Almost Perfect - Brian Katcher [101]
“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.
chapter thirty-five
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?