by Meg Bonney
I tried not to smirk at her, but I couldn’t help myself, and for a split second, I thought I saw her smile back at me. She would never say it, but I had a feeling that she liked when I bested her like that.
Aunt Ruth charged me again, her gray-blue eyes focused and determined. She was going even faster now; she had both hands on the rod and began swinging it quickly, nearly hitting me multiple times before I lost my footing and fell backward.
Before I could get to my feet, she raised the rod over her head and swung down hard, stopping within a quarter-inch of the tip of my nose. I was panting loudly as I held myself up on my elbows. She hovered over me, a flash of delight in her eyes.
She lowered her face toward mine while keeping the rod just a hair away from my nose.
She spoke calmly but quickly. “His actions don’t decide what you do. You are in control of your own choices. And today, you chose wrong.”
She stood and turned away.
“Don’t you even care that I almost died today? You only seem to care about dumbass Shawn Milton and his precious nose.”
“You disrespected the principal, broke a young man’s nose, and got kicked off campus—suspended. You embarrassed yourself and your family.” Aunt Ruth looked back at me and dropped the curtain rod on the floor.
I stood up. “Um, well…not technically in that order.”
“Do you even think about how the things you do will impact me? How they impact Lacy?” Ruth put her hands on her hips, her abs even more prominent than usual.
“So this isn’t about me. It’s about you,” I said.
Aunt Ruth shook her head. “Did you even think about your teammates? About how they would feel if you weren’t there to lead them at the state championships this weekend?”
I puckered my lips and looked up at the ceiling. “They would be happy that they’ll finally have a shot at winning, since I won’t be there?”
“Not funny, Madison. You made a commitment to your team. You don’t break something like that. You are the leader, and that is not what a leader does. You stick by your team, no matter what you may be feeling.”
“Look, I don’t care about the stupid state championship, and I don’t care about being their leader. I don’t. I don’t want to do it anymore. That’s all anyone ever frickin’ talks to me about. I don’t want to run. I hate it,” I sighed. “I’ll be there. I’ll still have to go. I just can’t run.”
“You don’t always love what you do. You just do it because you made that promise. And when you have a gift like yours, you don’t waste it,” Aunt Ruth replied.
“I’m not wasting it. I just…I just don’t want to do it. I have zero passion for it, Aunt Ruth,” I explained, almost begging for her to finally see my side of something.
“This isn’t even about you wasting your talent. It’s about you drawing negative attention to yourself. To Lacy. To me! I have a business to run.” She undid her bun and ran her fingers through her dark blonde hair.
“It’s a gym. Technically, your business is to run,” I said under my breath.
Ruth sighed. “Life is not some big joke, Madison. You are an adult now. You need to grow up! You have responsibilities. And the sooner you realize that, the better.”
I huffed heatedly and clenched my jaw as I stared back at her. “Oh, so you actually remember what today is? That it’s my eighteenth birthday?”
“Of course I do. I’ve been thinking about this day for longer than you will ever understand. Do you think that this is all a game? You cannot behave this way.”
Getting yelled at by Ruth was not a new thing for me, but lately she seemed even more “Ruth” than usual, constantly checking in on me and wanting to know where I was at all times. I was two years older than Lacy, and she treated me like the younger one.
“Here is what will happen. You are going to write a letter of apology to Shawn Milton, Principal Grayson, and the school. And then you are going to be my new shadow. You will be with me every day after school. You will wake up, go to school, come to the gym, we will go home, you will do your chores, and then you will sleep so you can do it over again the next day.”
“I’m eighteen. I am not—”
Ruth took a step toward me. “Shadow. You will be my shadow. Do I make myself clear?”
She turned and walked toward the lockers on the other side of the gym. I clenched my jaw, too mad to say anything—not that it would help.
“And how many times do I have to tell you to use these damn lockers? You can’t just leave your bag wherever you want!”
“Sorry, I’ll move it!” I yelled, but not fast enough.
Aunt Ruth crouched to shove the spilled contents of my bag back inside it and stopped. She was silent and still, holding the manila folder open.
“What the hell is this?” she asked softly, without turning around.
“I’m eighteen, an adult, like you said.” I walked over to where she was still bent on the floor. My heart raced. Why did this make me so nervous?
“That’s not an answer, Madison,” Aunt Ruth said, irritation in her voice.
I pulled the folder and the form from her long, thin fingers. She didn’t move for a moment, then slowly stood and turned to face me.
“I―I have to go study.” I clutched the folder tightly in my hands and turned toward the gym’s entrance.
“Don’t you dare take another step,” Ruth warned me. “What are you doing with that form? I told you to leave it alone.”
“Why do you care what I do? I’m just the charity case you took in,” I said.
Aunt Ruth looked hurt for a second before giving me her standard scowl. Even that slight flicker of emotion was more than I usually got from Aunt Ruth. We didn’t talk about real things like this. We didn’t share feelings, talk about my parents or how it was tearing my heart out not to know them. We didn’t talk about any of that, ever. School, the gym, chores, and of course, how I was a crushing disappointment to her: those were the topics we hit.
