by Leanne Davis
She shakes her head and stares down at her hands in her lap. She starts to pick at a cuticle. “It’s so not me, Wyatt. I can’t… I can’t believe or explain it.”
“I think it’s awesome, and you should indulge it a little longer. Come on. Come back to campus and visit me. We had fun, didn’t we?”
“We did,” she grudgingly admits.
I grin at her profile. She shoots a small warm smile my way. Are we friends? We must be. I feel congenial in ways that I don’t naturally feel with anyone else. I might be well-liked and respected but after the introductions, I’m not the warmest person. I’m the type people respect but often feel uneasy with. Not like Jacey. With Jacey, people feel at ease from the start. It was easy for me to respond to her and even ask her to jog with me when she clearly can’t do it. I was glad to show her around my college for three days. None of that is usual for me. But I don’t try to sleep with her. Or send out any signals suggesting that either. Why? I could. She’s single. I’m single. Is it because she currently lives in my house and my parents are helping her out? Yeah. That, too. But her life is so chaotic and unusual that I don’t want to do anything to ruin any semblance of peace she’s found. Or add to her instability. So I persist. I think visiting the college is good for her and maybe even for me. It seems to loosen me up. Keeping me from being so focused on my career and sports that I forget to live. “So, you’ll come back to school?”
She nods. “I’ll talk to your mom about it. First, I need to ask her about working and then if it would be okay for me to visit campus to see you. I want to do well in their eyes. They’ve done so much for me when they didn’t have to do anything.”
I slide a glance to her and then back at the road. “Um… they did have to. That or they could have put you up in a tent staked out in the yard. You needed hand and a lift up. You needed a break, Jacey. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. And knowing Wesley, you had to be a decent person, or he’d never let you come near Dani. So everyone appreciates your gratitude. But my parents think it’s pretty cool to see you finding other opportunities in life that you never considered before. So don’t undercut their pleasure in watching you discover new chances and prospects.” I wince as the words pop out of my mouth. “I don’t mean for it to sound condescending—”
She turns towards me, leaning her back against the passenger window. “You are showing me all the things I don’t know about. I don’t think you’re being condescending to me, I think you’re… you, your parents and Dani are… well, you’re everything good and decent that Wesley and I never had. You and your family are so patient to take your time and show us an entirely different world. You’ve given us the most anyone has ever given to either of us.”
I wince. “I don’t deserve those words of praise. My parents do. I resisted everything they tried to do for Wesley.”
“Not me. You didn’t resist a moment of their help for me.” She grins. “Maybe you just thought my face was prettier. Or seeing a girl in need…”
I tip my head and flash some teeth before I grimace. “I hope I’m not that sexist. But honestly, you were just so upfront. Telling us your name. Your age. Your instantaneous permission to look into your past. I liked that about you. How direct you are. I still like it. Wesley seemed squirrelly. About the theft and then when he refused to tell anyone his last name. Dani didn’t even know his last name when she fell in love with him. I know I could not be that accepting.”
We pull into my house. “I’m very grateful, and if it works out, I’d like very much to come back and visit you and the university.”
I would like her to visit again, too. So I say, “Good. Then we’ll plan on it.”
JACEY
It’s strange to feel so welcomed back home. Tara was visibly glad to see us when we walked in. Slipping our shoes off, because that’s what they all did, we were hugged and fussed over before being offered a huge dinner. Lots of delicious dishes. Wesley walked in from work when we were halfway through it. He gave me a hard time before he and Wyatt continued their faux-fighting and innovative efforts to annoy each other. Tara laughed often and Ryder grumbled. I enjoyed each and every interaction. I’ve never been a part of something so good. It was healthy. Fun. I enjoy just being with this group of people. I never had a group that I belonged to. I never felt secure enough to enjoy being with the families that fostered me. But I do enjoy this family.
Tara eagerly puts me to work waiting tables. Dani trains me and to my surprise, we have so much fun together. We giggle over private jokes and certain patrons and her friendship just makes it all the better. I don’t visit Wyatt the next weekend because Tara needs me, but we make plans for the following weekend when Wyatt has another home game. It feels good to be working at a job and earning money. It gives me something important to do. My brain thrives on being busy. I hate to sit around and ponder my life and sad times and the unhappy things that happened in my past.
Meanwhile, I continue to read our book. Diligently. It takes me far too long. I am a slow, unpracticed reader. Most of my reading came from magazines or web surfing. Until I started this book, I don’t remember ever reading a whole novel, let alone a classic of literary fiction. I did a search on the book and author and learned I was reading an English translation that was the center of a controversy. There was some disagreement over which version was the best translation and the differences in both versions changed the entire story. Who knew?
Me. I know now. It’s weird to know something so remote and trivial and unexpected. It’s not exactly useful information to anyone, except maybe on a game show, but I like knowing that for some reason. I doubt if I will ever forget that trivial fact. It’s like a valuable nugget I want to hold onto. I also want to gather more unusual tidbits and extraordinary facts. Why? Because I’ve never had access to such things. But I’m not even sure what questions to ask to learn new things. I find it difficult to explain to others, but I think Wyatt will understand what I mean. When I see him next, I expect him to beam with pride at me for adopting this strong, new desire to learn new things.
