A Girl Like Me

by Ginger Scott

  My friend has let go of my hand, moving to TK and linking her arm through his, and I can’t help but feel hurt that she’s abandoned me so quickly. I suppose I deserve it.

  I turn to the scene behind me, reporters still quiet, unaware of the story that’s about to pull into this driveway and splash across their channels at five o’clock or paint their front pages in the morning. My dad is leaning on the front bumper of his car, his arms folded over his chest, one hand’s fingers tapping nervously on the forearm of the other.

  Everyone wants this to happen right now, this way—everyone, but me.

  I don’t know what I expected…that I’d find Wes, our eyes would meet, and hand-in-hand we’d walk home together, no questions, no spectacle about his return. Right now, this way—it’s the only way this could happen.

  “They’re here,” TK says, reading a message on his phone.

  Everyone moves toward the house, and I follow a few steps behind. My eyes go to my dad first. He pushes away from his car, standing and moving his hands to his pockets, his eyes roaming along the roadway, waiting to see the Stokes’s car. I follow the line of his gaze and hold my breath, my focus fixed on the corner. A few reporters have caught wind, and they’ve moved away from their trucks, pushing against caution tape and breaking it in other places.

  The car turns the corner, and my mouth becomes sour.

  “Stay back!” an officer shouts, holding his palms out toward what has grown to a group of seven reporters. The group doubles in a breath, and in another, there are twenty people pushing against the arbitrary line the police drew in the middle of the Stokes’s yard. Feet are trampling flowers, and camera posts dig into the ground while shutters begin clicking. The words of a handful of reporters begin to run together, each beginning nearly the same.

  “The boy was thought dead.”

  “A missing Bakersfield teen is coming home.”

  “For the parents, a miracle has happened.”

  It’s all just the soundtrack that floods my ears as Bruce drives slowly toward his home, wanting nothing more than to make his family whole again and hold onto his boy forever. A boy he told me himself is special.

  A boy I know is special.

  “They call him a hero…”

  It’s those words that stand out, the ones from a blonde woman standing in front of a camera closest to me, words that remind me of similar ones I’d recently heard from Shawn.

  “You would need a hero.”

  My mind recalls what Shawn said, and I repeat it now to myself, my lips muttering silently as the tires dip at the driveway’s edge, the car squeaking as axles bend. Wes is wearing a hat pulled low over his brow and one of his father’s coats with the collar flipped up high.

  When Bruce kills the engine, the media begins to rush forward, and that line the police thought they drew is instantly erased. I’m shoved by a camera-wielding shoulder, and Wes’s brothers are both shouting, holding their arms out, trying to protect Wes from being seen. It’s all so impossible. Those pictures of me in my driveway, the wreckage my father made, will live on forever on websites and in clips people cut out from papers, excited that their little town was famous from some tragedy.

  Everyone will see Wes—the teenaged hero who has finally come home. This will follow him for weeks, maybe months, until something sexier, more tragic comes along. And even then, it will be revisited. His first Christmas home, his graduation, wherever he goes to college—every move he makes is news now.

  I’m engulfed in a sea of reporters—lights and flashes—when Bruce exits his car and holds open the back door, trying to block everyone’s view of his son. I stand on my toes and see the top of Wes’s head followed by the deep brown of the jacket he’s wearing. He moves, protected by his family, and by Kyle and Taryn, toward his home.

  He shouldn’t risk being viewed, but I know why he does. He slows, and his family does the same as he moves his hand from shading his eyes and scans the thick crowd now filling his family’s property. Eyes so blue blink from the flashes, and his lips part, almost as if he wants to say something. I know what it is—he wants to call for me. I shift in the crowd, and I rest my hand on the shoulder of a cameraman in front of me. Ignoring his grumbles, I lift myself higher until his eyes find me in the madness, and I’m suddenly hit with a wave of fear.

  His mouth shuts, but he takes a few seconds to look me in the eyes. Hundreds of pictures are taken, and photographers shuffle and move to get the best shot of a face so perfect that it will never leave my memory.

