Bruiser

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses drug and alcohol addiction, bullying, physical and emotional abuse, and emotional trauma as depicted in the novel.

Sixteen-year-old Tennyson eats dinner with his twin sister, Brontë, and their parents. They are having takeout, which has become increasingly common for them as their parents go through relationship troubles.

Tennyson brings up Brontë’s date with Brewster “Bruiser” Rawlins over dinner. He hopes to get more information about their date so he can crash it, convinced that it is not a good idea for Brontë to date him. He thinks Bruiser has a strange home life—no parents, only an uncle and an eight-year-old brother—and notes that his Brewster’s schoolmates regard him with suspicion, having voted him “Most Likely to Receive the Death Penalty” (6).

Brontë defends Bruiser, saying that he is nothing like what people say about him in school. She uses the word “inscrutable” to describe him, which concerns her father.

Tennyson walks with his girlfriend, Katrina, to play miniature golf on Saturday afternoon. Although Katrina hates golf, Tennyson convinces her to go so they can interrupt Brontë’s date.

On the walk over, Katrina tells him a story about her math class that day. While she talks, Tennyson thinks of how they are a “consolation” couple: They originally wanted to date each other’s friends, but ended up together when it didn’t work out.