I’m actually counting on that reaction from him, which is partly why I so diligently continue to read Crime and Punishment. I must read most of it before the next time I see him. I want him to know that I tried and finished it. I want him to realize that I took it seriously and was very grateful for the time he took to get me the book. I want to be different now, and Wyatt seems the best person to help me do that. Not because he’s telling me what to do, but rather encouraging me to do things I’ve never considered possible.
Hans texts me each day as well. I respond and we exchange cute, little, chatty conversations that last a few hours. One day he asks, what are you doing?
Reading Crime & Punishment.
Haha, no really? What r u up 2?
No for real.
Why the hell would you do that?
I like it.
I’m not going to explain the thing between Wyatt and me to him. It’s ours alone. No one else’s. Hans wouldn’t understand.
I hated it. Had to read it for a European Lit class freshman year. Stupid.
It’s not. I find it interesting. What r u studying?
Majoring in chemistry
What do you want to be?
Don’t care. Just need the degree. Parents r up my ass to get it. At least there r good parties.
I don’t answer our innocuous exchange. A month ago, I might have written those same words that he texts. Now? I feel protective of my book. My book. Saying that thrills me. I had no idea I would like to read. This idiot can’t appreciate that he gets to do all that for free. No job. No debt. No strain or harm to himself. And he can’t even find the gratitude to say he appreciates it? I grit my teeth at hearing his last sentence. I want it all. The college. The parents. The degree. He has it all and yet still has the audacity to scorn it?
He can keep his stupid parties. I want the rest of it.
I sigh, flip my phone to the bed, and get up. I feel restless an
d stare out the window. Parties, drinking, drugs. I know, par for the course for most college students. It was fine for me, too. But suddenly, now it seems stupid and small, the last thing I want to do. It’s all I’ve known up to now. Everything my mom gave me. It’s what I had in common with other foster kids and the handful of high school kids I made friends with. Parties. Drinking. Drugs. Trouble.
I don’t want that anymore. None of it.
You have to change something to expect changes. Rachel’s words ding through my head. She’s right. She’s always right.
I shake my head at the blinding realization. I never judged people who partied, obviously since I was usually doing it, too and was often in the center of it. But now? I don’t want to. I want a lot more. So much more. I move from the window and go downstairs, my head bursting with new thoughts. I’m hungry. I stand in the empty living room. I’m not hungry for food. No snacks or meals. I’m hungry for knowledge. I want to make a difference. I want to discover new ways of living and being and experiencing the world.
I’m hungry for an education.
What the fuck? Who is this? Who am I? I wander out to the porch. My canvas shoes are sitting there. I slip them on and start down the road at a slow jog. I’m very poor at it. Terrible form. I don’t have the right shoes, but it helps me process my groundbreaking thoughts. They are still new for me. They aren’t clear yet, and I have no idea what to do with them. Me reading a novel? Wanting to know lots of things? I can’t even articulate all the things I want to know about. I just want to know everything.
I want to be different.
I want more.
I want the whole fucking world.
All the opportunities that Dani and Wyatt have access to and dream about and make decisions based upon… I want all of that.
I run until I’m winded and finally stop, bending over, and breathing hard. Glancing up at the blue sky above me, a strange thing happens. My heart lifts up. It just begins to soar and something warm fills my body. I glance around, feeling startled and confused.
I feel good.
Warm and fuzzy and happy. But different than I have ever felt before. It’s so genuine and based only on me, my thoughts and feelings, my running and exercising right now.
I am filled with joy.
Puzzled by the sensation, I let it simmer and bubble up. My mind is curious and loves sensing something different in the air, something new and exciting. I run down the road, and my body feels better. I am refreshed and my mood is boosted. Everything inside me is bubbling, warm and fuzzy, and I am excited.
Tears fill my eyes, and I blink them away. I never knew I could feel this way. I am all alone, sober, and calm in a refreshed, completely sane way.
I’m a long way from lying on the floor while being strangled. I shudder at the thought. The juxtaposition of the two feelings suddenly becomes startlingly clear to me. I whip my head up and look around at all the light I see shining around me.
I want this forever.
It’s just that easy. I feel sure when this voice speaks to me. It echoes in my head, heart, soul, legs, feet, and arms … everywhere. I want a better life. I want to experience joy every day. I want to become a fountain of knowledge. I want friends like Tara and Ryder and Wyatt and Wesley and Dani. I want this place and to remain sober and… I want to feel like this again.
I blink in surprise. That kind of clarity never came to me before. I usually bumble through my days with awkward social interactions, even during my counseling with Rachel. I never before heard my inner voice guiding me and wanting better things for me.
It’s so exciting. It makes me want to laugh and cry, spinning in circles and dancing right there all alone on the country road. Instead, I smile and let out a small hiccup of a laugh as I start running. I run in a hard sprint back to the house, bursting with the joy of the world around me and so glad I am alive. As my feet hit the ground, I am so grateful to be running and healthy.
