Beast (15 page)

We find the car in the garage and get in. Our doors slam shut, and I wait for Mom to start in on me. Start tearing me a new one about ditching school and how bad I'm punished. To go off on Jamie, the whole nine yards. But she doesn't. It's as quiet as a coffin. The streets slip away and it starts to rain. Blocks tick by and the car wends its way up to the front entrance of the school. The wipers swish back and forth, and we both sit in the car.

“Just…hop out.” A thin layer of tears sits heavy in her eyes. “I'll see you at home.”

“Mom.”

“You wrecked the basement, you threw your best friend out of the house, and now you're skipping school to go to the mall with Jamie, and I'm supposed to sit here and take it? What's next? Drugs?”

“We're not on drugs.”

“I don't know what to do.” Her gaze follows the windshield wipers. “I met with my boss this morning. They want to send me to Pittsburgh for a meeting. I've been killing myself to get a promotion and if I do well, this could be it. We need the money. College is coming. This is my moment, but I don't know if I can leave you for two days.”

“I'll be fine. I can take care of myself.”

“Not if that girl's in the picture.”

“She's a friend. You said there's nothing wrong with having friends.”

“I don't think Jamie is a healthy influence.”

“She is.” I'm doing my best to protect her from JP, and if that means having my mom mad at me forever, so be it. “You just don't like her because she's trans, is that it?”

“Don't start with that. Her being trans has nothing to do with it. I'm lying awake at night because you are going through a really hard time right now, and the last thing you need is some confused individual with a complicated history to throw a wrench in the works.”

“You make it sound like I'm a cotton gin.”

She grits her teeth. “You fell off a roof, Dylan. You said it was all an accident and a misunderstanding and you were fine. I'm starting to doubt myself in letting you tell me what you needed.”

“But that's got nothing to do with Jamie!”

“I'm not fond of Jamie because you, of all people, are skipping school to see her.”

I can't tell Mom why. She'll never believe that her precious JP, who said grace with her at every dinner, has turned into a full-blown asshole.

“I'm going to tell work I can't go,” she says.

“Don't. You work really hard. Get your promotion.”

“A promotion's not worth it if my kid is falling apart.”

“Look at me,” I say. She does. “Do I look like I'm falling apart?” Strong like bull, sturdy like ox, ain't nothing bothering me, nope. Everything is HUNKY-DORY. I add a smile because I'm the only one who can sell it.

Mom looks like a gigantic balloon five days after a Thanksgiving Day parade. Everything about her has gone poof.

I already feel like lukewarm crap; it's best if I leave. I crack open the door and try to get my crutches on the sidewalk without getting my cast wet. I don't worry about my head or jacket getting soaked. No one uses umbrellas in Portland unless an ark is floating by. “You've left me for business trips before,” I say. “It'll be same as ever. I'll eat, I'll do my homework, I'll wake up, and I'll go to school. No big deal.”

I'm out of the car and up onto the brick steps leading up to St. Lawrence before my mom can pull out into traffic. My brain is supposed to be gearing up for physics, but it feels more like scrambled eggs. I hang back in the lobby until the bell rings, hoping I can slide into the day like nothing happened. It's still early. If anyone asks, I'll tell them I had an appointment with my orthopedic surgeon.

Which is almost true. I'm meeting with him next week because I grew another inch, oh my god, someone please rip out my pituitary gland with their teeth, I'm begging you. The blood test can't come fast enough.

Ten minutes tick by. The bell shrieks and I ease back into the current. There's three things I want out of this day to make it substantial, decent, and tolerable. No JP, no JP, and no JP. That's it. I head toward my locker and something is off. No, it's worse than before. Everyone is staring at me. I can feel all their eyes burrowing into me like festering ticks.

My stomach sinks.

They all got the go-ahead to hate me, say the terrible things, reduce me to anecdotes that make them feel like they have the right to do whatever idiots do. JP gave them his blessing. I know it. And the son of a bitch confirms. From the far end of the hallway, where he just left English, he sees me. A smile lights up his face. He points at me and starts to walk over. One of his minions laughs along with him. The one laugh attracts more guys and the group grows larger. They all look at me and laugh.

JP makes like he's merely passing me in the hall, as if it'll ever be that simple again. “Bad news, Dylan,” he says my way. “I don't take payment plans.”