  Wes is home. I should feel something. I should be happy and relieved. But he said he would never do this, and his uncle told me why.

  What happens at the end of the story, Wes?

  I blink and look down, and when I glance up again, Wes and his family and my friends have all gone inside. The cameras stop, falling away from shoulders as men and women retreat back to their vans and cars. They won’t leave, not for hours. They’ll sit out here and wait for a blind to open, for someone to come out that door and give a statement. They’ll pounce on Taryn and Kyle when they leave, and they’ll start knocking on doors to ask neighbors for their opinions, as if any of them could possibly speak on Wes’s behalf.

  My feet begin to retreat before I fully decide, so I listen to my instincts and play the part of a curious on-looker until I reach my dad. He nods at me, but I only glance and tilt my neck toward his car, urging him to get inside.

  He waits while I buckle up, and when I’m done, I twist to look at him.

  “I’d like to go back to school,” I say, my eyes flitting to the steering wheel then back up to my father’s face. His brow draws in, and he holds my stare for a few seconds before nodding once and pulling his mouth in on one side.

  “All right,” he says, turning over the engine and buckling his seatbelt before shifting into drive. He doesn’t move right away, and I sigh in anticipation of his question.

  “You can miss a day of training, you know. And school, for that matter,” he says.

  “I’ll come back later,” I say, sitting tall in my seat and glaring at the empty street ahead. I want to leave everything behind me…just for a little while.

  “I figured you’d want to be here. I mean—” he starts to speak, but I break in.

  “I figured you were done sneaking out to drink at night and crying over old photos of Mom,” I spit out. My words are cruel, and I regret them almost the instant they come out, but I can’t be here. Not right now. And I can’t ignore the fact that my dad was gone, and he has a history of disappointing me.

  We sit with the motor humming for several seconds, and I blink as I look straight ahead, fighting my father’s silent pleas to look him in the eyes. If I do, it will break me.

  “I don’t know what’s going on with you, Joss, or why you feel like you have to pretend that what just happened doesn’t mean something to you, but I’ll respect your wishes to leave now. But don’t open old wounds only to cover up new ones, not when I’ve been working so hard,” he says, and I can’t help myself. I twist, my fist holding onto the seatbelt that crosses my chest as I stare into my dad’s stubborn eyes.

  “Where’d you go last night, Dad?” I ask, knowing I won’t get an answer. My father’s mouth remains a still, flat line. His jaw flexes, and I catch the movement in his cheek, which makes me breathe out a laugh. I fall back into my seat the right way and let go of my belt. “That’s what I figured. I’ll quit hiding things when you do.”

  My dad sighs heavily, but eventually he eases his foot off the brake and gives his attention over to the road. He drives me to the front office, parking at the curb to walk me inside and sign me in. I left my things in Taryn’s car, so I’ll need to borrow a camera for photography, but I already missed my weight-training class and most of government.

  “I’ll pick you up and take you to Rebecca in an hour,” he says, his words spoken over his shoulder as he walks through the glass door, getting in his car, and driving away.

  If it wer
en’t photography, I’d walk out of the office and turn the wrong way, heading to one of the empty lots across the street, hidden by overgrown bushes and trees. I wouldn’t smoke because that shit was really hard to quit, but I’d hide. I’d sit there in silence without anyone’s questions but my own.

  But I don’t want to miss photography. I love it too much. And fuck Wes Stokes if he thinks he can take that away from me, too.

  Seven

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this to you, but you need to slow it down. You’re pushing too hard.”

  Rebecca leans over the treadmill and hits the down arrow, slowing my run from a sprint to a comfortable jog. It takes a few seconds for my heart rate to catch up to the pace I just put my legs through, but after running what was maybe my best mile time ever, I’m no less wound up than I was the moment I came in here.

