I’d been so sure I was right at Halloween, when I wouldn’t let Sierra switch costumes just so Audrey could get her way, and when I told Audrey she didn’t deserve me or Sierra after she, Emma, and Max dressed up as the Fates. I’d been so sure I was right to sell her bracelet when she didn’t even notice she’d lost it. But now?
Dad’s supposed to love me no matter what, and he was disgusted by me. I was so twisted up inside that even when I tried to do something good, I disgusted one person who’s supposed to care about me and scared two others. I couldn’t imagine what Audrey was going to think once she knew what I’d done. She hated me already.
We made it to the Lees’ tall stone house, which is set back from the road and up on a little slope. Their front yard isn’t a big hill, really, but it was big enough for Audrey and me to go sledding in the winter when we were little and to lie on our sides and roll down in the summer, crashing into each other at the bottom, all covered with sweet-smelling grass.
I didn’t pause at the bottom of the hill. I marched right up, because if I stopped, I’d never be able to make myself start going again.
“Their cars aren’t here,” Mom said, panting a little as she followed me.
I rang the doorbell anyway. Maybe just Audrey was home. Maybe I deserved to face Audrey by herself, without Mrs. Lee, who would probably feel bad for me and maybe forgive me.
But nobody came to the door. Mom stepped up next to me and put her hand on my back, so gently I could barely feel it through my coat.
“I think we can leave the envelopes, if you want,” she said. “You talked to all of the other people. And we tried.”
That wasn’t what Dad had told her, but I nodded and slid Mrs. Lee’s apology note through the mail slot in their front door.
I held on to Audrey’s envelope, though. I deserved to have to give her that in person.
On Friday morning, the hallways were packed with girls giving out holiday gifts to their closest friends, even though the rule is no distributing gifts or invitations at school unless you have one for everybody, and boys rushing around doing last-minute favors for the Favor Swap. Max Sherman grabbed Grace Millinowski’s books out of her hands to carry them into advisory.
“Favor complete!” he announced as he pushed his way through the crowd toward Ms. Meadows’s room. He pumped a fist, and two of the books slid out of his hands and hit the floor. I felt a little bad for Grace, since she knew Max had groaned when he picked her name out of the bowl.
Nobody was going to do a favor for me today. Sierra had done mine already, even though it barely counted now, since she’d changed her mind and told Anne what I’d done. And nobody had any holiday gifts for me, either.
Audrey had to know by now that I’d taken her mom’s bracelet—maybe she’d even figured out I’d taken hers, too. That probably meant everybody else knew, too. And maybe Mariah knew about the perfume and Emma knew about the cuff links.
At lunch, Sierra took the last empty seat at Mariah’s table and leaned down so far over her food that all I could see was the side part in her hair. I just stood there with my tray, trying not to look like I was searching the cafeteria for a place to sit.
“Coming through, Loco! Watch it!” Max Sherman said, bumping me in the back with the side of his tray. I gave up and took my food to Mr. Ellis’s room, where he let me eat by myself while he graded papers.
He asked me about my plans for break and thanked me for all my leadership in Worship and Ministry, but luckily he didn’t say anything about my strong sense of social responsibility or how my passion could really make a difference. I think I would have lost it if he had.
After English class in the afternoon, I saw Audrey walk into the bathroom by herself, so I pulled her envelope out of my bag and followed her in. I was waiting for her next to the sinks when she came out of the stall.
She froze between the stall and the sinks when she saw me, like maybe she’d rather take off without washing her hands than have to deal with me. She crossed her arms around herself extra tightly, the way she always used to do during the scary part of a movie. As if she needed a hug, so she was giving herself one.
“I took your bracelet,” I told her. “The thick silver one you left at Starbucks when we met there back in October. I sold it, because I was trying to raise money for people who need it. I’m really sorry.”
She took a step forward, finally, and held her hands under the soap dispenser.
“I know we’re not . . . you know. Best friends anymore, or any kind of friends or whatever,” I added. “But I shouldn’t have taken your bracelet.”
She rubbed her soapy hands together under the faucet, so hard that little bubbles flew up and stuck to the mirror.
“And my mom’s bracelet, too?” she said.
So she did know.
“My mom cried when she read your note, you know. And she almost cried when I told her you weren’t coming to the Poconos this year. That’s how much she cared about you, Lauren. And then you went and stole from her.”
Tears gathered in the back of my throat, gagging me.