If I could, I would run.

This past week has been hell. The only thing getting me through is nightly phone marathons with Jamie telling me to turn the other cheek, to forgive, to be patient…all the things she tries to muster up every day and all the things I am currently failing at.

Thanks, JP. Now I'm everything I never wanted to be again. I'm the kid not picked for dodgeball or volleyball or to represent Mrs. Martin's class in the first-grade spelling bee, even though I can spell the second and third grades under the table. Heads turn away from me. Like I have leprosy, Ebola, and plague all in one. It used to be I couldn't go anywhere without a robust “BEAST!” thrown my way as I went by. Now the sea in the hallway parts with a trail of snickers made under their breath.

And really, for what? Because some sniveling little jerk told them to? Because they think it's weird I kissed a trans girl on the cheek? So what, big deal. Lots of stuff is weird. I'm no fan of ketchup, but Jason Harrington practically drinks it with a straw. I might not hold hands with a dude but I didn't give him shit when he brought a guy from his traveling basketball team to the dance last year. No, I was cool about it. I was like, oh wow, good for him for getting some palm-on-palm action because I—the sweaty, heaving ox over here in the corner—will never find someone to hold my hand. Hoof. Paw, whatever. So I'm not too keen on Jason following JP's orders by throwing me a bunch of ketchup-swigging judgmental smirks these days.

There are a few smiles. Little quick sympathy grins from the girls in class. I only notice because I'm trying to not stare at their assets as they walk by.

I'm still mad.

Mostly I sit and eat my lunch in the library and pretend I'm Gandhi. Which is bullshit because I can guarantee if Gandhi hadn't been on a hunger strike, he would've had friends to eat with him. Plus, I want to pick up JP and throw him into the whirling, twirling engine of a jumbo jet, and I'm very sure that goes against everything Gandhi preached.

Every time I see JP's face, I think of Jamie. I wish you peace, I chant in my head. “I wish you peace,” I say now as he's at my locker trying to “touch base.”

“I really want to talk to you,” he says. “Please? Just for one minute? You can time it.”

“I wish you peace.”

“Stop fucking saying that.”

I lean over him. “I will say that until I'm purple because if I don't, you will be literally—not figuratively, not metaphorically—dead, and I have no desire to go to prison. Not my scene. I wish you peace.”

While pushing off my locker, I “accidentally” knock him on his ass. Not super hard, but enough to end it for today because I can't handle adding another ball to the juggling act I'm trying to pull off. No matter, he's off to his new girlfriend's house so he can go molest her in a quiet corner and she can coo and feel special that he chose her for the day. I'm alone again. But hey, this is great. I'm totally not feeling like ground-up slug on the bottom of someone's shoe as I get into my mother's car, which is waiting for me in the drop-off zone because she doesn't trust me to get home by myself anymore.

I slam the car door shut.

“How was school today?” Mom asks, her attempt at sunshine falling short.

“Awesome. I made a lot of new friends, and everyone picked me to represent our class in the school spelling bee.”

The car pulls into traffic. “They still have spelling bees?”

“Uh-huh. And Becky and Suzie made me friendship bracelets at recess too.”

“Okay, enough.” She sighs, about to begin again. “You know, Dylan—”

“Please don't,” I say.

“All I'm trying to say is—”

“Mom, not today, okay? Please.” Because I'm having a shit time and if you're going to say anything, say I Love You. That's it. No advice. No wheedling about
my attitude.
No momsplaining to me why JP and I need to go back to Square One and be bestest buddies for life. No opinions on my friends or lack thereof or school or grades or my imminent future. Just I Love You. That's all. Done.

“We're having some trouble, you and I. It's obvious.”

“Mmm.” Astronauts can get the gist of it from space, so yeah.

“Maybe we need a break. Some time apart. Come back together in a stronger place.”

My ears perk up.

“I've decided to go to Pittsburgh,” she says, and I want to jump out and do the cha-cha.

“Really?”

“One of my coworkers ran into the same problem with her teenagers, and she said it was a breath of fresh air for everyone,” Mom says. “But there's a but!”

“There's always a but.”

