Bang (16 page)

When we come in, Trey is sitting up in the bed,

his arm in a sling and a shadow of stubble on his face. “It’s

about time,” he says. He’s got the look of a stoner on his

face, and I see he’s got a morphine drip going. Guess Mom

and Dad don’t think
he’ll
get addicted. Eye roll.

“You could’ve gotten shot a little closer to home.”

He screws his face up. “Yeah, about that. What the hell

happened? I don’t remember anything.”
Sawyer and I pull up chairs and tell him the story.

Before we can finish, there’s a knock on the door. A nurse

pokes her head in. “Trey, a few of the students you helped

save are here. They want to say thanks—is it okay if they

come in?”
Trey looks at me. I nod, and Sawyer and I slide our

chairs back to get out of the way as Ben and his friend

come in. I stand up and introduce Ben Galang, and Ben

introduces Vernon, the guy he was with yesterday, who

apparently was at the meeting, though I don’t remember

him.
Ben looks like he slept in his clothes. His hair is

disheveled and his self-repaired glasses can’t hide the dark

circles under his eyes. He reaches out his hand and carefully shakes Trey’s hand. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
Trey looks up at Ben and gives him a goofy, drugged

smile. “I’m not sure why, but okay.”
Ben glances at me, confused.
“We haven’t quite gotten to the part of the story where

Trey came in and busted up the party,” I explain. “I don’t

think he knows what he did.”
“That, and he’s a little drunk on morphine,” Sawyer

adds.
Trey frowns. “All I remember is someone screaming

‘Die, fag!’ in my face, which really, you know, sucked.

Then I took one look at the blood spurting out of my arm

and I was like, ‘Wuh-oh, check, please,’ for the rest of the

event.” He blanches just thinking about it. “Doesn’t sound

very heroic to me, but whatever.”
Ben brings his hand to his mouth and I can see his

chin is trembling, his eyes filling up. And then he pulls his

hand away and says, “The girl had a gun to my forehead.

I have a scrape here where she dug it into my skin. I was a

split second away from getting my brains blown out. And

then the door flew open, glass went everywhere, and the

shooter was distracted.” He pauses. “I got the gun off my

head. And she turned and it went off. She shot you instead

of me.” Ben’s lips quiver. He presses them together.
Clearly Trey doesn’t know what to say. He opens

his mouth and closes it again, and lets his head fall back

against the pillows. And then he says in this hilarious Clay

Aiken voice, “Well. That was right nice of me.”
For a second, nobody moves, and then I snort,

and everybody else sort of relaxes, and before I know

it Sawyer has found more chairs and Ben is giving us

updates on everybody. The girl who was shot in the

abdomen, Tori, was the worst off. She made it through

five hours of surgery and the doctors are cautiously hopeful. And the guy who was shot in the foot is doing okay, but the bullet shattered a bunch of bones and he won’t be

walking anytime soon.
Back at UC, Ben says, classes are canceled and there

are counselors helping students cope. There are also

reporters everywhere. Because the police caught the two

alleged shooters immediately, they didn’t close down the

school, but a good portion of the quad is blocked off

around the crime scene and a lot of students went back

home. “And seriously, you guys are the unnamed heroes.

You’re, like, becoming a legend,” he says to all of us, but

he can’t stop looking at Trey, his true hero.
“Please don’t give anyone our names,” I find myself

saying. “We don’t want a bunch of reporters in our faces.

We just want to, you know, get through it and move on.

Our parents are sort of freaking out. I’m sure you can

imagine.” And then I add, “I’m only in tenth grade.”
“Me too,” Sawyer says. “Jules and I just want to disappear, if that’s cool with you.” He looks over at Trey and grins for the first time since everything happened. “Trey,

on the other hand . . . he’s a senior and he could really use

some attention.”
Trey pushes his morphine drip. “Indeed,” he says,

adorably loopy.
Ben smiles and turns to me. “I’m not quite sure why

you guys picked this weekend to check things out at UC,

or how you managed to spring to action that fast, but you

really did save a lot of lives. And if you don’t want your

names out there, I can totally dig that. Just watch it when

you’re wandering around here—there are some reporters

in the lobby.”
“Here,” Trey says, fumbling for his cell phone on the

bedside table. “You should call me.”
Ben turns and looks at him, a small smile still playing

around his lips. “Oh, should I? What’s your number?”
Trey tells him, and Ben enters it into his cell phone,

and then he takes Trey’s and enters his number. “Okay,”