“Look, I know I’m not your mother. But you are my responsibility, and you will be respectful.”
“I respect you, Ruth, but respect doesn’t mean that I’m going to obey everything you ever say,” I insisted.
“I disagree,” Aunt Ruth replied. “I am the leader of our family. You obey the leader. Now, tell me. What is that form?” She folded her arms across her chest.
“My parents. I’m eighteen. I’m going to find my parents,” I answered calmly. “You can’t keep it from me anymore.”
I could see the shock in her eyes, but it didn’t matter. It couldn’t. I had spent more hours than I could count on Jason’s computer trying to locate my parents. Because I had nowhere to start, other than my name, I never got very far.
But today, I was legally an adult. That changed things.
Ruth’s eyes were closed as she held the bridge of her nose and shook her head.
“I told you, Madison. I told you to leave it alone!” she yelled, breaking the even-toned calmness of our exchange.
“It’s not up to you. And no, you didn’t! You didn’t tell me anything about them. I don’t even know their names. You won’t tell me anything! You won’t ever talk about them. Why? Why?” I yelled back, matching her volume.
“Madison, I forbid you to look for them.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I forbid you to do this.”
“It’s my choice, Ruth. I’m an adult, and there is nothing you can do to stop me. I deserve to know! I des—”
“Damn it, Madison!”
“What? Are you afraid that you will lose your niece or that you will lose your employee? I’m doing this.”
“You won’t find them!”
“Why? Why not?”
“Because they’re dead!”
And that’s when everything went silent.
My heart jolted, and I felt like the air had been sucked out of my lungs. I panted loudly
for a few moments and stared wide-eyed back at Ruth. She looked just as shocked as I felt.
“What?” I managed to utter as my eyes flooded with tears.
Ruth kept her eyes locked on mine but said nothing. Her already fair skin went even more pale.
“They’re―they’re dead? How could you have not told me?” I shook my head. “At the very frickin’ least―why didn’t you tell me that? How…how―”
“Madison…” Ruth reached her hand out.
“No,” I said through clenched teeth. I grabbed my bag and swept the manila folder and the rest of its contents back inside. “You don’t get to pretend to care now. No.”
Aunt Ruth took another step toward me and reached out again. I pulled away instantly and looked back into her gray eyes. Her gestures seemed sincere, but the cold stare in her eyes never left, even after she had blurted out something as shattering as that.
“You are horrible,” I said with clear articulation and unwavering conviction. “Stay away from me.”
I backed away, then swung open the door of the gym and slipped out to the sidewalk. I heard the bell chime as I sprinted down the street, clutching my bag to my chest.
They were dead.
Dead.
I couldn’t stop the words from repeating in my mind, and I couldn’t stop my tears. I ran as fast as I could, away from Ruth’s Gym and away from Aunt Ruth.
They were dead.
CHAPTER 5
I reached the back door and stopped, letting my head rest against the cool metal of the large white door as I waited for my breath to return after running home from the gym. My heartbeat showed no signs of slowing. I pulled my house keys from my bag.
Aunt Ruth’s words still stung, like a bee sting to the brain, and I couldn’t stop hearing those words over and over.
They’re dead.
Before I could put the keys in the lock, I heard that stupid ringing noise again. It was coming from the backyard. I set my bag on the ground by the door and turned around, sniffling and wiping the tears and sweat from my face as I walked toward the sound. I was no longer cautious or worried.
The sound was guiding me, increasing in volume with each step I took. I navigated through the un-kept grove of trees that lined the edge of the backyard. The snap of twigs and the crunch of last year’s leaves was barely audible over the persistent ringing sound.
The air felt heavier with moisture back here in a cluster of oak trees. One oak right in the middle seemed to stand out from the rest.
“Whoa,” I muttered. The tree. There was something about that particular tree.
The sound stopped as I stepped in front of it. The trunk was particularly wide compared to the others around it. I looked up at the green leaves. They were completely still. That wouldn’t be strange on its own, but leaves on all the trees around it moved and rustled in the breeze.
But not this tree. This tree was motionless.
“Okay…” My eyes traced the curves and splits in the bark of the trunk. My body tingled, like that feeling you get when your leg falls asleep, but all over. I felt weightless and heavy at the same time and, as if I was no longer in control, I saw my hand rise up in front of me.
I had to touch it. I had to touch this tree.
Something inside me urged me to. My fingers trembled as I slowly moved my hand to the trunk. I closed my eyes and laid my hand on the rough bark.
And…nothing happened.
I opened one eye and placed my other hand on the trunk of the tree.
That’s when it felt like a brick hit me in the temple. I fell to the ground and cradled my head in my hands. I couldn’t tell if I was screaming out loud or not because all I could hear was the loud ringing again. Both of my temples jolted with a sharp pain, and my skin got hot again. I felt something warm running down my lips.
I touched my lips and saw that my fingertips were covered with blood.
Stunned, I laid with my face on the musty-smelling ground for a moment. My head pounded, and each hair on my body stood up.
What’s happening to me?
Then the ringing stopped.
