by Erin Stewart
“Pink?” she asks, looking from the paint to Glenn like she’s about to shut down this whole operation.
“I love it,” I jump in, even though I’m not sure that’s entirely true. The hot-pink paint is loud and wild, and it wouldn’t have been my first color choice, but it’s different—and that, I like.
Cora starts to say something but stops, clutching Sara’s shoes to her chest as she walks out. The lock on her door clicks softly as Glenn goes to gather some old blankets and tarps from the garage.
He throws them over the carpet and furniture while Piper and I take down the Broadway posters. Glenn shows me how to use a putty knife to scrape off the butterfly wallpaper runner and tells us to only paint up the wall halfway since he doesn’t want me on a ladder and Piper can only reach so high from her wheelchair.
Piper transfers her Fire Mix to my phone and we paint for a solid hour to the sounds of every fire song ever, from Adele’s “Set Fire to the Rain” to “Great Balls of Fire.” When we reach a song that starts with way too much synthesizer, Piper stops painting to sing along, belting out lyrics about a girl who flies, wearing her scars like wings.
“What song is this?” I yell over her singing.
“Called ‘Phoenix in a Flame’ by some band called Atticus. This is basically my anthem now. Even set it as my ringtone.”
Piper sings while I turn sideways to try to get the right angle on the butterflies with my only good hand wielding the putty knife. I can use my toe-hand as a makeshift pincer, but even after months of PT with Terry the Torturer, it’s still too weak to grip and scrape at the same time.
Her anthem finished, Piper’s having her own struggles, trying to reach the wall without ramming her wheelchair into it. She finally gives up and slides to the ground, scooting backward along the tarp while she paints.
“So, Monday’s the big day, huh? Back to pajamas and days without seeing the sun?” she says.
“It’s not quite that pathetic.”
I finally loosen a section of wallpaper with the scraper and tug it away from the wall. The paper rips down the middle, slicing the butterflies in half.
Piper dabs paint into the corner.
“If the sad sack fits, my friend. But tell me this: Is school so bad?”
I look down at her while inching the next butterfly off the wall, trying to keep at least a portion of it intact.
“I ate lunch alone, hiding behind stage curtains, on the first day.”
“Ouch.” She sucks in air between her teeth. “That is rough.”
“That’s what I’m saying. Life is just easier without constantly being reminded of what I am.”
“Who you are.”
“Same thing.”
Piper hoists herself back into her wheelchair and scrapes at a half-torn wallpaper remnant with her fingernail.
“So why did you even come back at all?”
I check the door to make sure no one’s eavesdropping. “Guilt, I guess. Cora’s on a one-woman quest to make me a normal teenager again. She’s probably only letting me paint this room because she has a magazine clipping somewhere titled ‘Redecorate Your Way to Healing.’ ”
“Okay, pop quiz,” Piper says. “In the last two weeks, did you battle with inadequacy and self-loathing?”
“Check.”
“Did you feel like everyone in the school was talking about you and staring at you?”
“Check.”
“And did you compare yourself to others and always come up short?”
“Check.”
Piper raises her hands high above her head, her fists pumping with the paintbrush still in one, so little flecks of pink paint splatter everywhere.
“Congratulations! You’re a normal teenager.”
I roll my eyes. Across the room, I catch my reflection in Sara’s curio cabinet. The plastic sheeting distorts me even worse in the glass.
“It’s not the same, and you know it.”
She wheels herself backward to admire our paint job.
“Well, that looks just terrible.” The paint is drying a little less shockingly bright, but the overall effect is that an erratic Easter Bunny couldn’t decide between marshmallow-Peeps pink and robin’s-egg blue.
When I ask Glenn if Cora wants to see, he says she’s already gone to bed, so I tuck the single remnant of butterfly trim I managed to save into my desk drawer.
Glenn carries Piper back downstairs, where we nuke popcorn and brave the cold to escape the paint fumes. Piper wheels her chair to the edge of the in-ground trampoline and lowers herself down to the black surface. I try not to bounce too much as I lie down, the familiar sway beneath me. I’ve never been out here without Sara next to me. Sun in our faces in the summer. Snow angels in winter. Trading secrets, making plans.
Funny how when your secret keeper is gone, all those dreams and conversations vanish, too.
I block the light from the house with my hand so I can find the familiar configurations in the sky above me. I point out the North Star, and the dipper part of the Big Dipper, just like I used to with Sara when we’d camp out on the tramp.
“I learned in middle school that the stars we see are already dead,” Piper says, munching popcorn. “Which is depressingly awesome.”
Dad and I used to stare up at the sky just like this in our backyard. The stars were easier to see back then from our remote spot of the world.