Ben says a little cautiously, “well, we’d love to have you

come for a meeting. Are you seriously considering U of

C? Even after what happened?”
“Oh yeah. I totally am. What’s your name again?”
Ben laughs and tells him.
I frown. Trey knows U of C is a private school. Mucho

big bucks. But hey . . . there’s always the power of morphine to make you forget about the minor details of your life, like living above a restaurant that struggles monthly

to pay its bills, and considering returning to the place

where some lunatic outsider came in and fucking shot you

because you’re gay.

When Ben and Vernon leave, Trey looks like he’s about

to fall asleep. My parents will be along soon, I’m sure, so

Sawyer and I go to the nurses’ station to try to find out

the status of the others. We learn that the Tori is still in

intensive care, so we’re not allowed to see her, and the guy

with the injured foot is asleep. So we head out a side exit

and take a walk on a sunny, windy spring Monday.

I push up the stretched-out sleeve of my hoodie and

look at my pasty-white arm. I was so glad to have that

cast—it was like a weapon. It did way more damage than I

could have done with my fist alone.

Thinking about that makes me wonder briefly what

kind of pain the shooters are in today. Trey will be proud

that I kneed the guy in the meatballs. I shove my hands in

my pockets and Sawyer and I walk in a somewhat awkward

silence now that we’re alone. I feel like we’re in the middle

of a fight, but we’re fighting about different things.

After a while he says, “What are you going to do about

your parents now that this is all over?”
And I don’t know the answer, because something keeps

buzzing around the back of my mind. I swat it aside. “I

guess maybe try talking to them. I mean, it probably won’t

work, but it’s actually something I haven’t tried before, so

who knows. We’re just not really great at that.” I tilt my

head to look at him. “The words never come out right,

you know?” He nods and I ask, “What about you?”
“I don’t know.”
“I hate it that you’re getting hit, Sawyer.”
And normally I’d expect him to get a little defensive

and say something like
I don’t exactly like it either.
But this

time he doesn’t. This time he’s quiet for a long time. And

then he says, “I’m leaving.”
Everything inside me stops working. “What?”
“It’s toxic living there. I’m moving out.”
I have no pulse. My words come out as weak wisps of

air, and without warning the tears pour from my eyes. “But

where are you going?”
He hears the blubbering child in my voice and he turns

sharply to look at me. The hardness in his face melts and

turns to surprise, then realization. “Oh, baby,” he murmurs, gathering me in his arms. “God, I’m sorry—I’m not leaving you, or Chicago, or school. Just my parents and

grandfather. I’m moving out. Not sure where yet, but I

have a few options.”
I’m flooded with relief. “You big jerk,” I say, sniffling

in his chest. “You don’t have a fight with a girl and then say

you’re leaving. Even though I’m really glad you’re getting

away from them.”
He holds me closer and I feel his breath as he laughs

silently into my hair. “We had a fight? I thought that was

just, you know, talking. Loudly. The Italian way.”
I put my arms around his waist and raise my head to

look at him. “I don’t like talking loudly with you.”
“I don’t either. Let’s not do that again.” He gazes at me

until I’m lost in him, and says, “Your eyes are so beautiful.

