Page 62 of He Hate Me

“Oh, wow. You are such a momma’s boy.”

“And proud of it. Now can I get a kiss before we start our serious conversation.”

“Okay, but it better be worth my while.”

“Brat,” he mouths.

He pushes me back onto the bed and follows me down, letting some of his weight rest on me. My legs hang off the bed awkwardly and I pull them up, hooking them over his thighs. He rubs his face in the hollow between my shoulder and neck, lightly sucking on the skin there.

“Is this the kiss,” I ask, running my hands along his sides, learning the shape of him, what inch of skin is more sensitive than the rest. I count his ribs, shallow nubs up his torso, the broad muscles of his back, tight as he holds most of his weight up on his forearms.

“This is the prelude.”

Twenty-Three

Deja

“I’m going to the soccer field in the park,” Brandon yells to no one in particular.

“You need a ride?” I ask, saccharine sweet.

“It’s the weekend, Deja. Don’t I have to deal with you enough during the week?”

“Suit yourself!” I say. “Mom, I’m going to the mall.”

Not waiting for an answer, I exit through the front door and get in my car, taking my time to adjust my mirrors and pull up the directions to where I’m going. Brandon will be leaving through the back and wending his way along the forest track to a spot where I can pick him up. I don’t know why we’re going to all this trouble. I doubt the parents would see anything strange about us going somewhere together.

Twenty minutes later we’re on the freeway headed out of town.

“Where are we going, exactly?” I ask. “I thought you and your mom lived in Old Town.” Old Town is the most rundown part of town, where the brick is faded and crumbling, the sidewalks are cracked with dying grass poking through, and there are way more people standing on the corner or sitting on stoops than you ever see anywhere else. On the long slide down the socioeconomic ladder, Old Town is rock bottom. Man, does the knowledge that Brandon lived there for years feel different now that I care about him. It’s a wonder Brandon didn’t fall in with a bad crowd. Or maybe he was just lucky enough to make the right friends, like Mello.

“We’re heading to the place where she’s living right now. It’s near the University.”

“Oh. Did she get a new job?”

I guess things must be looking up for Lindsey. That area isn’t super expensive, but it’s a definite step up from Old Town.

“You’ll see,” he says. His tone is subdued, even the volume of his voice low.

He asks if he can turn on the radio and the car fills with dream pop. I wish it was something livelier because I like high energy music when I’m driving, but Brandon seems like he needs it.

As we pull into the parking lot, I look at Brandon in confusion. This isn’t an apartment complex like I was expecting, but an annex of the university hospital. I look at the sign in confusion.

“What does that mean? Palliative care? Does your mom work here?”

Brandon shakes his head. He speaks softly. “No, she’s a patient.”

Brandon explains that he comes here once or twice a week, though the days he’s able to come shift around. Years ago his mother suffered a brain injury and rather than regain function her brain has slowly degenerated.

I step inside and am immediately hit by the smell of disinfectant. At the front desk, a woman in lavender scrubs hands me a clipboard. She looks at Brandon and me with curiosity but asks only that I write my name in a black box and below it, his mother’s name, Lindsey Bruce. I follow Brandon down a hallway lit by fluorescent lights. The building looks new and is brightly lit with many large windows. It would be a cheery space if I didn’t know it is a place for patients to be “made comfortable” when there are no longer any treatments that can help them, or when they decide the treatment is worse than the disease. It’s quiet, but we can hear the soft sounds of people talking and televisions playing as we walk down the hallway.

At the end, Brandon opens a door, gesturing for me to go in. The room is as bright as the rest of the building. There’s not much in it—a hospital bed, a small sofa, miscellaneous medical equipment, and a few metal chairs with plastic seats. There’s another door that is ajar, and through it, I can see a shower and toilet. The walls are painted a cheery yellow, and there is a vase with fresh flowers on a side table.

Brandon’s mother sits in a wheelchair, her black hair held back in a neat French braid. Her blue eyes, so much like Brandon’s, stare off into the distance. She doesn’t react to our entrance. She sits so still that a chill goes down my spine. If it wasn’t for the tiny wrinkles around her eyes and her rounded figure, one might think she was a mannequin. She has a kind of raw beauty, but you can also see the signs of a hard life: wrinkles around her mouth, calloused hands, and coarse skin.

“Mom,” Brandon says softly, “this is Deja.”

No reaction at all. Brandon grimaces. He crouches next to her and whispers something I can’t hear, but she still doesn’t respond or even change her focus.