We Were Beautiful

by Heather Hepler

  Advance praise for We Were Beautiful

  “We Were Beautiful is a profound story of relearning how to love and live in the aftermath of trauma. Mia’s journey into a new identity celebrates the healing power of friendship and the enduring beauty of survivors.”

  MARIE MARQUARDT, author of The Radius of Us, Dream Things True, and Flight Season

  “A deftly crafted novel by an author with a genuine talent for holding her reader’s rapt attention from beginning to end, We Were Beautiful, by Heather Hepler, is unreservedly recommended for school and community library YA Fiction collections.”

  MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW

  We Were Beautiful

  Copyright © 2019 by Heather Hepler

  Requests for information should be addressed to:

  Blink, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

  ISBN 978-0-310-76864-7 (audio)

  ISBN 978-0-310-76643-8 (print)

  ISBN 978-0-310-76638-4 (ebook)

  Epub Edition February 2019 9780310766384

  * * *

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Hepler, Heather, author.

  Title: We were beautiful / Heather Hepler.

  Description: Grand Rapids, Michigan: Blink, [2019] | Summary: Fifteen-year-old Mia’s scarred face is a constant reminder of the car crash that killed her sister, but a summer at her grandmother’s Manhattan apartment and new friends help her find happiness again.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018049881 (print) | LCCN 2018054159 (ebook) | ISBN 9780310766384 (ebook) | ISBN 9780310766438 (softcover)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Disfigured persons--Fiction. | Grief—Fiction. | Guilt—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Grandmothers—Fiction. | New York (N.Y.)—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.H4127 (ebook) | LCC PZ7.H4127 We 2019 (print) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018049881

  * * *

  All internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by the publisher, nor does the publisher vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Printed in the United States of America

  19 20 21 22 23 / LSC / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For my mother, who always believes.

  Contents

  Advance Praise for We Were Beautiful

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Acknowledgments

  Teacher/Reading Group Discussion Questions

  Author Interview with Heather Hepler

  Connect with Heather Hepler!

  Chapter One

  The only sounds in the kitchen are the hum of the refrigerator, the scratch of a knife across toast, and the low murmuring of the radio tuned to NPR. My father sits across the table from me in our tiny kitchen. He’s buttering his toast, one bite at a time. Butter, bite, butter, bite. I want to ask him why he doesn’t just butter the whole thing at once, but that would mean talking to him. And I know he’d rather I didn’t do that.

  I stir a fourth teaspoon of sugar into my tea. The station is quiet for a moment, and then there’s Rachel’s voice, filling the kitchen like it used to every morning. But instead of coming from her usual chair across from me, her voice spills from the radio. And instead of her stream of thoughts ranging from why Grape-Nuts cereal contains neither grapes nor nuts to where they get the extra pulp for the country-style orange juice my father likes, she’s talking about the upcoming pledge drive and why we should support our local public radio station.

  My father and I both look at the radio. Then he looks back at his toast and I look at the sugar bowl, trying to decide if I should add another spoonful of sugar to my already too-sweet tea. My sister, the actress. Her one paying job was a voice-over for the local radio station.

  “You all packed?” Dad asks, as if nothing happened. I nod, but then remember he doesn’t look at me anymore.

  “Yeah,” I say. I glance at the one duffle bag I left beside the kitchen door. “I still don’t see why I have to—”

  My father sighs, silencing me. He pushes away from the table and walks over to the sink. “Mia,” he says. His voice is strained, as if just saying my name aloud is painful for him. “We’ve been over this. You can’t stay here by yourself.”

  “But I’m fifteen,” I say.

  He sighs again and turns to wash his plate in the sink. I touch the scar on my cheek. The doctor said it will flatten out in time, but it’s still raised and bumpy, like a rope of red licorice stuck to the side of my face. My fingertip traces it from where it starts at my hairline to where it ends near my collarbone, neatly bisecting my eye and my mouth as it meanders down toward my neck.

  The water shuts off. I look up to see my father staring at me, and my hand freezes. He turns away and grabs his keys from a nail driven into the doorframe.

  “Mia,” he says. “We both need some time.”

  “For what?” I ask. I’m not being argumentative. I just really don’t understand why he feels leaving will somehow fix what is broken between us.

  “I don’t know,” he says, walking over to where my duffle lies. He lifts my bag and pushes open the screen door without looking back at me. “Don’t forget your camera,” he says. The door snaps shut behind him, leaving me alone in the kitchen.

  I sit and stare at the untouched mug of tea in front of me until I hear his truck start up and then the sound of tires on gravel as he pulls out of the barn and around to the back door. As I stand up, my necklace falls free from the collar of my shirt. I quickly stuff it back inside, feeling its familiar weight against my chest. The silver is warm against my skin, but the chain chafes my neck. My father honks once, impatient to get going. Impatient to get me gone.

