“You can put it in here,” Jen said, showing her a row of cabinets at the back of her office. Each one had its own name: Melanie Kasamir. Kai Mahon. Isabel Keely. Jack Emery. And now, Taylor Gray.
Taylor had her own cabinet. Because Taylor was a diabetic.
All weekend long, Camille had to run the words over and over in her mind. So far, they refused to stick. They kept flitting away like moths, and then she would see Taylor pricking herself with the lancet or Austin reading the new book he got from the library—Think Like a Pancreas—and Camille would have to repeat the words to herself all over again.
Taylor was a diabetic.
This was their life now.
Not the state track meet this weekend. Not running fifty to sixty miles a week this summer in preparation for her senior year of cross-country.
But this.
Diabetes.
“She’s set on coming to school tomorrow,” Camille said, unloading the supplies. How was she supposed to focus on anything with Taylor at school? And once life resumed normalcy, what was going to happen between her and Neil? When he pointed his thumb toward the door and asked if she wanted him to go, she said no, and he stayed.
All weekend long.
He slept in the guest room, of course. But still, he stayed.
The kids were confused, probably. But she needed him there. She needed him as they got used to this new regimented diet. She needed him as they got used to the finger pricking and the injections. He’d taken the day off work because later they would drive back to the hospital and meet with a diabetes educator. Camille should have a long list of questions. Instead, she kept running the same words through her head.
Taylor is a diabetic.
“I’ll make sure to keep a good eye on her,” Jen said. “If you want, I’d be happy to text you updates throughout the day.”
“I’d like that.”
“It’s going to be okay. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but this is not the end of the world.”
They were almost the exact same words Liz had spoken before they left the hospital, only Liz had taken Camille by the shoulders and looked firmly—almost sternly—into her eyes. Jen kept her distance, but Camille was as thankful for the words now as she had been on Friday.
She wanted to apologize—sincerely apologize—for everything. For blindsiding Jen on Paige’s birthday party with the presents. For the awful thing Paige said the Monday after. For not responding immediately. For not marching Paige straight into Principal Kelly’s office, because yes, her daughter had in fact said that word. Jubilee wasn’t a liar. Neither was Nia. She should have banged on Jen’s door until she answered so she could tell her face to face how terribly, horribly sorry she was.
She kept experiencing these flashes of vulnerability. This overwhelming feeling of nakedness, like a needy toddler without food or clothes. She wanted to grab Jen’s hands and get down on her knees and beg her forgiveness.
Instead, she hitched the empty tote over her shoulder and said two simple words with all the sincerity in her heart. “Thank you.”
Sixty
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: a meeting
Date: Monday, May 20
Anaya,
Great job at sectionals this weekend! Your girls ran great. I’m sure they were a little shaken up about Taylor. That’s such a tough break. Anyway, I’m emailing to see if you’re free for a quick meeting this afternoon during your specials. HR will be there. No need to be alarmed! You’re not in any trouble.
Best,
Tim Kelly
Principal
Katie O’Hare Elementary
* * *
Anaya stood inside the refrigerator box, quickly removing the pictures she’d hung two weeks ago at the start of a literacy unit on Faith Ringgold. She read Tar Beach and Aunt Harriet’s Underground Railroad in the Sky to her students. The illustrations enthralled them, and as soon as she finished, they wanted to learn more. So they did what they’d done all year.
They traveled back in time.
Did a parent complain again? Was that why Mr. Kelly and someone from HR wanted to meet with her? He brought up track in his email. Maybe it had something to do with track. Maybe it was about her confrontation with Cody Malone on the track. Maybe it was about Darius.
She shoved the thought away.
Darius and Cody didn’t get into a fight on school property. They didn’t get into a fight during school hours. This couldn’t be about her brother. So then…what? Did they want to talk to her about the South Fork transfer situation? The Crystal Ridge School Board was already discussing next year and what they would do should the South Fork Cooperative attain a new accreditation status. Maybe HR wanted Anaya’s input as a teacher.
Anaya set the pictures on her desk and headed to the office.
Jan McCormick was there. She smiled at Anaya.
Ever since her commentary on South Fork mothers, Anaya had a hard time believing her authenticity.
It turned out, HR was a woman with almond-colored skin and silver hair—a sharp contrast that accentuated both.
“Renatta West,” she said, giving Anaya’s hand a firm handshake. “Tim mentioned I’d be joining you, I hope.”
“Yes, he did.”
“Please don’t be nervous. I want to assure you that you aren’t in any trouble.”
The words weren’t any more comforting in person, especially not in light of the recorder in Renatta’s hand. Mr. Kelly hadn’t said anything about a recorder. Anaya didn’t like it. She kept thinking about her brother and Cody’s broken nose and his mother’s ominous threat. What if Anaya said the wrong thing? What if she implicated Darius in some way and they used it against him?
“Please have a seat,” Mr. Kelly said. “This shouldn’t take long.”
