by Abby Cooper
“None.” They’d disappeared after the triathlon. “They’re totally gone.”
“Maybe you don’t need them anymore.”
Yeah. I smiled a little to myself. Something about that sounded exactly right.
But something about it sounded a little wrong, too.
“Does that mean I don’t need you anymore?” I asked. My problem was solved, which was good news. So why did I feel like I was about to get kicked out of the history museum before I’d gotten a chance to see everything?
Dr. Llama smiled. “You can come back anytime you want, Sophie. I’ll always be here for you. Therapy isn’t just about solving problems. It’s about listening, talking, growing. Becoming the best version of you that you can be and finding your place in the big world. There’s always more to learn if you’re willing to do the work.”
I smiled back. Maybe I wasn’t always up for doing the work—after all, I did have homework to do and friends to hang out with—but it was good to know that he would always be here if I needed him.
“You know,” I added, “it turned out that some of the bubbles weren’t the whole truth. I had all the facts, but they weren’t facts at all.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I was so sure that things were a certain way, but I was wrong. I heard the words in people’s heads, but I didn’t really, like, ask anybody if they were true. Does that make any sense?”
He nodded. “And even if you ask people if they’re true, they might not be honest with you. You may never know anyone’s full truth. But if you do your part, and listen thoughtfully and show that you’re trustworthy, you might be surprised at how much people open up.” He paused. “You know how I always ask how you are? And then don’t say anything?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s because I know if I wait long enough, if I listen, you’ll always tell me.”
He was right. I always did.
There was one more thing I needed to know.
“You believe me that I really saw the bubbles, right?”
“I believe experience shapes who you are, and I’d never question your experience.”
I’d take that as a yes.
39
AN ADVENTURE
BFF Britta picked me up from Dr. Llama’s because something had come up for Mom. When we got home, I heard laughter coming out of the stairs. Mom’s laughter. And a guy’s laughter, too.
My heart sank right through the floor and into the basement. Noooo. Problem one: Mom was in the stairs, and we didn’t take the stairs anymore, ever. Problem two: a guy’s laughter. All I could think was Pratik. And everything we’d been through disappearing right before my eyes. I pictured Mom starting this all over. Getting back together with Pratik. Being upset because of Pratik not being a good boyfriend. Breaking up with Pratik. Staring at stuff. Imaginary locks.
I knew none of it was my fault, but I couldn’t let it happen. This wasn’t only about Mom being happy or sad. Maybe it was a little about me being happy or sad, too. I didn’t want Pratik back anymore. I wanted someone who’d run with us, who’d stick by us when things got tough. And while it’d be cool to have a dad-like person someday, right now I just needed my mom.
The door to the stairway opened.
“No!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. Mom stared at me with a very worried look on her face. So did the guy she was with. Hey, that guy looked familiar. “Blake?”
“Hey, Sophie!”
“What’s, uh, what’s going on here, exactly?” I asked.
“Oh, I was just walking Blake out,” Mom said, like it was obvious. She had a huge smile on her face. That wasn’t good, either. Was Blake her new boyfriend?
“I was chatting with your mom about that condo that’s for sale next door,” he said. “I’ve always loved this neighborhood.”
Oh, no. Well, that was worse. My mind raced, thinking of everything that could go wrong when Mom and Blake broke up. Forget not being able to walk down the stairs—with Blake next door, I wouldn’t be allowed to walk down our street. I’d have to take the long way, like, everywhere. Walking to school would take an extra twenty minutes, which meant I’d have to wake up twenty minutes earlier every day. And even as a morning person, twenty minutes earlier was not going to work for me.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I eyed Mom. I was talking to Blake, yeah, but I was really talking to her.
“Definitely,” he said. “Puts me much closer to my gym and my new personal trainer.” He winked at Mom.
“Wait, what?”
“I’ll leave you two to chat about what a pathetic runner I am,” Blake joked. “I’ll see you next week, Molly.”
“Sounds good! Bring better shoes than the ones you wore to the beach.”
Blake waved, and then he was gone.
I turned to Mom.
“What just happened?”
She laughed. “Surprise! I got a job as a trainer at the gym.”
“But … what about Channel 23?”
Mom wrinkled her nose. “I don’t want to work there,” she said. “Working in TV wasn’t quite right for me, and neither was working at home.” She shrugged. “I guess I’m still figuring out what I want to be when I grow up.”
I looked at the floor. I knew now that things weren’t always one person’s fault, but it still seemed like I had an awful lot to do with Mom losing her job in the first place. “If I hadn’t made you lose your job, you wouldn’t still have to figure it out. I’m sorry.”
“Soph…” Mom grabbed my chin and lifted my face up so it was even with hers. “What are you talking about? I quit my job at Channel 23. I mean, yeah, things weren’t going great, but it was only because my heart wasn’t in it. I was good at it, sure. Still am. In fact, they asked me to come back, and I thought about it, but I turned them down. Reporting didn’t make me feel the way I did when I was running with you at the gym and during the race, like I was strong and in control. I want to help other people feel that way. It’s nobody’s fault that my news job didn’t work out. Especially not yours.”