  I quickly wash out my mug and leave it in the dish drainer. I walk out onto the porch, not bothering to lock the door behind me. With my mother and sister long gone and my father and I driving away, anything we had that was worth stealing has already been taken. I start down the steps, but pause before reaching the bottom. My camera. I wasn’t going to bring it. I haven’t even touched it in almost a year, but thinking about things lost makes me afraid to leave it. Too many things have disappeared without warning over the last year. I head back inside and slide it from the shelf above the rows of chicken noodle soup and canned beans that make up most of our meals. It’s heavier than I remember.

  I hurry back outside and across the driveway to where my father is sitting in our truck, my duffle bag on the seat beside him. I y
ank the passenger side door open, wincing as it screeches, and climb inside. We bump out onto the road, picking up speed as we hit the asphalt.

  As we drive, I find myself searching the fog over the lake for Rachel’s bright pink kayak. I bite the inside of my cheek to make myself look away. My sister’s boat is not on the water. It’s hanging from the rafters of our barn, its fuchsia glow muted by months of gray dust.

  After fifteen minutes of silence, we pull up to the curb in front of the train station. I didn’t expect my father to walk me in and wait with me, but he doesn’t even offer. He simply puts the truck in park and shuts it off, then leans toward me. For a moment, I think he’s going to hug me, but he’s only shifting so he can get to his wallet. He pulls out two twenties and lays them on the duffle between us.

  “I sent Veronica a check,” he says. “To cover any expenses.”

  I pick up the money and push it into the front pocket of my jeans, not sure if I’m supposed to thank him.

  “Listen,” he begins, but he doesn’t say anything else. He just clutches the steering wheel and stares through the windshield.

  A speaker hung above the platform crackles to life. The voice echoes off the building, making it hard to hear the announcement, but I hear New York and departing.

  “I should go,” I say, not so much because I’m ready, but because the inside of the truck is hot and my father feels too close and too far away at the same time.

  “I’ll try to call you,” he says. “But I don’t know what our schedule will be like.” I wonder if he realizes it’s almost the exact thing my mother told me the last time she called. The only difference is that his schedule involves deep-water diving and weapons training, while my mother’s schedule is filled with praying and baking fruitcake.

  I push the door open and drop to the pavement, then turn and slide my duffle toward me. “I’ll see you in . . . August,” I say. I can barely get the word out. August. Months away.

  He clenches his jaw and takes a deep breath before nodding. I stand there, watching the side of his face as he turns the key and the truck roars to life. I sling my bag over my shoulder and cradle my camera in my hands before I take a step back and push the door shut. I watch him pull away from the curb and away from me.

  He doesn’t wave or look back. Neither do I.

  I walk through the station, past the cracked Formica chairs and vending machines stuffed with ranch Corn Nuts and Funyuns. The smells of urine and bleach battle for dominance near the bathrooms. Out on the platform, I wait in the shadow of the building as people board the train. Only when everyone is aboard but me do I move into the sunlight, careful to keep my hair draped across my face. I step into the closest car, praying there will be a window seat, something on the right-hand side of the train. I have to walk through two cars before I find an empty row. I slide into the seat next to the window, leaving my bag beside me, hoping people will take the hint I want to sit alone.

  I always try to sit to the right of people because from the left, I look totally normal. Red hair, pale skin, green eyes. But if you stand to the right of me, it’s a different story. My face is ruined. The doctor I was seeing in Boston told me that in a few more months, we could do another round of surgeries. More reconstruction. Try to make my eyes line up better. But he wants some time to pass to allow me to heal.

  I slide the book I brought with me free of my duffle. It’s one I’ve had for a long time, a book about fairy tales. My mom found it at the Old Port Book Shoppe during one of our afternoons scouring the used bookstores. She actually said Score! out loud, like she’d just found a hundred-dollar bill wedged between the pages. I’d rolled my eyes at her, but I couldn’t help smiling. We sat on the floor in the hot, dusty shop with our shoulders touching and the book spread across our laps. We stayed there, looking at the illustrations and reading bits aloud to each other. The sky was beginning to darken by the time we left, the plastic bag with our treasure inside clutched in my right hand and my mother’s warm hand in my left.

  It’s hard to read with the train lurching. I have to stop every few minutes to let my eyes rest. My vision becomes blurry when my eyes get fatigued, particularly the right one. That’s another thing the doctor is hoping will go away. Another thing to heal.

  I look up when I feel someone staring at me. It’s a little girl a few rows in front of me. Her eyes are wide and her brow furrowed.

  “Lexi, stop staring,” a woman whispers.

