I’ll Give You the Sun(73)
Author: Jandy Nelson

Instead, I put my ear to the wall between our rooms to see if I can hear Noah. For months after Mom died when he used to cry in his sleep, I would get up at the first sound of it and go into his room and sit on his bed until he stopped. He never once woke up and found me there sitting in the dark with him.

I put both hands on the wall between us, wanting to push it down—

That’s when I get the idea. An idea so obvious I can’t believe it’s taken so long for it to occur to me. A moment later, I’m at my desk booting up the laptop.

I go straight to LostConnections.com.

There’s Noah’s post to Brian, his plea, like always:

I’d give ten fingers, both arms. I’d give anything. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Meet me 5 p.m. Thursday. You know where. I’ll be there every week at that time for the rest of my life.

No responses.

But what if there were a response? My pulse quickens. How could I not have thought of this before? I ask The Oracle: What if I contact Brian Connelly?

To my amazement, the divination is bountiful. Link after link about Brian has appeared:

Scouts Descend on Forrester Academy Eyeing Gay Pitcher “The Ax” for Third-Round Draft Pick

Connelly Dodges Draft and Opts for Free Ride to Stanford to Pitch for the Cardinal

And the one I click on: The Bravest Man in Baseball Is Seventeen Years Old

The other links were fairly recent ones from his school’s paper, The Forrester Daily, or the local town paper, the Westwood Weekly, but the one I click is linked everywhere.

I read the article three times. It describes how Brian came out to his entire school at a pep rally the spring of his sophomore year. The baseball team was in the middle of a winning streak where he’d pitched two no hitters and his fastball was coming in consistently at eighty-nine mph. On the field everything was going great, but off it there’d been rumors about Brian’s sexual orientation and the locker room had become a war zone. It says Brian realized he had two choices: Quit the team as he’d done in a similar situation when he was younger or think of something else quick. At the pep rally, in front of the Forrester student body, he got up and said his piece about all those past and present who’ve been forced off the field because of prejudice. He got a standing ovation. Key teammates rallied around him, and in time, the harassment abated. The Tigers won the league championship that spring. He became team captain as a junior and at the end of that year he was offered a minor-league contract, which he didn’t accept because he got a baseball scholarship to Stanford. The article concludes by saying the fact that MLB is now trying to recruit openly gay players is a sign that history is in the making.

Clark effing Gable! But none of it surprises me, just confirms what I already knew: Brian is a way cool person and he and my brother were in love.

The most eye-popping piece of information in this article, however, next to the fact that Brian might be changing history and all, is that he’s at Stanford. Now. Not even two hours away! It would mean he skipped his last year of high school, but that’s entirely possible considering how he spoke in incomprehensible scientific paragraphs when he got going. I find the Stanford University newspaper online and search for his name but nothing comes up. Then I do another search for “The Ax.” Nothing still. I return to the article. Maybe I misread and he didn’t skip a grade and is coming next fall? But no, I didn’t misread. Then I remember that baseball is a spring sport! The season hasn’t begun. That’s why he’s not in the newspaper. I go to the Stanford website, find a directory of undergraduates and lickety-split, I find his email. Should I do this? Should I? Is it wrong to meddle?

No. I have to do it for Noah.

Before I change my mind, I copy the URL for Noah’s post on LostConnections and email it to Brian Connelly from an anonymous email account I make up.

It’ll be up to him. If he wants to respond to Noah he can. At least he’ll see it—who knows if he has? I know things didn’t end well between them. Nothing to do with me. Brian could barely look Noah in the eye at Mom’s funeral. He didn’t even come to the house after. Not once. And yet, it’s Noah who’s been apologizing for years on that website. The article says Brian came out at that pep rally the spring of his sophomore year, which followed his last winter break here. After that, his mother moved farther north and he never returned. But the timing is suspicious. Were the rumors about him and Noah then? Is that what ended their relationship? Did Noah start the rumors? Could that be what he’s apologizing for? Oh, who knows?

I get back in bed, thinking how happy Noah will be if he finally gets a response to his post. For the first time, in a very long time, my heart feels light. I fall asleep immediately.

And dream of birds.

If you dream of birds, a great change in your life is about to take place

• • •

When I wake the next morning, I check to see if Brian’s responded to Noah’s post (nope), check to see if Noah’s already gone like yesterday (yup), and then, despite bone-deep disappointment about Oscar the Girl-Exhaler and uneasiness about both bloody ferocious Guillermo and the vigilante ghost squad, I’m out the door.

I need to get NoahandJude out of that rock.

I’m a few steps down the hallway at Guillermo’s, when I hear raised voices coming from the mailroom. Guillermo and Oscar are arguing intently about something. I hear Oscar say, “You couldn’t possibly understand! How could you?” Then Guillermo, with an unfamiliar hardness in his voice: “I understand very well. You take risks on that motorcycle, but that is it. You are a coward in a tough leather jacket, Oscore. You let no one in. Not since your mother die. You hurt before you can be hurt. You are afraid of the shadow.” I about-face and am almost to the door and out of there, when Oscar says, “I let you in, G. You’re . . . like a father . . . the only one I’ve had.”

Something in his voice stops me, sears me.

I rest my forehead against the cold wall, their voices quieter now, unintelligible, not understanding how it can be that even after everything that happened yesterday with Brooke, all I want to do is run to the motherless boy in the next room who is afraid of the shadow.

I do not.

• • •

Instead, I go to church. And when I return to the studio an hour or so later, all’s quiet. I spent my time with Mr. Gable trying not to be a compassionate person. Trying not to think about a scared grieving boy in a tough leather jacket. Wasn’t too hard. I sat in the pew, the same one I was in when Oscar and I met, and repeated the mantra: Come here, sit on my lap, ad infinitum.