I’ve missed them.” And then we’re kissing on the sidewalk

in front of the University of Chicago hospital.

spring break:

1. Buy a cell phone. Myself. I even give my parents

my new number because I’m responsible like that
2. Call my sister to see if she’s doing more making

out than I am (she’s not)
3. Get my job back and make it seem like I’m doing

them a favor while Trey’s out, when really I just kind of

miss it
4. See Sawyer every day, and find out being in love,

with no stressful visions, is way more fun than anything
5. Scare the hell out of Trey when I tell him that he

totally threw himself at a college boy while under the

influence of morphine
It was hilarious, that last one. I have never seen Trey

so mortified. But you know what? Ben came back to the

hospital to see Trey once more. Alone, this time, and he

stayed for over an hour. I’m just saying.
And on the morning Trey was being released, Sawyer

and I pushed him in a wheelchair to see the other victims,

and everything hit hard once again, reminding me that

solving the mystery of a vision is not the real part. The

real part is the people and the way their lives are changed

forever.
It’s weird how hatred can make people do such terrible

things to other people. It kind of makes me think about

my dad. And I wonder, is his anger a form of hatred? I

think about my anger—for Sawyer’s family, for the people

who want to kill other people because of who they are, for

the vision gods who put us through all of this. Is that anger

really hatred in disguise?
Or is only irrational anger actually hatred—the kind

of anger and hatred my dad has over a recipe, and toward

a family with whom he made a big mistake. Is his hatred

really aimed at them? Or is it reserved for himself, because

he’s pissed about what he’s done—or what he didn’t do?

And does he even know that his anger affects the Angottis’

anger, and that’s why Sawyer gets punched in the face by

his own father?
Selfishly, I want to excuse myself, reward myself for

having the proper kind of anger. The kind that helps

make the world better, not the kind that festers and makes

people bitter. But I don’t know.
I don’t know.

It’s late Friday night of spring break when I run into

Sawyer at the Traverse apartments. We’re delivering to

different buildings this time, but I park next to him so he

sees my car and waits for me when he comes out. Which

he does.

“Hey,” he says. “My last weekend.”

I nod. He told his mother on Tuesday that he would

finish the weekend to give them time to find a replacement, and that he was moving in with his cousin Kate for a while, maybe forever, and taking a part-time job at the

Humane Society.

He says his mother cried. And that makes me furious.

I think, where the fuck are the tears before it’s too late,

you moms? Where are they? Why does it have to go this

far before you let yourself break? But I don’t say anything.

That’s my own battle, and my family is walking on eggshells until somebody (me) decides it’s time to deal with it (just . . . not yet).

“How’s Rowan?”
“She had a blast once our parents calmed down and

got distracted with Trey. But she said she wasn’t sure it

was worth lying about. Now she’s the one Dad’s eyeing, asking her if she’s pregnant.” I laugh a little, but my mind is elsewhere, on my dad, wondering things

I don’t want to wonder but I know soon I’m going to

have to ask him about. I lean against my car and pull

on Sawyer’s hoodie strings. “You doing all right?” I ask.

“After the vision, I mean.”

He shrugs. “I think so. Considering.”

“Trey tried to be hilarious today,” I tell him. “He came

into my room this morning and told me he had a vision.”
Sawyer’s eyes open wide. “That’s so not funny.”
“My heart totally sank—I mean, I almost started bawling, you know? I don’t know if I could do this again.” I look at him hard.
“Oh, God,” he says. He looks away, picturing it, I suppose. He shakes his head. “I really am glad that we had a chance to save people, but I’ll tell you what—I can eliminate police officer and firefighter from my list of things I want to be when I grow up.”
“I just hope . . .” I begin. “No. Never mind.”
He narrows his eyes and focuses in on me. “What,” he

says slowly.
I shrug. Bite my lip. “I mean, obviously I had a vision

and somehow I passed it to you. And now, who knows.

Maybe it’s done. Or maybe . . . it’s not.”
Sawyer grips the back of his neck and leans against his

car door. “What are you saying,” he says, like he knows

what I’m saying.
“I’m just . . . I don’t know. What if you got your vision

because I saved you, and now you saved people, and one of

them is having a vision, only we don’t know it.”
“Oh my God, Jules,” Sawyer says, and I can see he’s

straining not to raise his voice. “This is not our problem.

Are you kidding me? You are not responsible for saving

the whole fucking world. Besides, where’d you get your

vision from, then?”
I look down at the pavement. And I wonder, not for

the first time, if my father’s illness is responsible for this.