  I’m not sure why her mother is bothering to say anything now. Lexi has been staring at me nonstop ever since they boarded the train over half an hour ago. Now she’s watching me with a lollipop stuck in her mouth. Lexi slides down in her seat a little and looks away until her mother returns to her magazine. Then she’s right back to staring at me. She crunches the last of her lollipop, then gets up to throw the stick away. Her mother glances at her briefly and nods. Instead of putting her stick in the trash can closest to them, however, Lexi walks down the aisle toward me. I duck my head and pretend to read. Lexi stops in the aisle next to my row.

  “What happened to your face?” she asks. She tilts her head, curious. It’s nothing like the whispers behind hands and open sneers I’ve been navigating for the last few months.

  I look over at her mother, who is still flipping through her magazine. I turn and face Lexi straight on, thinking that if she gets a good look at me, she’ll go away. Her eyes widen slightly, but she holds her ground. Normally I would turn away if someone looked at me like that, but Lexi’s not staring at me like I’m a monster—more like I’m a puzzle she’s trying to figure out.

  She leans toward me. “Did a witch do that to you?”

  “No,” I say, hoping she doesn’t press me. I don’t really want to have that conversation with a six-year-old who has cherry lollipop smeared all over her cheeks.

  Lexi looks at me. “I’ll bet it was,” she says. The certainty in her voice catches me off guard. “I’ll bet that’s part of the spell. You can’t tell anyone about it. Was it a poison apple?” she asks. I shake my head. “Did you poke your finger on a spiggle?” she asks.

  “A spindle?” She bobs her head. “No,” I say. “I just wasn’t careful.”

  Lexi seems shocked by this. I don’t blame her. My story wouldn’t make a very good fairy tale. No dragons or fairies or jealous stepsisters. She chews on the end of her lollipop stick, thinking.

  “Are you going to find your fairy godmother?” she asks.

  “No,” I say. “I’m meeting my grandmother.” I want to add that I’m meeting her for the first time, but Lexi is shaking her head.

  “You have to find your fairy godmother,” she says. “Only she can break the spell.” I start to say something cynical, something about how magic isn’t real, but the look in Lexi’s eyes stops me. She’ll figure it out for herself soon enough.

  Finally, Lexi’s mom notices her daughter hasn’t returned and hustles down the aisle toward us. She grabs Lexi’s hand and offers me what I’m sure is meant to be an apologetic smile, but it seems more like a horrified grimace.

  “I’m so sorry—” she begins, but the way she says it, I’m not sure if she’s sorry about Lexi or about my face. Maybe both. She pulls Lexi back to their seats.

  “Good luck,” Lexi says. She plants her feet, forcing her mother to stop. “Just remember your fairy godmother.”

  I nod as her mother drags her away. I flip open the book in my lap, trying to find my place. Staring up at me is an artist’s sketch of Cinderella. She is dressed in rags and is shoeless, kneeling in the cold ashes of the fireplace. She is looking through a window toward the flower-filled gardens beyond. But the window is shut, the iron latch is tight. There seems to be no hope that she will one day walk in the sun.

  The speaker over my head sputters to life with our arrival announcements. We are told to gather our things and be ready to “detrain,” which I didn’t even know was a word. Lexi and her mother are already standing in the aisle. Her mother offers me one more pained smi
le as if just looking at me is hurting her. Lexi waves as they step off the train. I wave back.

  I wait until the car is clear before walking down the aisle to the open door. The smell of the city hits me first—dark and smoky and slightly moldy. I walk past towering columns of concrete toward the escalator leading up to the rest of the station, where a woman I’ve never met before is waiting.

  I’m almost to the escalator when I hear a low whistle. I know I shouldn’t look over, but I do.

  “Hey, beautiful,” a guy with dark curly hair says. I stare at him for a moment too long. The guy sneers at me. “I wasn’t talking to you, Freak Show.” His friends all crack up. High fives all the way around.

  Of course you weren’t, I think. I step onto the escalator and ride it up to the top, hoping they don’t see the blush staining my cheeks. When I reach the main part of the station, I look around, wondering how I’ll figure out which woman is my grandmother. Luckily, I don’t have to. A tall woman with graying hair, with strands that hint it was once red, walks right up to me. She sticks out her hand, making me juggle my camera so that I can shake it.

  “Veronica Thompson,” she says, giving my hand a squeeze that feels more like she’s checking the ripeness of a peach.

  “Mia Hopkins,” I say.

  My grandmother studies me for a long moment before giving a barely perceptible nod. You’ll do, it says. Maybe. Then she turns away from me and walks toward a wall of glass doors that will take us out onto the street. It’s clear I’m to follow.

  We’re in a cab and pulling into traffic before I have a chance to look around. Cars press in on us from every side and buildings march into the distance as far as I can see. Our cab driver keeps switching lanes, looking for the perfect path through the snarl of traffic.

  Veronica instructs him on where to turn and what roads to take. He nods, but ignores her direction. Finally, she turns to me. “You’re late,” she says, like it’s my fault the train wasn’t on time.