Brain Damage

Brain Damage

by J A St. Thomas
Brain Damage

Brain Damage

by J A St. Thomas

Paperback

$14.99 
  • SHIP THIS ITEM
    Qualifies for Free Shipping
    Choose Expedited Shipping at checkout for delivery by Thursday, April 4
  • PICK UP IN STORE
    Check Availability at Nearby Stores

Related collections and offers


Overview

I open my eyes and I'm close enough to kiss a dead girl.Three years ago, sixteen year old Desmond Linc almost died in the car accident that killed his brother. Now he's all but forgotten the damage, a dead space in his brain physicians swore would never awaken.But it has.Terrified he's losing his mind, Des comes face to face with the tortured ghosts of his hometown. The black hole in his head is a doorway to the afterlife and the dead come telling secrets and lies and wielding accusations like scythes. They tell the truth about one thing though, a killer has come to Northwood.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781978210363
Publisher: CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date: 11/18/2017
Pages: 274
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.62(d)

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

There are 10 reasons why I hate parties, and within moments of arriving at Northwood's Annual Summer Slosh and Mosh, I've already checked off 6 of those puppies. In no particular order of importance:

1. Someone is wearing patchouli (Why people? Why? Why? Why?)

2. The line for the bathroom is so long, it's like they're giving away Taylor Swift tickets in there

3. Jace Vinh thinks he can DJ (spoiler: he can't, he just puts it on shuffle)

4. Gotta pee **refer to #2

5. Best friend has disappeared (not cool)

6. I'm forced to socialize with various teenage demographics, such as:

Hollisters ~ kids with too much money Jugheads ~ jock thugs Thinkers ~ nerds and smart kids Toke Heads ~ stoners and druggies Fillers ~ kids who drift between cliques Kids like me ~ me

"Linc!" A hand pounds my back, forcing me to catch my balance. "I've been looking for you."

7. Fake host acts like he's happy to see you

"Really?" I sip warm, flat beer from a red plastic cup. "Why's that?"

Kavanagh smiles and still manages to look menacing. "Lexie Markowitz bet me I couldn't get you to do a keg stand." He leans in and whispers. "If I win she owes me a bill."

Why he even cares about one-hundred bucks is beyond me, because the Kavanagh's are loaded. "What happens if you lose?" This is the more interesting prospect.

He leans even closer.

8. No one respects personal space

"I have to wear one of the cheer costumes on the first day of school," he hiccups. "One of the girl cheer costumes."

This might seem like a no brainer. I refuse to do the keg stand, Kavanagh loses, he wears the outfit on the first day and it's a fitting bite in the ass from Karma for years of being the king shit. But — and I might be reaching here — Kavanagh is in a good mood and a little drunk, and doing him a solid might work to my benefit.

Before I have a chance to think about it any longer, the rest of the house takes up a chant. "Do it, do it, do it."

9. Parties are loud as fuck (like the amp is set at 11 loud)

I look around for my best friend Merit, who is still MIA.

The crowd is relentless.

"Come on," someone shouts.

"Don't be a pussy," from another.

"Linc, doesn't like pussy," someone adds, a girl.

"Whatever," I mutter. "I'll do it."

They carry on as if I didn't say anything at all.

I clear my throat. "I'LL DO IT."

Everything goes silent and still, but only for a moment before the room erupts in cheers, and a new chant: "Drink, drink, drink."

I'm lifted up and carried out of Kavanagh's house, to the back patio where the keg awaits in a blue tub of half melted ice. I let the red- faced jocks surrounding the keg help me into position — upside down over the metal barrel. In theory, a keg stand should be easy and fun. This is a stupid theory because it isn't easy and it's not fun. Two of them hold my legs while a third primes the tap. I grip the edge of the keg and when someone shouts go, I open my mouth.

Foamy beer sloshes down my throat until there's too much and it feels like I'll choke. I try to swallow but it gushes over my face. My eyes sting and I try to turn away from the tap but my hand slips and I crash into metal ...