“We have a few questions for you regarding a situation that has arisen in the district. We appreciate your discretion.”
“Okay,” Anaya said. It came out sounding more like a question.
Renatta turned the recorder on and set it on Mr. Kelly’s desk. “Anaya, I was hoping you could tell me about your student teaching experience.”
The words spun her in a circle. “My student teaching experience?”
“Yes.” Renatta folded her hands over her knee. “Specifically, how did you get along with your cooperating teacher, Kyle Davis?”
* * *
A Conversation on Twitter:
Ashleigh Spellerman @spellAshleigh: OMG. My 3rd grade teacher is a total sex predator. So creeped out!
Brenna Brown @brenbrown (replying to @spellAshleigh): It’s a lie. But good job spreading gossip.
Ashleigh Spellerman @spellAshleigh: It’s not a lie. My sister’s in his class. She had a sub all last week.
Brenna Brown @brenbrown: Doesn’t mean he’s a sex predator.
Dax Peterson @daxdaman (replying to @spellAshleigh): Something tells me that chick is just looking for attention.
Holly Jordan @HollyatMe (replying to @daxdaman @spellAshleigh): Excuse me? This isn’t the kind of attention ANY “chick” wants. She’s being publicly eviscerated. Nobody will hire her after this.
Dax Peterson @daxdaman: Eviscerated. Fancy word. But c’mon. Did you see those Snapchat pictures?
Justin Fox @justafox (replying to @daxdaman): See them? I printed them out and hung them on the ceiling above my bed. #bowchickawowwow
Brenna Brown @brenbrown (replying to @HollyatMe @daxdaman): Hooters will hire her.
Dax Peterson @daxdaman: Brenna!!! LOLOLOLOLOL
Holly Jordan @HollyatMe (replying to @justafox @daxdaman @brenbrown): You’re all disgusting. I hope he’s fired.
Justin Fox @justafox: No way. Mr. D is legendary. Best teacher of all time.
Dax Peterson @daxdaman: Re
member when he gave the whole class giant-size Snickers bars for Halloween. Holly’s just bitter b/c she has a nut allergy.
Lauren Graham @notagilmore (replying to @spellAshleigh @justafox @daxdaman): You all realize anyone can read this conversation, right?
Sixty-One
Over the next twenty-four hours, Anaya existed in two worlds. There was her life in Crystal Ridge as a teacher and a track coach, where the sensitive situation Renatta talked about in Mr. Kelly’s office no longer called for Anaya’s discretion because Ellie Sorrenson wasn’t being discrete. And there was her life in South Fork, as Mama’s daughter and Marcus’s girlfriend and a volunteer at the youth center, where nobody knew nor particularly cared about Kyle Davis, because they had—as Daddy would have said—bigger fish to fry. The two worlds didn’t intersect much, but a ghost called Guilt haunted her in both.
Shanice and Alexis went through a series of warm-ups on the track.
The two coaches for the boys’ track-and-field team chatted nearby.
“I guess they found a loophole,” one of them said.
“The board’s already talking about next year. It doesn’t look like the transfer students are going to stay.”
“That’s a shame.”
Their conversation floated around her like the wind as her girls moved from high knees to groin stretches.
“Hey, how’s Kyle doing?”
The question pricked Anaya’s ears.
“Not so good. This has all blindsided him, you know?”
“There’s no chance it could be true, is there?”
“I’ve known Kyle for years. He’s a stand-up guy.”
“Well, I think it’s safe to say his career at Crystal Ridge is ruined.”
“I don’t know about that. A lot of parents are showing their support.”
The world shrank.
It blackened into a pinprick. A focal point.
Ellie’s phone call.
Her meeting with Renatta West.
Did you ever feel uncomfortable?
Snapchat pictures captured on someone’s screen and shared all over social media.
A victim on trial.
Marcus.
We can wipe the slate clean and start fresh.
But the past happened, whether they acknowledged it or not.
It couldn’t be erased, no matter how much someone wanted to erase it.
“Dax! Stop goofing around and start stretching.” The coach crossed his arms. “Anyway, after those pictures leaked, I’m not sure a girl like her has much credibility.”
A girl like her…
A girl like her…
A girl like her…
“Hey Coach,” Shanice called. “Where are you going?”
Anaya didn’t answer.
Anaya didn’t know.
* * *
She sat in the dark while crickets serenaded the night—an incongruous sound, peace when there was no peace—the gun heavy in her lap.
“What do you really love?” she had asked Taylor. “Running or winning?”
As a kid, Anaya didn’t run to win. She ran because it brought her to life. She ran because she had invisible wings on her back that compelled her to run. She ran because when she did, she soared. She ran like her name.
Completely free.
But then Daddy died and life unraveled.
She was so angry. She was overcome with the emotion, but she had no target. At the end of the day, it wasn’t the streets that took her father. It wasn’t a police officer with a twitchy finger. It wasn’t an all-too-eager prison system. It was the organ inside his chest, and how could she be angry at a heart she loved so dear?