“It’s more like we’re seeing the stars the way they once were,” I say. “Like, if a star is one hundred light-years away, we’re seeing the glow from a century ago.”
“So it’s like we’re seeing into the past?”
“Sort of. My dad used to say, ‘The past is all around us.’ He also used to make up this story about how stars are peepholes to heaven so our loved ones can check in on us.”
Piper almost chokes on her popcorn.
“How very Lion King of him.”
I laugh, and my breath spirals away from me. Piper and I stare up at the sky, the trampoline swaying slightly beneath us. The night air nips at me, but I can barely feel it through my second skin.
Piper props herself on her elbow.
“What if he’s right? What if your parents are up there, watching your life?”
My eyes focus on the black nothingness between the stars.
“I sure hope not.”
Piper gives me a rough shove in the arm.
“Then stay,” she says. “Ditch the quarantined Quasimodo act and give normal an actual chance.”
“No way. I put in my two weeks as the Crossroads sideshow and now I’m free,” I say. I’ve served my time. Why would I subject myself to more? Still, Piper looks at me so hopefully, for a second I feel bad she’ll have to cruise the hallways alone on Monday. “Don’t worry. You’ll be fine without me.”
Piper scoffs. “Always am. It’s you I’m worried about. Two weeks ago, you showed me a picture of a girl in a truly hideous Rizzo wig who you clearly miss. I highly doubt you’re going to find her sitting in a dead girl’s room, pretending you died in that fire, too.”
“Exactly. Because that me is gone.”
Piper sits up on the trampoline, the whites of her eyes barely visible in the dark.
“Then let’s find her.” She pulls a sheet of paper out of her back pocket and smooths it out on the trampoline between us. “Auditions are on Friday.”
“ ‘Crossroads High Clubs,’ ” I read out loud. “Spring Musical” is circled in black marker. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Hear me out.” Her voice is quick and excited. “The first step is to do something you used to do. Reclaim that part of yourself.”
I imagine myself before the fire, standing on the stage of my old high school. My mom holds up her cell phone, and my dad claps loudly, doing that embarrassingly loud whistle w
ith two fingers. But stages belong with singing and ponytails and bathing suits and makeup on the growing list of Things I Lost in the Fire.
“This face does not belong under a spotlight, unless the goal is to scare small children.”
Piper laughs. “Yeah, you definitely have a face for radio.”
“I have a face for living under a rock. Is there a club for that?”
Piper gasps and points to an item halfway down the list.
“Right here! The antisocial club. We eat lunch behind curtains and collaborate on ways to evaporate. We hope to one day merge permanently with the walls.”
“Sign me up!”
“Oh, wait”—she deflates—“it looks like you’re already the president of that one.”
I chuck a handful of popcorn at her. Piper catches some kernels midair and stuffs them into her mouth.
“What about you?” I ask.
“What about me?”
“Why aren’t you in drama anymore? I heard that Asad kid asking you about it.”
Piper shrugs.
“Eh…I used to be friends with some of those drama girls, but they turned into total divas. I can’t stand them.”
“But I can?”
“You’re new. They have no reason to hate you.”
Lying back on the trampoline, I stare up into the night sky. My breath evaporates in smoky wisps.
I think of Dad telling eight-year-old me that my life was as limitless as the galaxies. “Shoot for the highest stars, Ava, and you’re bound to hit something. But first, you have to shoot.”
What would Dad think of me now, hiding in my bedroom, staring at posters rather than shooting for something—anything—of my own? Even if my two-week trial is technically up, he’d tell me to get back on the stage.
He’d tell me to shoot.
The trampoline bounces wildly as I sit up and snatch the sheet of activities from Piper.
“If I stay at school—” Before I can finish, Piper throws her hands up in celebration. I hold up the sheet. “If I stay, then it’s on one condition: you are doing this with me.”
Piper lowers her hands and scrunches up her face. “Drama? No way.”
“Then something else. What’s something you used to do before the accident?”
“Volleyball.” Piper jerks her head toward her wheelchair on the grass. “But that’s obviously out.”
“No way. If I’m going to sign up for the drama club with this face, you can find some way to get on the court with those legs.”
Piper looks from me to her chair, her eyes narrowed.
“And then you’ll stay?” she asks.
“I’ll stay.”
A smile spreads across her face so bright that it cuts through the darkness. She shakes my hand hard.
“Deal.”
March 9
I don't remember much.
Just heat.
And smoke.
Everywhere.
Eating me up.
And then, it vanishes.
Not gone.
Just moved.
Inside me.
Each breath
burns white-hot.
I try to scream.
No voice,
only pain.
I swallowed the fire.
I land on my back.
I remember a smell.
Me.
Burning.
My brain screams.
