, who was I to disappear and then show back up all these years later and start calling people out on their problems?
There are certain things that change with time, things like the skyline of your city, the size and shape of the cars beside you on the road, and even how people are wearing their blue jeans, really tight on their calves. But other things, things like your parents, don’t really change at all. And I knew this immediately when my mom and dad started arguing over where to go shopping.
“The place with all the fancy stores? Do we really need to go there?” Dad asked.
“That’s the one. They have everything. It’s a nice evening—we can take our time, get some fresh air walking around, and do a little shopping.” Mom was ready for his dissent.
“Anywhere’s fine, really,” I said. “I just need some jeans and a shirt or two.”
“No, Travis. You’re not going to keep wearing the same outfit I bought you in Denver. School’s about to start, and you’re getting whatever you want today, no arguments.” Mom was using the visor mirror of my dad’s car to put on her mascara, something she’d done since I could remember.
“Sharon, if there were something he wanted, he’d tell us, don’t you think?”
She ignored him, opting instead to continue talking to me and asking me what size pants I thought I needed now.
“I dunno,” I said.
“I’m thinking thirty-two thirty-four. You look a little bigger now. More filled out, I mean.”
“You guys didn’t save any of my old clothes?”
“No, honey. We gave most of them to your cousins. You know, Chase and Chad. The twins.”
“Wow,” I said. “They’re old now, I guess.”
“Fourteen last month.”
“They’re even worse now,” Dad
chimed in.
“Ray,” Mom said. “They’re nice boys.” She sounded like she was trying to convince herself, too.
“Travis, believe me. They’re holy terrors,” Dad said.
“They’re . . . unique.” Mom slapped Dad on the arm, her smile unable to be stopped.
“Yes, Travis. They are unique. In that same way that serial killers are unique.”
“And now they’ve got all my clothes. Great,” I said, laughing.
By the time we found parking and were finally walking down the sidewalk, it was turning dark out and the lights from the insides of the large-windowed stores stretched at least halfway into the streets. For whatever reason, this made me remember going there with Cate and Kyle during one of my last healthy days. We had walked around, drunk coffee, and mostly played in the Apple Store while our phones recharged. Kyle had pretended to flirt with some girl at the Genius Bar, and Cate and I had made out by the iPods. It had been awesome, just a simple afternoon before everything got bad.
Several people noticed me before my parents and I even made it inside the store. They knew me from somewhere—that’s what their expressions said, at least. I even saw some kid snap a photo of me with her phone and run over to her friend and start whispering into her ear.
Mom kept piling clothes on me—T-shirts, jeans, pants, hoodies—everything she saw, basically. It was like we hadn’t really stopped moving from the moment we walked through the door to the time we’d made it to the dressing room. I could barely see over the clothes in my arms.
“These are pretty tight,” I said, walking out to model a pair of jeans for my mom.
“It’s the style.”
“I don’t understand. I can hardly move.”
“Do you want to try a bigger size?”
I tried the bigger size, and even though they were easier to button, they still hugged me all weird around the thighs.
“Are these girl jeans, Mom?”
“No, Travis. I told you. It’s what everyone wears now. Girls and boys.”
“We can just take him over to J. Crew and get him some more grown-up clothes, don’t you think?” Dad suggested. He was bobbing his head to the shop’s loud techno music while people all around us stared on in horror.
“He’s not a grown-up, Ray. He’s sixteen. He’s not going to school dressed like an accountant.”
“Yeah, Dad. I’ll go to school dressed in tight pants like a girl or I won’t go at all.”
He laughed, threw his hands up, and walked out of the dressing room area and into the store.
We finally found some jeans that fit better, that didn’t make me feel as exposed and all-around disgusting, and a pile of T-shirts and sweaters that I thought looked pretty good, but only because of my new body.
“You look so handsome, Travis. I mean, you’re, like, hot,” Mom said.
“Never ever say anything like that again.”
“I’m sorry, but you just don’t know. Seeing you like this, standing up strong, your hair starting to grow out. I’m just . . . this is so great, Travis.”
She hugged me, right there outside the crowded dressing room in front of all these strangers, and she had tears in her eyes when she pulled away. I forgave her for this. I let her have this moment because she’d earned the right to do all these things the day she let me go into that operating room and say good-bye to the world.
“Okay, wait right here. I want you to try one more thing.”
A few minutes later, once I was back in my own clothes again, she knocked on the door and handed me several turtlenecks and a couple of scarves. I gave her a look that would, I hoped, tell her these were not about to go onto my body, in style or not.
“Honey, I just think maybe you want to consider finding ways to . . . to not accentuate your neck, you know?” She had this look on her face like she knew she’d said something wrong.
“You want me to cover my scar every day?”
“No. No. I just want you to try these out and see what you think. And if you like them, wouldn’t it be easier that way? Not calling attention to yourself?”
“Mom, everyone at school is gonna know who I am the second I walk through the door. Do you think it matters? Do you think they give a shit about my neck?”
“Travis. I’m not trying to . . . I just . . . Can you try them for me?”
I tried them on. All four turtlenecks. And I looked like a 1970s pimp. I let her buy me the scarves as a consolation and so we could just get the hell out of there and get some dinner.
