“I’m sorry about the other day,” Trevor says so quickly that it sounds more like “Isorryboutotheray.” He wrinkles his nose and glances up at me through his eyelashes.
It would be easy to dismiss his apology. He didn’t purposefully seize. It’s not as if he saved the fit for the exact moment I was in there. I know that, and I know that Trevor knows it too, but it embarrassed him, just like it’ll embarrass him if I don’t accept his apology. So I say, “No problem, dude,” so that we can both go back to pretending it didn’t happen.
Trevor looks grateful and barrels along with the conversation. “What’d you need my computer for, anyway?”
“What?”
“You asked to use it before . . . you know.”
Rusty. I’d forgotten. He said the boys who burned him had snuck up from behind, yet Nina had pointed out the obvious: Rusty was burned on the front of his body. I’d intended to look up information about the attack. Clearly, Rusty isn’t being entirely honest with me.
“It’s not important anymore,” I say. I have secrets; Arnold has secrets; Father Mike and Steven and even Death have secrets. I can’t begrudge Rusty his.
I hear Steven coming down the hallway because Lexi won’t shut up. She’s rattling off anatomy terms. Probably brought flash cards with her. Steven had strict instructions not to reveal where he was taking her or why, which is likely driving her crazy.
Trevor smiles. He hears her too. His ears are perfectly attuned to her frequency.
Lexi squeals when she sees us. She’s wearing a light blue baby-doll dress and the mother of all grins. She may not be a beauty queen, but she is beautiful. More than.
“Wow . . . ,” Trevor says, in a naked moment of awe. I push him forward and whisper “flowers” in his ear. He shoots me a suspicious look, but then his face relaxes. Trevor offers the bouquet to Lexi and says, “They’re not nearly as pretty as you are, but . . . nothing is.”
The kid is smooth.
Lexi doesn’t say thank you. The way she glows as she presses her nose to the flowers and breathes them in is all the words she needs. I don’t know where Father Mike found them—they could have come from the bedside of a dead person—but they’re Lexi’s now, more precious than school books.
I nod to Steven, and we wheel Trevor and Lexi into the cafeteria. At first sight, my mind is blown. Emma and Jo have transformed the utilitarian room into a fairy-tale wonderland. There’s only one table, right in the center of the room. It’s covered by a glitter-coated burgundy tablecloth, set with candlesticks and napkins folded into swans. The atmospheric lights are dim, with starlight from Emma’s disco ball dancing on the floor. The rest of the cafeteria has dissolved into shadow.
“Dude,” Trevor says. “What is this?”
Steven shakes his head and looks around, probably for Emma and Jo, but they’re gone, their work complete. I’m going to have to buy them something better than doughnuts tomorrow. I’ll never finish repaying them for this magic.
“Drew?” Lexi asks when I don’t answer Trevor.
I keep my mouth shut until Steven and I park Trevor and Lexi at the table. The moment their wheelchairs slide in, Arnold appears wearing a white shirt and a bow tie, his beard neatly trimmed—and I’m speechless.
“Alexis, Trevor. Welcome to Ah-nold’s, where your every wish is my command.” He snaps his fingers, and Aimee trots out carrying two long-stemmed glasses filled with bubbly liquid. “Our finest sparkling grape juice.”
“Droopy?” Trevor asks.
I shake my head, and Arnold continues: “For dinner this evening, you’ll begin with a selection of cheese on toast points. Next, you’ll have your choice of a creamy tomato bisque or a hearty Italian wedding soup. And for the main course, we have a tasty linguine with clam sauce or a nicely roasted chicken with wild rice.” Arnold bows at the waist and winks at me before scurrying to the back.
There’s so much love here that I can’t bear it. “This should have happened a long time ago,” I manage to whisper.
Lexi still looks confused. “What . . . what is this?”
Understanding has finally dawned on Trevor’s face, and he’s so near tears that it hurts. He smiles at Lexi and says, “Alexis Kripke, will you have dinner with me?”
For the first time, I think Trevor realizes that he’s out of time. Everything since his very special day has been a loan. Maybe this will end in heartache, but it’s better than heartbreak, because at least he’ll have loved and been loved and risked something. It’s why Trevor takes Lexi’s hand now and kisses it.
