Almost Perfect (30 page)

We both smiled, then stopped. The image of Sage bleeding in the bathroom jumped into my head, and probably Tammi’s as well. She stood up, not making eye contact.

“I’m telling everyone that Sage hurt her back in a car wreck, and that she’ll be in traction for the rest of the school year. Please don’t say otherwise.”

“Right.”

Tammi walked to the door, then stopped and turned. “Logan, I’ll talk to her, see if maybe she’ll give you a call. She’s mad at you, but I think she’s angrier at herself.”

I thanked her and she left the room.

I
LAY
on our living room couch counting the cobwebs on the ceiling. My brain screamed for action. I should be doing something, something to make everything okay. But what? I needed someone to talk to.

When people are stuck in frightening and confusing situations, they don’t want advice. They want someone to tell them what to do. To be ordered, commanded. I needed someone to march in and tell me what the next step was in such a way that I couldn’t wimp out.

And I could talk to no one. Jack, Tim, even Brenda … they might be able to advise me, and at this point, I was desperate enough to tell them the truth. But I couldn’t violate Sage’s privacy like that.

The phone rang and I lunged for it. Maybe it was Tammi, or even Sage.

“Hello?”

“Logan?” said a gravely, unpleasant voice. Someone who I never expected to call me.

“Mr. Hendricks?”

There was a pause, and I hoped we’d been disconnected. Then: “Can you come over to our house now? I want to talk to you.”

The last time we’d talked, he’d tried to break my face and said he’d kill me if he ever saw me again. How the hell did he expect me to answer?

“I’ll be right there.”

Sage’s truck was parked in the driveway. Next to it stood my bike, where I’d abandoned it after taking her to the hospital. There was no sign of anyone.

Why had Sage’s father asked me over? Maybe he’d told the cops I was the one who assaulted her and was luring me here to be arrested. Maybe bruising my face wasn’t sufficient, and he’d decided he really wanted to work me over. Or maybe Sage had insisted he try and make peace with me.

Whatever the reason, it was dumb for me to be here. But this was my only connection with the weird girl who’d put me on a four-month emotional roller coaster. I had to find out how she was doing. I rang the bell.

“Come in,” Mr. Hendricks growled from inside.

I almost bolted. It was my desire to see Sage again that forced me to open the door. There were almost no lights on in the house, just a dim glow from the kitchen. Fully expecting a crowbar to the head, I slunk through the dining room.

Sage’s father sat at the table, a lone fluorescent light reflecting off his bald head. He was leaning on his elbows, his eyes on the table, a mostly full bottle of beer in front of him.

“Get a soda,” he ordered. I was reminded of those police shows, where the cop offers the suspect a coffee before grilling him. Warily, I grabbed a generic lemon lime soda from the fridge and sat opposite him. He still hadn’t looked up.

“Sir?”

Mr. Hendricks held up a palm, and I shut up. After a moment, he spoke.

“I guess I owe you an apology. Tammi said you drove Sage to the hospital that night. I was angry and overreacted. Sorry.”

The apology was sincere, but completely lacking. It was like he’d forgotten to feed my cat or had been brusque with me over the phone.

“It’s okay,” I said, mentally not forgiving him.

He took a sip of beer, or at least appeared to. The liquid level didn’t really change. “Logan, you didn’t tell me the truth about what was going on with you and Sage. Don’t deny it.” He wasn’t accusing me of anything, just stating something he already knew.

Every time I’d lied recently, I’d only made things worse. I decided to tell the truth; it wasn’t like Sage’s father could hate me more than he already did.

“Mr. Hendricks, I wasn’t lying when we talked that time. Sage and I weren’t dating. All I wanted from Sage
was friendship.” I was careful to avoid feminine pronouns. “But after a couple of months, we …”

He held up his palm again. “I’m not interested. So you dated my son. Great. And now look what happens. You know whose fault this is?”

Ah, this is why he wanted me over. To blame me for Sage’s beating. To have a face he could hate, a name he could curse. I wasn’t about to deny it. Sage’s father couldn’t have a lower opinion of me than I did of myself.

“I guess I was …”

Mr. Hendricks banged the table with his fist, and I stopped. He looked up, and I was shocked to see his face. It was like he’d aged from forty to sixty since I’d last seen him. His eyes were bloodshot like he was drunk. Or had been crying.