I let out a giant breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. It was nobody’s fault. Especially not mine. And now Mom had a new job that might really make her happy … and I’d sorta helped her find it. Which was kinda awesome.
“But you were so sad when you got home from the meeting with your boss,” I said. “I thought you got fired.”
Mom’s face changed. “I’m so sorry you thought that,” she said. “I guess I just assumed you knew, or something. I should have told you.”
“Yeah, you should have,” I said. “You were so sad. You’ve been so sad all the time!”
“I know. The truth is, Soph, sometimes I get really sad like this. It’s something I’ve been dealing with for a lot of my life. I usually don’t let you see it, but this time, I don’t know … I just didn’t have the energy to call someone.”
“Call someone like who?”
“Like Ms. Wolfson, usually.”
I raised my eyebrows. Those weren’t just fun sleepovers because Mom was busy? They were because she was sad?
“You’ve really inspired me, though,” Mom said, tickling my arm. “Going to your Dr. Llama guy. I used to go to someone like that, but I stopped when it got hard. It’s a lot easier to stay quiet. I think I’m going to go back. You’ve been really brave, Soph. I’m glad those bubbles finally went away.”
I smiled, but something was still bugging me.
“Are you going to go out with Blake now?”
“What? No way.” Mom laughed. “He’s married. But even if he wasn’t, I wouldn’t date him. Single Blake wouldn’t be right for me, even though he’s cute.” She giggled. “I know that deep down. I’m going to start listening to what I know deep down. And I’m going to stop being a doormat. And hey, maybe we should take that stuff out of the box in the cabinet and hang it up again. Those race numbers and stuff. I’ve done some pretty cool things, you know?”
I didn’t say anything. Instead,
I hugged her. In the lobby. For a super long time. And Mom didn’t pull away or realize we were downstairs and we needed not to be. A thousand Pratiks could have walked by and we wouldn’t have cared. In fact, when Pratik actually did walk by, Mom didn’t even flinch, and neither did I.
“Want to go have an adventure?” she asked.
“I think we just did,” I said.
40
CLIMBING MOUNT FITZ ROY
“Maybe we could do rock paper scissors?”
“There’s gotta be some kind of mathematical equation that will calculate who he’s more compatible with.”
“Then what is it?”
“I dunno.”
“But you’re the math expert.”
She shrugged at me like, Well then, we really have a problem, don’t we?
Kaya and I were sitting on the floor, slumped against her locker, trying to figure out the Rafael business. We were purposely avoiding Our Spot until we had reached some kind of decision, which was turning out to be way harder than we’d thought.
“Look what I got!” Rafael zoomed down the hall waving his hands in everybody’s faces. Along with his jeans and T-shirt, he was wearing these massive gray gloves that made him look like a fuzzy robot. It was pretty cool—after my interview had been on TV, ZOOM Athletics called and apologized for not letting us into the race, even though it wasn’t really their fault. They even offered gift cards for all four of us.
Kaya and I looked at each other and burst out laughing.
“You know, maybe you can have him,” I said. “It’s okay with me. I still don’t know if I even like him or just liked that I thought he liked me.”
I looked at him. Did he like me? I might never really know. Right now, it seemed like he liked the gloves more than anything or anyone else.
“No, it’s okay. You can go out with him. I’ll be fine,” Kaya said.
We started laughing again as Rafael swung back around the hall and shoved his hands in people’s faces some more. As he got closer to us, my heart didn’t pound one bit, and I felt weirdly super relieved by that. Kaya and I were back, and right now, that was what mattered most.
“Hey, don’t you wonder what happened with me and those bubbles?” I asked her.
“Uh, yeah! You never really told me anything!”
“You never really asked!”
We looked at each other and exploded with laughs a third time.
“Let’s do better at that,” I said. “Asking each other stuff. And telling. Okay?”
“For sure,” she agreed. “So are things okay with the bubbles now? Did you figure out what the deal was?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I went to a therapist. He helped me, but mostly he helped me figure it out myself.”
“Therapists are annoyingly cool like that,” she said.
“Seriously.”
“Isn’t it weird that we’re the only people in school who have seen them, but we never talk about it?”
I nodded. “I was embarrassed at first. It felt like an embarrassing thing.”
“Yeah, I get that. But it shouldn’t be. I liked going to mine. Did you like yours?”
“A lot.”
We sat quietly, looking up at all the people walking by. Maybe we were the only kids in our school who had gone to therapists, but I had a feeling that wasn’t even close to being a fact.
* * *
With only a minute to go till the bell rang, Kaya left to talk to a teacher and Rafael rushed up to me, gloves out. Some people think gloves were first invented by the Greeks. Others think it was the Romans. And since gloves weren’t really popular till Queen Elizabeth I wore them, some people think the invention was hers. I wasn’t exactly sure where I stood on that historical tidbit, but I knew that gloves sure made Rafael happy, and that was pretty great.
“Have you had a chance to see the amazingness up close yet? Look!” He shoved his hands in my face.
I laughed. “Nice. Hey, Rafael?”
He stopped moving for a second and put his hands down by his sides. “Yeah?”
