by McCall Hoyle
I lick and nod. “It’s good.”
Our eyes meet. The sugary goodness dissolves the edges of our awkwardness. When a twenty-something couple comes tumbling around the corner from the side deck arm in arm, we smile at them. The guy brushes Hitch’s ear as he passes. The girl grins. They half walk, half run to a Jeep and rumble out of the parking lot.
They look like the kind of couple who would ride bikes in the rain and write each other letters on vintage stationary.
My teeth sink into a chewy gob of cookie, and I try not to compare my life to theirs. Sometimes I just wish I could drive myself somewhere or swim in the ocean at night. Or even—gasp—drink a beer beside a bonfire way out in the middle of the woods. But I have to be six to twelve months seizure-free and have a certificate from my doctor before I can think about a driver’s license. Plus, I know I should be grateful. There are people less fortunate than me—girls whose medicines don’t control their seizures.
“That’s it, big guy.” Mom reaches down for Hitch’s empty bowl as I lick the ice cream dripping down the side of my cone. A few minutes later, we cross the beach road to the pier. Mom pays the attendant the walk-on fee, and we find a bench halfway down where we can watch for dolphins and finish our ice cream.
“We should do this more often,” Mom says as a man a couple of yards down instructs his curly-headed son on how to cast his line.
I nod and lick a drip of ice cream from my thumb. Mom savors tiny bits of rocky road, rolling it around on her tongue before swallowing, as I study people on the beach beneath us. There’s something familiar about the broad shoulders and messy light brown hair of a boy on the packed sand near the water’s edge. Trailing a few feet behind him is a little girl with pigtails in a pink sundress. She takes extra-long strides, trying to follow exactly in his wet footprints.
As I watch, a wave rolls in farther than the others, taking her by surprise, and she drops her red Popsicle. Before it hits the sand, she’s crying. I hear her even over the surf and wind. The boy turns.
Chatham.
He jogs back to her, scoops her up, and swings her over his head. She laughs, the Popsicle already forgotten. A man I hadn’t noticed ahead of them turns back, frowning. He has the same light brown hair and strong features. But his jaw has a sharper edge, and his eyes are a little closer together, giving them a kind of pit-bullish look.
Another rogue wave rushes in, catching Chatham off guard. He leaps toward dry sand, trying to keep the little girl aloft, but stumbles and falls to his knees. When he stands, his jeans are soaked and caked in sand.
The man, who must be their father, throws his hands up in the air, mumbles something under his breath, and storms away from the water toward the parking lot beside the pier. The little girl’s cheeks puff like she’s about to lose it again. But Chatham drops back to his knees in the wet sand in front of her, gently tilts her face up to his, and plants a kiss on the tip of her nose.
“What movie do you want to watch?” Mom asks, interrupting my little stalker fest.
“Whatever you want,” I say with a small smile.
She’s trying really hard. I decide to play along.
At least for tonight.
CHAPTER NINE
Finite—to fail, but infinite to Venture—
EMILY DICKINSON
In the morning I trudge down the hall to second period, missing being at home in my pj’s with Hitch. Morning person I am not.
“What’s up?” Chatham asks, ignoring my crossed arms and clenched jaw as he slides into the seat next to me in English class.
I can’t deal with Chatham’s enthusiasm today. The bags under my eyes prove it. I spent most of the night tossing and turning and second-guessing myself about when and how to confront Mom. “Why are you so happy?” I shoot back.
“Well, let’s see. The sun’s shining.” He looks around the room. “And you should be happy too. You get to sit beside the hottest guy in class.”
“Oh, where is he?” I glance around the room, fighting back the smile already pulling at my lips. Chatham’s currently the only boy in the room. Most of Ms. Ringgold’s students will come sliding in seconds before her and the tardy bell. Since I don’t have any distractions, aka friends, in the hallway, I’m usually the first person here.
When I peek out from behind my hair, Chatham’s beaming.
“Okay. Maybe not the hottest but . . . the funniest?”