"Get him down," someone cries.

Hands flip me over onto my feet.

"You okay?"

I stumble forward and almost crash face first into the concrete patio.

My head.

I catch myself and stagger toward the sliding glass doors, beer dripping from my hair and face.

"Is he okay?"

"Who cares?"

"Shut up, Lexie."

"Bite me." She hisses, a blur of blonde hair and barely-there sundress.

"I'm fine," I mumble to no one specific. "Fine."

I careen through Kavanagh's house, bumping into furniture and walls as I go.

No one follows.

front door doordoordoor

I turn the knob and stumble across the yard. Warm air. Dark.

No one follows.

*
The human brain is similar in texture and consistency to soft tofu. A fact my neurologist passed on while performing one of hundreds of tests before I was released from the hospital. It makes choking down my mother's vegetarian cooking even less palatable. The image of her scooping tofu out of a skull and into a skillet gives the whole experience a less vegetarian, more pygmy cannibal horror movie feel.

skull

bone

The inside of my head currently feels as though it has been lined with tiny jackhammers intent on liquefying the already soft surface of my brain. Of course my neurologist also informed me that the brain has no pain receptors of its own, so what I'm really feeling is a face-neck-scalp ache.

My neurologist is kind of a douche. I open my eyes and I'm close enough to kiss a dead girl.

What the hell would my neurologist say about that?

I roll onto my back. Pushing the palms of my hands into my eye sockets lessens the pressure slightly, but does nothing to stop my thoughts from jack-rabbitting around the inside of my skull.

Aphasia.

[uh-fey-zhuh] noun, Pathology

1. the loss of a previously held ability to speak or understand spoken or written language, due to disease or injury of the brain.

This hasn't happened to me for a long time, not since the months right after the accident.

There is a dead chick lying next to me.

I turn my head and peek through splayed fingers.

Alexandra Maskowitz.

I don't know for sure that it's a hallucination, but it's a safe bet. There is absolutely no good reason for me to wake up next to the Northwood cheer squad's top flyer except for a hallucination. She stares back at me with flat eyes still wearing yesterday's makeup. Her full, blue lips part just enough for me to see the blood on her teeth. There is a small bruise on one side of her mouth. Rust red soaks the front of her dandelion print sundress; the one that hangs and drapes perfectly, showcasing a cultivated tan and slender legs. A bumblebee strolls over her tawny, blood-streaked skin.

What if it's not a hallucination?

I blink at an intensely bright bar of light and realize I'm outside, in the woods. I am also horizontal, though the earth beneath me feels unstable, as though it may tilt at any moment. I grip two handfuls of dirt and leaves to keep from falling off the world. A cluster of Poplars surrounds us; they reach for sunlight and block all but the smallest patch of sky.

The dead girl goes to my school, sits behind me in chemistry and writes things like faggot on my locker. I look again. A second bee struggles to free itself from the blond tangles framing her face. I reach out to shoo it away, but freeze when I see my arm. Deep finger nail tracks run clear to the elbow surrounded by shallow nicks and cuts. An ugly bruise covers the knuckles of my hand.

Oh Jesus. It takes great effort and concentration to suck air into my lungs. I should call someone. Anyone.

Can't breathe.

Call Dad. No. Not Dad.

I claw my cell phone from the pocket of my shorts. The touch face of my ancient, glitchy phone is nothing more than a spider web of hairline cracks.

The world tilts, and my entire existence constricts down to a single dandelion on Alexandra Maskowitz's dress and then that disappears too, snuffed out in one final burst of white hot pain.

*
My head doesn't hurt when I open my eyes. Not the way it did in the woods with the dead girl. It felt so real, more real than it does here in the dark. I lift my hand until it is level with my eyes, turning it over, squinting in the nothingness of my room. I could turn on the light. Could, but won't. If I turn on the light I might see the scratches. I might see Alexandra Maskowitz.

I should try to forget.

I should try to remember where I was last night.

