Bruiser

At lunch, several people stop at Brewster and Brontë’s table to talk with Brewster, having heard the news about him saving Cody. One couple that stops is Amanda Milner and Joe Crippendorf, who have always been friendly with Brontë but largely ignored Brewster.

Amanda invites Brontë and Brewster to her 16th birthday party, while Joe apologizes to Brewster for being mean to him in the past. Brontë is excited by the idea that people are starting to be nice to Brewster, thinking that it may lead to friendships.

That night, Brontë gets up in the middle of the night and finds Brewster sitting on his bed, wide awake and still dressed. He informs her that Cody had a nightmare, but she realizes something else is wrong.

Brewster admits that he feels responsible for Uncle Hoyt’s death. He explains that Hoyt asked him to save his life by taking on his stroke, but Brewster refused. Brontë assures him that Hoyt’s death was not his fault and that he lost his own life by living the way he did.

Tennyson loses his lacrosse game to one of the worst teams in the league. He is distracted by thoughts of Katrina, who has ignored him for two days and did not come to his game.

On the way home, he stops at a coffee shop, but when he looks through the window, he sees Katrina sitting with Ozzy. He compares it to when he saw his mother on a date with another man.

Stressed and upset, he goes home, but as soon as he gets there, he starts to feel better. Lying in bed that night, he feels as though he’s “enveloped in an invisible security blanket” (269).

Tennyson goes to Brewster and Cody’s room. He asks Brewster to start coming to his games again. Although he does not say so out loud, both he and Brewster know that it is because he wants Brewster to take the effects of the game away from him. He tells Brewster that they need to win their next games to make the championships and that he has a chance at winning MVP. He also thinks of how it will help win Katrina back.

Through it all, Cody watches, making Tennyson feel guilty.

In the next game, with Brewster there, Tennyson scores six of eight goals and his team wins. Afterward, he goes to Katrina, but she is hesitant. She admits that she has been seeing Ozzy and suggests he ask another girl out.

Tennyson looks around for Brewster, but he is gone. He cares little about his team winning, and instead is angry about Katrina as he makes his way home.

At home, Tennyson curls on the couch, on the verge of tears over his anger and frustration at Katrina. Cody comes into the room and tells Tennyson that he should leave if he feels that terrible—that it’s “not fair” to Brewster.

Tennyson is confused by what Cody means, but just then his feelings of despair leave him. As he hears Brewster cry in the guest room, he realizes that Brewster takes not only his physical pain but his emotional pain as well.

He leaves the house, intent on going away from Brewster because he “can’t willingly bury [Brewster] in all [his] baggage” (280-81). However, at the border to his home—where he can feel the edge of Brewster’s “influence”—he pauses, unable to take the final step to take his pain back. Instead, he returns to his living room and watches cartoons with Cody.

When Brontë and Brewster come home from Amanda’s birthday party, Tennyson confronts her about taking Brewster out for so long. She has noticed how he has become more and more “strange” since he broke up with Katrina, but he is typically not this worked up or confrontational.

Tennyson tells her that their parents were fighting while they were gone, so Brontë goes to their room, but she finds them happily reading together and unable to even remember why they fought.

As she goes back to her room, she feels “content”—but notes that something is “off—not just around [her] but inside her as well” (284).

Brontë’s mom’s boyfriend, Dr. Thorlock, visits their house. Brontë attempts to tell him to leave, but then her dad comes down the stairs and agrees to let Thorlock talk to his wife.

Brontë goes upstairs and finds Brew in pain on the bed, but Brew tells her he is fine.

After Thorlock leaves, Brontë talks to her parents in the kitchen. They have decided that her mother can continue to see Thorlock on Monday nights. Brontë feels like her father should be angry, but he seems content, and she thinks how “wrong” everything feels.

When she goes back to Brewster’s room, he is curled up on the bed. She asks him if she can get him anything, but he insists his “head” is better—even though he had said it was his stomach before. At that moment, Brontë “finally connect[s] several of the many dots littering [her] head” (292).

Brontë confronts Tennyson about what he knows—sure that he has figured something out about Brewster. However, Tennyson is cryptic, commenting only that he understands more and more why Hoyt kept Brewster lonely and at home.

Brontë wants to feel angry, but instead does not feel any emotion at all. Frustrated, she throws a plate against the wall and then pushes Tennyson and tries to goad him into fighting her. Instead, he remains calm—insisting that things are “great” for everyone. She wants to cry, but finds that she can’t do that, either.

