Break (8 page)

She forces herself to laugh, and I force myself to keep smoking.

Don’t think about the toes. Don’t think about the cheekbone.

Just keep smoking.

AT LUNCH, I FIND JESSE HIDING OUT IN THE WEIGHT
room, squeezing his biceps together on a machine that looks like a torture device. His sneakers are dirty and untied.

“You wouldn’t believe my morning.”

He looks up. “Hey, brother.”

“Hey.” I flop down on the mats and lean against the radiator, squishing around my sling. The heat is heaven on my sore neck. “So the counselor thinks Mom and Dad are breaking my bones.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Together? Like, one of them holds you down and the other one twists?”

“This is serious, Jess.” I look around to make sure we’re safe to discuss this. The only other person in here is a runner on the treadmill all the way in the back. His iPod’s on so loud that I’m surprised I can hear me and Jesse’s conversation.

Jesse says, “I know it’s serious,” and adds twenty more pounds to the machine. “Look. You can’t say nobody warned you. Of course they’re going to suspect this.”

“So what am I supposed to do?”

“Hmm.” Jesse starts another rep. “One would suggest that you could stop breaking your bones.”

“Shh.”

“You want to be serious, Jonah? This needs to stop. I can’t watch this.”

“Stop it.”

“You like watching me in the hospital, brother?”

“Don’t ask me that.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t like seeing you like this, either.” He frowns and counts under his breath. He’s just pissed-off all over the place, this one. It’s not unexpected—he’s usually a bitch for a day or two after a reaction—but it’s still a change from the Jess I know and love.

I say, “Hey. I brought you an apple.”

He doesn’t look up. “Did you wash it?”

“Of course.”

“I’m not really hungry. So I talked to Naomi.”

“Yeah?”

“She thinks you’re on a mission.”

“Oh.”

“So, are you?” He drills me with those postanaphylactic bloodshot eyes.

“On a mission?”

“That’s right, Captain.”

I pull my knees up to my chest. “I don’t think the kind of mission Naomi means.”

“Look.” He pauses, leans forward, pulls the bottom of his T-shirt like he’s trying to make it bigger. “If you’re trying to prove something—”

“Prove what?”

“That they’re bad parents.” He drops onto the ground beside me. “You know I wouldn’t last a second in foster care.”

“Jess, hush the hell up. That’s not even a possibility.”

“They could totally get convicted of something. You’ve got like eighty-five broken bones. How much more proof would a judge need?”

“Twenty-four.”

Some scrawny sophomore walks by and considers the free weights. Jesse and I stare at him until he leaves and we can continue talking. The runner picks up his pace.

I watch him. “You wouldn’t be in foster, anyway,” I say.

He rubs his nose. “Yeah?”

“I’d take you. I’m the only one any court would trust to take care of you.”

Jesse freezes, his teeth on his lip.

I say, “What?”

Jess says, “Shit, man. Let’s do it.”

“Jesse.”

“Come on, I can’t live in that house anymore. You know how Mom and Dad are.” The timer on his cell phone goes off and he fishes two pills out of his pocket.

“They’re annoying,” I say. “That doesn’t mean they’re bad parents. Be honest.”

“Okay, you want honest? I’m allergic to all that shit they feed the baby. I’m allergic to the liquid dripping out of Mom. I’m practically allergic to the damn house.”

“I know. It sucks.”

He swallows the pills. “So don’t lie. You and I . . . we get along great. We’d be better without them.”

I rub my hair. “Yeah, socially, maybe.”

“So tell the counselor Mom and Dad are hitting you.” God, his eyes are like red stars. “And, bam. It’s just us.”

“Okay, great. And I pay your medical bills . . . how, exactly?”

He curls up like I’ve punched him. “Fuck you.”

But of course I can’t quit. I offer the apple again. “And what about Will? They’re not going to leave him with Mom and Dad if they think they’re going to slap him around.”

He makes that noise in his throat. “We could take Will.”

“Jess, you can’t even
touch
Will.”

He shoves the apple out of my hand and it falls to the floor, rolls across the mats. “There. Can’t eat it now.”

“Jesse.”

“Do you want to go?” he says.

I don’t, but I leave anyway. I’m afraid to push him too far, at this point. At most points.