“Logan, you didn’t do this. I wish I could say this was all because of you, but it wasn’t.” He took a drink, a real one this time. “Four years ago, Sage told me he wanted to be a girl. I thought he’d gone nuts. We sent him to a psychiatrist. Fat lot of good that did. She kept telling Sage his feelings aren’t wrong and he should go ahead and prance around in dresses if that makes him happy.” His knuckles went white around the bottle’s neck, like he was throttling Sage’s understanding therapist.

“For the past four years, I’ve had to watch my only son dress like some drag queen. He shares clothes with Tammi, he does her makeup. Fuck, Logan, he takes drugs that made him grow tits. I never expected him to be a football player, but this!” He paused.

“At any rate, not a day went by that I didn’t tell him what a mistake he was making, what a fool he was being, how ashamed his family was. Though I guess I was the only one who was really embarrassed. His mother and sister sure seem to accept things. I always hoped he’d stop. But when he first told us, when I first realized the problem wasn’t going away, I told him …”

He suddenly froze and stared at me, like he’d forgotten I was there. He placed his face in one hand and massaged his eyes.

“I told him … I’d rather see him dead than acting like a girl.”

If this was a made-for-TV movie, there would have been a loud musical score and a cut to commercial. Sage had never told me that. I knew her father disapproved, but telling her he wished she was dead … I didn’t think that was possible for a parent. How could he look at his crazy, wonderful kid and be that ashamed?

Mr. Hendricks seemed to be waiting for me to say something. I had a couple of things I wanted to say, but reined in my temper. And I wasn’t going to tell him that what he’d said was understandable, if that’s what he wanted.

Eventually, Sage’s father started talking again. Rapidly, like we didn’t have much time.

“Logan, I didn’t mean what I said. I swear to God, I didn’t mean that. I just thought that if I showed Sage how much I hated what he was doing, he’d stop. Fathers have to do that sometimes. Be the bad guy to keep their kids in line. You know what that’s like.”

“I don’t have a father.”

Mr. Hendricks looked at me, and for the first time I think he saw something other than the kid who was corrupting his child. But the moment passed, and he continued his story.

“Sage wouldn’t stop acting like a girl. It was like he had to spite me. Throw his lifestyle in my face. Show me that nothing would stop him. I’ll tell you something, Logan. The day I said that horrible thing to Sage, he stopped loving me. But I never took it back. Never said I was sorry.”

Maybe he was looking for absolution, maybe he was just finally admitting to himself that he hadn’t done right. I wanted to rub his nose in it. Yell at him, lecture him on how if he’d just been more understanding, Sage wouldn’t have tried to hurt herself and wouldn’t have been so confused and scared. But I’d had enough of the blame game recently. I certainly wasn’t the guy to point fingers.

“Sir? You feel guilty, Tammi feels guilty, I sure as hell feel guilty, and Sage probably does too. But we all know the SOB who beat Sage up is the real bad guy here, and I doubt we’ll ever know who that was.” Numbly, Mr. Hendricks nodded. I continued.

“I guess neither of us really knew how to handle someone like Sage. But she’s the one who’s hurting”—the
she
slipped out before I could stop myself—“and we need to worry about Sage.”

“Yeah.” He took another fake sip of his drink and was silent.

“So how is Sage doing?”

“Broken nose, a couple of cracked ribs.”

Ribs? Shit, what did that bastard do to her?
“Could I visit Sage tomorrow?”

Mr. Hendricks wouldn’t look at me. He wasn’t telling me something.

“Sir?”

“Sage … is no longer at University Hospital, Logan,” he answered evasively.

I didn’t want to ask the next question. “Where is she, then?”

“A private clinic,” he mumbled into his hand.

I felt my stomach acid boil. Sage had told me her family had once discussed having her institutionalized.

“You mean a nuthouse? A psycho hospital?”

Mr. Hendricks nodded.

“She gets her ass kicked, and you have her
put away!
Just stick your family’s embarrassing little secret in the loony bin! That’s how you deal with this?” I wanted to grab my soda and throw it at him, but I wasn’t feeling quite that brave. He didn’t say anything.

“Answer me!”

