Chapter 14
By Sunday morning, I’d gotten almost all of my homework caught up. Late in the afternoon, Bryan called to see if I wanted to do something. He picked me up in his car and we drove down to the river. Following alongside the Mississippi is a flood wall with a path on top where people can ride their bikes or walk. The tree leaves on the Wisconsin side of the river were just beginning to turn color. Bryan bought us ice cream cones at a stand, butter pecan for him and cookie dough for me. We ate them while we strolled along the path.
“You’re not scared to go back to school tomorrow, are you?”
I shook my head. “No, not really. It can’t be any more of a disaster than Tuesday.”
“School was hard on me after Jesse died, but I got through it, and so will you.”
Ever since he told me about his brother and that he had the same disease, I’d been waiting for an opportunity to ask him some questions. “Bryan, can I ask you something? It’s kind of personal, so if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s cool.”
“Go ahead. Ask.” He picked a stone up off of the cement and tossed it out into the river where it sunk with a splash.
“Well, I’ve been thinking about what you told me…that you have that blood disease, too. Are you like…worried or anything? Like what if it was you?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” he answered, then paused to lick the dripping ice cream off the side of his cone. “I mean, I’ve thought about it my whole life. My mother was insanely over-protective of both of us, especially when we were little. She actually homeschooled us until seventh grade because she was afraid we’d get hurt at recess or play too roughly with the other kids. Sometimes, it was hard to forget we were different.”
“Wow. So she finally let you go to regular school?”
“Jesse used to beg our parents to let him go to school with the other kids. When he was fourteen and I was twelve, they finally caved, but we weren’t allowed to take gym class or do sports.”
“Wish I could get out of gym class,” I muttered.
He grinned. “I may not have had to go to gym, but gym teachers have always found other ways to torture me, like writing essays on basketball theory or the history of physical education. Did you know the Victorians used to think allowing women to play sports was inhumane due to their delicate constitutions?”
“I think it’s inhumane to make us all change clothes in the same room.”
Bryan chuckled. “So, to answer your question about whether I worry about death, the answer is yes…and no. I’ve lived with the possibility of death for as long as I can remember. I guess I’m sort of used to it. I try to remember that with treatment and a lot of caution, I could live a fairly normal life. But I’d be lying if I said there weren’t times —especially after Jesse died —where I didn’t feel the weight of it, you know?”
Not knowing what else to say, the best I could come up with was, “Um…I’m sorry. I mean, sorry that you have to live with this. So, like the disease…it is treatable, right?”
“Yeah. I take medication every day which has clotting factors in it. If a bleed happens, that’ll help, or at least buy time for me to get to the hospital.”
We sat down on a bench and watched a group of ducks bobbing along the shoreline. “Do you have bleeds very often?”
He shrugged. “Well, as much as my mother would like to completely encase me in Nerf, it’s impossible not to. Jesse and I were more careful with each other than most brothers, but we’d still fight. When I was six, he threw a Hot Wheels car at me and cut my forehead open. I was in the hospital for a week. I also had some joint bleeding when I hit my big growth spurt freshman year. Most people don’t realize that your joints are prone to bleeds. I guess growing seven inches in a year put stress on my knees, because they would ache and bruise up. Eventually, the pain went away, but the doctor says I might develop arthritis in them someday.”
“How old were you when you got this?”
“I was born with it, but didn’t start developing the symptoms for a few years. My mom was pregnant with me when Jesse was diagnosed. They knew I’d probably have it, too, so they banked my cord blood and had me tested right away.”
“How scary for your parents! It must suck to have this happen to both of your kids.”
“Yeah, I think my mom wanted more children, but they decided to stop after me. If she’d have had a girl, the baby would’ve been fine, but there’s no way to guarantee.”
I didn’t say anything, just wound a lock of my hair around and around my index finger. I loved the idea of having a ton of kids someday, and thinking about what Bryan’s mom must have gone through made me sad. We nibbled our cones in silence.
“Well, I guess we better go,” Bryan said. “I have a chemistry assignment to finish tonight.”
“Yeah, sure.” I popped the last bite into my mouth and wiped my fingers on a paper napkin before stuffing it into my pocket.
On the way home, I snuck a couple of glances at Bryan as he drove. We’d gotten pretty close in the time since Lony’s death. And those black glasses that he drove with did things to his dark eyes that made my insides squirm. It was probably wrong for me to choose this time to develop my first real crush. (I’m not counting the unrequited love I have for Orlando Bloom.) Was there an appropriate amount of time a person had to mourn before they were allowed to move forward with their life? My guilt felt like a lead helmet on my head…two sizes too small.
How would Lony have dealt with it if our situations were reversed? If I was the one who died, leaving her behind? She already had Cane, so it’s not like she would’ve stopped dating him just because of me. She also had a talent for selective thinking, not spending too much time on topics which depress her. Lony would have gone back to school last week when Aaron did. She probably would’ve roped her friends into putting together a memorial for me at the school, rather than ripping one down.
So, maybe I shouldn’t feel too badly about my feelings for Bryan. I couldn’t help the timing…heck, if it hadn’t been for Lony’s death, he probably would have never reached out to me.