Push Girl: A Novel

by Chelsie Hill

  I should have known it wouldn’t last long.

  “So, Amanda, how is everything going with your video production class?” Mom had always been interested in Amanda’s video stuff. And Jack’s involvement in Student Government and leadership. And, of course, Dance Mom-ing me like she was the one up onstage.

  “Oh, it’s great!” Amanda launched into a rundown of her latest video projects as I ate my pizza and zoned out. I was pretty interested in Amanda’s videos, but she’d filled me in on what she was up to at the mall on Saturday, so I didn’t need to hear it all again.

  “That sounds fascinating,” Mom said while Jack and I rolled our eyes at each other. “What will you be working on next?”

  “Well—” She wiped the pizza grease off her face with her napkin and kept on talking. She always got so into her projects. “—my media teacher is pushing me to enter this statewide video contest that has a big scholarship prize. It’s all about teens being active and stuff, so he suggested I do something with the cross-country team at school.” She let out a dramatic sigh as she leaned over and slid her empty pizza plate onto the table. “I don’t know, though. I mean, I know nothing about running. I hate running. I wish I never even had to think about running.”

  I don’t know what it was about her comment, but it hit me like a ton of bricks. Without even thinking, I snapped, “Well, at least you have the option to run if you want to.”

  She reacted as if I’d slapped her, and in a way I had. But she’d sort of slapped me, too, with her casual condemnation of something she took for granted and I so desperately wanted. To be honest, I’d always hated running, too. The happiest day ever was when I completed my PE credits after sophomore year and no longer had to run the dreaded mile at school. “I only run if someone is chasing me,” I told people with a laugh when they told me they liked to run for fun.

  But now that I couldn’t run, not even if someone was chasing me, it seemed like a precious thing. I’d give anything to be able to whine about running again. And here she was complaining about it.

  Amanda waved her hands around, like she was trying to shoo her comment out of the room. “Oh, Kara, I didn’t mean—”

  “Kara.” Mom’s voice was quiet, but the look in her eye was a warning. She lifted herself up from her place on the couch and busied herself clearing her plate, leaving me to deal with the tension that was growing by the second. I watched her as she retreated to the kitchen; then I turned to Jack, who looked like he was about to say something, too.

  I felt cornered.

  “Well, it’s true,” I said to Jack before he had a chance to join the pile on me. “It sucks to hear people complain all the time about walking too much or running or ‘OMG, my feet hurt, I wish I could chop them off.’ I mean, my God, do you know what I would give to have my feet hurt?”

  “I’m so sorry, Kara,” Amanda said. “I really didn’t mean to—”

  “I know you didn’t mean to. You didn’t even think about it, right? You didn’t think about walking through the gate at school without me or going up the escalator at the mall. You never think about what you can do and I can’t.”

  Jack still didn’t say anything. He stared down at his knees, frowning. But Logan must have sensed the drama because he let out a low growl, hopped off my lap, and ran down the hall, probably to hide under my bed. I wished I could have gone with him, because I didn’t even know where any of this was coming from. I hated confrontation, but I also hated how very different I was feeling lately—even though I was still completely myself, and how none of the people closest to me seemed to understand.

  “Kara, that’s not nice.” Jack’s voice was tight and quiet in the loudest of ways.

  I knew in my heart he was right. I was being mean for no reason, and I should apologize to Amanda. But something about him, again, trying to tell me what I should say and how I should feel made me even more upset. Old Kara would have just walked away or stormed out of the room. But now, since I was stuck on the couch for the time being, I just lost it. I couldn’t leave; I had all these people telling me what to do. I couldn’t handle it anymore. “Amanda’s the one who was being insensitive.”

  It wasn’t what I meant to say. Not really. It was like words were pouring from my mouth and I couldn’t adjust the faucet.

  “You know what, Kara?” Amanda stood up. Her voice shook and her cheeks were flushed. “I have done nothing but be here for you since your accident.”

  “No one made you—”

  “I know no one made me. But that’s what friends do. I went to the hospital every day because you are my best friend. I brought you flowers and magazines and made sure you never got lonely and never thought twice about any of it because my best friend could have died and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else or being anywhere else.”

  I sank back into the couch, the force of her words piling on top of me, pushing me down into the cushions. Amanda and I hadn’t fought since third grade, when I accidentally left her back door open and her cat Curry wandered outside. Her family couldn’t find him for two days, and she spent those forty-eight hours alternating between calling me horrible names and ignoring me. But when Curry showed up with a dead lizard in his mouth on their front porch by the weekend, it was like it had never happened, and we’d never fought again.

  So now it was like nine years of frustration, disappointment, and sadness were pouring out from behind whatever dam she’d been keeping them behind, and I was drowning in the tidal wave.

  “You know what friends don’t do?” She wasn’t yelling, but this harsh quiet was worse. It cut even deeper. “Friends don’t ditch friends when they get hot boyfriends and start going to parties and hanging out with the water polo team and being popular. Friends don’t suddenly think they’re too good for the person who has been there with them through everything. So don’t talk to me about being insensitive, okay?”

