“He’s not having a good day,” Jordan said, which sounded like something he’d heard someone say on one of those hospital dramas and which probably qualified as understatement of the year.“Do you need something?He’s supposed to be resting, and his parents are being—”
He cut himself off, but too late.
Tip didn’t open his eyes, but he did twist his hand free of Jordan’s.
“What happened with Tip’s parents?”I asked.
Jordan tried to recapture Tip’s hand, but Tip twisted away again.It was like watching two seventh-graders.
Finally, a flush filling his face, Jordan gave up and said, “Nothing.They’re just a lot sometimes.”
I waited.
“Do you, like, need something?”Jordan finally said.“We already talked to a detective.”
“I’d like you to tell me what happened last night.”
Jordan made a scoffing noise.“Somebody tried to kill him!”
“Tip?”I asked.
There are, I’m sure, people who are good at playing possum.Tip Wheeler was not one of them.He flinched.
“He doesn’t remember very much,” Jordan said.He leaned forward in his chair to brush Tip’s hair away from his forehead.Tip, for someone who was trying desperately to get himself cast as a coma victim, jerked away from the touch.“Because of, like, trauma.”
“Why don’t we start at the beginning,” I said, “and we’ll see if you remember anything as we go?”
“It was a gay bashing,” Jordan said.“That’s why they did it.”
When I looked at him, he shrank back in his seat.And then, with an expression I wanted to call defiance, he took Tip’s hand again.
Apparently, even for Tip, that was enough.He yanked his hand back and opened his good eye.“For fuck’s sake, Jordan!”
“I’m sorry,” Jordan stammered.“Were we talking too loud—”
Tip made a stifled, frustrated noise.“Can you get out of here?Get the fuck out of here!You’re driving me crazy!”
Jordan’s pink lips parted.His tongue darted out, then disappeared.He looked like he was about to cry again.“I’ll—I’ll get you some ice,” he whispered.
He got tangled in the curtain on the way out, and the rings screeched along the rod, and by the time he got himself free, his breathing was thick and uneven.The door shut hard behind him, and then the tinny voice of the daytime-TV judge blatted something about contracts.
Tip didn’t look at me.He closed his eye and re-settled himself on the pillow.
“You got bashed?”I asked.
Nothing.
The silence trick doesn’t work as well on people who are pretending to be coma patients.But it’s still good for some things.I sat there, letting the tension in the room bleed out.A machine beeped steadily, keeping time with the lady judge.I thought they could do a remix, probably.One of those autotune ones where they make it sound like people are singing.Show me the receipts.Where’s the contract?
“He thinks he’s helping,” I said.
Tip’s hands moved restlessly over the bedding before words burst out of him.“He’s not.He’s being really fucking annoying, actually.”
The arm of my chair was loose.I wobbled it a few times.
“I told him to stop,” Tip said, the heat drained from his voice now until he mostly sounded tired.Tired, and a little sloppy from whatever meds they had him on.“I just want everyone to leave me alone.”
“You can tell him as much as you want.Telling him won’t be enough.”