“And you know why we aren’t friends anymore? Because you changed this fall. Suddenly nothing I did or said was good enough for you anymore, and you liked Sierra better than you liked me. We didn’t just stop being friends, OK? You did that.”
She leaned around me to grab a paper towel to dry her hands, and I wanted to tell her that nothing anybody did or said had felt good enough after Ryan left. I wanted to tell her how upset it had made me every time she’d tried to talk me out of worrying about Piedmont. Every time I’d brought up Ry and she’d changed the subject to something that didn’t matter.
She was probably right, though. Nothing she had done was as bad as what I’d done. I set the envelope down on the edge of the sink she was standing next to.
“I really am sorry,” I told her, and then I walked out into the loud, crowded hall.
I made it through my last class before break and kept my head down as I walked toward Ms. Meadows’s room to pick up my backpack and jacket. Too many people cheering about vacation, saying, “Let’s definitely hang out this weekend!” and, “Text me while you’re away!” and, “See ya next year!”
When I got to the space outside the classroom, I looked up, and Jake’s hopeful, confused brown eyes looked back at me. He was standing right there, waiting.
“My mom said she saw you at the post office,” he said. “She said she told you I’m making the Black Forest cake and maybe you could come help. I’ll probably do it on Sunday, if you’re free.”
I pushed up the sleeves of my sweater, which suddenly felt scratchy. “My brother’s actually coming home from boarding school that day. I may be pretty busy.”
I couldn’t look up at him when I said it. I didn’t want to see his eyes turn disappointed.
“Listen, I’m sorry if I freaked you out with what I said after Mariah’s,” he said. “I just . . . I try to be honest with people about what I think. But I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I promise I won’t say stuff like that anymore. I want us to be friends still.”
Embarrass me? That was so far from the truth that I almost laughed. “Do you want to know what kind of person I really am? I stole a bunch of stuff from my parents and my friends and even a couple of stores, and then I sold it to make money for therapy for kids with autism. I actually believed I was doing something good—that’s how messed up I am.”
I reached around him to grab my stuff.
“You don’t want to be friends with me. Trust me,” I said, and then I walked right out the back door, sat down on the bus, and stared straight out the window as all the happy kids piled on. Nobody took the empty seat next to me.
SIERRA
Just for Today
Watching Lauren struggle
not knowing where to sit
when she helped me fit in
not reaching out to her
not helping her
was one of the hardest
things I’ve ever done.
I bit my lip
crossed my fingers
counted the tiles in the cafeteria
anything to stop myself
from rescuing her.
Anne says I need to stop
rescuing.
She says that is my
addiction.
I never thought about it like that
that I was just as addicted to
pouring Mom’s bottles out
as she was to drinking them.
That it was a system.
Now, broken.
That
just for today
I can make a different
choice.
Free Will
When I go into the AlaTeen meeting
in the basement of the church
there’s a big sign on the door:
The Three Cs:
Can’t change it
Can’t cure it
Didn’t cause it.
I read it over twice,
then open the door.
The first person I see
surprises me.
Emma.
I almost turn around
walk out of the room.
She’s eating cookies and drinking lemonade
with a few other kids
I don’t recognize.
She waves to me.
I sit down next to her,
tentatively.
We begin.
The leader,
a Latina woman named Sue,
says welcome to me, specifically.
She asks if I want to tell
my story.
I look around
all their faces
staring at me.
I tell her not right now.
She nods her head,
other kids talk.
One boy says he had to drive his dad home
from a holiday party
even though he doesn’t have a license.
Another says he’s so happy
his grandmother’s been sober a year now.
And then Emma says,
her dad’s working the steps
and for the ninth one,
where they have to make amends,
he admitted he was very drunk
the night of the school play,
so he didn’t get to see her play the lead.
He had lied and said he was sick.
Emma in her big fancy stone house.
Emma who whispers with Audrey at school.
Emma has a parent who drinks and lies, too.
I think of all my mom’s lies.
A design starts to form in my head.
Colors all in a mix.
My heart speeds up.
All those years
my mom taught me that the color I saw
made the day that was meant for me.
But:
Maybe she was wrong.
Maybe I create my
destiny.
Maybe I’m not just one color, one mood,
I am so many things.
But there’s also a lot I can’t do.
I can’t stop Mom from drinking.
I couldn’t stop Lauren from stealing.
But I can do something.
I do it before I lose my nerve.
I raise my hand.
Sue says I don’t have to, I’m not in school, just talk.