Merit party keg stand woods

I squeeze my eyes shut, but on the other side of my lids is a dead-eyed girl dressed in blood.

Call Merit.

Yes! She would know.

A string of messages from Merit:

11:45 You Okay??
Okay, no help there. I quickly type: Sorry, I'm OK. TTYL.

I slip from between the twisted sheets, damp with nightmare sweat, and make my way toward the bathroom, expertly navigating the blind space of my room. With a deep breath, I flip the light switch. Cold, artificial light chases the murky grey of pre-dawn into the corners of the bathroom I once shared with my brother but now belongs to me.

No dead girl. No woods. Just me.

I hold my arms out for inspection. Nothing. Unmarked flesh.

"Get a grip," I tell my reflection.

My reflection glares back, baggy-eyed and irritated. I ignore it and reach behind the glossy tropical fish shower curtain to turn on the water. The dream recedes slightly, blurring. In the shower, I close my eyes and push everything away. My therapist taught me to picture the surface of a lake, turbulent with whatever bothers me. Over the years he taught me to calm that surface by picturing the violent waves turning to harmless ripples, which expand and dissipate until the lake and my mind are quiet. I try that now, picturing the nightmare, letting it wash away from me and down the drain. When I turn the water off and step out of the shower, the nightmare has less of a hold. My therapist is an ass, but he's good for something.

The clock in my room says 6:00. Normally, I'd sleep until my mother nagged me awake, but today I'm in desperate need of caffeine. A smile turns up the corners of my mouth as I take the stairs down to the main level and toward the seductive siren song of the Mr. Coffee.

The dream fades. I feel normal(ish).

My parents hunch over their coffee mugs, huddled together, listening to Dad's police scanner. He looks like he might melt through the floor if he doesn't change into his uniform right now, but he's on vacation, and his desire to not piss off my mom outweighs his desire to pick up a case. Wrapped in their conversation, they don't notice me. I grab a mug from the cabinet above the sink, pour myself some coffee and lean against the counter.

"A jogger called it in," Dad tells Mom, "fifteen, maybe sixteen at most." His back is to me and though I can't see his face, I imagine the expression he wears, the one reserved for tragedies.

Mom makes a tsking sound, and her hair bobs against the top of her shoulders. "Do you think she's one of Desmond's friends?"

I freeze, the mug halfway to my lips.

Dad shrugs. "I've never heard him mention her before."

blood bee stab

The mug slips from my grasp, ricochets off the counter and slams to the floor, shattering into pieces.

My parents jump from the breakfast table, chairs skittering out behind them.

"Des?" Mom says.

"Holy shit," Dad mumbles.

"How much did you hear?" Dad rearranges his expression into one reserved for delivering bad news. His brow crunches and the lines of his forehead are arrows pointing toward the firm set of his jaw. His cop face.

Mom wraps her arm around my shoulders, navigating me away from the shards of ceramic and out of the kitchen. Like a toddler that needs to be shuttled away from broken glass and hot liquids to a safer locale. "Des," she says and shakes her head.

They guide me across the hall and into Dad's study. It's not much of a study really, more of a shrine to my brother Donovan. And Dad's love of baseball. But mostly Donovan. Mom pushes me into an overstuffed chair and pulls the footrest up close to my knees so she can sit and inspect me.

Dad stands next to the bookcase that houses no books — only framed photographs of my brother. A lonely Mets pennant rests against the back of the display.

I suddenly feel small and insignificant and helpless. I'm not a fan of this feeling. It's worse than the nightmare.

"What happened?" I ask Dad, ignoring my mother's (s)mothering.

He looks at me for a long time, burrowing into my soft tofu brain and picking through lobes and folds and crevices filled with thoughts and desires and secrets. It's what he does, it's his job and he can never turn it off. He pinches his chin with the thumb and forefinger of one hand. A tic he never had before the accident. "A classmate of yours died last night," he says, choosing his words carefully.

"How?" I ask. What I need to know more than anything is how.