Move!
My body won't listen.
Only my arm obeys,
moving slowly,
like the air is wet concrete.
Where is my hand?
Only
flaps of skin
and
bone
where fingers should be.
What's wrong with me?
Then,
pain.
Waves
crushing me.
Until
there is nothing left
but hurt.
"Stay with me."
A voice.
A face.
My neighbor
rocks my body
back
and
forth
rocks me
rocks me
rocks me
She
Puts
Me
Out.
Her lips say,
"You're going to be okay."
Her eyes say something else
Blackness
closes in
like a telescope.
Quiet.
Easy.
"Hold on," she says.
To what?
To
pain
heat
panic?
The blackness beckons.
I feel myself letting go
of
pain
heat
panic.
"Hold on. For your parents."
Mom.
Dad.
They need me
to stay.
I open my eyes.
Through the blackness—
stars.
Untouched by
smoke
and
hurt.
I cling
to the stars
as sirens near,
heavy footsteps
fall.
Voices shout.
From a million miles away,
tiny lights
anchor me
to the earth.
Hands on my back.
Lifting me.
No.
No.
No.
Don't take the lights.
Leave me
here.
Where the stars
can hold me
together.
11
Our plan is simple: I will sign up for some small, back-of-the-stage part—like a tree or another glorified stage prop—in the spring play, and Piper will see if her old coach will let her be a water girl or something else wheelchair-appropriate. It’s not going to be glamorous, but by the way Cora disintegrates, you’d think I’d won an Academy Award and Piper was going to the Olympics.
“I just can’t believe it,” she says through tears on Sunday night when I tell her I’ll be a Crossroads Viking for at least a week longer. “It’s like a miracle.”
“Miracles don’t exist.” I pack my math textbook into my bag. “This was all Piper.”
* * *
When the final bell rings Friday afternoon, Crossroads High transforms from a normal educational facility to the land of after-schoolers. Before I head to the auditorium for the drama club’s first meeting, I drop Piper off by the locker rooms so she can talk to the athletic coordinator.
I wedge Piper’s wheelchair through the throng of uniform-clad athletes drinking protein shakes and spraying Febreze on football pads that have no chance of ever not smelling like teenage-boy sweat again.
“Break a leg,” Piper shouts over the din. “But not a spine!”
Heading toward the auditorium, a shoeless boy and girl leap arm in arm through the hallway, narrowly skipping over the proof pages of this month’s Crossroads Crier sprawled on the floor. As I get closer to the end of the hall, the sound of tuning instruments wafts from the orchestra room.
Everyone has their group in this extracurricular menagerie.
The auditorium buzzes with voices as I sneak in the side door and into the first available velvet seat. Other kids are sitting, too, but most are scattered across the room—belting out a mash-up of show tunes, sitting on the edge of the stage with their legs dangling, or talking loudly in
the aisles.
I used to be one of them—a stage-adrenaline junkie. The thrill of opening night, the energy of the theater coursing through me as I took my mark. The lights in my face. The blackness of the audience in front of me. I knew my parents were there, Mom probably cursing her phone for not having enough storage space and Dad uncontrollably saying my lines with me.
The stage was my second home. A place I felt safe. Alive. Confident.
A girl prances across the stage barefoot, and I instantly recognize her as the girl who called me Freddy Krueger. Piper’s right; she does look like she’s about to sneeze-fart.
She leaps across the stage (nowhere near as gracefully as Sara would have) and takes a bow in front of a boy, who gives a fake clap. She tousles his hair and, as she stands up straight, catches me watching her before I can turn away. She whispers to the boy, who turns to look at me, too.
The news of my attendance spreads quickly, judging by the not-so-covert head turns rolling like a wave through the crowd: Alert! Alert! Drama crisis! The Burned Girl is here. In our theater.
I scrunch farther down into the velvet seat, trying to shake a feeling that I’ve never associated with the sanctity of a theater before.
Fear.
How am I going to get on that stage if just sitting here makes my skin crawl?
I guess the fire claimed both my homes.
As the seats fill, except—noticeably—the ones by me, I hug my bag as I fish out my headphones. I’m about to put them on when a boy actually scoots into the row, and I look up into dark eyes and hazelnut skin.
“Asad, right?”
He points behind us to the hallway.
“Out there, I’m just Asad. In here, I’m Asad Ebrahim, stage-lighting manager extraordinaire!” He punctuates his sentence with some over-the-top jazz hands. His arm brushes mine on the armrest and—perhaps even more alarming—he doesn’t recoil in horror.
“What about you? Cast or backstage crew?” he says.
Backstage? Piper and I decided I was going to try out for a part, but I hadn’t even considered the crew option. Backstage totally still counts.