Rebel Angel

I sat under the too-bright fluorescent lights that buzzed and blinked overhead. All around the waiting room hung inspirational posters that failed to inspire me in the least. On a table, in the corner, a small TV flickered Law and Order next to a stack of obscure medical and golf magazines. A muffled laugh came from behind the sliding glass window above the sign-in clipboard. The receptionist had given me a sympathetic smile when I had signed-in as Amy Bryant here to see Shawn Bryant, my brother. I guess she understood the people who came to sign-in on her clipboard.

I tightened my grip on the plate of blue frosted sugar cookies in my lap. It was hard to think about Shawn. I hadn’t seen him in three weeks but it felt ages longer. And the last time I had seen him…

The image was burned forever in my memory.

They had had another fight, my parents and Shawn. I hated when they fought, I always felt so helpless; I never knew what to do. So, like every other time I went and hid in my room where I’d lose myself in various novels. That night I had begun Paradise Lost where I fell in love with a rebel angel. I loved how Milton described Satan as an “Archangel ruined”. It was easy to relate to the Satan that John Milton had created. The fight against being submissive to someone, but underneath it all I saw the fight against begin dependant on someone else; the fear of your emotions being so open to someone else’s actions. Besides Satan was the one who originally said “Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heav’n.” How could you not find some sort of appeal in that? Who wants to be a servant? However, more than anything I found the fall to have a distinct beauty to it. So many emotions tangled up, the hurt of feeling betrayed, the fear of falling so far and so fast from grace, the utter desperation where you wonder if you did the right thing and if it’s too late to take it all back, the freezing feeling when you realize that you can never take it back… and then, losing yourself in the euphoria of the fall. Before that night I had no idea that Shawn had wanted to fall, wanted to fall more than anything.

After Shawn had slammed the door to his room I gave it another half hour before I emerged from my own. Mom was making dinner while shouting out random answers to Jeopardy! Dad had gone into the garage to hit old pottery with a hammer. They each had their own therapy for recovering after the fights. Mom butchered vegetables and Dad broke cheep plates with a hammer. Mom’s excuse was dinner; Dad said he was going to make a new mosaic countertop. So far we had two paper bags of broken dishes and no sign of new countertops.

Dad came in half an hour later, rumpled my hair, and made his way to Shawn’s room. From my spot on the couch I could hear my Dad knock on Shawn’s door and call his name softly. The door creaked as Dad opened it. And then everything just sped up. Dad started screaming for Mom. We both ran to Shawn’s room and even though Dad was crying and yelling, telling me not to look, I saw Shawn. On the floor. Covered in blood. From his wrists.

In a fleeting glimpse Mom pulled me from the door frame and shoved a phone into my hands. I remember not knowing what to do at first. It was like I was watching someone else’s life, like I was reading one of my books. Then I was talking to the operator, I didn’t even remember dialing 911.

The next thing I knew, Shawn was gone. He was at the hospital getting stitches and was hooked up to a bag of someone else’s donated blood. I wasn’t allowed to see him at the hospital. I guess Mom and Dad thought it’d be too hard on me. Or maybe, maybe Shawn didn’t want me to see him that way. Shawn was like that. He was always looking out for me and taking care of me. Then Mom and Dad sent him here, to St. Paul’s, where they believed that Shawn could get more help than they could give.

I took in a shaky breath and attempted to loosen my grip on the cookies, the clingwrap crinkled under my fingers. I was terrified to say the least. All last night I had lain in bed wondering what I should do, what I should say. For the first time in my life my older brother was a complete stranger to me. I went to bite my fingernails before I realized that they had already been reduced to stubs, a few covered in multi-colored band-aids.

Eventually a graying nurse peeked out from behind an ominous door in the corner of the waiting room.

“Shawn Bryant’s sister?” She asked looking at me while flashing an empty smile. It was a smile of someone who had to numb themselves to the pain that seeped out of the walls. However, it was pretty obvious that I was Shawn’s sister, me being the only one in the waiting room, but I still gave her a nerve wracked smile and a nod as I stood up. I had come to the conclusion that I didn’t like waiting rooms. They were like airports, they were in-between places, dead to time, I hated that feeling.

I followed her down a sterile white hallway, leaving the in-between room far behind. The nurse’s tennis shoes squeaked on the linoleum paved hallway until she stopped in front of a door like any other on the hallway.

“Here we go, now if you should need any help, if things should take a turn for the worst, there’s a panic button next to the door.” She flashed me that empty smile and I had the strong urge to smack her. Like that had calmed my nerves down at all.