“I just wanted to say thanks, for getting me to do the triathlon and stuff. You were right that I wasn’t acting like myself. There was some … stuff going on.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Well … just, I was sorta mad at myself for some things that weren’t actually my fault. And then I started seeing these weird bubbles over people’s heads that said what they were thinking. Basically my world kinda went bonkers.”
I held my breath and waited for him to make some kind of joke or start talking about his gloves again, but he didn’t. Instead, he put one of his fuzzy hands on my shoulder.
“That must have been tough,” he said.
“Uh, yeah. It was,” I said.
“You could’ve told me.”
“I know.”
I did know. I knew now, at least. What had I been so afraid of? That he’d think I was weird? But if the guy you have a crush on—or even just a regular guy you’re friends with—says you’re weird when you tell him something important, maybe he’s not that great of a friend-and/or-possible-future-boyfriend person. But Rafael was a good friend. He really, really was.
The bell rang, and Rafael and I smiled at each other as we went our different directions.
It was scary, talking to people about big-time important stuff. But sometimes, when you did, it made you feel like your friendship had just climbed a volcano as big as Mount Fitz Roy, and it was looking down at your old friendship, which was as small as a drop of water in the ocean. But now your friendship was big. Real. Powerful.
My friends and me? We were on top of the volcano, on top of the world. Together.
41
WHAT YOU DO
Now that Mom was cool with not hiding in our condo, she actually came with me when I hung out with Ms. Wolfson. We taught her to play cribbage, too, and it turned out that she wasn’t half bad.
Mom went into the kitchen to make herself a cocoa refill, and I looked at Ms. Wolfson. This was my chance.
“Did you know about the bubbles?” I asked her. “Could you see them, too?”
“The bubbles?”
“You know. The things that said what people are thinking. Like that guy at the diner and how he was hungry.” I searched her face for a sign of understanding, for a wink, for something, but I didn’t see anything different.
“No,” Ms. Wolfson said. “I don’t see any bubbles. I’m just good at seeing people, like you are.”
“Oh.” I folded my hands in my lap. “But you’re always so calm.”
She laughed.
“Well, there’s a difference between caring about someone and letting their problems be your problems. It’s great to help, but you have to draw a line.”
I thought of running into Ms. Wolfson that night I snuck out, coming back from her walk with her flashlight.
“You have to stay a little bit in the dark,” I said.
“Exactly.”
Maybe it was okay not to know what everybody was thinking all the time. Or to know, but not to let it be your entire life. It was okay to go for quick walks in the dark. To run until I felt that nice free feeling.
We sat silently, sipping our cocoa.
Ms. Wolfson said, “You know, if you want to know what someone is really thinking, there’s a much simpler way.”
I leaned in really close to her.
“Let me guess,” I said.
She smiled and leaned in, too.
“Ask them. And listen to what they say.”
“That’s what you do,” she said. Then Mom came back, and we all finished our cocoa, mini-marshmallows included, and played another game of cribbage.
42
THE RISKS I TOOK
I met up with Kaya, Rafael, and Viv at Our Spot after class the next day, but we didn’t get to talk too much. Other people kept coming up to say hi. Everybody still wanted to talk about the triathlon and how cool it was.
When the bell rang and it
was time to get to our next classes, I grabbed Kaya by the sleeve.
“Wait,” I said. “I just wanted to see, like, how are you?”
“Good,” she said, grabbing a chunk of hair. “How are you?”
“No,” I said. “How are you?”
Her eyes widened and she bit her lip, but then her whole body relaxed. “Honestly, I’m kinda worried about our science test later. Animal cells have so many parts! How are we supposed to remember them all?”
“I know!” I said. “I’m nervous about it, too.”
And even though we were worried, we smiled.
* * *
I held my breath and clenched my sweaty hands. I needed to relax. This was only a grade, and I was going to do well. Mr. Alvarado had been there. He’d worn the T-shirt, eaten the pancakes. I’d get a good grade. I had to.
“Great job, everyone,” he said when he’d handed out the last paper and gone back up to the front of the room. “I am so impressed with the risks you took, the bravery you demonstrated. I am truly honored to be your teacher.”
I didn’t need a bubble to know that he meant it.
“All right, go ahead,” he said.
“A!” LaMya shouted, then slapped a hand over her mouth. She was becoming quite a chatterbox.
“A!” Miguel shouted, too. “But our business stank,” he said.
“Don’t remind him,” Harrison hissed.
“It was never about the success,” Mr. Alvarado said. “I’m sorry I exaggerated the truth a little there. I just wanted to give you extra motivation to try your best. It was always about the try, guys. And try you did.”
I inhaled and flipped mine over. Tri I did.
In purple marker, there was a big, fat A+. And a note.
Dear Sophie,
Congratulations on a wonderful triathlon! I applaud your effort, determination, and creativity. Not only did you challenge yourself to train for an intense athletic event, you encouraged others around you to do the same, and you took matters into your own hands in the face of extra challenges you didn’t count on.
Moreover, I have a feeling the risks you’ve taken are far greater than running a race—that you’ve also faced other challenges, and taken the risks you needed to in order to tackle them head-on and come out on the other side. Well done!