Twelve Steps to Normal

by Farrah Penn

  I don’t know what I would have done if Lin hadn’t been with me. She took me up to my room and threw me a pair of clean jeans as I changed out of my Muppet pajamas. Then she called Jay. I heard her explain that his mom was on her way. She would take me to the station.

  Don’t worry, she kept repeating.

  How could I not?

  Jay’s mom didn’t pry as she drove. When I got in she leaned over and squeezed my arm.

  “It’ll be okay, sugar.”

  I realized these are things people said when there was nothing left to say because they think lies are better than silence.

  Even though the entire situation was awful and shameful, I was thankful Jay’s mom stayed to talk to the police with me. My dad had been found standing in the middle of the McCarthy and Jettison intersection—a congested area that was always clogged with traffic as cars merged onto the highway. He was drunk, they told me. Mumbling nonsense. Stumbling to stay upright.

  The officer said someone had called in for help. They saw a dog in his arms, a tiny poodle. She was shaking, clawing at my dad’s arms as vehicles whizzed past. That’s the part that sank the knife deep in my heart. I knew the poodle was Millie, who belonged to Mrs. Jenkins next door. But that wasn’t what broke me. It was that this innocent dog couldn’t escape. She must have been so scared—terrified—and the only person she could depend on for her safety was the person who’d carried her into danger in the first place.

  The cops had to block the intersection for a few minutes to get my dad and Millie safely to the sidewalk. They’d arrested him for being drunk and disorderly in public. My dad tried to tell them he found Millie in our yard that morning. He was certain he was only trying to return her back to Mrs. Jenkins’s house.

  He was two miles from home.

  They questioned me about his drinking habits, but I was too shocked by this situation to answer. The last several months I’d told myself that he wasn’t that bad, that it only seemed bad on the outside because no one understood the pain he was going through after losing his mother.

  Jay’s mom had sat me down in the two empty chairs in the station’s lobby. “Honey,” she started. “I’ve arranged for you to talk with a social worker. She’ll be here in a few hours.” Her concerned expression was the first of many pitying looks I received after that. “If you want, I can stay with you until she arrives.”

  I shook my head. “That’s okay, but thank you.”

  She nodded. But before she went home, she gave me a long hug.

  Margaret, my social worker, contacted Aunt June once my dad was released. My aunt flew out the next day, but I didn’t go home after I left the station. Lin let me sleep in her room on her trundle bed. She didn’t pressure me with questions. Instead she took my mind off it by talking about Harry Styles and showing me funny YouTube videos.

  Even after months of me ignoring her texts, she’s still here for me. She still picked me up with no questions asked.

  There’s a hard lump in my throat. I didn’t think it was possible to feel so lousy this early in the morning.

  “Are you okay?” she asks me. “I mean… you feel safe at home and everything?”

  Even though there are three strangers living in my house, I’m the one who feels like a stranger. Although it’s ironic, I don’t feel unsafe.

  A tiny thought of uncertainty digs its way into my brain: I’m not sure if Margaret would feel the same way.

  “Yeah,” I tell her. The letters my dad wrote me during treatment were heavy with apologies. Even though that doesn’t change anything between us, I believe he’s sorry enough to not let anything like that happen again.

  “Good.” Lin fiddles with the strap of her lilac book bag. “Are you going to join Earth Club again this year? If we don’t have at least twelve members, Principal Lawrence is pulling the plug.”

  Since I was a part of exactly zero clubs at my school in Portland and completed a whopping total of zilch extracurricular activities, rejoining Earth Club will help fluff up my college applications. Besides, I need to spend more time with Lin. It’s clear I’ve knocked her down a few notches on the importance pole.

  “Count me in.”

  She smiles, and her approval makes me feel good. I think of all the things she used to tell me that she didn’t share with Whitney or Raegan. About liking David Cornwell, who was a red flag in Whitney’s book because he told the faculty they should invest more of the school’s budget in Academic Decathlon versus the dance team. Or about how she actually loves going to engineering conventions with her parents, even though she says otherwise in front of our friends.

