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Nothin' But a Waste of Oxygen

Julie pulled to the curb in front of Brandon's house. Cars were now in the driveway, so I knew his parents were home.

“Thanks for sticking with me,” I said and managed a weak smile when Julie returned my keys.

“Uh-uh. Not leaving you now. Come on.”

I watched, astonished, as she strode up the walk and knocked on the front door.

“Julie! Hi, there.” Brandon's mother smiled in the doorway.

“Hey, Mrs. D.”

Brandon's mother's smile instantly evaporated when she noted our grim looks. “What's wrong? Where's Brandon?”

“Mrs. Dellerman, we're not sure where Brandon is. Can we come in?”

Mrs. Dellerman frowned, tucked the hair cut to her jawline behind her ear and nodded. “Pete? Come out here.”

Julie and I followed Mrs. Dellerman into the living room and sat down at opposite ends of a long sofa. Footsteps from the kitchen called our attention to Brandon's father, a heavy man with a receding hairline and glasses.

“What the hell's wrong? Where's Brandon?”

I didn't know where to begin. “Mr. and Mrs. Dellerman, I'm sorry, but Brandon ran off when I tried to stop him. You know how much Jeff's been hassling him, and I think—”

“Jeff's been hassling Brandon?” Mrs. Dellerman looked at her husband, bewildered. “Did you know about this?”

His raised eyebrows suggested no.

I leaned forward, began again. “Okay, look. Brandon is pretty much despised at school. Everyone makes fun of him, and Jeff is itching to fight him.”

Mrs. Dellerman gasped. “Fight him? Oh, no, Jeff wouldn't do that.”

“What about you two? You his friends?” Brandon's dad asked.

I nodded. “I've been trying to help him. But I think today, I made things ten times worse.”

Spare
them
the
woe-is-you crap and get to the point.
Kenny smacked me in the head.

“I've had this feeling Brandon's been plotting revenge. Today, he tried to get it.”

“No.” Mr. Dellerman shook his head, stood up. “No. Absolutely not. Brandon would never do anything to hurt anybody, especially Jeff. They've been friends since kindergarten. Thank you for coming, but I think we can take care of our son without your help.”

“Really? You didn't know he was being bullied, so why are you so sure he wouldn't fight back?” Julie asked, her tone belligerent.

“Get out. Get out now.” Brandon's dad looked like he was about to go nuclear.

I had to make his parents understand. I shoved past them and ran up the stairs to Brandon's room, ignoring Mr. Dellerman's furious shout for his wife to call the police. I headed for the computer. It was on. I opened a browser and typed in the URL for the social network Brandon had up when I was over the day before. Luckily, he'd stored his passwords, so I didn't have to log in.

“What the hell are you doing?” His father roared behind me and grabbed my arm. I twisted free. “Making you see the truth. Look. Look at this.” I pointed to Brandon's screen, where post after post illustrated the kind of teasing and cruelty he'd been dealing with. “Do you see how people treat him? What they say about him?”

Mrs. Dellerman cried while she read the screen. A muscle twitched in Mr. Dellerman's neck. “How long has this been going on?” he whispered.

I shrugged. “A long time. Are you ready to hear the rest of it now?”

Brandon's father stared at me for a long moment and finally nodded. Slowly, Mr. and Mrs. Dellerman sat on Brandon's bed. Julie stood near the door.

“On the first day of school, I caught Jeff about to beat the hell out of Brandon and broke it up. I figured he'd been having some problems for a while just by the way he acted, but he wouldn't admit it. Then I found him pacing in front of the student parking lot where Jeff parks his car. There was something about the way he kept looking over his shoulder and holding onto his backpack. I realized he was baiting Jeff and that he had something in that backpack.”

“Something like what?”

“A weapon.”

“No! No, no, no, I refuse to believe it,” Mrs. Dellerman said.

I clicked Brandon's mouse and displayed his Internet history. “Here. Does this convince you? Look at the websites Brandon's been visiting.” I scrolled through the list.

Mr. Dellerman cursed and pressed a hand to his mouth when he saw the one about Columbine.

“I've been afraid to let him out of my sight.”

“No. No, you're wrong. I know my kid. He'd never hurt somebody.”

I held up my hand. “Mr. Dellerman, I'm not even sure he wanted to hurt
Jeff
.”

Brandon's parents stared at me for a moment and then his mother's eyes popped. “What? You think he'd hurt
himself
? Oh my God, you're crazy.” Mrs. Dellerman's voice shook. “Brandon wouldn't hurt himself. No. No, I won't listen to any more.”

Now
would
be
a
good
time
to
show
them
what's in your pocket.

Right. “Do you keep a weapon in the house?”

Brandon's father's face paled, but he nodded. “Yes, I have a handgun, but it's locked up in a box.”

“When was the last time you checked it?”

“Linda, go get the gun box.”

Mrs. Dellerman walked stiffly out of the bedroom. Mr. Dellerman and I stared at each other while she was gone. Julie moved to stand beside me. In a few minutes, Mrs. Dellerman walked slowly back in, clutching a box in her hands. Her face was white.

“No. No!” Mr. Dellerman leaped up, snatched the box from her hands, shook it though he knew it was empty. “Oh God. Oh my God.”

“Mr. Dellerman.” I stood up, lifted my hands over my head. “Check my left jacket pocket.”

He swallowed but reached inside my pocket. When his fingers curled around his gun, a harsh sob caught in his throat. He pulled it out, stared at it like it was gonna tell him what happened. I took out the clip and the round I'd ejected from the chamber and put both on Brandon's desk.

Mr. Dellerman sank down to Brandon's bed, covered his face with his hands. I figured they were ready to hear it all now.