I raise a skeptical brow without meeting his eyes. Seated, I’m eye level with his chest and snug T-shirt. I try not to stare.
“You like it?” He pulls the prewashed cotton away from his chest.
My cheeks burn. “Yeah, ha-ha.” I smile, pointing at the water glass on the front of his shirt and the handwritten notes out to the side labeling the water at the halfway mark and the air at the full mark. The inscription under the glass reads Technically, the glass is always full.
From what I’ve seen of Chatham, that could be his motto. Some people see the liquid and think half full. Others see only the air and think half empty. Sometimes I get the sense Chatham sees it all, which is kind of terrifying. I don’t know if I want him to see me—the real me.
“I’ve been studying the notes you gave me on those American authors.” He wags his pencil at me. “I’m going to blow your mind this afternoon.”
My stomach drops like a deep-sea anchor. I forgot I told him I’d tutor him again today. I open my mouth, but before I can formulate an excuse, Ms. Ringgold breezes into the room carrying a lopsided pot overflowing with purple violets. She adds the flowers to the row of healthy plants already crammed on the windowsill as the rest of the class scurries in behind her. The cheery plants match the spring in her step.
Maddie and a friend sashay past my desk, whispering behind cupped hands. I fiddle with my ring binder, turning pages, pretending I’ve misplaced my notes.
Ms. Ringgold walks to the back of the room to shut the door as Ayla darts in. Even with blue paint splattered on her white eyelet tank and a smudge on her forehead, Ayla looks confident. She’s comfortable under the spotlight or blending in with the scenery. In fact, I can’t imagine her being awkward anywhere. And I’m starting to think she’s super talented too. I saw a self-portrait of her displayed beside the counseling office. From a distance, it looks like a charcoal sketch. When you get closer, you realize it’s a collage. The whole thing is made out of symbolic words clipped from newspapers and magazines. I can’t even imagine how she thought of something so original. It belongs in the North Carolina Museum of Art, not North Ridge High School.
Ms. Ringgold clears her throat. “Since I’ve been out, we have lots of catching up to do for the test on Monday.”
The guys sitting in the back row grumble.
“We missed you, Ms. Ringgold.” Maddie flashes her syrupy smile.
“I missed you guys too.” Ms. Ringgold walks toward the group of boys in the back, patting Chatham on the shoulder as she passes.
“Even me?” Derek, the football player I was supposed to be partners with, asks. Several people laugh.
He is obnoxious in the history class we have together. He questions the teacher on everything. I’m pretty sure the boy could argue with a stop sign. With Ms. Ringgold, it’s different. He jokes around with her but never messes with her in a disrespectful way.
“But you know my motto: family first.” She flashes Derek a smile but ignores his question. Instead, she closes the Sports Illustrated on his desk without giving him a hard time or threatening to assign detention and heads back toward the front of the room. “Sean needed me yesterday.” She points to a picture on her desk of a smiling boy with almond-shaped eyes and a round, flattish face. “He was running a fever and wanted his mommy.”
I swallow hard, looking down at my hands. Ms. Ringgold’s son obviously has Down syndrome. That has to be tough—way tougher than epilepsy. At least no one can look at me and see my disability. But she tells us how much fun they had watching old cartoons like it’s no big deal and pa
raphrases Katharine Hepburn—something about “if you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.”
“Let’s forget about the test and focus on the fun,” Derek jokes, tossing her words back at her.
“No can do.” She smiles, passing study guides to the kids seated at the front of each row.
The next forty-five minutes fly faster than the pages on Ms. Ringgold’s slideshow. The only sound in the room when she stops talking is the psychotic scribbling of thirty-something pens as we finish filling in a graphic organizer with the characteristics of every American period of literature from colonialism to modernism.
When the bell rings, Chatham reminds me to meet him in the media center after school for tutoring. I should object, but I don’t. How much harm could one more study session cause? Plus, if I kill some time with him after school, that’s less awkwardness at home with Mom. I still need to talk to her at some point, but last night was kind of . . . fun. Kind of like the old days.
And I dread squashing our tender shoot of new growth.