I rolled over, then backed away from the tree on all fours like a crab. My nose was still gushing, but at least the pounding headache was gone. A big gust of wind rustled the leaves of the trees around me. The leaves on this tree still didn’t budge.
What the hell?
I wiped my nose with the back of my hand and sprinted through the trees and the backyard, back up to the house.
My fingers fumbled with the keys before I managed to unlock the door. I slid the strap of my bag onto my shoulder and darted into the kitchen. I checked behind me to make sure I hadn’t tracked dirt into the house before running up the stairs to get to my bedroom. Traumatic event or not, Aunt Ruth would flip if I tracked dirt in the house.
With a grunt, I swung my bedroom door closed behind me. The right side of the white room was neat and tidy: a white dresser; a twin bed with a flowered pink comforter, tucked in. In the middle of the floor was a large shaggy pink and gray area rug.
Then I looked at my side of the room, which was a total mess. The strap of my bag was starting to hurt me. I let my bag slip to the floor.
Rubbing my shoulder, I crossed over to the full-length mirror that hung on the back of the closet door. Blood was smeared from my upper lip to my ear like a giant creepy smirk. I plucked an obnoxious amount of tissue from the box on Lacy’s dresser and used the sweat from my forehead to wipe the drying blood from my cheek.
How was that for karma? I gave someone a bloody nose and then got one in the span of an afternoon. Even the absurdly strange tree incident, however, couldn’t distract me from Aunt Ruth’s bombshell.
My birth parents were dead.
I had pictured my parents in my mind for as long as I could remember. I had created this twisted fantasy of a different life that I could lead if I ever did go and find them. How they didn’t intend to give me up. That they just lost track of Ruth and me. I pictured teary reunions and long hugs. All things that made me want to barf under any other circumstance, but when I thought about my parents, they didn’t sound so bad.
Unlike Aunt Ruth, I wasn’t void of emotion. But at the same time, I wasn’t all that great at dealing with emotions, either. I felt my skin crawl, like I needed to run or something. Anything to burn off this energy that was building in the pit of my stomach.
My phone buzzed loudly. I pulled it from my back pocket and clenched it in my fist.
It was Aunt Ruth calling. She never called. Calling meant speaking to me and allowing me to answer. Nope, Aunt Ruth was much more of a texter. Texting orders was her thing. I ignored her call.
My parents are dead.
The manila folder peeked out from under the pile of papers sticking out of my bag. I thought about the delusional dreams of Christmas dinners and family vacations, of my dad wrapping me in a big bear hug or my mom brushing my hair. They were people who only existed in my mind, but that didn’t stop my grief.
My phone started buzzing again. It was Aunt Ruth again.
I picked up the phone. “What?” I screamed into it.
“Madison, calm down!” Aunt Ruth said sternly back. “You need to keep your emotions in check. You need to focus, do you understand?”
“Are you seriously telling me that I need to focus right now? You just told me my parents were dead…on my birthday. I was going to file a petition with the courts to get my records released on Saturday.”
“The courthouse won’t be open on a Saturday and even it were, Saturday is your track meet, Madison. Not only were you going to defy me, but you were planning to skip your meet?” Aunt Ruth asked with utter disappointment and no remorse, no guilt for what she had just done. She didn’t even care.
“Are you frickin’ serious? This is a little much, even for you. I don’t give a rat’s ass about the stupid track meet! The only thing I cared about was finding them, and you just―you ju
st―” My emotions choked out my voice.
“I should have told you, but now you know and you need to move on. There are more important things at hand now. You need to come back to the gym right now. We aren’t done here.”
“I am done. I am so very done with all of this,” I said through a sob.
“You don’t understand. You are letting your emotions take hold of you. Focus, Madison.”
“What the hell is wrong with you? You are delusional. I am never coming back there!”
“Madison.”
“No,” I said with a low voice, clenching my teeth. “I hate you.”
I whipped my phone against my bedroom wall, and it exploded into shards of black and silver. How could they be dead? How could she have kept it from me? I was going to find them, and they were going to be wonderful.
They were going to be wonderful. They had to be wonderful.
I slid the manila folder out of the cluster of schoolwork with one finger, dragged it across the wood floor, and flicked it open. There it was. The petition for the court to release my adoption records. For so long, it was the only thing that I really cared about. It was my plan.
I had a plan.
This crisp white paper was my eighth attempt at filling out the form, to ensure everything on it was perfect, yet it had never occurred to me to check to make sure the stupid courthouse would be open on a Saturday. But it didn’t matter anymore anyway. My fingers traced the loops of my signature before I laid my palm on the center of the page and crumpled it in my fist.
I took a deep breath, holding the paper tightly, then threw it to the center of my bedroom. It landed on the shaggy pink and gray rug.
“Enough.” Keeping it together most days meant pushing this crap far, far from my mind.
“Enough,” I repeated, leaning my head on my bed next to me.
“Mads?” a voice called. It was Jason. It was like he had a beacon that told him when I needed him. He was outside the window on the far side of the room, opposite me. I didn’t move. I didn’t need to; he was already there, perched on the branch of the oak tree that stood just outside my bedroom window. He shimmied the screen up and slid through.