  I couldn’t believe she was bringing this up now. Couldn’t she see how upset I was? Ditching her for some party was nothing compared to being paralyzed. Why would she try to make me feel worse than I already did? “Amanda—”

  “No. You stop. I get that you’re upset about your legs. God, I really do. And I’m trying here. Give me a break, okay? At least I’m trying. Where are your other friends now?”

  Tears welled up in my eyes. I opened my mouth to say something, anything, that would hurt her like she’d hurt me by pointing out how everyone left me. How Curt had left me.

  Jack put his hand gently on my arm. “Kara, I think that you’re—”

  “Of course you’re on her side, Jack. That’s fine.” I couldn’t handle whatever he had to say. I’d disappointed him again, I knew it. For the second time this week, in fact, and I couldn’t even deal with it. I don’t know why it was hurting so much; it was just Jack. But the look on his face made me feel hollow inside. Like I’d lost something. “I’m getting used to being all alone over here.”

  He squeezed my arm, but I whipped it out of his grip before I had a chance to register the warmth of his hand and left him staring down at his empty fingers. “I’m not on anyone’s side,” he said. “I totally understand where you’re coming from, I just think—”

  “I don’t care what you think. I really don’t.”

  It was a lie, but I didn’t know what else to say.

  Mom had apparently been eavesdropping from the kitchen and had enough of our drama. She came back into the room, her arms crossed. “Okay, Jack. Amanda. Kara’s had a long day. I think maybe it’s time you two leave and let her get some rest for now, okay?”

  “God, Mom,” I snapped. “They don’t have to go. I was just—”

  But Amanda and Jack were already standing up, cleaning up the plates and napkins, and walking into the kitchen. “No,” Amanda said, “your mom’s right. We should go.”

  Irritation mixed with regret, and it flooded my insides. “Don’t leave, you guys. I didn’t mean it.”

  But they didn’t listen to me. Mom helped
them pick up the dinner trash and walked them to the door. “Thanks for the pizza,” she said as she ushered them out the door. “We’ll see you two soon. Drive safe.” The door clicked shut, and it was only a matter of seconds before Mom was back in the TV room.

  “What was that all about?” She didn’t sound angry; she sounded defeated. Like she didn’t even know what to do with me anymore. “Is that any way to treat your friends?”

  Resting my elbows on my thighs, I covered my face with my hands, as if I could hide from this flood of shame that was crashing down on me all of a sudden. “I don’t know,” I said. “They’re the only people who have stayed my friends this whole time and I’m being terrible to them. What’s wrong with me?”

  “I don’t know, sweetie,” Mom said. She came over and hugged me, for the first time since I’d been home, stroking my hair soothingly. I leaned in to her, and she hugged me harder. “I don’t know.”

  “This isn’t me,” I said. “I hate it.” I hadn’t truly felt like myself since the accident, and on top of that, the cocktail o’ meds wasn’t really making things any better. Pills for this, pills for that, and they were all impacting my personality. The painkillers weren’t so bad, but it was the antidepressants that made me feel off. Foggy. I’d tried two different types now, but neither one was right. No matter what I tried, they were throwing off the balance of what made me who I was.

  Mom let out a long sigh and sat down on the couch, facing me. “I just wish you weren’t so sad and mad all the time, sweetie. I know things are terrible, but there are people who are way worse off than you. You could be quadriplegic. You could have lost a limb. You could have died in that accident.”

  My instinct was to snap at her that just because things could have been worse, it didn’t mean that they weren’t bad. And I knew it could have been worse. I’d spent almost every single night reading the stories of people who posted on the disabilities message boards I’d found online. Some people were born without being able to move any of their limbs, ever. Some people had been in accidents ten times more horrific than mine, and had external injuries as well. Some people had lost every single person they ever cared about in the accidents that left them alive but forever changed. Of course things could be worse, and I was learning that firsthand. But that didn’t mean that things weren’t tough for me.

  Instead of saying what I wanted to, though, I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then I took another one, and I nodded. “Maybe we can try switching up my medication again?”

  “Sure.” Mom patted my arm. “I’ll call the doctor.”

  That night I had a hard time falling asleep, and my normal routine of message board reading wasn’t helping. No one online had the answers I was looking for.

  Sitting around and wishing for my legs to magically work again was pointless. That just wasn’t going to happen, and I was going to make myself miserable if that was all I cared about. All I focused on.

  Just because I couldn’t walk, didn’t mean I couldn’t have a life. It didn’t mean I had nothing to be happy about.

  But how could I be fulfilled in my life without dancing? It was tied in to the core of who I was, and who I’d been for as long as I could remember knowing myself. Is this how people felt when they lost a loved one? My grandma died when I was younger, but she was sick for a long time before that. I had time to get used to her passing. This was different. This was the sudden and absolute murder of the one thing that made me who I was. Kara Moore was a dancer. Everyone knew that. Sure, I was also a student and a daughter and a friend and a girlfriend. I was pretty smart and usually nice and I had shiny hair and I’d help people with their homework. But above all those things, I was a dancer.

  Until I wasn’t anymore.

  It was impossible to imagine myself any other way, as much as I was trying to change things. Dancing was in every square inch of the future I’d imagined for myself. I didn’t know how to be Kara without being a dancer.