Weaving my way toward the door, I squeeze by Ms. Ringgold’s desk. She and Maddie are deep in conversation. I try to ignore them, but Maddie talks so loudly that I’m pretty sure she wants me to hear her announcement. She even pauses to make eye contact with me before continuing what she was saying to Ms. Ringgold. “I knew you’d want to know I was selected for the Yale Law School Camp.”
“Oh, Maddie. That’s great. You’ll be perfect for that.” Ms. Ringgold pulls her in for a hug.
I don’t know Maddie that well, but it’s pretty obvious Ms. Ringgold is right. The girl has strong opinions, she’s not afraid to share them, and she seems pretty determined to get her way. I can totally see her swaying juries, maybe even judges.
When I finally make it to the noisy hall, Ayla and Jules stand outside the door talking. They pause when I join them.
“Hey, Emilie. I hear you’re thinking of joining lit mag.” Under the double rows of fluorescent lights, smiling at me, Jules practically glows with her purple hair and pale skin.
“Yeah. I’ve been thinking about it.” Which is not a lie. I have been thinking about it. I’m just not ready to make any more commitments or connections right now.
Ayla glances at the time on her phone. The bell will ring in a minute or two. “Jules, don’t forget to find out how many cans we’ve collected for the canned-food drive.”
“On it.” Jules squints like she’s making a mental note, taps her temple with a shiny black fingernail, and scurries off toward the main rotunda.
Ayla tugs me in the opposite direction. Our next classes are beside each other at the far end of the hall. “And don’t you forget, Miss Renaissance Girl—who is a wealth of knowledge in all things literary, arts and entertainment, and history and politics—that you promised to help me with my writing this weekend.”
“On it.” I squint and tap my temple, copying Jules and wondering what’s happening to me. In some ways it feels like the most natural thing in the world to hang out with Ayla and Jules and Chatham. In other ways I feel like the biggest imposter on the face of the planet. Take the whole Miss Renaissance Girl thing, for example. Ayla, Katsu, and Chatham think I’m some kind of genius, as if I’ve made a life of some scholarly pursuits. The truth of the matter is I know all this stuff because I’ve spent so many hours holed up with the TV and hiding with my nose in a book.
Ayla and I part ways at my next class. I take a deep breath. As I enter the room, questions swirl in my head. I slide into my seat wondering—am I Renaissance Girl? Or Imposter Girl? Or someone else completely? Do I want to fit in or fade out?
Who am I?
CHAPTER TEN
The Soul selects her own Society . . .
EMILY DICKINSON
I don’t like this.” Mom wrings her hands as we wait for the light to turn green. The beach road is deserted at nine o’clock Saturday morning. By ten, it will be jammed.
“You’ll leave me home alone, but you don’t want me to go to a friend’s house?” The rhetorical devices we’re studying in Ms. Ringgold’s class are improving the quality of my counter arguments.
“You have Hitch at home.” She waits for a heavyset woman in a floral maxi dress to cross before entering the intersection. “Have you even told this girl about your epilepsy?”
“Her name’s Ayla, and no, I haven’t.” Ayla’s the closest thing I’ve had to a friend in years. There are several reasons why I should tell her—not just because Mom expects me to, but also because it’s the safest thing to do if we’re going to be friends and hang out regularly. But I can’t. How do you just drop that into a conversation about homework or lit mag? Oh, by the way, I have epilepsy. If I start thrashing around, just roll me on my side and call my mom.
“You need to tell her, Emilie.”
“I know.” I glance out the window. She may be right. But I’ve made up my mind. I’m not telling Ayla anything.
“I still think I should come in and talk to her mother.” She tightens her grip on the steering wheel.
“Please, Mom. You’re only going to be at the library for a few hours. Dr. Wellesley said you have to let me have some control. I’ll text you every thirty minutes.” I rip the hangnail on my thumb with my teeth. “This is part of my social development. Right?” Oh, good one. I mentally pat myself on the back when my mom is forced to nod her agreement.