  I want to get back to the close, unbreakable friendship we used to have. I promise myself I’m going to be a better friend from now on, no matter what it takes.

  FIVE

  I PART WAYS WITH LIN in the auditorium as we line up according to our last names. The plan is to quickly get my schedule so we can continue to catch up before first period. I’m not excessively eager to see Whitney anymore, which sounds horrible, I know. But swiping my boyfriend—ex-boyfriend, whatever—and not telling me is a lot to process first thing in the morning.

  “Um,” I say as soon as I’m handed my schedule. SENECA, KIRA is printed neatly at the top, but the classes are definitely not correct. For one thing, English I is a freshman class. I need English III. And Geometry? I took that sophomore year. “This isn’t right.”

  The attendant sighs, as if this isn’t the first time she’s heard this today. “Main office. Go talk to your guidance counselor.”

  Of course. I should have expected this with the kind of morning I’m having.

  I step out of line and attempt to find Lin in the crowd, but it’s impossible with the whole school in here. I’m stopped multiple times by old Wavette teammates and other students in my grade who say they’re happy I’m back and ask a few polite questions about Portland. It’s nice to feel so welcome, especially after my abrupt departure, but I don’t want to be late to my first class, so I try and hurry along.

  If this were any other day, the grayish-blue walls and scuffed linoleum would depress me. But today I let myself soak it all in. I’m enthralled by the rows of navy lockers and the slightly cheesy motivational posters tacked to the walls. I relish the echoing of the morning announcements that are being ignored by groups of friends loudly comparing schedules. I’m obsessed with the normality of it all. I will never again refer to this fine institution as prison.

  When I walk into the front office, I immediately spot dozens of students in the waiting area. A stressed secretary barely acknowledges me before grabbing my schedule and jabbing her keyboard like it recently wronged her.

  “Let me guess.” She pushes her rimless glasses up the bridge of her nose before looking up at me. “Your schedule’s wrong?”

  I wonder if she can read minds.

  She lets out a frustrated sigh. “Our system bugged out last night. Have a seat and I’ll call your name when your guidance counselor is available.”

  I look around the waiting room for a place to sit and quickly realize that’s not going to happen. All the chairs are taken, and a lot of students have already claimed the corners as standing space. I don’t recognize many of them, so I figure most must be freshmen.

  I end up standing awkwardly next to the front door. I’m tempted to pull out my phone and text Lin or Raegan, but I don’t want to risk having it taken away on my first day. The secretary looks like she’s ready to snap at anyone who steps out of line.

  “Ramos?” she calls.

  I freeze. Wait, Ramos? Alex Ramos?

  My eyes fly to the back corner of the room just as Alex stands up. His gaze falls on mine, and his eyes widen in surprise. But before either of us can say anything, the secretary ushers him toward the guidance counselor’s office.

  Here’s something I haven’t mentioned about Alex Ramos: At one point in time, I had a crush on him.

  But then freshman year happened.

  Alex was unoffici
ally inducted into the theater kid clique while I became a part of the Wavettes, but we’d always meet out front after school to wait for our parents to pick us up. And because my dad was constantly late, Alex’s mom began to offer me rides home, which I gratefully accepted.

  This wasn’t a big deal at first. During those car rides I’d tease him about getting paint on his Converse from painting theater props and he’d threaten to tell my friends that I still listened to One Direction. But there was one Friday where my mood had turned sour. My dad had stumbled home late the previous evening reeking of beer and causing me to worry even more about his emotional state over Grams.

  “What’s wrong?” Alex had asked when he sat down on the brick wall next to me. I noticed today his Converse were splattered with streaks of gray.

  “Nothing,” I replied, the same thing I’d told Raegan and Whitney and Lin.

  He just stared at me.

  “What?” I finally snapped.

  Instead of getting defensive, his eyes softened. “It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me.”