  This wasn’t just mourning the loss of my legs; it was mourning the death of the person I thought I’d become. And that was the hardest part. Even more difficult than being in the chair.

  * * *

  Mom and I thought that the third time would be the charm with the antidepressants, that the new round of meds would make me feel better, and in some ways they did. I felt less cloudy, less numb to everything, which was definitely an improvement. But while I was feeling better in some ways, I was feeling worse in others.

  I hadn’t heard from Jack and Amanda since I’d yelled at them. I knew I owed them an apology, but I couldn’t bring myself to say the words. It was too hard to put myself out there like that, and I had so many difficult things going on in my life, I didn’t know if I had it in me to deal with one more.

  But without the two of them around to keep my negativity in check and act as a buffer between me and people who didn’t think before they opened their big mouths, I was getting worse and worse at humoring people, especially strangers and their unsolicited comments about my chair. The worst was a run-in with Maria Luna, the girl who sat in front of me in Government. She turned to me after the bell rang as we both collected our books, getting ready to head to lunch, and said, “I swear, Kara. You’re such an inspiration!” It wasn’t a new comment. I’d heard it so many times from so many people that it didn’t even matter who said it; it was always the same. They called me an inspiration or strong or brave and I smiled and nodded even though I didn’t understand why they said it or what made me inspirational or strong or brave, especially when I was just, like, going to lunch or something, and they left feeling better about themselves for making Wheelchair Girl feel good about her Sad Life.

  I was literally the same person I was before the accident; I just used a wheelchair to get around now. But I was a little moodier than Old Kara, a little more depressed, and on a lot more pills, which made me react a little bit differently to the question this time.

  “Why?”

  Maria was clearly taken aback by the question. “You know,” she said, smiling and waving at my chair.

  “So—” I folded my hands over the pile of books in my lap. “—I’m an inspiration because some stupid drunk A-hole got in his car and happened to hit me?”

  “Oh, no.” She shook her head and waved her hands back and forth. “That’s not what I meant. I meant, you know, because you come to school every day in your wheelchair…”

  I cocked my head to the side and narrowed my eyes at her. “So, I’m an inspiration because I’m not a high school dropout? I should’ve quit school because I have a spinal cord injury?”

  “Well, no, I’m just saying…” She started backing away from me.

  I scooted my chair forward. “So, why am I an inspiration because I got in an accident? Jeff Ahmed was in that boat accident last year. Was he an inspiration? Because he got a concussion and then came back to school?”

  She wrung her hands and her forehead wrinkled. “Well, no. But his accident—”

  “At what point does continuing to appear in public after an accident make you an inspiration? Would I be an inspiration if I had a cast? Or does it have to be a permanent injury?” Oh my God, what was wrong with me? I’d never said more than two words to Maria Luna in my life, and here I was going off on her when she was trying to be nice. But just because she was trying to be nice didn’t mean she was nice. And why did I have to sit here and smile at everyone who told me how strong I was?

  She threw her backpack over her shoulder and rolled her eyes. “God, Kara. Forget I said anything. I had no idea this whole thing made you so bitter.”

  “Bitter?” I laughed. “You think this is me being bitter? Girl, you have no idea what bitter looks like.” Stop it, Kara. You’re making it worse. Stop talking. But I couldn’t. I was on autopilot.

  Maria opened her mouth to reply, but apparently I wasn’t done yet. Words flew out of my mouth before I even had a chance to think them up, like the past weeks of confusion and pain and frustration were all
being dumped on poor Maria Luna.

  “This is me being irritated that everyone treats me like some poster child for Strength and Courage because something crappy happened to me and I didn’t curl up in a ball and quit life. What would you do if this happened to you? Stay in your room forever? Kill yourself? Of course not. You’d get up and go to school, even though everyone looks at you and talks about you and treats you like they haven’t known you since you were five. You’d do the same thing. I’m not an inspiration and I’m not bitter, I’m just Kara and I’m normal and trying to get through the day, just like anyone else.”

  “God. Whatever,” she said, and walked out the door. But I wasn’t done with the conversation. Venting about these random comments I’d been getting since coming back to school felt so amazing. I swear, I was ten pounds lighter from getting that off my chest. I wanted to keep going, but the classroom was empty now.

  I let out a sigh. Of course it is, I thought. I was driving everyone away.

  The accident changed my body, and I had no control over that. But it looked like it was also changing who I was. I kept saying I was still me, but it looked like I was morphing from a girl who was friendly and likable to this person who went off on random classmates until they ran away.

  And went off on the only people who were there for me. My only friends.

  That was something I could do something about. I needed to. Because I couldn’t live the rest of my life like this.

  That afternoon, I was so lonely after school that I was about to maybe break down and actually read Pride and Prejudice. But instead I was dwelling on my run-in with Maria and wishing I had someone to sort it out with. Without thinking about it, I grabbed my phone from my side table and texted Amanda.

  I MISS PATRICK

  I probably should have said something real instead of bringing our stuffed bear into it, but we both had such a soft spot for that silly toy. Mentioning him would get Amanda right in the feels.