Neal Shusterman - Bruiser

We pushed through the door of the nurse’s office, where some boy I didn’t know looked up at me with feverish eyes and a God-help-me expression, like he thought he might die at any moment.

“Get in line,” he said.

“I don’t think so.” I shoved past him toward the nurse. By now the whole tissue pack on Brew’s hand was soaked through with blood, and the moment the nurse saw it, she went into triage mode. She quickly assessed the damage and began to clean the gash with gauze and antiseptic.

“What happened?”

“I got cut on my locker door,” Brew said.

Is that what happened? I thought. But he wasn’t even touching his locker.

“It looks worse than it is,” the nurse said once the wound had been cleaned. “You probably won’t even need stitches.” She talked about tetanus shots and gave him a thick piece of gauze. “Keep pressure on it.” Then she turned to me and my bloody fingers. “And you need to clean yourself up. There’s a sink over there. Wash all the way to your elbows. Do it twice.” She told Brew she’d be back to dress the wound, then went to deal with the plague-ridden boy by the door.

I went to the sink, crisis resolved, except, of course, for one minor thing:

The wound was gone from my hand.

It hadn’t healed—it was gone, like it had never been there at all. I kept washing my hands, certain I had just missed it and that it would reappear once I washed away the lather, but no. The cut was nowhere to be found.

I could feel something tugging on the edge of my awareness. Something both frightening and wonderful. I was at the barrier of some unknown place. Even as I stood there I could feel myself crossing over that line.

When I turned to Brew, he was watching me. “You didn’t cut yourself on a locker, did you?” I asked.

He shook his head. I sat beside him, not quite ready to believe what had happened.

“Let me see it.”

He raised the gauze. The wound had clotted; the blood had stopped flowing. I could see the wound clearly now. It was my wound. Same size, same place. Only now it was on his hand.

“Do you understand now?” he asked gently.

But how could I understand? This wasn’t an answer; it was a question—and one I didn’t even know how to ask. All I could say was “How?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “It just happens.”

“Always? With everyone?”

“No,” he said. “Not everyone.” The wound had begun to ooze again, so he pressed the gauze to it. “But if I care about someone…”

He didn’t have to finish the thought, because it was there in his eyes. The reason why he ran—why he lied. People thought Brewster Rawlins was a dark unknown, a black hole best kept away from. Well, maybe he was, but what people don’t realize is that black holes generate an amazing amount of light. The problem is, their gravity is so great, the light can’t escape—it just gets pulled in along with everything else.

If he took away the sprains, cuts, and bruises of everyone he cared about, no wonder he’d rather be alone. How could I blame him for running last night as he tried to escape his own gravity?

I could feel my anger and turmoil draining away now that I had at least a part of the puzzle. The brooding expression on Brew’s face truly was inscrutable, so it was impossible to know what he was feeling; but I knew what I was feeling. It flowed in to fill the void once my anger was gone. As unexpected as the slap, I found myself kissing him; and although I heard the nurse protesting from across the room, her voice sounded miles away. I was caught in a gravity far greater than hers.

“I love you, Brew.”

“No you don’t,” he said.

“Just shut up and take it,” I told him.

He smiled. “Okay.”

He didn’t have to tell me that he felt the same, because I already knew. The evidence was there on the palm of his hand.