I SWITCH TWO FOREIGN FILMS INTO ALPHABETICAL
order. “So now he’s basically entertaining the fantasy that we can get emancipated and live happily ever after. He actually wants this to happen. He’s like the kid who wants to drop out of middle school.”

Antonia takes the movies off the shelf and switches them back. “I’m sure you can get state money or something.”

“Do you not know the alphabet?” I fix the movies. “He needs health insurance.”

“
You
need health insurance,” Max calls from the register. He starts ringing up this tall guy renting a shitload of bad porn. He gives the guy a look. “Want me to throw in
Sound of Music
, no charge? You’d have yourself a par-tay.”

I cross my eyes and let the DVD covers blur together.

“Is your shoulder broken, Jonah?”

“That’s not the point.”

“They have government funding for these things,” Antonia says.

“What about the baby?”

“I’m sure you have an aunt or something that would love him.”

The man collects his movies and leaves. The bell on the door jingles, and Max sticks out his tongue and crosses his arms.

I say, “This is ridiculous. I can’t believe we’re even discussing this.” And yet I keep going. “It’s not about the money. I couldn’t take care of Jess.”

Antonia walks behind the counter and wraps her arms around Max. “You won’t be all broken forever. You’ll heal eventually.”

“No. You don’t get it. I can’t take care of him. As in, I take crappy care of Jesse.”

Max says, “Come on. I’ve seen you with him. You’re a good brother.”

I stand up—not to be dramatic, just to do something. I feel like moving. “He was covered in hives when I left him yesterday. He was already having the reaction. And I didn’t do anything.”

“You had no way of knowing.”

“I let him get sick. All the time. I eat shit in front of him that he could get sick from breathing. I don’t always wash my hands. I take terrible care of him.”

Max straightens his glasses. “Didn’t you save his life last year?”

I fold up on the floor. “Stop making me sound like a hero. The EpiPen’s easy to do. You just jam the needle into his thigh. It doesn’t make me an angel. It’s a temporary fix, anyway. Just keeps him conscious long enough to get him to a hospital.”

“It’s significant, Jonah.”

“Don’t act like I can heal him. Seriously. Stop. I hate that.” I wander over to the classics.

“He wants to live with you,” Max calls. “That doesn’t tell you anything?”

I ignore him and run my fingers over the spines of every happy-family-talking-dog DVD, swallowing the urge to explain the difference between a good brother and a loved one.

Then I hear Weezer through the front door and, in spite of everything, I’m smiling. “That’s my ride.”

“All right, get out of here.” Max shakes his head, like there’s something more he wanted to say.

“What?”

“Nothing. Go have fun with your girlfriend.”

People keep telling me where to go.

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

Charlotte dances in her car, her hair whipping back and forth. I climb into the passenger seat and buckle in. “Hello.”

“Hey.”

She takes off out of the parking lot, the turbocharge on the Jetta growling from good use. The CD player clicks into a new song.

“So what are we doing tonight?” she asks.

I settle into the seat. “I don’t care. Let’s just stay out forever.”

She laughs. “And what are we supposed to do to keep us entertained forever?”

“I don’t need to be entertained. I just need this.”

Out of nowhere, her eyes go all serious. She touches my cast. “How are you doing this?

“Doing what? My hand? I hit a wall by accident.”

“By
accident
?”

“Don’t worry.”

She’s quiet for a minute while we join the bigger roads. I swallow and concentrate on the music, the constant
woosh
of street noise.

I stare at the window. “Man. You know, someday we’re gonna be stronger, Charlotte.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. Someday we’ll be beyond this.”

I don’t know who I’m including in “we.” Or I do know, but I’d rather not think about it. I’d rather just let it hang in the air and pretend that will make it true.

“Yeah,” she says. “I’ll be a singer, you’ll be an architect. We’ll live happily ever after.”

This scenario hardly answers all my questions, but it’s enough for now.

We decide on this diner with crappy food and four tables. We share French fries and ketchup and start talking about each other.

Our words rain down in a hurricane. We could do this forever.

I guess I haven’t made it clear how I feel about Charlotte. Well, she puts my heart in a microwave and watches as it warms up and explodes. When I’m around her, my blood runs hot and thick. It’s beautiful.