  My dad dropped me off. “Some place he needed to be,” is what he said. I didn’t ask for details, and he didn’t give any. I’m sure I won’t see him tonight, though. My only hope is that he’s spending all of this time with Meredith, the older woman he met in his support group that’s become my father’s closest friend. I’ve thought about calling Grace. I’m not sure where she and my dad stand with one another, but I know one truth about it—neither has ever disrespected the other in front of me. Grace talked about my dad’s drinking, but she never blamed him for his disease. There’s a certain respect there that must come from both being hurt by my mom.

  My face is hot, and I’m sure my cheeks are bright red. The treadmill slows to a walking pace, so I work to lengthen my stride, stretching out the muscles of my legs while I work to regulate my breathing again.

  “I don’t know what brought this power surge on, but you keep working out like this and we’re gonna have to start thinking about putting you in the Iron Woman,” Rebecca laughs.

  She tosses me the hand towel and I wipe the sweat from my face and neck. The machine stops completely and I lean forward, stretching the backs of my legs, feeling the burn on my hamstrings. Rebecca folds her arms and looks at me over the top of the treadmill.

  “It’s really something when you think about it,” she says.

  “What?” I chuckle.

  “How far you’ve come,” she says, winking as she pushes back from my machine and walks to her binder and gym bag resting on the windowsill.

  I pull my lips in on one side and look down at my feet, legs bent forward at a hard angle, flesh on one side, metal and fiberglass on the other. My limbs work in unison to stretch in a position that only a few short months ago would cause me to fall to my knees. Today—best mile time ever.

  My smile grows, and I laugh to myself as I step away from the machine and grab my water bottle from the window. After guzzling down nearly a third of it, I untie my hair and roll it into a knot, fastening it to the top of my head to cool down my beet-red neck. I’m soaked with sweat, and I feel terrible that Kyle has to put me in the cab of his truck, because I’m definitely ripe.

  “There’s someone I’d like you to meet,” Rebecca says. She stares at me for a second, a proud smile hitting her lips, curling, and eventually dimpling her cheek.

  “Why do I feel like you’re fixing me up?” I chuckle.

  “No, it’s just…I’m genuinely proud of you. And when I set this up a couple months ago…don’t take this the wrong way, but I wasn’t sure you’d be ready,” she says.

  I bite my bottom lip and squint at her, tilting my head as I screw the cap back on my water bottle. Now I really feel like I’m being set up.

  I wait while Rebecca reaches into her bag, fishing around for her wallet. When she finds it and unsnaps it, she pulls out a card, but quickly hides it under her palm, her hand over her chest.

  “I would be there with you for the entire thing, and I’d be a part of the story, too…” she begins, and the moment she says the word story my head rushes with a fluttering feeling and my knees begin to feel weak. Shawn saw my whole story. Wes doesn’t like the end of my story. That comic book Shawn drew—about my story—hasn’t been wrong yet. Everything I burned calories and sweat to avoid for the last two hours comes barreling back into my head, and I miss the rest of Rebecca’s point until my focus returns on the business card now in my hand.

  “Girl Strong,” I read the words. I glance at the name and title: EMILY COORS, MANAGING EDITOR. “As in…the magazine my dad used to buy for me when I was a kid?”

  My brain somehow switches to the present, to the very real present with unbelievable opportunities. This is life, with potential.

  “That’s the one,” Rebecca giggles.

  I look back down at the card, no longer able to hold back the grin that pushes into my cheeks. My chest flutters with giddiness.

  “They were going to do a story on just me, and after we started working together, I called them with this idea,” she says. My grin now locked in place, I look up at her again, so very ready to hear more. “Your story is so inspirational, Joss. I know you don’t like to think of it like that, but truly—there are little girls out there who are born with deformities, or who lose limbs or have disabilities that they think limit them. You prove that all wrong. I want people to read that story, to see your face and what you can do. What do you think?”

  My lips part with an exhausted breath, my body coming down from my workout as my heart kicks with this news. While Rebecca’s right, attention like this isn’t really my thing, having people notice my work is.

  “I’ve never thought of myself as a role model. In fact, a year ago I was probably very much an anti-role model.” I laugh out my words, but settle into a serious mode quickly. I swallow at the honor and enormity of this, and my breath catches as I think of Rebecca’s belief in me. Looking back down at the card imprinted with a magazine that has featured every major female Olympian since 1981, I nod and let my smile grow again. “Hell yeah, Becs. You just tell me what I need to do, where I need to be, and when.”

  “Awesome,” she says, her hand wrapping around my very tired bicep. It grows rigid, and I look up to meet her eyes. “But seriously, you can call me bitch before you call me Becs, got it?”

  I stare her down, and hold my laughter in. We’ve grown so close during our time together. Rebecca has become family to me.

  “So I can call you bitch?” I tease.

  “Only if you want me to push the up arrow on the treadmill next time,” she says, letting go of her grip on my arm and pointing with two fingers from her eyes to mine.

  “Whatever,” I laugh, running the towel over my face one more time and staring at the card as I make my way to the locker room.

  I text Kyle just before I get in the shower, and he’s sent a message back by the time I dress and gather my things to meet him out front. I read it as I walk through the gym, stopping to hug my first trainer, Stephanie. I’m not a hugger, but Stephanie is, and when I hated everyone for a while there, she was persistent on being my friend. That kind of tenacity deserves a hug, I figure.

  My phone is in my palm as I walk away from her workstation; I stop about ten paces from the door as I read Kyle’s words.

  I’m sorry. She made me do it.

  I blink once before looking out the glass door to the parking lot, at Taryn’s enormous Crown Victoria. If there were a backdoor to this place, I’d consider escaping through it now, but since that isn’t the case, I grip the Girl Strong business card in my hand and remember that not everything is terrible and uncomfortable. That thought carries me to Taryn’s passenger door, but it does little to help me breathe the suffocating environment that welcomes me when I climb inside.

  “We’re going to talk,” she says, turning her key, shifting and backing so fast that her wheels spin out enough to fishtail her giant automobile.

  “Kay, sounds good. Favor though?” She brakes hard and I fly forward, dropping the card to the floor between my feet when my palms flatten against the dashboard to keep me from smashing my face in. I grit my teeth, but sit back in the seat after pickin
g my card up. “Mind if I buckle up before you go all demolition derby?”

  I buckle fast because I pretty much know she’s going to peel away again, and she does just as I hear my belt click.

  “Demolition derby implies that I’m going to crash into someone, which I’m not,” she says, stopping hard at the first light. I grip my seatbelt and cough as it locks against my chest. “I’m merely going to drive angry.”

  “Awesome,” I mumble.

  I figured Taryn was pissed. I understand it, and I know that all of the shit I’m going through doesn’t really cancel out her feelings of being left out from my circle of trust. It’s going to be hard to explain—perhaps impossible—but I’m going to try.

  I rehearse it all in my head during the jerky drive home, but I’m no clearer on where to start when she stops at my curb and kills the engine. I glance sideways, hoping to see a smile on her face, or something soft that says, “I’m going to forgive you; let’s just move past this.” Instead, she’s sitting with her back pressed hard against the seat, her arms locked, and knuckles white.

  “Christopher.”

  I breathe out a laugh and smile on the side hidden from my friend. It’s like reliving everything I went through, the suspicion and eventual reality.

  “Yep.”

  I keep my eyes trained ahead on my street. Cars parked along the curb on either side, tires in front yards, a mom with her child splashing in a baby pool three houses down.

  “When did you know?” Taryn asks.

  “The moment he stood on the mound at the elementary school,” I admit, turning enough in my seat to look at Taryn.

  She chews at her bottom lip, her teeth sawing at it while her eyes squint as she draws from the memory of that day.

  “Does your dad know?”

  “No,” I answer. “Nobody knows, except for Kyle, and now you.”

  She nods, but still doesn’t look at me. The guy who drives the jacked-up truck that rumbles so loudly we can feel it in our ribs revs his engine a few houses behind us, and we both turn to look. When I twist back around, I watch her, and I know she can feel me.