It’s never been something I thought about before. Or appreciated. Or realized. I have complete control over my life now. I don’t have to wallow in the history that defined me thus far. I was just a kid, and it was never my fault. But from here forward? It’s all my responsibility.
And it’s all my fault.
I stop dead again. Breathing hard, I am wonderfully winded. I have a stitch in my side, but I don’t care. Because it’s all my own doing.
Instead of a negative twist and the implication of blame or fear, I realize in this statement, at my age, my life thus forward will all be my own doing. Mine. In accepting this ownership, I suddenly see the freedom I’ve never known before. I can be different. I can start brand new. I can be anything I want.
I’ve never considered taking ownership of my life or what would happen to me. I’ve been mired in the system and trying to survive it without becoming a gangster or a thief or a drug addict. In my defense, I lacked a positive role model to guide me until I met Rachel.
But now I have a plan and an opportunity.
I have never had the luxury of time. Time to be clean and sober and feel cared for. With those things out of the way, I’ve had the chance to think. I can articulate my opinions and thoughts and evaluate the ones that are new to me. I find it just as shocking as being sold to a man by your mother would seem to most other people.
I laugh out loud. My twisted reality is horrifying and strange and should not be. I get this. But I have always felt trapped in it. As if my past is like concrete, dried around me, all the way down to my knees and I could never escape that reality. But now I realize there’s nothing down there but my bare feet. I’m as free or as mired as I choose to be.
I take responsibility from here forward.
And this is no Rachelism. This is me. I am speaking. I came up with my own ism. My own self-reflection, my own coping strategy. I can allow my past to define me, and continue to ruin me, and hang onto unhealthy patterns that I chronically repeat with unpleasant results or I can choose different paths that are new and seek valuable knowledge.
Knowledge.
That seems to be the key to everything I’ve never had access to. I think Wyatt inspired me to seek more knowledge.
I suck in mouthfuls of air.
And I desperately want more of it.
I want all of it.
What’s more, I fucking deserve it. I do. I really do.
I grimace as I head up the porch steps. I am sweaty and ripe and grungy and renewed and bright-eyed and excited. What a freaking dichotomy. That one sentence from Hans that was so careless and forgettable, ramblings in a text conversation, yet it manages to activate a reaction in me. I have clarity like I’ve never experienced before. Owning this new attitude does not seem familiar. Growing up with evil and negative influences, as I witnessed, I should seek all the bad things I got used to, like partying, which is how I passed my teenage years.
I go inside and shower and change, gratefully cognizant of having a clean shower and clothes. Now it seems like all of my life has improved, which lifts my attitude and my expectations. Being receptive to the Kincaids’ kindness has resulted in countless benefits and blessings. If Wyatt can be what he chooses, and Dani can fulfill her goals, why can’t I be a success story, too? Because my mother was a mean drunk and drug addict? Because she was careless with me and too broken, ruined, and hurting to do anything about it? Because she was unfit, and she did bad things to me? But I don’t have to become what she was or do what she did.
Right?
Yes. Right.
Wyatt. All I can think about is telling him my latest discovery. I dress again and end up back on my bed where this new epiphany dawned on me while reading my book. My book! I’m right back there but completely changed.
First, I text Wyatt.
You once mentioned I could go to community college even with my horrible GPA from high school. How do I do that? I think I want to try. I don’t know how. But I want to. Will you help me?
Two minutes later, he texts back. Yes. Be
home tomorrow. We’ll start then.
I stare in disbelief at the simplicity of his answer to my question. But my heart thumps. My brains hums.
Have I just taken the first step to change my life?
Chapter 9
WYATT
I don’t expect Jacey to respond to my suggestion she could go to college someday as quickly as she does. From that one weekend visit to my university, she has decided to change her entire life. Her text comes just as I’m just finishing up classes and changing for practice. My heart twists. She’s so sweet and real and forward and honest. I like all of that about her. I think she’s more honest and braver than I am. She’s scared and of course, she asks for help. But she’s always willing to try it by herself. She steps right into the unknown, out of her comfort zone and admits what she doesn’t know. That takes courage.
Not like me. I have the world at my feet, always willing to help me succeed and honoring me when I do. And I don’t even call out fucking racist assholes? Jacey is attempting to undo a lifetime of neglect and limited prospects and having no one believe in her. After only a few weeks of people supporting her, she’s already searching for more, reaching out for it.
There’s a hell of a lot I respect in her.
I show up at home after practice. I don’t have any extra time to spare but I am compelled by Jacey and the earnest way in which she attempts to be part of Silver Springs and welcomes anything new into her life. I can’t turn my back on her when she’s reaching out to me. When I show up, she smiles wider than I’ve ever seen her. I set my laptop up, and we start scrolling down the community college website. She is overwhelmed by the meticulous information. It seems so easy for me since it’s stuff I already know. I have to remember that this might as well be a foreign language to her. It’s no harder than balancing a checkbook to me, as I’ve navigated my way through applications for colleges since I was a junior in high school.