I piss myself when I look in the mirror.

I have one black eye. My other eye is swollen and purple, like a bruised plum.

There are stitched-up gashes on my forehead with some dried blood the nurses didn’t wipe clean.

My lip is cut open.

There are tears sliding down my face.

Something primal explodes from my aching throat, and the mirror smashes when my fist connects.

Glass shards were pinching underneath my skin until the nurses pulled them out and bandaged my hand. Another war wound. Now they all refuse to leave me alone, period, scared I might slice a smile into my throat if I can’t get what I want. Mom is keeping me company, telling me that Eric was here this morning, but he’s not who I care about.

“Any other visitors?”

“Genevieve and Thomas have stopped by every day,” Mom says. “Genevieve was here late last night and Thomas hung around for a few hours this morning. You have great friends.”

I stare at the blue wall.

“Genevieve says you broke up with her.”

“I guess this means you’re not disappointed in me this time around.”

She’s crying again and hides behind her hands. “You weren’t supposed to remember . . .”

But I do. And I need her to help me forget again.

2

TOUGH STUFF

   I wake up from the same nightmare I usually had after my father killed himself. It’s the one where he is getting completely undressed in the bathroom while calling me a faggot and telling me how I’m not worth living for. He turns on the bathwater and relaxes inside the tub before cutting his wrists. And then I’m drowning in red. I never wake up when the drowning starts like you would expect. I’m always suffocating for what seems like an unfair amount of time, considering I never chose to commit the crime he hated me for. I never chose anything. I just was.

I just am.

“Nightmares again?” Mom asks.

I nod.

I eat breakfast, chat with doctors about how I’m feeling (“like shit”), and read through all of Brendan’s apologetic text messages. I don’t respond. A couple hours later, Evangeline tells me I have guests. Thomas and Genevieve. Together. More worlds I don’t want colliding.

My mom invites them in and leaves us alone.

I should be happy to see them, and they should be happy to see me alive, but no one’s smiling. “You’ve looked better,” Thomas finally says. He has dark circles under his eyes. He isn’t looking his best either. If this were my first time meeting him I’d have guessed he was twenty-two-years old, not seventeen. “No homo,” he adds while completely avoiding my face. “That’s not funny. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I say. Then silence, except for Genevieve rapping her knuckles on my bed frame. “Thanks for visiting.”

“Thanks for waking up,” Thomas says, still not looking at me. At least he’s here. I don’t know if word got around to Collin, and I’m not sure if he would give a shit if it did. I wish I didn’t give a shit about him either, even if the person I really care about is standing right in front of me. I don’t know if that’s even right. This whole situation is impossible.

“Me-Crazy was arrested,” Genevieve says. “Baby Freddy’s mother told Elsie he’s being moved to a juvenile detention center upstate.”

“Good.”

Thomas palms his fist. “I wanted to snuff Brendan when he was let out of jail, like you taught me, but I haven’t seen him. They must all be grounded.”

Doubtful. “Don’t worry about it,” I say, hoping to clock Brendan in the chin myself.

It’s quiet again. I can only assume they’ve been chatting it up with each other, and I both hope they weren’t talking about me, and also that they were. If they weren’t talking about me, it wouldn’t make sense because they only know each other through me and without me they’re nothing to each other. If they were talking about me, I hope Genevieve wasn’t telling Thomas everything about what led me to Leteo, everything that I couldn’t remember to confess to him myself. Those are my stories, not hers. And I hope Thomas wasn’t telling her about that time I kissed him and he didn’t kiss me back.

“Can I catch up with you in a few, Genevieve?”

She looks at me like I just punched her in the face and kicked her while she was down. “I’ll be outside,” she tells Thomas—not me—and punches his arm.

I’m dizzy again. The door practically slams behind her and there’s a ringing in my ears.

He paces back and forth and it hurts my neck but I keep my eyes on him.

I say, “So what’s new?”

“Heart stuff and insanity,” Thomas says. I feel something awful rising inside of me. He better not be talking about Genevieve. “I’ve been giving thought to my life chart and overheard something on the radio about love addiction. It’s a real thing. People who are in love with love. I think I’m a love addict. It explains why I always pull away from a girl when I’m not in that honeymoon phase anymore and start searching for someone new. It’s a cruel cycle, Stretch.”

“That’s where your mind has been while I was laid out here?”

It’s quiet except for the sound of my heart monitor beeping.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Thomas finally replies. “Okay, I know exactly what you want me to say, but those aren’t words I can tell you. I’m not even a hundred percent sure who I’m talking to right now.”

“The Stretch you’re talking to is a guy who didn’t want to like other guys so he tried changing that,” I say.

“Let me get this straight,” Thomas says. “Leteo made you forget you were gay?”

“Yeah. You thought I told you my story before—hell, I even thought I told you everything there is to know—but you have no idea what I’ve been through.”

Thomas sits down, his head hung low. “So who are you?”

“I don’t know. I’m sort of two people who want very different things, but even with all this confusion, I’m still pretty sure who you are and it kills me that you’re not.”

He almost looks at me, but his head drops again. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I should be apologizing for something or going back to your block to fight those guys or if I should stay here and figure out who you are or if you’re better off without me being around. I just don’t know. What do you want?”