“You have to follow the rules. You must answer your phone at all times. You must check in with the Swanpoles across the street when you get home from school and before you go to bed. You must do all your homework and you must go to school. You can hitch a ride with all the kids from junior high, I already called the lady who runs the buses. They'll pick up on the corner of Going and 77th.” She draws in a breath. “You must not make me regret leaving.”

“Got it.”

“You and I need a reboot,” she says. “We both need to order some room service and watch a movie. Come home and everything will be back to normal.”

“I think it's a good idea.”

A real good idea. A Nobel Prize–worthy idea. Some time when I can sit and eat as much food as I want without anyone reminding me how much it costs and play Madden until my hands are raw. She fills me in on some basic details, and after I wolf down a snack of three peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I'm upstairs in my room to call Jamie and tell her all about it.

She answers immediately. “Did you get your blood test? When do we find out Dylan the Giant has a posse?”

“Blood sucked out Friday, but I have news.”

“Tell me.”

“My mom's going on a business trip to Pittsburgh.”

“This sounds promising.”

“Honestly, I'm just excited to have the house to myself,” I say. “She's only gone for two days, one night, and I might as well wear an ankle monitoring bracelet, but it's thirty-six hours without Mom. I'm psyched.”

“I'm so jealous.”

“Don't be. It's going to be me and about thirty of my closest pizza-shaped friends.”

“And maybe a little something else.”

My eyebrows raise. “Go on.”

“Let me ask you something, how fast can you grow a beard?”

“A full beard, or some scruff? I can do scruff in a day.”

“Good to know. How long for a full beard?”

“Like three days. Why?”

“When's your mom going out of town?”

“Next Thursday.”

Jamie's grin fires across the phone lines. “Start growing that beard on Monday.”

It's Friday, and a sweeping breath of calm fills me as I pick good, clean clothes to wear to the hospital. White cotton button-down shirt. Clean jeans with the leg cut out for my cast. A navy blue sweater. I comb my hair, not that it does more than tickle a scalp full of stubby follicles. This is a baptism.
Dear Dad,
I start to dictate in my head.
It's time to learn the truth. We have the thing. That spark, that flare, that tumor that makes us (made, in your case, sorry) grow way too big.
This is the day I take my first deliberate steps to getting to the bottom of whatever the hell is wrong with me. I'm on the road to my diagnosis and I can't wait.

It's an ungodly early appointment, but I don't care. Mom's saying things and they float around me, creating a bolstering cloud of security, because this is it. I've googled the snot out of acromegaly. I'm ready to join the parade. The blood test today will look for an overactive hormone and I've already checked nearly everything off the list. Enlarged hands and feet? Yup. Everything is enlarged, it all counts. Coarsened facial features? You bet. A deepened, husky voice? You've been listening in, haven't you, you sly devil? There's other stuff that doesn't line up with the list from the Mayo Clinic, but there's enough right there to say oh hell yeah, it's gigantism. I've already signed up for the acromegaly mailing list. I'm ready to be the state of Oregon's chapter president.

Someday, when I'm being interviewed for
Nova
or
60 Minutes
because I'll have cured cancer by then, they'll ask me about my formative years and I'll say what a shitstorm my life was until I got my diagnosis. And once I was a legit medical giant I was no longer ashamed to tower through the halls. I had a genetic ailment that no one could take away from me. My pituitary gland produced too much growth hormone; it's not my fault. Perhaps there's surgery on the horizon for some benign tumors causing trouble, but once they're gone I am in the clear. I stop growing.

I fasted overnight. I haven't had any breakfast. Let's do this.

Mom and I get in the car. Back on the road again and we're off to the hospital. It's a different room in a wing on the right I've never been to. Everything is fresh and new. Even the magazines have better pictures of bikini-clad ladies over here. Doesn't matter they're illustrating some weight-loss bullshit; still counts. The lab tech calls me in for the blood draw.

“Why you smiling, baby?” she asks.

“Nothing.” Everything. “How much blood are you taking today?”

“Eight pints.”

“Really?”

“No, you'd be dead.” She laughs. Gotta love phlebotomist humor. “Couple vials, baby, and you're on your way.”

The needle goes into my vein. Vials are filled. She releases the purple elastic around my bicep, presses a cotton ball against my arm, slaps some paper tape over it, and I'm free.