Sage’s father looked right at me, and I calmed down. His expression wasn’t exactly friendly, but there was less hate there than before.

“Logan, after the attack, Sage said he was going to kill himself. He’s tried to before. More than once.”

“Jesus.” I didn’t know Sage had attempted suicide more than the one time she’d told me about.

“We can’t bring him back home like that. We’d have to watch him every second, not let him go out. He wouldn’t even be able to go to the bathroom by himself. His mother
and I thought maybe the doctors could help him. Help us all. Deal with this so he won’t feel that way.”

I must have looked angry.

“I meant feel suicidal, Logan. I know the other thing won’t change.” He sounded defeated.

I stared at my can of soda, which still wasn’t open. “Could I visit her?” The
her
wasn’t an accident this time.

Mr. Hendricks handed me an envelope. “Directions, visiting hours. You could go tomorrow, if you like.”

I stood up. We didn’t shake hands, and I turned to go. As I opened the front door, Sage’s father called to me from the kitchen.

“Tell her I’m sorry, Logan!” he shouted almost desperately. “Tell her I didn’t mean it! Please … tell her I didn’t mean it.”

I barked some sort of affirmative and rode off on my bike. I pedaled blindly. Luckily, there’s no traffic in Boyer, so I didn’t wind up returning to the hospital as a patient.

We all hated ourselves. Me, Mr. Hendricks, Tammi, and, I was sure, Sage. The perverse thing was, none of us had really been all that greedy or self-absorbed. Sage’s father, cruel as he was, only wanted his son back. Tammi just wanted a sister. I wanted a “normal” girlfriend. And Sage—all she wanted was to be herself.

I must have been doing fifteen miles an hour. I didn’t bother to notice where I was or where I was headed.

Sage just wanted to be herself. To be something that half the people on the planet become when they’re born. She just wanted a little acceptance, a little understanding. And because she had the gall to look in a mirror and say
I
am a woman
, she’d been rejected by her father, denied a normal childhood, abandoned by a boy she thought cared for her, and had her bones broken and face smashed.

But now Sage had me. Not the wimpy
what will the neighbors think?
Logan. I was through worrying. Sage needed an ally. That was me. She needed a protector. I could do that. She no longer had to be alone. Starting the next day, I’d stand by her, no matter what happened, no matter who found out her secret. And if that painted me queer in the eyes of the world, then fuck the world. It had never done much for me, anyway.

When I visited Sage the next day, she’d see a man who would never let her down again. Someone who deserved to be called her friend.

I’
D NEVER SEEN
a mental hospital in real life and didn’t know what to expect. Some sort of grim stone fortress, where patients gibbered and drooled from behind bars? Or maybe an ultramodern facility with gleaming chrome fixtures and a plastic-faced staff who passed out pills to keep the inmates in a drugged stupor?

“Logan? Are you sure you can’t talk to me about this?” Mom was driving me. I had asked to borrow the car, and she insisted on knowing where I was going. When she found out that I had to visit Sage in a mental facility, she didn’t ask any questions. But she forced me to let her drive.

I continued to look out the window at the billboards along the highway as we approached Columbia. “I can’t, Mom. I’m sorry.”

While we drove in silence, I contemplated what I was going to say to Sage. I’d felt so brave the previous day, but as I got closer and closer to my actual meeting, my courage
abandoned me. Why would Sage even want to see me again? I wasn’t sure what the hospital rules were, but I assumed she had the right to refuse to see a visitor. And if she did want to talk to me, what would I say? How could I prove to her that my friendship was worth anything?

When Sage had first told me about her past, she needed me to be understanding. I was hateful. When she needed a friend, I turned into a lover. And when she needed a lover, I wanted nothing to do with her. How many times could I apologize? I sounded like one of those alcoholics who keep swearing that this time, they’re really going to stay sober.

One thing was certain, though. I wasn’t my father. Things were rough, but I was going to stick around. Maybe it would be months before Sage would forgive me. Maybe years. But we’d be going to the same college. I had lots of time to help her get her life back on track.

“Logan? We’re here.”

The clinic was a compact brick building of four stories. It had that healthy, generic look of most medical facilities. Looking at it from the outside, you’d believe that it was filled with proctologists’ offices and blood labs. Only the security fence around the perimeter showed otherwise.