Chapter Twenty-Six

Wade stood again in the hospital room on Eight West around 10 p.m. Dr. Emmett seemed to sleep so peacefully in his bed, his head wrapped in new and clean bandages, the sedatives working to keep him still.

The dentist’s sound rest reminded Wade of their one night together, how they slept in each other’s arms in that hotel, both of them spent from exertion, freshly showered. While Dr. Emmett dozed almost immediately upon hitting the pillow that night, Wade let himself live in the moment then. It seemed special at the time, weeks back. Wade felt loved then, sheltered and cared for by the dentist, even though Leprechaun had been playing during much of the passion.

Now, the boy felt like such a chump. His mother probably thought him some stupid, naive doormat who just let everyone wipe their feet on him. The voice inside his head just kept repeating “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” and no amount of singing any other tune would drown out that one.

He looked down at the dentist in his hospital bed. It made some weird sense to visit Dr. Emmett after that terrible date with Trevor. In a way, Dr. Emmett was Wade’s only gay friend.

“Trevor’s never going to talk to me again, Dr. Emmett,” he said to his injured lover.

Wade knew that deep in his soul. Wade could always tell when someone was turned off by him—the kids at school, teachers who didn’t like him, the neighbors. That sort of dislike felt fair to him, for he never found himself particularly likable either. He could never tell when someone liked him, the notion never occurred to him, that someone would look upon him and find him appealing.

Wade didn’t think he was ugly, just that he was, like, there. Wade was the sort of background extra in every classroom, the kind of boy that blurred out of focus while the camera was rightfully directed at someone else.

Jessa didn’t like him. Not really, Wade considered. She just went to him out of habit, because he was familiar.

Trevor shouldn’t have liked him, Wade thought, and now he didn’t.

And when Dr. Emmett liked him, apparently that wasn’t real, Wade knew now.

Apparently, it was abuse that he was just the victim of, he was being conditioned and conned like a dolt. And Wade was dumb enough to think that it was love. Who could love him? He was a confused, clumsy child who made mistakes and giant messes. Everyone would be better off if Wade was just dead, maybe.

Maybe his dad would be there to say hello. Wade missed his dad. Maybe it would be safer there.

No. No, Wade thought. No. His own baby would never remember him. Lydie had a cute little face and her grandfather’s eyes. And she had Wade’s smile—when she had gas—and he couldn’t leave her fatherless. He knew what that was like. Wade would not do that. Death like that was no answer, anyway.

Wade looked down at Dr. Emmett and remembered the dentist’s bloody-eyed screaming. He remembered his own father’s agony. He fixated on that terror. That was what death was like, pain and discomfort and blood and mess and wails that seemed to resonate from the heart and soul.

Wade had to save himself from even the smallest of those thoughts. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to die having made mostly mistakes. He didn’t want to die because everything felt hopeless. He didn’t want Trevor to think Wade killed himself over some silly awkwardness at the donut shop.

If you exit, you don’t get to find out how the story ends, Wade thought. If you leave, you have no control over how you’re seen. And so, Wade, wanting away from his thoughts, began to talk to the hospitalized man in front of him, who owed him a good listen, particularly after all those times making him wait in a damned Prius for hours and hours.

The ones who survive are the ones who talk about the bad stuff. Had his dad told him that?

“I told my mother about us,” Wade said to Dr. Emmett. Then he added sarcastically, “I don’t think she approves.”

Wade laughed.

“OK, fine, I know she doesn’t.”

Wade moved to a chair at the foot of Dr. Emmett’s bed and let his fingers run over the blankets covering the dentist’s knee.

“Mom used to tell me that people talked to folks in comas to keep them connected to the world,” Wade said. “I know I want to be connected to the world. I assume you might, too.”

He stopped himself, then started again.

“OK, this is crazy,” Wade said. “I’m just talking to myself. You’re not even in a coma, you’re sedated, and I’m just being dramatic.”

He stopped again.

“You know I’m dramatic, right?”

Then, he laughed, considering the situation and Dr. Emmett’s bandage. “I suppose you would.”

Wade tried to think of the one thing he really wanted to say, if he had to boil it down. He couldn’t stay here all night. One of the other nurses might tell his mom.

“Look, Max, I’m really sorry about yesterday, you just kind of pissed me off is all,” Wade said. “Max, you treat me like shit, and I don’t trust you at all. You aren’t supposed to do the shit you do. Not to me or anyone. Ever.”

Wade took a deep breath. It felt liberating to use the man’s name. It put them on the same level. Wade always wanted to be more of a grown-up. He was always in such a hurry to know where he stood. He never thought of himself as a kid.

He thought about his car ride with Celeste. He considered his chat with his mom. Not even the grown-ups had the first idea of how to deal with this stuff.

“Celeste and my mom told me all about the way you pick up guys who are my age,” Wade said to him. “Celeste even says you’ve done worse stuff. She says you seem to get off on it. Is that true, Max?”

Wade paused.

“I don’t want to believe it,” he explained. “I’d rather think that you’re just a guy who liked me. And that you were nice enough to care. And that we had something special, even.”

Wade started to tremble.

“I’d rather believe in goddamn Santa Claus and unicorns, too,” Wade said. “But the world is more fucked up than that. It isn’t romantic or cozy. It isn’t even kind.”

He stopped trembling.

“I don’t know what the fuck you did to me or what it made me do to myself or think about myself,” Wade said. “But it sure as fuck wasn’t healthy or right.”

The boy stood up.

“I can’t be here anymore,” Wade said. “Look, I’m gonna go. Thanks for the talk.”

He held still, staring at the dentist, waiting for the man to wake up and maybe say goodbye. The dentist just continued sleeping soundly, his chest rising and falling. Wade left the room and walked back down the hallway of Eight West.