And my grandfather’s, too. Maybe these visions have

been a Demarco family curse for generations, and I just

unleashed the curse to the rest of the world. Back when

I was feeling sick out of my mind, seeing that explosion

and Sawyer in a body bag, I almost asked Dad if he’d ever

had a vision. Maybe I should have. Because what if he’s

been having a vision for years, but he doesn’t know what

to do? And what if my grandfather had a vision too, and it

got so bad that he killed himself—because it was the only

way he knew to be free of it? Maybe the Angottis actually

have very little to do with my family’s history of depression, and it’s been
this
all along. What if all visions started with Demarcos and stayed with Demarcos, and none of

us figured out how to get them to stop, so the visions

festered inside of people until it ruined them. And then I

came along and stopped mine. And by stopping my vision,

I passed the curse to someone I saved. And by stopping

Sawyer’s . . . Well. I just have to find out.
“It started with me,” I say. I glance up at Sawyer. “But

that doesn’t really matter, does it? It doesn’t change anything. It’s what happens next that matters. We’re talking about people’s lives—what if Trey hadn’t helped me save

you? What if Trey and I hadn’t helped you with the shooting? I can’t let some traumatized shooting victim handle the next thing alone.” I shrug. “I can’t. I unleashed the beast.”
Sawyer stares at me. And then slowly he shakes his

head, and I can tell his mind is made up. “No way,” he

says. “No way.”
One look at his set jaw and I know he’s not going to

change his mind. I hold his gaze a moment more, and then

I nod and attempt a smile, because this is not his battle.

He’s a victim of the Demarco curse, like everybody else.
“Okay,” I say. “I understand.” I pull the keys from my

pocket, and then I reach up and caress Sawyer’s cheek, pull

him close. Kiss him until the tension between us melts

away. And when we pull apart, I tell him I love him. And

that I have to do this—I have to find out if anybody else is

having a vision. And if someone is, I have to help. That’s

the way it’s going to be, that’s my responsibility, and I’m

going to do it. Invincible or not, I started this, and I’m in

it until I see a way out.
He just stares at me like I’ve lost my mind again.
I hope I can’t find anyone with a vision. With all my

heart, I hope this mess ends with us, but frankly, I doubt it

does. And I can’t rest until I know for sure.

When I get home it’s late. Rowan’s fast asleep. I lie on

my bed, eyes closed, trying to picture the music room.

Trying to count the people in there. Wondering where

to start, how to track them all down. What to say when I

do. Eventually I get up and find Trey watching late-night

TV in the living room. He’s got his bad arm in a sling, the

other hand in a bowl of popcorn.

“Hey. You have Ben’s phone number, right?” I ask.

He shoves popcorn in his mouth and nods, eyes narrowing. “Why?” he asks, his mouth full.
“I need it.”
He stares at me, chewing slowly. He swallows and

pauses the TV show. “Why,” he says again, suspicious.
I drop my gaze, studying a stack of board games, trying

to decide if I should tell him. Finally, I say in a softer voice,

“I just do. I need to make sure nobody new is . . . affected.”
His hand drops to his lap. His eyes close, and he sighs

heavily. “Shit,” he says. “You gotta be kidding me.”
I stare at the floor.
He sits up, his voice suddenly concerned, like he’s just

realizing what I’m saying. “Wait. If Sawyer passed the vision

to Ben,” Trey says, “I swear I’ll shoot you both in the face.”
“I know. Just give me the number. I’ll call him in the

morning.”
He hesitates a moment more, like he can’t believe

this is happening, then sets the popcorn bowl on a pile of

magazines next to the chair and pulls his phone from his

pocket. He forwards Ben’s contact info to my phone. “Try

not to sound like a total psycho. And, you know. Don’t

make me look bad.”
“Yeah, sure. No problem.”
He attempts a reassuring smile, but his eyes are worried when I say good night.

At three in the morning my cell phone buzzes, and at first

I think it’s a dream. I finally wake up enough to answer.

It’s Sawyer. “Hey,” I whisper, propping myself up on my

elbow. “What’s up?”

The line is quiet, but I know he’s there. I can almost

feel his chest move as he breathes, see his earnest eyes

adorned with those ropy lashes, sense the trepidation in

his voice before he speaks. And all he does is whisper three

simple, beautiful words that I’ve come to love hearing.