We turn down a narrow side street between the beach road and the bypass. Bungalows on pilings, barely larger than our house, huddle together without an ocean view in sight. We find Ayla’s and pull in. Her weathered gray home is not what I expected. I know it’s stupid, now that I’m spending more time out in the real world, but I pictured everyone at the Ridge living in houses nicer than my own. Clearly, I’ve spent too much time living in my head with unrealistic images reinforced by my TV and movie obsession.
Vowing to be more open-minded, I step out of the Honda. As I climb the steep stairs to the front deck, I gesture for Mom to leave. She doesn’t budge until Ayla comes out and acknowledges her with a wave.
Mom rolls down her window. “The library closes at one.”
“Okay.” I grit my teeth. The library has closed at one since before Dad died, when the economy first took a downturn.
“I’ll be back right after that. Text me in a little bit.” She waves, but the Honda’s still in park.
I will her to leave. “See you later.”
Ayla opens one of the sliding-glass doors leading directly into the main living area of her house. I follow her into a high-ceilinged room that includes what appears to be their living, dining, and kitchen areas all in one.
“Your mom seems nice.” She smiles over her shoulder as she opens a squat refrigerator that looks like something out of a Leave It to Beaver rerun and grabs two Cokes.
I lean on the bar, taking in her house. With the exception of a few functional chairs, two wrought iron barstools, and a table in the kitchen, the house is bare. But what Ayla’s home lacks in furniture it makes up for in color. Murals cover every square inch of wall space. The ceiling is fuchsia. “Your house is awesome.”
“Thanks. I painted it myself.”
I gape at an ocean scene painted on the back wall of the living room. It’s done entirely in shades of orange and red. The sun’s maroon, the water salmon, the sand apricot. “Amazing. My mom won’t even let me hang posters on the walls.”
“It’s one of the few perks of having a single dad.” She shrugs.
So much for the picture-perfect family with the stay-at-home mom I envisioned.
She leads me down a sky blue hallway to her room. “Thanks for agreeing to help me with my writing. Chatham says you’re an amazing tutor.”
“He said that?” I perch on the edge of her white bedspread. Her bedroom is the complete opposite of the living room. With the exception of the weathered pine boards on the floor and pops of red pillows and a massive red throw at the foot of her bed, everything in the room is either bright white or black.
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“Yeah, he sits beside me in science. He said it’s the first time he’s ever understood anything he’s read for English.” She pulls back filmy white curtains to open the window.
I smile at the memory of Chatham’s creased brow as he puzzled through one of the Dickinson poems we chose to annotate.
“So I can’t wait for you to give me some feedback on my poem before I enter this contest. I feel better about the visual part than the written part.” She grabs a composition book off a white wicker desk in the corner, clutching it to her chest. “Do you want to see the painting first?”
“Sure.” I’ve never given someone feedback on creative writing before. What if her writing is horrible? I shake my head. It won’t be. Even if it’s only half as good as her artwork, it will be amazing.
She opens the closet, dragging out a large canvas draped with a sheet. Two dirty feet, painted in oil, peek out from under the white material. “Ta-da.” She whips the cloth off the painting.
Wow. I lean forward to study it more carefully. A little girl seated on weather-beaten steps, leading down to the beach, watches what appears to be a mother and daughter playing in the surf. The sun shines on the pair frolicking in the water in their bright bathing suits. The little girl on the steps sits in the shadows of the handrail. Her frayed denim shorts and dingy T-shirt blend in with the shadows and the worn wood of the boardwalk.
My heart aches, but I’m not sure why. “She’s sad.”
Ayla nods. “It’s called Forsaken.” She hands me the composition book, opening it to the first page. The title “Forsaken” is centered at the top in Ayla’s calligraphy-like script. “Read it.”
My eyes float across the page. The free verse poem tells the story of a little girl whose mother drowned. She’s grief stricken and wants to walk out into the choppy waves until the water covers her head and she joins her mommy. My chest tightens. I swallow, looking up into Ayla’s eyes, wondering if I can finish without crying. She nods encouragingly.