Neal Shusterman - Bruiser

“It’s a condition,” he said. “That’s all—just a condition. I bruise easily, and I’ve got thin skin. I always have. Sorry to disappoint you, but that’s all it is. A condition.” I waited for more, but that’s all he offered. I do know that people with low levels of iron in their blood tend to bruise easily, but it just didn’t ring true. “You mean…like anemia?”

He nodded. I could sense immense sorrow in that nod. “Something like that.”

Things were more strained than usual at dinner that night, but it could just have been that my senses were on high alert. Things around me had become confusing; I didn’t know if I could trust my own perceptions anymore, and my thoughts were preoccupied with Brewster.

My parents, who used to be so much more observant, had absolutely no clue that anything was troubling me. Their own personal universes had developed a shell so thick, I don’t think anything was getting through from the outside.

“Are you done, Brontë?” Mom asked, reaching for my dinner plate, not even noticing that I hadn’t eaten a single thing. Carbs, protein, fiber—it all just sat there, as appetizing as plastic to me.

“I’m done,” I told her. She took away my plate and scraped my dinner into the disposal. I guess if I wasn’t so focused on Brew, I might have realized how “off” things were, how our whole family was on the verge of a landslide. Right then I wasn’t seeing anything, though. But Tennyson was. He was the one who noticed that Mom and Dad didn’t say a word to each other all evening—how Dad just ate in silence. Tennyson even noticed my lack of appetite.

“Starvation diet?” he asked.

“Maybe I’m just not hungry,” I said. “Did you think of that?”

“I guess it’s contagious,” he said. Only then did I realize he hadn’t eaten much either. In fact, all he had eaten were his vegetables.

“Since when are you a vegetarian?” I asked.

He looked at me, taking great offense. “Just because I don’t feel like eating meat lately doesn’t make me a vegetarian. I’m not a vegetarian, okay?” Then he stormed away from the table.

After dinner I tried to do my homework, but I simply couldn’t focus. I knew why. I had avoided talking to Tennyson about Brewster, but I couldn’t put it off any longer. He was, unfortunately, the only one I could talk to.

I found him in the family room, watching basketball. He was slouching in the man-eating sofa —the one that, when we were kids, we could sink into and practically disappear. It looked like Tennyson was still trying to do that; but the older we get, the harder that is.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to call you a vegetarian.”

“Apology accepted,” he said without looking at me. And when I didn’t leave, he said, “You wanna watch the game?”

I sat beside him and let the sofa pull me in. We watched the game for a few minutes, and finally I said:

“I saw it.”

He turned to me, only half interested. “Saw what?”

“His back,” I told him. “He took off his shirt, and I saw his back. And it’s not just on his back; it’s all over.”

Tennyson shifted forward out of the folds of the man-eating sofa and raised the remote, turning off the TV, and gave me his full attention. I was grateful that this was more important to him than the game.

“So, what do you think?” he asked. “Do you think it’s his uncle?”

Well, I know what I thought, but Brewster swore up and down that it wasn’t true. “I don’t know,” I told my brother. “He’s a conundrum—and there’s still a piece missing from the puzzle.” Whatever that piece was, there was a part of me telling me not to get involved —that it was too much to handle. That you shouldn’t go out on a limb unless you’re absolutely sure the limb can support your weight.

But a stronger part of me wanted to know everything about Brewster Rawlins and become a part of his story, no matter how harsh that story was.

Tennyson opened his mouth to speak again, but I didn’t let him.

“I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say ‘I told you so,’ then you’re going to look at me with that smug expression you get whenever you’re accidentally right.”

Then Tennyson did something he rarely does. He caught me by surprise.

“No,” he said, “I think you should keep seeing him.”

I tried to read the expression on his face, but with the TV turned off and only dim lights in the room, I couldn’t. “Are you being sarcastic?” I asked. “Because it’s not funny.”

“No,” said Tennyson. “I mean it. If you care about him, then you should keep on seeing him. Do you care about him?”

I didn’t answer right away. I’ll admit that Brewster had started as a project, but he had quickly become more than that. The question wasn’t whether or not I cared about him; the question was, how much? I’m glad Tennyson didn’t ask that, because then I’d have to ask myself; and I already knew the answer. I cared far more than was safe.

“Yes,” I told Tennyson simply. “I do care about him.”

Tennyson nodded and, without an ounce of judgment, said, “Good. Because he probably needs you. And I think you’re going to need him, too.”

I didn’t quite know what he meant by that last part, but I was still processing the fact that Tennyson felt this was good.

“I thought you hated him….”

“I did,” Tennyson admitted, “but if I wanted to keep hating him, I needed a good reason; and I couldn’t find one.”

This was not the Tennyson I knew. It’s amazing how people can surprise you. Even brothers. “So, now you’re friends?”

“I wouldn’t go that far.” Then Tennyson lifted his hand and made a fist. I thought he was making a point; but no, he just studied his knuckles with a creepy kind of intensity. “Tell me something, Brontë by any chance did you hurt your foot last week?”

It threw me because I didn’t expect him to know about that. How does he find out these things? “Yes,” I said. “I mean, no. I mean, I thought I sprained my ankle, but I didn’t.”

“And the Bruiser was with you?”

“Were you spying on us again?”

“No, I just had a hunch.”

“So, then, he told you about it?”

“Nope.” And then he added with a grin, “Maybe I’m just a mind reader.”

Now this was more like the Tennyson I knew. “The only thing supernatural about you, Tennyson, is your body odor.”

He laughed at that. It eased the tension, but only a little. Then he got serious again. “Just promise me that you’ll stay away from his house and from his uncle…and if things start to get weird, you’ll tell me.”

“What do you mean by weird?”

“Just promise,” he said.

“Okay, fine. I promise.”

Then Tennyson leaned back into the man-eating sofa and turned on the TV, signaling the end of the conversation.

I left feeling more unsettled than before. It was easier to deal with Tennyson when he was fighting me; but having him on my side was frightening, because now I didn’t know who the enemy was.

In horse racing they put these slats on either side of the horse’s head, blocking the creature’s peripheral vision. They’re called blinders. They don’t actually blind the horse, but they allow the horse to see only what’s right in front of it; otherwise it might freak out and lose the race.

People live with blinders too; but ours are invisible, and much more sophisticated. Most of the time we don’t even know they’re there. Maybe we need them, though, because if we took in everything all at once, we’d lose our minds. Or worse, our souls. We’d see, we’d hear, we’d feel so deeply that we might never resurface.