Anaya poured the aimless, insatiable emotion into training.
Her wings no longer carried her around that track.
Anger did.
She trained with a ferocity that alarmed everyone, her coaches included. They told her to slow down. They gave her plenty of warning. But she ignored them all, breaking record after record until her record breaking broke her.
In one fell swoop, she lost it all. Her aspirations. Her scholarship. She buried her grieving family under a mountain of medical bills. Mama refused to let Anaya drop out. Not when she was one year away from a college degree. Her mother quit night classes and got a second job. And Anaya could no longer outrun her grief.
It engulfed her completely.
It swallowed her right up.
She lost who she was.
And Marcus became a convenient scapegoat for all that was wrong.
But her cooperating teacher? He was different. A shiny, new object who personified a world so wholly opposite from the one she lived in. He joked about things people didn’t typically joke about. He made her laugh when her insides were brittle. He was charming and self-deprecating in a way she wasn’t used to and so far removed from all that was bad in her life. Plus, he shared her affinity for all things geek. Granted, he thought DC was better than Marvel and Star Trek better than Star Wars, but that only made their conversations more engaging, more blessedly distracting.
Anaya squeezed her eyes shut.
But it was too late.
The past refused to stay buried. After all this time, it had turned into a rotten corpse. A zombie pushing its bony hand up through six feet of dirt, and there wasn’t a machete or a sword or anything at all to fight it with.
The day was already a bad day. A horrible anniversary. The kind nobody wanted to celebrate. Two years without a father. And she was extra irritated because of a text message. It came from a former teammate—a girl who took her spot as anchor on the 200 relay.
On our way to take on Mizzou. Missing you like crazy!
It felt cruel.
She was spending the lunch hour in Kyle’s classroom, organizing her afternoon lesson plans. He didn’t like the lounge any more than she did, so he would spend it in his classroom too. He always blasted classic rock on his phone and did a really dorky impression of playing an air guitar. At the moment, he was doing an even dorkier robot dance to “Mr. Roboto” by Styx. Thanks to Kyle, Anaya knew domo arigato meant “thank you very much” in Japanese.
That was when the second text came through. This one from Marcus.
Meet me outside.
He drove all the way to Crystal Ridge with her favorite pizza. He came without giving her any sort of warning—her world colliding with this world—and instead of expressing thanks, she expressed annoyance. Her reaction hurt his feelings, which made her feel guilty, and then she got angry at him for making her feel guilty.
“I’m sorry, but I have to teach this afternoon,” she said.
“I’m sorry for trying to do something nice for my girlfriend.” He jabbed his hands on his hips, fisting the hem of his shirt, and shook his head. Anaya knew then that he didn’t remember what today was. He’d forgotten a day she would never be able to forget. “I can’t even get that right anymore. Apparently, everything I do is wrong.”
“Don’t make this a bigger deal than it is, okay? I don’t have time to eat pizza right now. That’s all.”
He called her bluff. “Is that really all, Anaya?”
“I told you. I have to teach.”
“Nah. This isn’t about teaching. This is about us, in a relationship, and I’m the one pulling all the weight.”
“Maybe that has something to do with the fact that my running career is over.”
“I get that, but don’t you think it’s time to move on?”
The insensitive question—especially on this particular day—might as well have slapped her across the face. And when she recovered, all the anger in need of a target took its aim. “Move on, huh? It’s that simple, is it Marcus?”
“Anaya…” She could see the regret pooling in his eyes. But it was too late. She was too revved up.
He stepped toward her.
But she stepped back. “You know what? You’re right. You are pulling all the weight. Maybe it’s time you stopped.”
She threw his pizza in the garbage, and she cried in the bathroom. Angry tears. Sad tears. Frustrated tears, because she knew she was being awful, but she didn’t know how to stop. That afternoon, she taught one of the worst science lessons in the history of all science lessons. When it was done and the bell rang and the kids were gone, Kyle sat on the edge of a nearby desk and she started to apologize for not being better prepared.
He held up his hand to stop her. “I think you need some therapy.”
“Excuse me?”
“Therapy? I know some that comes highly recommended. It’s called happy hour. It’s the best therapy I know, actually.”
She exhaled and rolled her eyes.
“Come on. I’ve never had a student teacher work as hard as you. Which is great, don’t get me wrong. I hardly have to do anything. But at least let me do this.” He dipped his chin and smiled at her. “Just one drink.”
Anaya wasn’t a drinker.
She could count on one hand the number of alcoholic beverages she’d had in her lifetime and not one of them had ever been a shot.
It burned her throat like fire.
She coughed and blinked back tears.
Kyle laughed. “The next one won’t burn as much.”
He was right.
It didn’t.
By the time she had another one, her head was already swimming and her teeth felt pleasantly numb. Maybe soon her heart would too.
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