Pieces of Me (11 page)

These kids aren’t ten, they’re maybe eight
.

With an unexpected whoop of delight, Mrs. Wayland descended on Sam’s mom. “Thank you so much for talking him into chaperoning. We couldn’t do this without you.” She spoke in that stage whisper adults thought out of range of anyone under eighteen.
Moron. Craptastic
.

Mrs. Sabir stared stalwartly at the trailhead and not at Samuel.

So this wasn’t just a setup; it was an ambush.

Mrs. Wayland stepped toward Sam, but kept her distance, as if she was afraid to touch him or contract a disease.
Mega-moron
. “Samuel. How are you feeling? Tip-top shape? Good, good. We’ve got fifteen young men for this adventure.” She turned
away. “Andy, stop eating the pinecones!” she shrieked. “Get that out of his hand.”

Young men? Maybe in ten years
. Right now they ate their boogers in public and peed wherever they pleased. These were not Sam’s people; even I knew that.

Mrs. Wayland shoved her husband off his cell phone and whispered between clenched teeth, with angry points of a well-manicured claw.

I grimaced and cringed—at least, I wanted to. I think Samuel and I both felt sorry for her husband.
Speaking of bossy-pants
. She hurtled into a pileup of wrestling, or maybe fighting, boys. I had never quite understood the way boys pounded on their friends, and death hadn’t provided any revelation.

Samuel’s ma wouldn’t meet his stare. He simply turned and started back toward the car. God himself wouldn’t get Sam to stay there.
You go, Sammy!
I tried cheering him on, but no one noticed.

“Where are you going?” His ma sounded genuinely perplexed as she caught up with him, and moved in front to block his escape route.

He’s mad
.

After a heartbeat of swallowing anger, he said softly, “I hope you packed your hiking boots and favorite pillow.”

She frowned with surprise. “I’m not staying. You are. You’ll have fun.”

“If you don’t stay and police those boys, I think someone will get hurt, or be stranded where Air Rescue can’t find them.” Samuel’s stony expression told me, and her, he was serious. Not that he would hurt a kid intentionally.
I think
.

“I—I—” she stuttered, her expression stunned and more than a little hurt.

“Ma, I am not a babysitter. I don’t camp. I don’t like the outdoors. I am sorry if I’m so disappointing to you, but I swear to you, if you leave me here with these delinquents, someone is going to get impaled on their weenie-roasting stick.”

Oh boy
.

“Yoo-hoo, Samuel, they’re leaving.” Mrs. Wayland pointed at the trail and the couple of dads who looked more like pack animals. There was nothing left of the boys but dust rolling down the trailhead.

Uh-oh
.

Samuel and his mom stared at each other until she blinked. “I’m so sorry, dear, but I forgot that Samuel’s medication prevents him from sleeping outdoors. He was so excited that he didn’t want to remind me. Can you take him home on your way back? I’ll stay instead.”

“Oh.” Mrs. Wayland seemed unsure what she’d walked into, or what the right answer was. She glanced back and forth as if at a Ping-Pong game.

Samuel merely handed his pillow to his mother. He kept his hand clenched around the handle of the wheeled suitcase; it was full of solar chargers and equipment. Nothing camping-related. Nothing that his mother knew how to use.
Not that he’d let her touch it
.

Under her breath, Mrs. Sabir promised, “We will talk about this when I get home.”

Samuel nodded. Whatever.

Without a word, she blew up the trailhead at such a speed
onlookers assumed she was in a hurry to catch up. Samuel knew she was running from him. He sighed.

Mrs. Wayland reminded him to buckle up before she turned on the car. “Do you mind if we stop at the grocery store on the way back? I need to get more snacks and breakfast supplies for the campers.”

“Fine.” Samuel didn’t care. His usual style of talk-to-anyone, anywhere, at-any-time flopped flat. He didn’t want to talk to Mrs. Wayland, or the stock boy, or the cashier.

While Mrs. Wayland tried to chat him up one aisle and down the next, Samuel filled a basket with junk food. Chips. Microwave popcorn. A strawberry pie. Coke. A deli pizza loaded with preservatives and salt and meat by-products.

“Do I need to worry about a party at your mother’s house while she’s not home?” She eyed the contents of his basket with a worried frown.

“Of course not.”

A party of one? Maybe
.

She nodded but didn’t look convinced.

Dropped at his house after what felt like hours, Samuel waved good-bye, thankful that she had no idea that his medication had nothing to do with his refusal to stay and “chaperone” the toddlers.

He tossed the pizza into the oven and switched on his monitors. “Who’s out there?” Samuel pinged a couple of people, including Misty. He cracked open a can of bright red, totally artificial soda and gulped it.

Yo, Sammy, artificial colors and sweeteners aren’t exactly a rebellion. There’s a reason “let them eat cake” wasn’t cheered
.

Sam sat back and waited to see who might respond. He belched. A new member ID on the MiracleMakers’ roll caught his attention and he pinged that newbie too.

