Dear Little Jo,
I guess now you know why I was so distracted while you were giving me the grand tour of Bron’s house. You showed me that freestanding bathtub in the master bathroom—I don’t think I’d ever been inside a master bathroom before or even known there was such a thing—and you said, “It’s as if a giant bird came in through the skylight and laid an egg in the center of the marble floor, and they simply hollowed it out and attached a gold-plated faucet to one end.” I mean I did hear what you were saying. It’s just that I couldn’t really pay attention, because all I could think about was the hot tub.
You, Bron, and Shayna were already all in there by the time I got up the courage. Izzy and Ezra were slouching around in the den, and to kill even more time I asked them if they were sad about Prince.
Izzy said, “That purple guy?” and Ezra said, “Oh, gross.”
No surprise really that if Bron’s parents worship Prince as much as she says they do and all the Otulah-Tierney kids grew up listening to his music, at least a couple of her siblings would rebel against the family tastes.
When I can’t put it off any longer I go out on the patio in just my boxers with a towel around my shoulders. I sit on the edge of the hot tub and stick my feet in.
“Adonis approacheth,” Bron says, and Shayna goes, “Oh, this is going to be good.” They do this a lot lately, those two. It’s like finding out about you and me gave them free rein to treat me like a sex object.
I’m so nervous I can barely get the words out. I say, “I want to show you guys something.” And I strip the towel off my shoulders, swing myself down into the middle of the tub, and stand waist-deep, facing you so that Shayna and Bron can get a good look at my back.
So what happens when Adonis takes off his clothes and reveals that he’s deformed, ugly, scarred?
What happens is that they go very, very quiet. I was expecting gasping or retching, or I don’t know, some reaction. Something. Bron at least would ask what happened to me, or something, right? I’m standing there in front of them listening for something, anything, and it’s so silent behind me that I suddenly wonder if they’ve jumped out of the tub and run away and I haven’t noticed.
And meanwhile there you are in front of me, Jo, with wide eyes and your hand on your throat and tears coming up in your eyes. I mean I did expect that.
Total silence. Finally I sort of awkwardly swish over to the seat next to you. I hook my legs over your lap. Sitting sideways so that my back is still mostly visible to Bron and Shayna. I mean maybe I should have let them off the hook then. Sunk lower into the water or something. But their silence made me paranoid that I was showing them and they somehow weren’t seeing. That I would have to keep showing them again and again, forever, and we’d all be stuck in this eternal loop of horror and pity and shock.
You wrap your arms around my kneecaps, and I thread my arm underneath so I can hold on to your ribs and feel your heartbeat and try to pace my own with it to calm myself down.
Then I start talking, and I tell them the whole story: This is why I quit the football team back in September. I’d gotten stomped in the back, the wind knocked out of me. Coach Samuels was worried I might have broken a rib.
I kept saying, “No, no, I’m fine,” but during the very next down he noticed me wince or something, and pulled me out again. And when I refused to strip down for the medic, they got suspicious.
Samuels is ordering me to show the guy my injuries, and I’m backing away, basically playing keep-away around the locker room with him like a total lunatic. Finally he says I have to show him my back, or I can’t play.
I start more or less begging him: “I’ll sit this one out, Coach; I’ll go to the doctor tomorrow. I won’t come back until it’s totally healed up,” but he smells bullshit because he says, “Now. You let us treat you right this second, or you’re out for good.”
Finally I say straight out, “Listen, you don’t really know what you’re asking. This goes beyond this game and this one hit, all right? You have all these legal obligations to report stuff.”
And he goes, “That’s right, son. Now show us your goddamn back.”
So that was it.
“So you walked away.” Finally. Finally someone in this hot tub besides me is saying something. Shayna. Her voice is normal.
I untangle myself from you and turn to let the hot water cover my shoulders. “So I quit the team, yeah.”
“It wasn’t just scars, though, was it?” Bron says. “Or else you could have lied. You could have said someone did it when you were little. A bad babysitter. Or even your dad, years earlier, before he died.”
“No, a lot of it was fresh, that day. Uncle Vik lost a bid on a roof.” Bron’s brains are terrifying sometimes, aren’t they? I mean she figures things out faster than anyone I know.
“Why hasn’t Coach Samuels followed up?” she says.
“I gave him nothing to go on,” I say. “He’s stopped me in the halls a few times, asked me how things are going. But what am I going to tell him?”
“The truth!” Bron says. “You have to report this, Kurl. You need help.”
“There you go again,” Shayna says to her, “making shit your business that’s not your business.”
“My friend is in trouble,” Bron protests. “When my friend is in trouble, I consider that my business”
“Well, that’s a guaranteed excellent way to lose your friend!” Shayna heaves herself out of the hot tub, splashing me in the eyes and leaving a wake that lifts us practically off the seat. Without bothering with her towel, she stalks across the deck and into the den, ramming the patio door behind her so hard it rocks back on its rails.
“I’m sorry. It’s—Kurl, we’re not talking about Shayna; we’re talking about you, here.” Bron is crying now. “I’m sorry. It’s just, with everything that’s happened, I don’t know what to do.”
I reach over and hug her. Hold her for a minute until she sniffles and pushes me away.
“Well, this is textbook,” she says. “Kurl, you finally disclose, and then you end up trying to comfort the person you disclosed to. This is so not cool. I’m sorry.”
“I’ve had a little longer to get used to it,” I say.
“Bron’s right, though. We should report it,” you say.
Bron shakes her head. “It’s actually his choice, Jojo, not ours. It has to be his choice.” Then she climbs out of the tub, saying she’s going to go find Shayna.
It amazes me that everyone was so normal, actually. I mean obviously we’re all upset about Prince in one way or another. The whole reason we’re here at Bron’s house is because Prince died today and this is supposed to be some kind of wake. And the girls are obviously in the middle of a fight about something else too. But still I was amazed that I could reveal this secret and the whole world wouldn’t fall off its axis.
Sincerely,
AK