  I looked at him, realizing just how much he paid attention. Even though my friends knew about Grams passing, he was the one who continued to text me every evening to help ease my mind away from my sad thoughts. I wasn’t as guarded as I thought I was, at least not around Alex. It’d always been easy to talk to him.

  So I took a deep breath.

  “It’s just… my dad.” Then I told him about his occasional binge drinking and how he was always late to get me because he’d usually go straight for the beer after work and pass out.

  “Anyway,” I’d finished. “He’s still torn up about Grams. It’ll be okay.”

  “Well,” Alex kicked the heels of his sneakers against the wall. “If you need anything…”

  A new kind of warmth spread through my chest. “Thank you.”

  He tugged on the back of his beanie, a small smile forming at the corner of his mouth.

  Later that night, my phone chimed with an incoming text. My heartbeat tripled when I saw who it was from.

  ALEX: you watching Crime Boss?

  Face flushed, I typed:

  ME: Detective Fay’s season 6 acting is lazy. and these explosions are WEAK

  Seconds later, another chime.

  ALEX: lol

  ALEX: you know I meant what I said earlier?

  The warmth in my chest was back, a strange new feeling that made my heart flutter. I believed that he cared for me, and that meant more than I could even begin to say.

  ME: I know

  I tried to fall asleep later that night, but my mind spun in circles around Alex. I’d always brushed aside his crush like it was a pair of pants he’d soon outgrow. I never expected I’d return the feelings he’d had for me for so long.

  I kept these emotions to myself for the rest of the week, but the original brushfire quickly burst into a white-hot flame. I yearned for the moment when he’d slip beside me in English and turn toward me to say hi. I found myself wanting to prolong our conversations before we had to part ways for our next class. When I spotted him waiting for me by the brick wall after school, my tumbling heartbeat wouldn’t quiet until the moment I stepped through my front door.

  I made the decision to ask him to our freshman Sadie Hawkins dance a week later. I could picture him sputtering through his response, that modest smile spreading across his cheeks as he said yes.

  This would have gone perfectly if he hadn’t said yes to Lacey Woodward’s invitation first.

  I found out on our ride home together. He explained that she’d cornered him after theater rehearsal and asked.

  “Oh,” I said, my initial shock turning to numbness. “And you—?”

  “Yeah, um,” Alex looked at the car floor as he said this. “I said yeah.”

  It was scary how quickly my hurt turned into jealousy. He said yes to Lacey? Lacey? Did he forget that she totally made fun of him in fifth grade after he had to go to the nurse for his asthma? Or that she’d called us losers for always obsessing over Supernatural? On the Richter scale of anger, I was a nine.

  One of my biggest regrets was texting him to tell him I didn’t need rides from his mom anymore. But because he was Alex, he texted me twice to see if I was sure. At the time I was. I couldn’t sit in a car and pine for him knowing he had feelings for Lacey and not for me. It wasn’t until later that I realized he’d been in this exact same position with me for the last few years. Without any success, of course he’d moved on.

  So I became preoccupied with dating Jay and after the weirdness of Sadie Hawkins was over, Alex and I ended up staying friends. Even if we weren’t as close as before, we’d still sometimes pass notes to each other on discarded Tropical Starburst wrappers and text about Crime Boss and the small snippets I told him about my dad. Things I never bothered telling Jay.

  I stare at the closed door of the counselor’s office. Alex looked surprised to see me. Was it a good surprised? Bad surprised? My stomach sinks. Of course it’s the latter—especially after what he told me right before I left for Portland.

  I’m so engrossed in my thoughts that I don’t hear the sound of the door bursting open behind me. Before I have time to step aside, it hits me on the side of the head with a thwump.

  “Oh shit—” a voice says.

  Pain sears at my temple. I groan, immediately enraged. Maybe I shouldn’t have been standing in the way, but who the hell swings a door open with that much momentum?

  “I’m so—Kira?”

  I glance up when I hear my name.

  Oh god.

  There he is.

  Jay.