Or she. You have to quit assuming everyone is a guy
.

Misty didn’t respond, but PigskinPaint messaged back almost immediately.

Samuel grinned.

Definitely a guy. Why does everything have to do with sex?

The long answer was the hours, upon days, Samuel spent hooked up to dialysis. He blew through new games in one session or less, until all the zombies and coin collecting felt flat and obsolete. So he began writing code, learning how to animate and create a game that did more than blow shit up. MiracleMakers put the player in terrible situations—real life-wrecking situations like fires, floods, earthquakes, mass shootings. Players faced choices to rescue victims in high-adrenaline
scenarios, or rebuild towns one brick at a time as deliberate, but slower, aid. Players built their miracle banks up and, thanks to Samuel’s corporate sponsors, donated MM dollars to charities all over the world. It was playing with a purpose. He wished his mother understood.

Samuel ate pizza and half a box of chocolate doughnuts while he worked on building level twelve. He wanted to go live with it next month. Recovering from surgery took longer than he’d thought. He hadn’t been able to work much for months.

He checked messages.

Still no Misty
.

Recovering from the kidneys and pancreas transplant wasn’t as easy as it might sound. His body had to adapt to the new organs. He had to watch his food and beverage intake, his exertion levels, his stress. It took time to get it all functioning right. The healing exhausted him more than the disease ever had, and his mother’s hovering made it all worse. She loved him. Maybe too much? He knew that too.

Almost as if she didn’t want him to get completely better. As if his being sick gave her a purpose. Totally messed up
.

Samuel wiped his hands on a dirty T-shirt because he’d forgotten to grab a napkin.

Ew
.

He slid his chair around, switched between screens to update
The-Daily-Miracle. He liked his game almost as much as he liked his blog, but his blog was what got him out of bed in the morning.

He believed that people would rise to whatever expectation they were held to. That was his faith, that was what he loved about religion. Faith asked people to be better than themselves, bigger, more.

After deliberating, Samuel typed in his latest miracle, titling it: “Kid versus Gorilla—we all win.” He wrote up the story as succinctly as he could; he wasn’t a writer, didn’t want to be. A kid fell into a gorilla pen at the Berlin Zoo and hit his head. The closest gorilla was the old silverback, notoriously bad tempered and territorial. With families of both species watching, the gorilla carefully picked up the child, cradled him in one arm, and carried the unconscious toddler to the door the keepers used. He gently deposited the child next to the door and backed away, as if he understood the keepers might be leery of opening the door. The child regained consciousness soon after the rescue. He sustained only a minor concussion and bruises, and he made a full recovery.

And thanks to technology, there were a dozen videos, from all angles, from witnesses who pulled out their devices to record the incident. Samuel wished that once, only once, someone would put down their camera phone and jump into action instead. No one leapt into the gorilla cage to save the kid. He shook his head. Could have been a whole other story.

PigskinPaint pinged again from the virtual game board. Samuel switched back and read the question.

Samuel paused and downed another cold soda while deciding how to answer. People asked his advice all the time; thing was, most people assumed he was some video-game Yoda getting moldy in a tech fortress somewhere instead of a seventeen-year-old who’d spent most of his life hunting his own miracle. Not much life happened to him in hospitals and prayer circles. At least, not much he was willing to share with strangers.

Samuel took PigskinPaint’s words to heart and opened up a little more.

Sam attached the link to the screen.

Misty pinged and Samuel checked the time. One a.m. What time zone was she in?

Pacific Standard
.

Misty swallowed hard. The silence of books huddled around her like a blanket. Comforting instead of scared. Alone but not so lonely. Seconds ticked by. She didn’t know what to say. She messed things up. Everything.

She exhaled a tiny feather of the guilt, the disbelief that ruffled her heart making it impossible to relax.

There were so many words she wanted to type. So many things she wanted to know about him. So many things she wanted to tell him.

The blinker cursed at her. Waiting. Hoping. Judging.

Where do they go from here?

She didn’t want to tell him that everyone around, always at school or even during library hours, seemed to be texting, typing with their fingers flying. Or playing games. Or something. Their hands were occupied. Hers felt as though they simply hung at the ends of her arms, vacant and irrelevant.

Misty perked up. Healing?

The cursor seemed to stumble and tilt across the screen.

How hard can folding one thousand pieces of paper be?

Misty panicked. She started shaking. Trembling. She fisted her hands and bit a knuckle.

She didn’t want him to see her.

Calm down. You’re going to rupture something important
.

Misty forced herself to breathe past the fear. He couldn’t see her unless she let him. She didn’t have to. Gulping at the frenzy, she finally plunked back an answer one key at a time.

Misty’s dry mouth mocked her, she tasted metal shavings each time she moved her tongue.

Focus on something else.

Come on, Samuel, distract her
. I held my fingers crossed that he wouldn’t push harder. She didn’t want anyone to see her. I understood, except I wanted everyone to see me.