“I like that jacket,” Dad said as we sat down to eat in a little Italian place down the block.
“Me too. Thanks, guys.”
“You don’t have to wear the scarves, Travis,” Mom said.
“Unless your neck’s cold,” Dad added.
“No, I like them.”
And I did like them, but I didn’t so much like the idea of them. I didn’t like the idea that I had to pretend to be something I wasn’t, to try to blend in despite the fact that my face had been cycling on national news for a week and I’d already been recognized several times that day. To tell you the truth, I didn’t so much mind getting noticed. Maybe I could show up at Springside High the next day and be more popular than old Travis ever had the chance to be. Instant celebrity surely had plenty of perks, even in a place like high school.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A PLACE LIKE HIGH SCHOOL
Going back to school was something I never thought I’d have to deal with. By the time I elected to be a science experiment in Denver, I’d been out for about nine months, including summer break. My teachers sent me assignments for a while, back in the January before I left. Some of them even put little Get well soon notes inside, but I didn’t really see the point of doing anything, and I guess that eventually became everyone else’s attitude because the assignments stopped and my parents quit asking me about them.
I never really liked school the first time around. I didn’t hate it. I wasn’t bullied or anything. I had plenty of friends and I got along with most of my teachers—the ones who weren’t Mrs. Lasetter, that is—and even though I wasn’t all that great at things like math, I studied enough to make okay grades. I just never liked being there. I used to lie in bed every school night I can remember and be filled with this massive dread that I had to wake up and do it all over again. If it weren’t for Cate and Kyle, I don’t think I’d have tried as hard as I did. I used to think about how easy it would’ve been to turn into one of those dropouts who has to get a shitty job somewhere around town and never grows up.
But that dread, that dislike, it had nothing on how I felt the morning of my fateful return to Springside High. Of course, I’d never had to walk into school with photographers and news cameras lining the sidewalk out front either. It wasn’t enough that I was about to enter a school full of complete strangers, but I had to do it as the famous miracle boy everyone’s been seeing on TV.
“They can’t go inside,” Mom said to me. We were sitting in her car in the roundabout drop-off zone in front of the school and watching the dozens of reporters waiting for me to show up. There were curious students standing all around them, and I saw a few smiling for the cameras as they walked past.
“Shit,” I said.
“Travis.” Dad turned around from the passenger seat and looked at me. “Give them a few days and they won’t care anymore.”
“You think?”
“I know,” he said with confidence. “Just duck your head down, don’t say anything, and walk inside. If you don’t give them anything to use, they’ll go away.”
“Be boring,” Mom added, a smirk on her face.
It was loud. With the countless reporters yelling questions and the other kids looking on from their little huddled groups, it was such a chaotic and stressful scene. I was wearing one of the scarves Mom had bought me because it was cold enough and because I thought maybe she’d been right. I wasn’t ready for the kind of attention these people wanted to give me. The whol
e time I was burrowing through the crowd, all I could do was imagine a zoomed-in photograph of my neck on national television.
The school secretary couldn’t stop giving me that look, that “I can’t believe it’s really you that I’m talking to right now” look when she printed out my class schedule in the main office. I also caught her staring down at my neck. She wanted to notice an inconsistency in the skin tones, to gossip about the freak science-experiment kid who had just walked onto campus. Even though I was embarrassed and felt like I’d just run through a battlefield, I thought about lowering the scarf to give her a quick glimpse of it. It wasn’t going away, after all.
Before I could do that, though, Principal Carson ran in and put an arm around my shoulders. She smelled exactly the same as always, like Irish Spring soap.
“Travis Coates! What an outstanding kid!”
“Hi.”
“Travis, what you’ve done. Your story, it’s just . . . it’s so inspiring for us all.”
Then Principal Carson was crying these little tears and wiping them away with the back of her left hand. Her fingernails were shiny red, and she was wearing a ring that looked to me like she didn’t even need this job. Maybe she’s for real, I thought. Maybe she loves kids that much.
“We should get a picture, no?” She perked up, still wiping tears and snorting as she breathed in.
“Really?” I asked. But I knew Principal Carson was for real when the secretary stood up and pointed her cell phone toward us.
Then Principal Carson waved her arms out to invite everyone standing around in the office—the staff, a few random students, and a PE teacher—to join us. Maybe they’d planned the whole thing because it didn’t take long before I was sandwiched between them and forcing a smile for the camera.
“I’m probably late for class,” I said, attempting a move for the door.
“I’ll walk you, sweetie,” Principal Carson said.
There was clapping when we stepped into Mrs. Lasetter’s geometry class. Even that battle-ax was standing behind her desk and smiling as kids started getting up to pat me on the back, shake my hand, and hold their phones up in front of us to snap quick photos. I was sweating now, nervous with all the eyes on me and all the attention. This was harder than I’d thought, and it made High School Round One seem so easy. Back then I could hide away and talk to the handful of people I chose and then go home. This was just getting ridiculous. I managed to say “Thanks” over their collective noise, and I took a seat in the front corner of the room. As soon as I sat down, I felt like everyone was looking at me, staring at my head and wondering if it were at all possible for it to fly right off or roll down one of my arms. Principal Carson was still standing at the front of the room, and she held one hand up to signal for silence.