Shine (21 page)

“Why don’t you prove it by telling me?”

More grinning and squirming. He needed to be medicated—like that was ever going to happen.

“Robert? We’re almost to my stop, so if you’re going to tell me, tell me now.”

“If it’s your stop, it’s my stop, too,” he said.

“Um,
no
.”

“Yeah-huh.”

“Robert, I am here on business. You can
not
bother me.”

He huffed. “Why you being so cold to me? Why’s everybody turned so cold all of a sudden, acting like I’m a kid when I’ve got chest hairs and everything?”

I snorted. I didn’t mean to, and if I could have stopped myself, I would have. It hurt his feelings.

“Fine,” he said. “I ain’t gonna tell you my secret after all, so fine.” He slammed his body against the back of his seat and sulked.

We rode like that for the next few minutes. As we approached the college, I attempted to smooth things over.

“Hey, Robert,” I said. “You ready to talk to me yet?”

He angled his body toward the bus window, presenting me with his skinny back. I saw the knobs of his spine through his threadbare T-shirt.

“Well, don’t go wandering off in Toomsboro by yourself,” I told him.

“I’m eleven years old. I can take care of myself.”

“I know, but still.” I doubted Robert would ever be able to take care of himself.

The bus rolled to a stop. The doors
shushed
open.

“How about this,” I said, standing up. “Meet me back here in an hour, and we’ll ride back together. Can you do that?”

“Can you do that?” Robert mimicked.

“Well, can you? It’s like . . .” I tried to think how to put it. “Like the buddy system.”

“Don’t need no buddy, especially you.”

“Well, all right, then.”

I got off the bus. He followed. I headed for the college, and he trailed behind me. He was as sneaky as a rhinoceros.

I found Braiden Hall, and miraculously, Robert didn’t enter the dorm behind me. When I glanced to check, he was gnawing his thumbnail. Perhaps he felt as intimidated by the fancy campus as I did.

“Stay,” I told him, like you’d say to a dog.

He looked caught out. Then he said, loudly, “I think I’ll sit here by this tree. I think I’ll just sit here and enjoy the morning air.”

I went inside the dorm. I found a student list stuck to a row of metal mailboxes and saw that Jason resided in room 101, so that’s where I went. I rapped on the door, trying to act braver than I felt. I banged louder.

“One sec,” a guy said groggily, and my heart jumped into my throat. There were footsteps, and then the click of a deadbolt. The door opened, and there, in the flesh, was Jason. It really was him. He was wearing loose pj pants with brown monsters all over them, and his hair was messy. He wasn’t wearing a shirt.

“Whoa,” he said. I jerked my gaze from his chest to his face. “Uh . . .
whoa
. What are you doing here?”

You have monsters on your pj’s
, I wanted to say.
And they’re cute. Cute little monsters. Who are you to be wearing pj bottoms printed with cute little monsters
? I caught myself noticing his build and looked away. I wasn’t here to notice the fact that he happened to be . . . well . . .
built
. Good heavens.

“I need to know about Patrick,” I said. “You gonna let me in?”

“Uh, yeah, sure. I guess.” He opened the door wider. “How do you know where I live?”

“Don’t worry about that,” I said. “Would you please tell me how you know Patrick? For real?”

He didn’t answer, so I used the time to take in the details of his room: the boy smell, the posters of indie bands, the stacks of books. The one and only bed, which I sat down on. Guess he lucked out and got himself a single.

Jason scratched his bare chest, which must have made him aware of the bareness of it, because he blushed and yanked a shirt from a hanger in the closet. He slid it on and went to work on the buttons. “Seriously. Why are you here? How’d you know where to find me?”

I gave him the basics of how he shouldn’t post personal information on the online college directory if he didn’t want people reading it. While I spoke, he rolled up his sleeves. I had to pull my eyes from his tan forearms.

“Anyway, you may not be aware of this, but last night
someone may or may not have tried to break into Patrick’s room in the hospital,” I said.

He blanched.

“Was it you?” I demanded.

“What?
No
.” He went from confused to pissed, and he said a lot of things about was I crazy? and what was wrong with me? and how could I even think something like that?