  I’m clutching the side of my head, but through the spots I immediately recognize his concerned eyes and neatly cropped hair. I blink. He’s still there. He wears a slightly amused smile on his face, complete with a tiny mole on the edge of his lip. Definitely Jay. My Jay.

  Wait. No. Not my Jay.

  I blame being caught off-guard for my brilliant reply, “Ow.”

  “I’m sorry.” He takes a step toward me and reaches out like there’s something he can do to stop the throbbing. When he realizes there’s not, he drops his hand. “I didn’t see you.”

  I shrug it off and lower my own hand. “I was in the way.”

  He’s staring at me, not bothering to hide it. I feel a stirring deep down in my stomach, remembering all the times he used to look at me that way.

  “I’m not going to lie. You’re the last person I expected to accidentally hit with the door.” He has an easygoing smile. It’s effortless for him. “I didn’t even know you were back.”

  He looks different. Of course he looks different. It’s been eleven months. He must have grown at least two inches. The same Cedarville basketball shirt he always wore freshman year fits him slightly tighter, showcasing his very, very nice arms. Basketball has certainly been good to him.

  I can’t stop staring at him.

  I need to stop staring at him.

  I blink and say, “I got in last night.”

  The secretary clears her throat, an obvious gesture to gain his attention. Jay glances over at her and then holds his schedule up to me. “They put me in art history instead of basketball.”

  “They gave me mostly freshman classes.”

  “Holding you to your true potential?”

  Without thinking, I give him a playful shove. He laughs, but I’m alarmed by my extent of physical contact. Heat flushes from my toes to the very tip of my brain, but I don’t think he notices because he’s already walking over to the front desk.

  My gaze drops to my outfit. I should have tried a little harder this morning. All of a sudden, my coral blouse feels boxy and unflattering. And—oh god. We were standing so close. Could he see the unfortunate breakout across my forehead? Wait, what does it mean if I’m worried about my zits around Jay? I wasn’t worried about it around Lin.

  I’m debating whether my butt is comparable to the size of Jupiter in these jeans when Jay comes back and stands next t
o me.

  “So,” he says, sliding his hands in his pockets. “Your dad is back?”

  “Yeah,” I say, and we fall into an awkward pause of silence.

  Jay knows my family. When my dad first started AA and seemed to be doing better, Jay would come over for dinner and watch all my Crime Boss with us. One weekend he even helped us assemble my IKEA nightstand I ordered online and laughed at all my dad’s tool puns.

  “I’m so glad we didn’t screw this up.”

  Jay high fived him. “You nailed that joke, Mr. Seneca.”

  “STOP,” I yelled, but I was laughing. “You’re worse than him!”

  But when my dad’s drinking binges worsened, I stopped inviting Jay over. I knew Jay was concerned, but I played a role of overconfidence. Of course I was okay. Sure my dad was attending his AA meetings. Everything was fine.

  It wasn’t, obviously. I was juggling dance practice and my schoolwork and making sure there were groceries in the fridge and a hot dinner on the table. The nights my dad downed three or more six-packs, I would set my phone alarm for midnight, two a.m., and four a.m. so I could make sure he hadn’t fallen asleep on his back in case he threw up. I started hiding his car keys when I noticed there was nothing but beer cans in the recycle bin.

  Jay found me at Lin’s house after I left the police station that day. His mom told him what happened, and I was so ashamed and embarrassed over my dad’s worsening behavior that I burst into tears. He wrapped his arms around me as we stood out on Lin’s front porch. In that moment, that was all I needed.

  “It’s supposed to be better this time,” I say, but my words are laced with cynicism.

  Jay shifts his weight. I don’t want our first exchange to be uncomfortable so I say, “Anyway. I’m glad I’m back in Cedarville.”

  He leans toward me, just slightly. “Yeah? Too rainy for you up there?”

  Subject change. Finally.

  I grin. “No one even carries umbrellas! I felt like such a tourist.”

  “Let me guess. You decided to ditch the umbrella to try and blend in?”