"She was killed," Dad says, pausing between the words was and killed in a way that makes me believe what he means to say is that she was murdered. Just like in my dream.

"Where?" I ask.

Mom stops fussing and doting long enough to retrieve her trusty planner, which she skims distractedly. I know she's looking for a day to schedule me with my therapist, my neurologist, and any other medical professional she can think of. She's handling the situation, being proactive. Story of my life for the last three years. "Is Pete coming tonight?" she asks Dad. My neurologist was his poker buddy long before I cracked my head.

"Stop it Mom," I snap at her, not really meaning to. But I'm not in the mood to be managed.. I look at Dad. "Where?" He sighs. "Holly Park, on the woods side of the bandstand." He won't say more; too much at stake to share information on cases, especially with your kid.

"Who?" I ask the ultimate question, knowing the answer before it's out of his mouth.

"Alexandra Maskowitz," he replies.

*
It takes forty-five minutes and a promise to schedule a session with my therapist to disentangle myself from Mom's panicked micromanaging. She's always trying to make sure I'm adjusting to things — Donovan's death, my recovery, my gayness (her word, not mine). How do you adjust to being gay, anyway? I remember when I told them, it was in the hospital after the accident. Double your emotional hit and run. And that's how Dr. Schmidt — therapist extraordinaire, meditation instructor, all- around-fake-ass-jerk — came to have a place in my life.

"You'll adapt better with a therapist," Mom said.

Adapt? I've been gay my whole life, I wanted to tell her, I've had plenty of time to adapt. But that's Mom. Which, I suppose, is better than my Grandmother Barbara. Gramma B is a fixer.

"You need to see a doctor," she growled into the phone after my parents told her.

Like I'd caught homosexuality from a toilet seat, or an overbooked airplane.

"I'm not sick, Gramma B, I'm gay," I replied.

"You could see a priest," she offered.

I knew then that no amount of explaining would make a difference, so I let her point out my faults and failings as a human being, and that was the last time I spoke with her.

Mom means well, though. She says she wants me to be happy. Dad mostly mumbles things about sports and staying out of trouble. Maybe things would be different if my brother hadn't died or my skull hadn't been cracked and broken, my brain irrevocably damaged. Maybe if things were normal, they wouldn't act like I should live in a mile-wide bubble.

Maybe not.

While Mom worries over her appointment book and my intracranial (in)stability, I text Merit to come rescue me. Waiting on the porch gives me a chance to breathe and think. The details of Alexandra Maskowitz's death mirror those of my dream and that can't just be a coincidence. I mean, how can I know what I know? I need Merit to fill in the blanks and tell me I'm not crazy.

A car rounds the corner but it's not Merit's CrapMobile, just another random resident of the lilac neighborhood; two blocks of houses with yards choked in lilac bushes. Every three or four years Dad tries to rid our yard of them, but my house is the last on the street and the open space next to it is overgrown with the sweet smelling purple-flowered interlopers.

Merit pulls up, music blaring.

"What the hell are you doing weirdo?" she says, leaning over the center console to look out at me.

I yank open the door and plop into the passenger seat. She stares at me over the top of her Ray-Bans, leaning into my space. Her hair is swept up into a loose knot and she wears her uniform black V-neck tee, black skinnies and flip flops. How she doesn't melt away in the summer makes her a freak of science.

"It's going to hit 98 today and you're dressed in your own personal sauna, and I'm the weirdo?" I tease. Merit hates her body, and no amount of cajoling or complimenting from me has ever convinced her otherwise.

"So," she says, pulling away from the curb and onto my street.

"Watch the road," I tell her as she navigates her old lady car with the attention and care of a drunk toddler. The music ends and a voice growls across the Buick's questionable speakers. "Savage Sam here and that was Filler by Minor Threat. One of the best shows of 1981 was Threat at O'Banion's in Chicago with Youth Brigade and Necros."

(Continues…)



Excerpted from "Brain Damage"
by .
Copyright © 2017 J.A. St. Thomas.
Excerpted by permission of CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews