Spring break has arrived, but it’s not the relief it usually is. To start, it took too long to get here. Callie has already had prom, and I’m just starting spring break. I guess it’s later out here because we get out of school in June, but it sure feels weird and I’m too exhausted to enjoy it. And I have an Ohio State application status update waiting to be checked. It’s been haunting me like a family of ghosts every moment for a week, but I can’t bring myself to log on. It’s not like getting money for Greece or running a race; there are no fallbacks or do-overs. If I don’t get in, that’s it. I’ve failed. I vow to look after I’ve achieved Mom’s goal.
I probably should have looked because it’s just more thing to clog my mind this first Saturday of spring break as Ryan drives me to my last race. He insisted on playing chauffeur since it’s going to be Mom’s fiftieth race.
“Are you excited?” he asks after I get in the car.
“Yeah, I guess.” I’m trying not to create too much hype because I don’t want to psych myself out. Plus, with the eight million other things cluttering my brain, I haven’t really had space to drum up excitement about this.
“You guess? This is it. It’s huge!” He lifts his hands off the steering wheel for a moment to show me how huge he thinks it is. Normally his exuberance lifts my spirits like the soulful voices of a church choir, but today it unnerves me like an out-of-tune guitar. I agree with him and fiddle with my watch to end the conversation.
He hangs out with me at the start line, peppering me with questions about what I want to do afterward to celebrate and what I’m going to do with all of Mom’s medals. He bounces from one leg to another, so I know he’s just excited and nervous for me. But all he’s doing is adding to the noise in my head. I’m grateful when the emcee announces the call to start.
“Good luck,” Ryan says. I’m in the middle of setting my watch, so my hands get trapped in front of me when he takes me in for a giant hug. I don’t even try to move them, and for some reason after he kisses me on the lips, I wipe it off.
“Sorry. I’m stressed,” I offer a weak excuse and rise to my toes to kiss him on the cheek. He smiles, but I know I’ve hurt him. Ugh. What is wrong with me?
Right from the start of the race, I’m baking a big batch of disaster in my mind. There’s a dose of college stress mixing with the pressure of this being Mom’s final race. Then I add a dash of Ryan’s dad, a little worry about whether Mari is still mad at me for ignoring her, and a sprinkle of guilt for all of it. Oh, I can’t forget the spoonful of worry for Grandma and her increasing forgetfulness.
Around Mile 2 when it all blends together, I can’t even see straight and start to walk. The anxiety moves to my stomach where an empty roar kicks and punches at me. I give Ryan the thumbs-down at Mile 4, and I don’t even care that I haven’t tried to run since Mile 2.5. The disaster has baked itself into a nice solid headache, and I’m certain something inside of me is going to explode.
At the halfway point, I have probably only run a total of two miles. Ryan’s face anxiously peers into the crowd, searching for me in every runner who passes him because I’m much later than usual.
“You’re halfway there!” he says when I walk over to him.
Something in his cheery urging and the “Go Emma!” sign he holds clashes with my negativity, and I crack. “I’m quitting. I can’t run.” I take out my headphones and stop my watch.
“What? No! You can’t quit,” he insists. “You only have six more miles and you will have done it. You have to keep going.”
“I can’t do it. I can’t even run anymore. I’m done.” I wave my hand to indicate it’s over.
“Nooo!” He drops the sign and puts his hands on my shoulders to loosen me like I’m Rocky Balboa. “C’mon. You can do it. I know you can. You have to keep going.”
Another crackle, and the eruption happens. “Stop telling me what to do!” I yell at him and jerk myself away. “I’m sick of people telling me what to do.”
He flinches and steps back. “Whoa, sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just trying to encourage you.”
“I don’t need your encouragement. I don’t need anyone’s help. I’m not a charity case.” The words spew out, and I don’t even know where they’re coming from.
“C’mon, Emma.” He takes a step forward. “I know you’re going through a lot. Just let me—”
“No, you don’t!” I snap at him. “You don’t know what I’m going through. You have no idea what I’m carrying around.” My voice is loud enough now that people are starting to notice.
Ryan’s mouth hangs open slightly, and he stares at me. “I know I don’t,” he finally says quietly. “I’m just trying to help you keep going.”
“I don’t want to keep going. I can’t. It’s too much. I can’t do it.” I grab my head and walk away from him. I need distance. I need to get myself under control.
I hear his footsteps behind me. “C’mon, Emma, talk to me. What is it? I know something is bothering you. I’m not stupid. I know there’s been this thing between us. I just figured it was stuff about your family. Is that it?”
“No,” I say without turning around.
“Then what is it?” He and his voice follow me as I walk in a large figure eight, trying to escape him and the volcano still bubbling inside me.
I stop. “It’s nothing. Just forget it. I want to go home, please.”
He parks himself in front of me. “Please tell me what it is.”
“It’s nothing.” I turn away from him.
“C’mon, it’s not nothing.” He touches my arm, and the warmth and love in his touch mixes the wrong way with this monster inside of me.
“Fine,” I spit out. “You want to know what it is? Here it is: I saw your dad kissing another woman. He’s cheating on your mom. There, I said it.”
Instead of a weight disappearing, it’s as if another ton was added. Ryan’s scrambled brain shows on his face.
“What? Are you insane? Why would you say something like that?”
“It’s true. It was a few weeks ago down at the beach. The big gray and white trimmed house on the bike path just past Twenty-Fourth Street.”
He steps back and shakes his head to rid it of my words. “It must have been someone else. You have it wrong.”
The kind thing to do would be to agree that I probably was mistaken, but for some unfathomable reason, I continue arguing my case. “It was the morning of our late start. Did your dad come home around six after being out all night? Was he in grayish pants and a white dress shirt?”
I can see the pieces come together to form a picture of hurt on his face.
The headache, worry, and nausea have all flowed out of me, and all that’s left is a black pit of sadness. I step closer to Ryan. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to tell you. I’ve kept it to myself, but you kept pushing.”
“Yeah, it’s my fault,” he mutters.
“That’s not what I meant.” The pit grows deeper.
“Whatever. Let’s just go.” He walks off, and I follow.
Neither of us speaks a word from that moment, and when he drops me off, he barely slows down enough to let me out. There are tears in his eyes.
I trudge up the pathway, and inside, I find an empty house. A note informs me that Grandma and Cherise are out running errands, and I’m glad to head straight to the shower. A shower does nothing, though, to relax me. The water burns my skin, a stream of Ryan’s tears reminding me how much pain I’ve caused. I need to talk to someone, so I call Mari, hoping I haven’t ruined that relationship, too. I don’t say much, but she must sense something is wrong because she comes right over. When she arrives, I’ve already eaten an entire row of Golden Oreos. I tell her the whole story, and oddly, she doesn’t seem very surprised.
“Well, I’m surprised it’s about his dad,” she says, “but not that it’s about Ryan. I could tell something was up. And you know, he could too. He came to me a couple times to ask what was going on.”
If there’s any relief, it’s that I hadn’t told Mari so at least she didn’t have to lie to Ryan.
“I feel terrible,” I say. “I should have broken up with him, but he called me his girlfriend, and I don’t know.” I pause and twist apart an Oreo. “It sort of felt good to belong to someone, and I didn’t want to give that up.”
Mari nods. “I get it.”
“I’m so selfish.” I shake my head and shove the Oreo in my mouth.
“You’re not selfish. He really likes you. Who wouldn’t want to keep that going?”
“Liked me. Past tense,” I say.
“You don’t know that.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure he never wants to see me again. I just destroyed his entire life. I wouldn’t want to see me either.”
Mari pauses, then says, “Well, at least you don’t have to worry about what you guys will do next year.”
I let out a tiny burst of unexpected laughter.
“Sorry, too soon?” She gives a toothy grin.