“My name’s Sierra,
and my mom is an alcoholic.
My dad—he’s an addict, too.”
She looks at me as if I might say more.
But I don’t.
But maybe
someday
I will.
Gratitude
After the meeting,
Emma says maybe we can hang out
sometime at school.
But she also reminds me
not to tell anyone she saw me there,
and she won’t tell anyone about me.
Then she surprises me
and says Lauren came to her house
to give her mom some money
for something she stole.
And Audrey said
Lauren was the one who stole
her mom’s bracelet,
she delivered an apology note.
I nod at her,
I know she’s apologizing
for calling me a thief.
But I am thinking of Lauren.
She must have had to go
everywhere, return
all the money.
She must have been so embarrassed.
I should’ve gone, too.
I was responsible, too.
“I won’t tell anyone about seeing you here,”
I say to Emma.
And she says, “Thanks, see you at school.”
Then she says she’s sending out invites
to her Bat Mitzvah soon,
that she hopes I’ll come.
When Anne picks me up
and asks how it was
I say it was actually good.
I want to tell her more:
that Emma was there,
that so many of those kids
have stories like mine,
that even the cookies
were good.
Instead I squeeze her soft hand and say, “Thank you.”
Something New
When we get home,
I tell Anne and Carl how Lauren
had to go everywhere
and apologize for everything.
I ask them if they think
we could still be friends?
Carl looks to the side
like the answer might be there
but Anne quickly says she does,
of course.
“But maybe not exactly like you were before,”
she says.
Carl nods.
Anne says, “Maybe you can make something new
together.”
And I have an idea then.
I ask her if she will help me
And then she helps me
break pieces
glue them
make something
old into something
beautiful,
new.
Opening
On Sunday, Mom calls.
At first
I want to have Anne
talk to her
not sure what to say.
But it is snowing hard
which reminds me
of one time Mom took
Cassidy and me sledding
on old trash can lids
by the high school.
And how fast we all went.
Shrieking, speeding in the snow.
And then how I got hurt.
And Mom carried me back,
sobbing,
saying I was her precious girl.
I say, “Merry Christmas.”
I can tell from her voice
she’s been drinking.
She doesn’t say sorry.
She just tells me
she’s excited
she’s bought me
new clothes,
a new iTouch,
something else I can’t understand
for my new room.
I know somewhere in her heart
she believes all of that,
and somewhere in my heart,
I want to, too.
So I tell her that sounds great
and when I hang up,
tears falling,
Anne is there
with her arms open.
She whispers to me:
“I know I can’t be your mom, Sierra,
but I can be your Anne.”
And I nod,
knowing now
how much I need one of those.
Still & Moving
I ask Carl if
he will take me
back to the Wissahickon Cree
k.
Remembering what he said about being in nature
helping him.
He says he’d be delighted.
He has something else to show me there.
This time we don’t go see the geese,
we walk down steps.
“Where are we going?”
I see the river ahead.
And he leads me.
Down.
Out on a pathway over the water.
To sit on the dam.
One side the water is smooth.
On the other it ripples.
We don’t do anything but sit
in the cold
and breathe.
I think how if Mom is the ocean,
Anne and Carl are more like this creek.
He doesn’t pressure me to say anything.
To change or move.
Just says, “Sierra, whatever happens,
there’s always a river to watch.”
I nod,
breathing into its gray-blue.
Many Hearts
Later,
Cassidy texts, says Mom
has been hanging out
with some dude she met at Wawa
before she lost her job.
Again.
I think of Cassidy saying I was lucky to be here.
And, for the first time, I wonder if maybe I am.
Maybe she wasn’t ignoring my problem
when she said that but, instead,
speaking her truth.
So, I tell her something honest, too:
I don’t think I’ll be home anytime soon.
She texts a sad face.
I think of her then—
in the middle of her cluttered room
her screaming sisters, her mom with some guy,
the way they all fight over food.
And—
think of her saying she wanted to run away with me.
So I text:
Could she could sleep over
on New Year’s?
I picture maybe Lauren
with us.
We have hats on and those honkers.
Candy and soda.
She texts me many hearts and a Christmas tree.
Says she can’t wait.
Then she sends me a GIF
of some guy dancing
with a plant on his head.
And when I laugh this time,
I mean it.
Kaleidoscope
I wrap my present to Lauren.
I imagine her face
as she opens it.
Carl makes cocoa,
and the house smells like chocolate.
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