You could say there’s nothing special about her. You could make the case.

But, really, she’s special because nobody else can do the microwave thing.

“Do you have to babysit on Halloween?” she asks.

My parents go to this Halloween event every year. High-school partying for religious grown-ups. “No. Jess’ll be at home.”

“There’s a party at Marten’s,” she says. “You want to go?”

I drag a French fry through some mustard. “I sort of hate Halloween.”

She frowns. “If this is you trying to get out of going somewhere with me—”

“No. This is me sort of hating Halloween.”

She nods, chewing on her lip. “Then let’s go to a water park, all right?” She’s got ketchup on her lips, like blood. I want to kiss it off and fix it and make it better. “When it gets warm.”

“What about tonight?”

“Sleigh ride?”

“It’s October,” I say.

“Hay ride?”

I shake my head. She sips her soda.

I suggest, “Roll in the hay?”

“Jonah.”

“Damn. Well, you can’t blame a guy for trying.”

She sets down her glass. “We’re not even dating.”

“So we can’t have sex?”

She rolls her eyes, her tongue poking out the side of her mouth.

“It’s an honest question.”

“It’s a stupid one. You know how I feel.”

I don’t know why I have to honor her feelings when she isn’t honoring mine. But whatever. I’m not an asshole.

She plays with her carnation. It’s pink and starting to brown along the edges. Pans rattle back in the kitchen, and I spend a moment just looking at this beautiful girl.

I could stay here forever. I look at her easy smile and I know that I’m already enough for her. That I don’t need stronger bones or a stronger heart for this to be okay.

She reaches out and takes my hand. I nod to myself, staring at the French fries.

Enough screwing around, Jonah.
It’s time to face facts. This breaking thing . . . it’s time to stop. This is when I decide.

THE TROUBLE COMES WHEN IT’S TIME TO GIVE
this news to Naomi. She bounds up to me on Monday before third period, a handful of Web printouts in her fist, and then she’s showing me pictures of people bleeding and people in traction and people’s bones oozing infection. “We’re going to have to be very careful with the next one,” she whispers, shoving the pages into my locker.

“Look,” I say, and I know I should be breaking the news to her, but instead I dive into my pocket and come up with my physics test. “Look at this.”

She sees the A and her face breaks into a smile. “Jonah! That’s awesome!”

“It’s not just awesome, babe.” I rip a piece of a Post-it note and stick the test to the inside of my locker. “It’s another deposit on a ticket out of here. Architect school—”

“You want to celebrate?” And she makes a breaking motion with her hands.

Oh, Naomi. She does this all the time. She gets way too wrapped up in what she’s doing. It’s like her thing.

One time we did this report on the 1960s, and she tie-dyed her carpet and stopped eating meat.

One time we learned about the Atlantic Ocean and she filled her entire bedroom with fish tanks.

Now she looks up at me, her pointed chin tilted to the side. Her eyes are huge and humid.

“I don’t think I’m going to do this anymore.”

“We can do something about the pain,” she says immediately. “I’ve been looking into it. If you take a lot of cough medicine before—”

“Naomi, stop. It’s not about the pain. I can’t do this anymore.”

Her mouth bends toward the ground. “But why not?”

I love that Naomi needs a reason for me to stop killing myself. What a friend.

“It’s not fair,” I say. She’s big on fairness. “I’m ripping my family to shreds. That wasn’t the point.”

“I know it wasn’t.”

“This is too much for my parents right now. They’ve got to focus on Jesse.”

“Jonah, come on.” She takes my good arm and pulls me to the hallway window seat. With the sun howling beside us and the hordes of people rushing by, I feel like I’m sitting by a river.

“Look, kid,” she says. “You can’t stop now.”

I shake my head. “You’re insane.”

“No, listen. I know this is getting hard.” She traces her fingers down my cast. “You’re brave as hell, you know that?”

“Don’t do this.”

“No. I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate this.” A cloud moves in front of the window, and Naomi’s face gets dark. “What you’re doing is . . . shit, it’s a fucking revolution.”

“Nom.”

“Look, I’m proud of you! You’re telling everyone that this is your body and what you do with it is your business. That takes balls, man.”