In My Eyes, You're Beautiful

Dinner and the campfire, which turned out to be all of us kids just sitting around an empty fire pit, because come on, it’s burn camp, were both uneventful. The four of us stuck together, sitting together at dinner and ogling the three girls that Jack declared to be the hottest at the camp. Well, neither Zack nor I did very much ogling. I’m not really into girls all that much, and Zack, well Zack just stared at his shoes for pretty much the entire evening. He didn’t speak unless he was spoken to, and when he did talk, he seemed scared, like he thought he would get punished for even opening his mouth. I did find out, though, that we share the same taste in music and that he really likes to skateboard. He also really likes ketchup, judging by the insane amount that he squirted onto his fries.
We’re all back at our cabin now, not really talking but enjoying each other’s company all the same as we set up our beds and shimmy our way out of our impossibly tight jeans. Judy is supposed to be coming around soon, to hand out meds and to wish everyone goodnight. I’m kind of stressing about the whole medication thing. What if I’m the only one that needs to take them, and Zack and Rian and Jack make fun of it for it? They don’t seem like the kind of people who would do that, but then again, I just met them.
“Alex, what’s your favorite color?” Jack asks as he flops down onto his creaky bed and puts his hands under his head.
“Red.”
“Rian, what’s yours?” Rian looks up from his phone.
“Green.”
“Zack?” Zack swallows, then looks over at Jack timidly.
“Orange,” he says, his voice incredibly small. He looks back down at his bed, at the sheets that still need to be put on the mattress and the pillowcases that still need to be put on the pillows. The rest of us have already made our beds and are changed out of our clothes. Zack’s still fully dressed.
“Zack, do you want to make your bed?” I sit up slightly in my own bed, looking over at Zack through the beams on the side of the bunk bed. He nods slightly, but doesn’t move, just stares at his useless hand. Oh. “Do you want some help?” I throw the covers off of me and walk over to Zack’s bed.
“Um, yeah. Thanks.” I smile at him a bit, then motion for him to get up off the mattress. I grab the sheets and spread them out, pulling the elastic tight over the corners. Zack just watches, his cheeks red. I grab a pillowcase and hold it out.
“Put the pillow in.” He grabs it and stuffs it in, pretty efficiently for only using one hand. I throw it down onto the bed, then grab his comforter from off the floor and lay it down.
“Thanks.” He smiles at me, and it’s the first real smile I’ve seen from him all night. It’s beautiful; his lips cutting through the burn on his cheek and making him look more like a person and less like a victim of a terrible accident. “Um, I can’t really use my hand, so it’s kind of hard for me to-”
“Don’t worry about it.” I nod at him before returning to my own bed. “Let me know if you need help with anything else.”
“Boys! Med time!” Judy walks into our cabin, the screen door banging shut after her. She’s holding a tray with six little paper cups on it. “Alex, Zack, Rian, come get your meds.” I hop out of bed once again and grab the cup that Judy hands me, looking at the sleeping pill and the pain pill that rest at the bottom. “Here you go, Hon.” Judy hands me another little cup, this one full of water, and I swallow both the pills in one go, wiping my mouth with my sleeve afterwards and handing my used cups back to Judy.
She takes them, then hands Rian his little cup. I can see the faint outline of just one pill showing through the paper, and he picks it up and puts it on his tongue before he reaches for a cup of water and swallows it. Finally, she hands Zack his cup, and I can hear the sound of numerous pills clacking together. He takes them one by one, and I count four in all.
Zack just looks so…sad as he picks up each pill and puts it into his mouth, like he can’t believe that his life has come to this, taking this many pills every night. He drops back down onto his bed as he swallows his last one, then tiredly hands his cups back to Judy.
“Thanks for taking all those pills so easily and not making a big deal out of it, you guys.” Judy smiles big at us, and I wonder how she still has so much energy. “Zack, can I talk to you for a minute?” She watches as he slowly stands up and walks out the front door with her, to give them a little more privacy. “Goodnight boys!” She calls over her shoulder to the rest of us. None of us say anything back.
After the door is shut, Rian asks, “Jack, you don’t take any meds?”
“Not at night, no. I take some for my burns in the morning, along with Zoloft and Adderall.” He has ADHD. Of course. “What do you take?”
“Prozac, along with pain meds and some anxiety med that I just started taking.” Rian hangs his head over the side of the bunk so that he’s looking down at me? “What about you, Alex?”
“Prozac, shit for anxiety, shit for my burns, sleeping pills, the works.” I stare straight up, so that I’m looking at the bottom of Rian’s mattress.
“Wow. We’re pretty fucked up, huh?” This makes Jack and I laugh just as Zack walks back in. He doesn’t say a word or look any of us in the eye, just grabs a pair of PJ pants from the top of his suitcase and walks into the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind him.
“I wonder what his deal is,” Jack whispers. “I mean, his burns are pretty fucking bad, the worst out of everyone here. I wonder how he got them.”
“If he wants to tell us, he will when he’s ready,” I say. “I mean, you wouldn’t want people poking into your business, asking how you got yours, would you?”
“Car crash last year. The gas tank caught on fire. My mom’s now paralyzed from the waist down.” Jack has no emotion in his voice as he talks. “I was in the hospital for three months because they had to do plastic surgery on my dick.” That should be funny, but it isn’t. Not in these circumstances. “I can still use it, but no girl will ever want to go near it.” Jack stops talking after that and pulls the covers over his head, signaling that he doesn’t want us to talk to him and he doesn’t walk to talk to us.