Lexi melts. I don’t exist anymore. Steven doesn’t exist. There is only Lexi and Trevor and their very special night.
“I never knew how badly I wanted you to ask,” Lexi says.
That’s my cue. Steven and I retreat into the kitchen, where Arnold is cooking like a mad scientist. It may look like a laboratory, but it smells like heaven. “Nice spread.”
“What do I know?” Arnold laughs. “They’re grilled cheeses cut into tiny squares.”
Steven chuckles and snatches one off of the tray. “You could feed them sawdust and they wouldn’t notice.”
I peer around the corner to see how the date is going. Trevor’s talking, and Lexi’s laughing, and they’re touching and smiling and beaming. They’re like stars, glowing and orbiting and burning oh so brightly.
“You did good,” Steven says.
“Yeah.”
“What’s wrong?”
I shrug.
“It’ll happen for you one day.” Steven pats my shoulder. “You have to have faith.”
“It’s doubtful.” I try not to sound like I’m digging for pity, because I’m not. I’m being honest. As honest as I can be.
“Come on,” Steven says. “Things can’t be all doom and gloom.”
Arnold carries the first course out to Lexi and Trevor while Steven and I spy on them. They chuckle at whatever terrible joke Arnold tells them and then dig in to the food. Arnold returns to work on the soup, which smells garlicky and delicious.
“My mom loved me no matter what I did,” I say to Steven. I lean against one of the prep tables and fold my arms over my chest. “When I really screwed up, she’d tell me that she loved me but that she didn’t like me very much at that moment.” I’m quiet, but Steven must sense that I’m not done, because he holds his tongue. “I know that God or Fate or whatever is out there loves me, but I don’t think he likes me very much.”
I’m not looking for answers from Steven, and he doesn’t try to offer any. Instead he says, “Your mom was a smart lady. Being punished doesn’t mean you should miss out on being loved.”
I pretend to peek in on Trevor and Lexi, so that I can think about what Steven said. I’m not so sure he’s right, but maybe he’s not wrong, either.
The rest of the evening passes quickly for me. Arnold delivers each course, returning with empty plates. Lexi and Trevor’s laughter fills the cafeteria until the walls are bursting with it. I’ve never seen either of them so happy. So full. Sometimes it’s too difficult to watch. Sometimes it’s too difficult not to.
When they finish dinner, Arnold surprises them with a blueberry pie that—thankfully—his wife made. It looks and smells so amazing that I steal a sliver for myself.
I’m not sure if Trevor kissed Lexi before the end. I wish I could make the night last forever, but eventually, Steven tells me that we have to take them back.
Trevor is silent as I wheel him to his room, but he’s wearing the purest smile on his face that I’ve ever seen. On him or anyone. I don’t think there’s a force in the universe that could bring him down right now.
Cho glares at me as I push Trevor into his room. It’s after ten, but I don’t care. She can call Death and tell her what I’ve done. It was worth it. It doesn’t matter if Trevor has one day left or twenty, each one will feel like a lifetime.
I help Trevor change back into his hospital gown, then slide him into bed, rearranging the tangle of tubes and wires. It does
n’t take a nurse to know that he’s exhausted. Happiness is all that’s keeping him going right now.
Trevor grabs my hand as I head for the door. “Thank you, Droopy,” he says. “Best night of my life.”
I leave without saying good-bye.
My feet take me to Rusty. No, not my feet. My heart. My faith. Maybe God doesn’t like me much right now, but fuck God. Rusty matters. I matter.
The nurse on duty looks up as I barge through the ICU doors and stride into Rusty’s room. He’s sleeping sitting up, but he cracks one eye open when I walk in. The nurse barks questions at me, but I ignore her.
“Drew?” Rusty says.
He . . . Shit, he’s so handsome. He’s so broken. And I’ve never wanted to be with anyone more.
“I fucked up so badly,” I say. “I don’t deserve you,” I say.
Rusty looks confused, clouded by sleep, but he’s groping for awareness. “I like you, Drew. Maybe. I . . .” He shakes his head. “There’s never enough time when you’re around.”
The nurse is yelling at me now, threatening to call security. Screw her.
Only we exist. Me. Rusty. Me and Rusty. I’m beside his bed. I’m kissing him. He’s kissing me. His lips are chapped. He tastes like antiseptic. His tongue parts my lips, and his arms grope my shoulders and my back and and and.
We fall out of time. Past and present bleed into each other, muddying the waters of time until it’s all the same; it’s all now and perfect, and Rusty is so goddamn kissable. I have him, and I want more. He’ll always leave me wanting more.
Rusty is pushing me away, telling me to run.
Security is coming, he says.
I need one more kiss.
I steal one more kiss.
And it’s the best part of everything.
Last night, my nightmares retreated.
Instead, the kiss infected my dreams. I lay in my bed with my arm pillowed behind my head, reliving the kiss. How it felt and how it tasted and how he made me feel normal for just a few minutes. How I’d do anything to kiss Rusty again.
The first time I kissed a boy, I was thirteen. He was fifteen. A friend of the family we fondly referred to as a cousin. I hadn’t meant to kiss him, but we were wrestling over who got to be first player on Super Roadcrash Extreme, and he had me pinned down, his knees on my wrists, and a kiss just felt like the right thing to do. I never told anyone. He made me promise.
I thought I knew all about kissing—until last night. If a kiss like that is possible, if I was allowed to experience a kiss like that, I suppose God must not be too cross with me after all. Not that I’m admitting there’s a God. Not that I’m saying there’s not. But Emma was right: kissing is better than . . . anything. Everything.
My stomach is rumbling, and I can’t remember the last time I ate. Breakfast should be just about over, so I get dressed and climb out of the darkness, walking through the halls with my head down until I get to the cafeteria. I can’t be sure that the nurse in the ICU last night didn’t report me to security. It’s the kind of douche move that a nurse who doesn’t know me would definitely make. But it was worth it to kiss Rusty.
It makes me smile to think of him. I’m wearing a smile to match the one Trevor wore.
Arnold is behind the line, scooping out helpings of eggs and chatting with customers. The cafeteria still feels special. The tables and chairs are all back in their places, but the air continues to vibrate with the laughter and love of Lexi and Trevor. I guess I’ll need to thank them for demonstrating how happy a person can be. I’m not yet sure that I deserve happiness, but until God gives me a sign to the contrary, I’m going to seize it while I can.
“There are pancakes,” Arnold says. He prepares a plate without any guidance from me and passes it under the glass. It’s heaped with pancakes and bacon and eggs and some shredded potatoes. I can’t eat all of this, but Arnold looks so cheerful. I know there’s got to be more to him—a man who seems to own more books than a library and works in a hospital cafeteria—but maybe this is enough. He serves food to people with heartache, and that’s all he needs.
“I can’t thank you enough for last night,” I say. “Trevor—”
Arnold beams. “And what about you? Mr. Steven told me that there is a special young man in your life as well.”
Oh, God. My smile is bursting out of my face. My lips are stretched so high and so tight that the corners are going to touch my eyes. It’s unbearable. It’s awesome. I don’t want Arnold to see it, because then Rusty will belong to someone other than me. Right now, he’s mine. Steven knows, but Steven doesn’t count, not really. But Arnold—Arnold is different. If he knows, he’ll claim Rusty, claim us both. But, dammit, I can’t help my smile.
“He’s the boy with the books,” Arnold says. He’s not asking; he’s piecing together all my steps from the last couple of weeks. I can see him trying to remember every look on my face and every word that I’ve said so that he can create a picture of Rusty in his mind. And of me.
“Yes,” I say, and turn with my tray. “It’s not a big deal.”
“You’re lying,” Arnold calls in a singsong voice. He says it so loudly that the few people still in the cafeteria—nurses enjoying their coffee, doctors pretending to look busy, and families of patients trying to keep breathing—look up at me. It’s more attention than I want.
“Don’t you have some dishes to do?” I ask him as I walk to a table in the corner and set down my overflowing tray of food. When I sit, I glance up at Arnold, but he’s gone, replaced by a middle-aged man with a turkey neck and a tattoo of a dragon on his biceps.
While I eat my pancakes, which are surprisingly good, I make up stories about the people in the cafeteria. It’s a game that my dad and I used to play when we had a long wait somewhere. It was how I realized I loved telling stories.
“I’m not interrupting, am I?” Aimee, sans hairnet, stands at the table with a tray of food and a question.
“No, sit. I’m a little distracted today.”
Aimee smiles. It’s a tortured smile, a dress she doesn’t get to wear often and isn’t sure looks good on her. I could tell her it does, but she wouldn’t believe me.
“What you did for your friends last night was nice.” She puts her tray down and lowers herself to the chair. Her breakfast consists of an apple, a banana, some cantaloupe, and one lonely strip of bacon.
I lean back, and Aimee freezes, her watery brown eyes watching me, waiting to see what I’m going to do.
“Thanks for helping Arnold.”
“I was grateful to have somewhere to be,” Aimee says. I don’t ask her what she means, because I don’t think she’ll tell me. She seems happy to eat in silence. I feel like a glutton with my still-full plate of food. I’ve been eating and eating, and it doesn’t even look like I’ve made a dent.
Aimee is a dainty eater. She keeps her napkin in her lap but refers to it continually. The only thing on her plate she doesn’t touch is the bacon, though I catch her staring at it a few times out of the corner of her eye.
“Do you want some of my bacon?” I ask, motioning down at my plate.
“No, thank you,” Aimee says under her breath. “You should be nicer to Mr. Jaworski. He thinks of you like a son.”
“He’s got a son.”
“His son is dead.” Aimee gnaws the apple, crunching and crunching and crunching until there’s nothing left but a browning core and some tiny seeds, which she lays out on the plate like corpses.
I shake my head. “No. You’re mistaken. His son is a doctor, or he’s going to be a doctor. That’s what Arnold said.”
“His name was John,” Aimee says. “He was going to be a doctor but joined the army instead. He was blown up by a roadside bomb. There weren’t enough pieces to identify. When they told Arnold, he had a heart attack and ended up here in the hospital.”
I can’t wrap my feeble brain around what Aimee’s telling me. I think back to Arnold’s anger on his son’s birthday, how he keeps shoving books h
is son loved down my throat. I’ve been such an asshole.
“I didn’t know.”
“Few people do.” Aimee pushes her plate away, taking a deep breath.
“You’re not going to eat that?” I ask, nodding at her bacon.
“Not today,” Aimee says. She lifts her napkin from her lap and carefully arranges it over the strip of bacon. She gets up and leaves the table without uttering another word.
My appetite, like Aimee, has fled.
I gather my tray and put the food into the trash, including Aimee’s sad strip of bacon. It seems a shame to waste so much food, but I want Arnold to believe that I ate it. As I’m about to leave the cafeteria, I stop and run behind the line. The new guy doesn’t even notice me. Arnold is in the back, up to his elbows in sudsy water.
“You can’t be here,” Arnold says over his shoulder. “You’ll get me in trouble.”
“I need to ask you a favor.”
“No more favors.”
“My friend, with the books,” I say. “They’re for him. I read to him. Only I’m not sure I’m going to be able to visit as often. So I was hoping, maybe, if you weren’t too busy, that you could read to him.”
I stop speaking, trying to gauge Arnold’s response. He’s scrubbing a pot over and over. I bet it’s gleaming by now.
“His name is Rusty McHale. He’s in the ICU. We’re almost done with Frankenstein.” I turn to leave.
“Drew—” Arnold’s still scouring the pot. “Does he like pirates?”
I laugh. “Who doesn’t?”
Arnold nods, and I leave. Maybe I don’t want to share Rusty with anyone, with Arnold, but maybe that’s too selfish of me. He’s not mine. He’s just a boy. And that was just a kiss. And it might have meant nothing. Or maybe everything. But I get the feeling as I leave the cafeteria and head to Peds that loaning him to Arnold was the right thing to do.
Nurse Merchant shakes her head when I set foot in her ward. “No, sir. No. You can’t be here anymore.” She’s not joking or even smiling. She’s right up in my face, yelling at me about kidnapping her patients.