Brontë goes to Brewster’s room, intent on getting answers from him. She knows that if she does not follow her “gut” right now and figure out what is wrong, she will just continue to accept things the way they are and remain oblivious.

Brewster initially tells her nothing is wrong, but when she insists, he removes his shirt to show her. He has dozens of bruises on his body, all fresh, with new ones forming over old ones. He explains that they come from her, Tennyson, Cody, her parents, and now all the people at school he has become friends with.

Overwhelmed by emotion, Brontë flees from Brewster and her house to hold onto what she is feeling and to figure things out. She goes to the swimming pool, where she does laps while thinking about Brewster.

She attempts to figure out a direction to point her anger, wanting to place blame somewhere. Instead, she realizes that she is at fault for encouraging Brewster to come into her home and to make friends. She realizes that she should have known what was happening, but in her desire to be content she ignored the obvious signs.

As she leaves the pool, she is determined to figure out a way to keep her emotions from Brewster. However, she slips and falls onto the concrete and is knocked unconscious.

After Brontë leaves, Tennyson comes into Brewster’s room. Brewster thinks of how Tennyson has changed—he is kinder and more “honorable,” but Brewster knows it’s because of his abilities making him so. He thinks of how Tennyson has become “addicted” to Brewster like “painkillers” (307).

In his efforts to help, Brewster has realized that he has also made Tennyson’s family’s life more difficult by taking away their pain. He debates whether he should leave their family for good, while Tennyson tells him no but also admits that he’s not sure if that’s how he really feels since he is unable to access his own emotions.

Brewster leaves to go find Brontë. She is face down in the pool and unresponsive. He gets in and tries to get her above water, but struggles because he can’t swim. As he tries to pull her toward the edge, he realizes that he is struggling to breathe, as Brontë’s drowning transfers to him.

Brewster decides not to fight back against drowning, instead choosing to take away Brontë’s suffering. As he sinks deeper into the water, he sees Brontë recover. Brewster sinks beneath the water feeling “gratitude and pure perfect joy” (313).

Tennyson follows Brewster in his search for Brontë, partially out of curiosity, but mostly because he does not want to be too far from Brewster and feel all his negative emotions.

When he gets to the pool, where Brontë has just gotten out and is in a daze, he realizes that Brewster is at the bottom of the pool. Tennyson and Brontë manage to pull Brewster from the pool and begin performing CPR.

As Brontë continues to try CPR, Tennyson goes to get the shock paddles to revive Brewster. He tries to shock him a few times and fails.

He realizes that to save Brewster, he and Brontë need to take back the pain they had given him. He thinks of everything he had tried so hard not to feel—the exhaustion and pain from the lacrosse game, his heartache over breaking up with Katrina, his fear and anger at his parents—and manages to take back just one single bruise. Just as he feels the bruise on his arm, Brontë feels a pulse on Brewster’s neck.

Brewster coughs up water and briefly opens his eyes but does not fully regain consciousness. Tennyson rushes to the nearest house and pounds on the door to call an ambulance.

Brontë and Tennyson visit Cody at the Roosevelt Children’s Home. After Brewster’s drowning, CPS decided that there were too many unanswered questions and elected to put Cody into the home.

When Cody learned he would be going to the home, he jumped from the social worker’s second story window and broke his leg. He now wears a full leg cast, which Tennyson notes will hopefully teach him a lesson now that Brewster cannot take his pain away.

Tennyson’s dad picks them up from the home and takes them to the hospital. Brewster has been in a coma since drowning. The four of them visit him regularly and talk with him, but he is unresponsive. However, as they leave, the nurse tells them that they are seeing brain activity, which is a good sign.

Back at home, Tennyson and Brontë’s parents tell them that they are getting divorced. After Brewster left, things slowly returned to how they were, and they finally reached a point beyond reconciliation.

As Brontë cries and Tennyson comforts her, he realizes that the pain they are feeling is what they should have felt all along. He feels as though, at this moment, they have finally taken back their negative emotions from Brewster—not just partially as Tennyson did by the pool.

As he thinks this, he hears several phones ringing—Brontë’s, his mom’s, their house phone, and even his own phone, which has not worked since he jumped into the pool with it to save Brewster. They make their way to his “phone that shouldn’t work” (328), with Tennyson already convinced that it is Brewster.

He hands the phone to Brontë, then watches as her face fills with joy. He thinks of how they are ready to keep their pain, but also promises that, if Brewster is indeed calling, they will also share their “joy” with him.