“No, perfect timing.” It feels good to joke about it.
“Speaking of next year, did you...?” She seems afraid to finish the thought.
“I don’t know.”
“I thought acceptances already came.” She scratches the side of her head.
“Oh yeah, they came a week ago. But I can’t bring myself to check the one from Ohio State.”
“I’ll do it for you,” she offers. “You’re going to have to look at some point.”
I know I have to check it, and I might as well rip off the Band-Aid. So I bring the laptop to the kitchen table and log into my account. I move away while Mari clicks a few buttons to get to my application status.
I study her face as her eyes move up and down the page. “What?” I say. It shouldn’t take this long to read a yes or no. “What does it say?”
She raises a finger, purses her lips, and slowly looks up. “Well it appears that you...” She pauses for what I’m sure is dramatic effect. “... have been accepted to Ohio State.”
Her lack of expression leaves me wondering if I heard correctly. “I got in?”
“Well, that’s what ‘accepted’ means,” she jokes. “But don’t worry, I certainly won’t tell them about your lack of vocabulary skills.” She gives me an exaggerated wink.
I let out a half laugh that sounds more like a labored exhale. My mind instantly snaps to Connor and our first trip to campus.
Connor dragged us to the football field the moment we arrived. The gates were locked; it was April, about this time of year, actually. But there was a crack just wide enough for middle school-sized Connor to fit through. He hesitated; I think he was scared to go in by himself, so I shimmied my way through, too.
My eyes bulged at the size of the horseshoe-shaped stadium. We lurked at the edge of the field, scared of being seen. After a while, it seemed stupid to come all this way to stare, so I told Connor I’d take his picture by the goal post. He dashed over and gave some goofy grin. He returned, and we stared for a few more minutes. When we turned to leave, my eyes caught sight of a stray football lodged under one of the field-level seats. I picked it up and told Connor to follow me.
“No, we could get in trouble.” His mouth said the words, but his eyes danced and a huge grin spread across his face.
“No, we won’t.” I waved him onto the perfectly trimmed green grass field. “Go long,” I said. That’s what my dad always said when they threw the football around in the backyard.
He forgot all about rules and raced down the field.
“Well, not that long,” I shouted. “I’m no Troy Smith.” Connor beamed at the mention of the player whose jersey he was wearing today even though I told him it was dorky to wear the jersey to the campus.
He came back closer to me, and I did my best impression of my dad, launching the ball into the air. Connor caught it and ran all the way down the field and scored a touchdown. He did some sort of dance, stood for a moment in the end zone, then hurried back red-faced and out of breath as someone shouted, “Hey, you can’t be here.”
We dashed toward the gate and squeezed through. Mom and Dad were on the path a little ways ahead. Suddenly, we both realized Connor was still holding the ball.
“Thief,” I joked to him.
He stared at the ball and said, “Someday, I’m going to go to school here.” He tucked the ball in his arm and ran off to catch up to Mom and Dad.
“So looks like you’re going to school there.” Mari’s voice brings me back to Grandma’s house. “Hello?” She waves her hand in front of me.
“Sorry.” I refocus on her.
“I thought you might need a moment to process, but you were in outer space or something.”
“It kind of feels that way. Like I’m in outer space orbiting joy, relief, and a little sadness that I can’t tell Ryan.”
“Well, I think you should land on Planet Joy. It’s pretty cool that you got in.”
I smile. It is pretty cool. One dream accomplished.
I don’t see or hear from Ryan for the rest of spring break. At work, I check the schedule, and his name has been removed from the whole month. I panic and ask Lynn if he’s quit. She says no, he just asked for some time off. I text him a couple of times but don’t get a response, so I let it go until we return to school.
I don’t see him Monday, and I’m not even sure he’s at school for a few days. Finally, on Friday, I spot him in the hall after English. I make eye contact with him, but he turns away and continues walking. After one more week of this, I accept defeat.