“There was all this talk at school today. So I started looking for Brandon. I found him in the locker room. He was hiding there with this in his backpack. He emailed Jeff and told him to meet him. To end it. I saw him. He told Jeff to get down on his knees, and he aimed this right at Jeff's chest. I disarmed him, and he ran off. I chased him for as long as I dared. Then I came here to tell you.”

I sat back down at Brandon's desk because my knees were knocking together. Julie's hand squeezed my shoulder. I was grateful.

“I don't know what he planned to do, Mr. Dellerman. But he chambered a round, so I'm pretty sure he intended to use that gun. A whole bunch of people could have been hurt today.”

“You son of a bitch.”

Everyone's heads whipped to the doorway where Brandon stood, his face flushed, his hands clenched.

“Brandon! Oh God, Brandon.” Mrs. Dellerman ran to him, but he swatted her away.

“I thought you were my friend,” he seethed. “But you're just like the rest of them. You think I'm just a joke. Nothing but a waste of oxygen, right?” His entire body trembled with the power of his rage. “Why did you stop me? I had this all planned for so long, and you ruined it. Why? What did I ever do to you? To any of you?”

“I
am
your friend, Brandon. That's why I stopped you.”

“Bullshit!” he shouted, his face twisting with the hate. “You're just like them. You don't know what it's like—”

“I know exactly what it's like, Brandon.” I crossed the room in two strides to shout right in his face.

Dude. Shut up. Now.

There's no other way, Kenny.

I knew what I was risking, but Brandon needed to hear the whole story. My story.

I pulled up my shirt, showed him the scars, ignored the gasps. “You think I did this to myself? I know
exactly
what it's like to be threatened, Brandon. To feel so helpless you're sure you'll die. To do something so bad you can't make it right no matter how sorry you are, and you can't undo it or forget it no matter how hard you pray, no matter how much you drink. I
know
, Brandon.”

I stood there, chest heaving, waiting for someone to say something.

“What did you do?”

The question was whispered, hardly even audible. I didn't even know who'd asked it. I couldn't look at any of them, so I stared at my hands, willing a plausible explanation to reveal itself. But there was no such thing. There was only the truth. Despite my best efforts to keep it hidden, the truth needed to be told here. Now. I walked back across the room, sat at Brandon's computer, hunched over my knees, and spoke to the floor.

“I—” I choked. Took a deep breath, tried again. “I clicked Send.” I jerked my thumb at the computer monitor. “I posted some mean, vicious stuff about a kid in my class when I was in eighth grade. I uploaded a picture of him changing after gym class. He was wearing cartoon underwear. I thought it was funny. So did all the people who posted comments about what a loser he was. And always would be. Dozens of kids. Then it was hundreds. It wasn't so funny when I found out the next day that he—” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “He killed himself.” Tears rolled down my face now; I couldn't stop them. “They said I was guilty of distributing kiddie porn, sent me away for almost a year.”

Mrs. Dellerman gasped. “A year?”

I didn't acknowledge her. I was lost too deep in the past. I rocked on Brandon's desk chair, staring at my fingers. “You can't imagine how bad it is until it happens to you. You try to apologize, tell them you didn't know, you didn't mean it, that you're not a bad kid, but they don't listen and lock you up anyway. They put you in with the real bad kids, rapists, gangbangers, murderers. And you think this isn't real. This can't be happening—it's a dream, just a bad dream, only you don't wake up. You're just a kid, just a stupid kid who clicked Send, but it
is
real, and it's your life now. You're afraid. You're so friggin' scared, but there's nobody to go to, nobody but the kids you're afraid of. They come for you. They come for you at night, and they hurt you.”

I trailed a finger down the first of the scars that crossed my torso like a fault line, the one that started at my chest and ended at my hip.

“The first time, you scream and you fight them. The guard comes, and you think you're safe, but he ignores the blood and yells at you to keep quiet. So the next time, they do worse. And you take it. Night after night after night. Until you finally grow some muscle and learn to fight back. And you get so good at fighting back, they run from you. And you wanna die because as bad as it is, as scared as you are, as much as you hate what you're becoming, it's nothing,
nothing
compared to the voice that lives in your head and reminds you
over
and
over
and
over
that you murdered somebody until you believe it. Until you believe you deserve to be locked up, cut up, shut up. And that's not even the worst of it. Because the judge wanted to send a message, he puts
your
name on the sex offenders' list with rapists and child molesters, and the whole world thinks you're a pervert and it just. Doesn't. End. Even when they let you out, it doesn't end.”

A sob made me jolt, and I came back to myself, swiping knuckles under my running nose. The sob was mine. God, I was bawling like little Emily. I stood up, nodded to Mr. and Mrs. Dellerman. Brandon's mother sat on his bed, quietly crying. His father had taken off his glasses and sat with his head in his hand. I didn't dare look at Julie. I had to leave. I had to get out of here. Retreat.

Now.

“I have to go. I'm…I'm sorry you think I let you down, Brandon, but you really have no idea.”

————

I was in my car before I realized I'd moved. I jammed the key in the ignition, started the engine. The stereo blared OneRepublic's “Secrets,” and I punched the dashboard. I hit the steering wheel. When I finally got the radio off, I beat my head against the wheel.

Cut
it
out, man. That hurts.
Kenny appeared in the passenger seat.

Oh God, Kenny. I could have used your help up there.

You
didn't need my help.

I shot him a look. Yeah, like that's ever stopped you before.

Pull
it
together, dude. You need to get home in one piece and start packing.

He was right. I'd said way too much. It would be all over school in the morning. I wasn't worried about Brandon. I had more to fear from Julie. I managed a halfhearted grin. “Let's hope your dream girl can keep her mouth shut.”