I chose not to respond. I just folded my arms over my chest.

He pulled his desk chair over near me and dropped into it. “Tell me more,” he said. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

I told him what I’d heard, and his face darkened. Then, because nothing in life was free, I returned to my question:
How did he and Patrick know each other
?

“From the Come ‘n’ Go,” he said, dazed. “
Fuck
. Who would do something like that?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” I said. “What do you mean, from the Come ‘n’ Go? Did you buy beer from him?”

He dropped his head into his hands. “Sometimes. Except, no, because he wouldn’t sell to us. Um, we bought snacks. Junk food.”

“Did you give him a hard time? Call him girly names and make fun of him for being light in the loafers?”
Light in the loafers
, my God. I’d channeled Aunt Tildy rather than mustering the confidence to say the word
gay
.

Jason nodded, and I felt a stab in my chest. Maybe because I’d started to change my opinion of him after seeing him in the
hospital? Maybe I wanted him
not
to be one of those Mario Mario jerks?

“But I don’t treat him like that anymore,” he said.

“Wow, you should be so proud.”

He stared at me, part hostile and part hurting. The hurting part must have won out, because he started talking, and he didn’t hold back. He told me that yeah, his college buddies were assholes, and yeah, so was he. But Patrick took it like a man, and Jason couldn’t help but respect him for it.

Over time, Jason started driving to Black Creek on his own, leaving his buddies at the dorm. He quit harassing Patrick. One night, he spotted one of Patrick’s philosophy books by the cash register, and it was a book Jason had read, so they talked about it for a while. It got to the point where Jason and Patrick would hang out at the Come ‘n’ Go for hours. They’d argue about philosophical issues, or they’d just shoot the breeze. Occasionally, according to Jason, Patrick wouldn’t be in the mood to talk, so Jason would leave.

“He’d act like nobody could possibly understand how
hard
his life was, and that got old,” Jason admitted. “But no one’s perfect. He’s a good guy.”

“I know.”

“He didn’t deserve what happened to him.”

“I know.” I looked Jason straight in the eye. “Do you know who did it? Was it one of your friends?”

“No,” he said. “The guys I hang with . . .
no
. They’re dumb
shits, but they’re not . . . they would never . . .” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “They drink. They smoke a little weed. They go to parties and hit on girls, and that’s all life is to them, one big kegger.”

“Were you with them that Saturday?” I asked. “What if they were partying and wanted some beer and drove to Black Creek to try and buy some? And the store was closed, and Patrick wouldn’t open it back up, and things got ugly?”

“No,” Jason said.

“Well, what if they knew from the get-go that Patrick wouldn’t sell to them, and they drove to the Come ‘n’ Go looking for a fight? Boys can be like that, you know.”

“No. Not those guys.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because all their lives, they’ve been given whatever they want,” he said, anger flashing across his face. “Because I doubt any one of them’s been in a fistfight, even. They’re soft and they’re spoiled and they don’t know the kind of ugliness we know. Okay?”

I grew silent. How did Jason know what kind of ugliness I knew or didn’t know? And since when did him and me become a “we”?

“You live in Black Creek, right?” he said. “Same as Patrick?”

I hesitated, then nodded tersely.

“Yeah, well, I’m from Hangtree.”

My eyebrows went up, because Hangtree was even more backwoods than Black Creek. Think toothless hillbillies and
cousins marrying cousins and corn liquor distilled with battery acid. That was Hangtree.

“But in the library, you called me . . .” I didn’t finish. The point was, being from Hangtree meant he was even more white trash than me.

He looked ashamed. “Yeah, and like I said at the hospital, I’m sorry.”

“Actually, you didn’t.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“No, you didn’t. You said you owed me an apology, but you never gave me one.”

“I didn’t? Well, um, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. What I said was uncool.”

“You think?” I said.

“I was in a bad place. I’d heard about Patrick, and I was so angry I couldn’t think straight. I was so angry I didn’t even go to the college computer lab, because I wanted to see what I could find out about Patrick, and I didn’t want some asshole coming over and saying, ‘Hey, bro, whatcha doing?
Whoa
, you reading about that faggot? What’s up with that, man?’”