I waited for the nurse to disappear and her squeaking to fade before I took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

“Who is it?”

“It’s…it’s uh…” I was so nervous I felt like I was going to throw-up right there, which only added to my freak out. But this was something I had to do, not just for Shawn, but for me too. Least that’s what the family therapist said and I had until this point agreed fully. I was scared, but no turning back now, not when I was this far.

“It’s Amy,” I choked out after swallowing the boulder-lump in my throat. “I brought cookies…sort-a.”

When the door to his room opened Shawn stood there in one of his many AC/DC shirts and a pair of jeans. He looked, for the most part, normal. It was only when I really looked at him could I see how empty he really was. I gave him a small smile and held up the plate of cookies.

“So can I come in?”

Shawn shrugged his shoulders and let me follow him into his room. There was a bed, which I had flopped down on, a desk with a swivel chair, a closet and a bookshelf. Shawn sat down in the swivel chair and was staring off into space.

I wasn’t used to Shawn giving me the cold shoulder. We had never been that way; he was my best friend. Growing up I had seen my older brother as a hero to be worshiped, even now in high school it was the same. I didn’t follow him around the halls or anything, but I will always look up to him. I expected it to be hard to see my hero so weak and broken, but even Superman had his kryptonite, my brother was only human.

“Nice room.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I almost smacked myself in the forehead for that comment. It was a horrible room, void of any human life. It was an in-between room. It was a standard issued room and just seemed so empty. Like my brother.

“No its not.” His voice was so flat and dull and…not Shawn.

“Yeah, it really does suck.” The silence was so dense I was tempted to try and cut it with my pointer finger. “So how are you?”

“How do you think?” Shawn snapped. I couldn’t stop myself. It was then that my gaze flickered to his freshly scarred wrists. Shawn noticed and with a scowl crossed his arms over his chest, hiding his wrists and cutting me off.

I wasn’t about to let him do that.

“I think your doing horrible. Screw it! I was so scared about what to say, what not to say, that I almost puked all over your door. Had I known you weren’t even going to talk I wouldn’t have bothered! There are so many things I want to tell you but…but what if you try and…and do that again!? I couldn’t take it. I’m your sister. Your little sister. You’re supposed to protect me and scare my boyfriends to the point of no return…How could you be so selfish!?” By now the tears were pouring and I was about to cross the border into total freak out. And Shawn was just sitting there taking it all. “I don’t know what I’d do if you…if you’d died. Oh God, I can’t imagine life without you. I’d do anything for you.” Without thinking I vaulted across the room and crashed into Shawn hugging him, clinging to him for dear life. “I love you.”

Shawn hugged me back, slowly, but he did it all the same. He uncrossed his arms and soon we had slid onto the floor. Shawn held me in his arms and it took my shoulder getting soaked for me to realize that he was crying too. We held each other for a long time until Shawn pulled back and wiped my tear-tracks away. Neither of us said anything for awhile until Shawn attempted a smile.

“So, you brought cookies?”

“Uh…yeah.” I stood up and retrieved the plate of cookies from its perch on the bed. I plopped back down on the floor next to Shawn. With flourish I presented the cookies, fan-faire and all. A ghost of a real smile crept onto Shawn’s face.

“You made these?”

“Yes.”

“And Mom let you?”

“…No.” I am a notoriously bad cook and had been banned from ever actually cooking at the age of ten. I even had problems making Poptarts. Last time I tried I caught the toaster on fire. Usually I was limited to cereal and sandwiches.

“I waited until they went out a few nights ago and made them. Most of them are burnt, hence the blue icing,” I stated somewhat proudly. It was a big accomplishment for me to have even made something that resembled cookies.

Shawn’s ghost smile grew into a grin. “And you didn’t catch them on fire?”

“I caught the first batch on fire. This is the fourth one. The second batch sort-a imploded or something and the third…well, I’m not too sure what happened to those, but yeah they were half burnt-half still frozen. I figured I should stop while I was ahead.”

We talked for another half-hour or so about everything and nothing. We fell back into our regular roles and patterns. For a while I even forgot what had happened, but I’m sure Shawn didn’t forget. However, as visiting hours came to an end I stood awkwardly at the doorway. I wasn’t sure how to say goodbye. I didn’t want to leave him there alone; I wanted Shawn at home with me. But somewhere inside me, I knew that Shawn would be better off here than at home. Here, in this sterile room, Shawn could clear up the fog in his head and be Shawn again.