“He’ll come around,” Mari says while we’re doing homework at my house on Sunday morning.
“It’s been over two weeks and I haven’t heard from him. He won’t even look at me in the halls.”
“Give him time. Geez, I’m sure he has a lot going on at home.” She goes on, “Have you tried to talk to him?”
“Yeah, I’ve texted him like a million times, and I’ve called him, but he doesn’t answer.”
Mari snickers. “I mean, like really tried to talk to him.”
“I can’t. He won’t return any of my texts or phone calls, and he avoids me when I see him.”
“Write him a letter.”
I pull my head back and furrow my brows.
She rolls her eyes at my reaction. “Before you judge, hear me out. I know I’m going all old school on you, but if you write him a letter, you can tell him how you feel and he doesn’t have to face you. It’s win-win.”
“I can’t write something that would be good enough. Plus, he wouldn’t even read it.”
“Well, first, I read your college essay and nearly cried. So I know you can write something good enough. And,” she continues, “this is a one-time offer, but I will even personally hand-deliver it and force him to at least stare at it.”
“Ha ha... I’d love to see that.”
“It’s settled then.” She closes her notebook and drops it in her backpack.
“What are you doing? We’re not done.”
“Yes, we are. You have work to do.” She zips her backpack and puts both arms through the straps. “I’ll need that letter on my desk by Monday.” She taps the kitchen table and laughs at her own joke.
“It’s going to take longer than that.”
“Not too much longer,” she calls over her shoulder at the front door. “Time is money.” She holds up a finger and disappears through the door, laughing again.
I get up and head back to my room with one of my notebooks. “I’ll be in my room,” I tell Grandma as I stick my head in the kitchen.
“Okay, sweetheart,” she says. “Do you know where Cherise is?” she asks before I move on.
“I think she went out to her car for something. Do you want me to get her?”
“Oh no, I’m fine. You go on.”
“Okay.” I continue to my room and flop down on the bed. My mind shuffles through numerous ways to start a letter to Ryan, but none seem good enough. I close my eyes and drift off.
I don’t know how long it’s been, but I hear Cherise yelling for me. Her voice sounds panicked.
I race out of my room. The front door is open, and I dash outside. Grandma lies face down on the ground at the base of the porch stairs.
“Emma, call 911.”
I freeze.
“Now!” she barks, and I rush inside for my phone.
Chapter 20
We’re lucky it’s only a broken wrist. The doctor ran an X-ray and set her arm in a temporary cast, but they want to keep her overnight because of the pain she’s experiencing and to ensure that nothing else is wrong.
“I told them I’m fine,” she complains from her hospital bed. I think this is why they want to keep her for observation. They’re afraid her stubbornness and dementia might keep her from reporting other symptoms. I think the only thing besides her wrist that is hurt is her pride. I could tell from the moment I sat with her while the ambulance was on its way that she was embarrassed more than she was hurt.
“I know, Grandma,” I say as I unpack some of her belongings I retrieved from the house before Cherise left the hospital. “They just want to make sure nothing shows up that they didn’t see.” I finish arranging her things on the tiny desk near the TV and move my bag to the bench under the window. I’ll stay the night, and Cherise will return in the morning to help bring Grandma home.
“Sweetheart, would you bring me the comb and a mirror, please?”
“Of course.” I hand her the comb and hold up the mirror.
“Oh, dear. Look at this mess.” She frowns.
I laugh. “Grandma! You’re in the hospital. No one cares.”
She looks up at me over her reading glasses. “Well, I certainly do!” She sets to work on combing and styling her hair with one arm, complaining about not being able to get up to fix it properly and not having her curling iron.
When she’s finished, I return the comb and mirror and bring her powder and blush over to the bed. “I’m sure I’m not supposed to do this, but we’ll make it subtle so they won’t even know.” I take a quick glance at the door and dust a little powder on her face and give her cheeks a few strokes of blush. “Feel better?” I ask.
The Brilliance of Fireflies Page 17