His eyes were full of despair, and I had the craziest urge to hug that fool of a boy, the way a mama would hug her rascally toddler after he rammed his trike into her pot of petunias and broke the thing to bits.

It’s all right
, the mama would say.
Shhh, now. Quit your crying. We all mess up. It’s what we learn from our mistakes that matters
.

But Jason wasn’t three. And I wasn’t his mama.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, and this time he took those words and owned them. “I was a complete tool.”

We sat with it. Or I sat with it, and he let me, until at last I said, “Well, I’m sorry, too. For embarrassing you in front of all those library people.”

He exhaled through his nose. “Hell, I deserved it. But, man. When you get fierce, you get fierce, don’t you?”

No comment
, I thought. I liked the way he saw me, though. I tried it on . . . and it actually kind of fit. I was fierce, or getting there. I sat up a little straighter.

“Did you find anything when you were doing your research?”

He pushed his fingers through his hair. “No. It had been a week. A
wee
k, and Patrick was still unconscious, and the sheriff’s department didn’t have a clue who worked him over.”

“They still don’t,” I said.

He nodded. “That day at the library . . . I don’t know,” he said. “I figured it was a good ol’ boy from the hills who hurt Patrick. Some ignorant redneck filled to the brim with ‘Jesus Saves’ and ‘Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.’ I guess I wanted to punish someone.”

“So you saw me, and what? Thought you’d punish me for being an ignorant redneck?”

He hitched one shoulder. “You were kind of crawling up my butt.”

“I was not,” I said, making an
ew
face. “Anyway, you’re more country than I am. You just don’t look it.”

“Whatever.”

“How’d you peg me as being country?”

It wasn’t like I’d worn overalls or anything. It couldn’t have been my accent, either, because I was just sitting at the computer, minding my own business. Plus, I didn’t talk like most folks in Black Creek did. I made a point of it.

He muttered something unintelligible.

“Come again?” I said.

His whole face was red, along with his neck. “Patrick pointed you out once. You wouldn’t remember.”

I didn’t remember. He was right about that.

“Did he introduce us?” I asked.

Jason shook his head.

“Then how do you know it was me?”

“You’re right, maybe it wasn’t,” he said, giving in too easily.

“
Oka-a-a-y
, then why’d you say it was?”

He sighed.

I waited.

“It was this past winter,” he finally said. “We had half a foot of snow dumped on us the night before, but the next day, the sun came out. You were taking a walk.”

My skin tingled. I had no recollection of seeing Jason, but I did remember that particular day. I remembered the glint of the fresh snow, so bright it hurt to look at. I remembered how amazing the sun felt after months of being cold.

“It was the first warm day of the year,” I said.

Jason nodded.

“Patrick honked,” I said slowly. “He was in his car. He drove past me.”

“There was a film festival in Asheville,” Jason said. “My car wouldn’t start, so he picked me up, and afterward we drove back to Black Creek. Patrick saw you and pointed you out. He wanted to stop the car and offer you a ride. I told him no.”

“Gee, what a gentleman,” I said. My mind was somewhere else, though. I was surprised Patrick would have pointed me out to a friend after three years of getting little more from me than quick nods of acknowledgment.

“I didn’t want to bother you,” Jason said. “You were in your own world. You looked . . .”

I tilted my head.

“Happy,” he said. “And then Patrick honked, and you jumped, and your expression changed.”

“Ohhh,” I said, the details falling into place. I’d been daydreaming about the book I was in the middle of, and when Patrick honked, it
did
startle me. There was a time when I would have recovered with a laugh, but that was the old me. The pre-Tommy me. The girl Patrick honked at was someone else entirely.

And yet . . . was it possible that the real me still existed, buried beneath snowdrifts of hurt?

Jason and I talked for a long time. I finally told him my name, which I’d managed not to up until then, and he said it suited me.

I asked him why, and he said, “I don’t know. Because cats are smart? Because they know how to track things down?”

I laughed. “Things like you? Believe me, it wasn’t that hard.”

“Well, because of how they keep to themselves, then,” he said. “Dogs like everyone. Cats choose who to like.”

Hmmm
, I thought, mulling that over.