Page 151 of Two Marlboros

“A little groggy, but I’m okay.”

But Nathan was alive. He had miraculously survived. When the six had left, I had run to him, lying on the ground, saliva mixed with blood. He had felt so much pain that he had not even been able to swallow and close his mouth; and there I was, kneeling beside him, with no wound that could be called such.

Nathan smiled at me. Then we stared at each other. The same look we had exchanged before what had happened, happened. His hand stiffened, and I stopped stroking it.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t wake up again, you know.”

He barely nodded. “I know. I thought so, too.”

We were lulled by the silence of the night, broken only by the hum of neon lamps and the chiming of clock hands. If a second had seemed like an eternity before, at that moment it seemedso short that I would have devoured hundreds of them. From outside, in the hallway, we could hear the footsteps of doctors and nurses; inside the room, however, those noises seemed distant.

“Alan?”

I went back to look at him. His face was so reassuring.

“It’s not your fault. Don’t even think that for a moment. I’m okay after all, right?”

“What if things hadn’t turned out that way?”

“Well, they didn’t. Don’t think about what might have happened. The important thing is that we are here, alive. Everything else doesn’t matter.”

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

He sketched a laugh. “Yes: sleep. Go, I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?”

Nathan nodded. I was collapsing from sleep, it was true, but in those hours that had separated me from him I had not been able to sleep a wink, nor had I really thought about doing so. I got up, retrieved my crutches, as he followed my movements. I cast another glance at the being who seemed so small to me, engulfed by a bed that was too big for him and blankets that largely covered him.

“See you later.”

“Yes. Goodbye and good night.”

I walked away on crutches, about which Nathan had not asked me. Perhaps he was too sleepy to do so.

I closed the door behind me with the fear that it had all been a dream and wondered if everything I had just experienced had been real. I moved toward my room, under the indifferent stares of the doctors. Once there, I crawled into bed and slept, for the first time in many hours.

It was visiting hours. My parents were sitting with me, in that same little room where I had agonized a couple of days earlier, and we were talking about the beating. They asked me what had happened, why, if I knew those boys. They knew I was with someone, but they didn’t have the courage to ask me anything about it.

I thought back to the words Nelly had said to me, that night in the bookstore, about how my biggest concern was not my feelings, but what people would say. I watched my mother’s expression and sensed that she was right, because I could not find the courage to talk about Nathan. He was certainly a friend, but to call him that would have been like lying to myself. I had fallen in love with him, in what closely resembled a lightning strike. But would this have been okay with those around me? What would Oliver’s parents have said if they came to the hospital and found out that I was with another boy and not the one I had wanted to spend the rest of my life with?

I grabbed my crutches and left my parents in the waiting room. I went out into the hallway because I needed to get some air from them, whom I could barely make eye contact with. The whole thing with Nathan made me feel almost dirty. Outside, there was Nelly, who came right up to me.

“Alan! How are you?”

I barely lifted a crutch. “I’ve been fine. It’s Nathan I’m worried about.”

“Well, I believe that. Do you want to go check on him? I’ll accompany you.”

“Yes, if you don’t mind.”

Nelly and I began to walk down that barren hallway, with her constantly slowing down to keep up with me. I felt that perhaps I could have walked without the help of crutches, but I wanted to avoid creating further damage. I needed tostart working again on investigation as soon as possible, and I certainly could not afford additional days in the hospital.

“So, in the end, how did your date go? Other than the epilogue, I mean.”

I moved to the side to let a doctor through. I was not at all used to taking shrimping steps with those tools, and I almost tripped. As I walked back, however, I thought back to the evening Nathan and I had spent.

“What can I say? There have been occasions, but I realized that wasn’t the case.”

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