Stick With Me

by Jennifer Blecher

  As the friendship lunch girls walked back to class, laughing about how if anybody told a fart joke about any one of them the others would totally have her back, Izzy wondered if maybe this was the beginning. Maybe she didn’t have to worry so much about Phoebe drifting toward Daphne and leaving her behind. Maybe some girl in friendship lunch would fill the void.

  But that hopeful feeling had never lasted very long. Eventually there would be a Monday morning when Izzy learned that she hadn’t been invited to a movie or a sleepover. She’d walk through school seeing all the groups that she didn’t belong to: the lacrosse team wearing their navy elastic headbands, the orchestra kids practicing to perform at morning assembly, the ballet dancers who’d leave early dismissal slips at Ms. Perry’s front desk every Friday in December so they could get to Boston in time to perform in the Nutcracker.

  At the end of friendship lunch, Dr. Forte loved to say: “Friendships are complicated, girls. Think of them like an ocean wave. They’re always changing, rising and falling, but the movement can be beautiful.”

  One whispered conversation on the edge of the stage didn’t count as a friendship. And anyway, if Wren were a wave, Izzy suspected she’d be the really strong kind that can knock you right over.

  But as Izzy sat on the auditorium stage scrambling to make up two truths and one lie about Wren, a hard task because they’d been so busy laughing that they’d forgotten the point of the game, she felt a flicker of hope.

  Maybe she wouldn’t have to spend this week all alone.

  12

  Wren’s Fire

  Wren’s dad was waiting outside of the school, just like he’d promised. They drove straight to see Hannah.

  The hospital was enormous. A maze of hallways and elevators and lobbies. Wren couldn’t believe that Hannah was somewhere deep inside.

  How would the unicorns possibly find her?

  Wren shook her head. Tightened her ponytail. There were no unicorns.

  But she desperately wished that there were.

  “Almost there,” said her dad. He was looking at the hallway signs and muttering directions to himself. “Just one more elevator and then a left past the cafeteria sign.”

  “Okay,” said Wren, more to herself than to her dad.

  “Just remember, Hannah’s had a long day. They implanted the wires and she’s off her medicine so she’s already had a few seizures. Which is good, right? It’s all part of the process.”

  Wren’s dad spoke in his coaching voice. With a we-can-do-this pep to his words.

  The seizures helped the doctors learn about Hannah’s brain. That increased the chances of the surgery being successful. But her dad never looked this tired when he spoke to his hockey team. And when Wren stepped inside Hannah’s hospital room, she understood why.

  Hannah was asleep. Her head wrapped in white gauze. The same colorful wires that Wren had seen in photos months ago ran down Hannah’s cheek. Next to her bed, machines blinked with charts and numbers.

  Wren’s mom looked up from her chair, her right hand gripping her phone. She stood up and wrapped Wren in a hug.

  None of them said a word. But there was an electric hum in the air that made the space feel noisy.

  Wren walked over to Hannah and squeezed Hannah’s hand. She smelled glue. And a chemical scent. She kissed Hannah’s cheek.

  When Wren looked back, both her parents were crying.

  Wren’s mom dabbed her eyes. She wiped her nose with a tissue. “How was theater camp today?” she asked with a forced smile. “Are you hungry? I know I could use some food.”

  Theater camp felt like a different country, one that Wren could barely remember visiting. And she was not hungry. But she nodded, wanting to get away from the smells and the wires.

  As they walked down the hallway, Wren let her mom hold her hand and her dad throw his arm over her shoulder. They moved like a lurching multi-legged creature. Awkward and ambling. But Wren didn’t try to wiggle away.

  For once, she didn’t mind slowing down.

  Over dinner in the hospital cafeteria, her parents told Wren that Hannah would be okay.

  The doctors were the best in the world.

  Someday their stay here would feel like a blip, a hiccup, a long-ago, really tough time.

  And Wren tried to believe them.

  But something grew inside her.

  It started as worry, but it spun into a more familiar feeling.

  A restlessness. An ember. A flame.

  She needed to skate. Not just to practice her double lutz, but to feel like herself again. Because here, in this cafeteria, in this hospital, in this city, Wren was twitchy and jammed.

  Her fire needed air.

  By the time Wren and her dad got back to the rental house, it was late. Her dad had to jump on a call with his assistant coaches. Her mom was spending the night with Hannah at the hospital.

  Wren went upstairs to Izzy’s room. She did three sets of crunches and push-ups. Then she ran through the choreography of her program, the strong electric beats of her music playing in her head.

  But Izzy’s room was too small. When Wren tried to do even a waltz jump, she crashed into the bed.

  So she moved out to the hallway, but it was too narrow. And the rug on the floor provided too much friction.

  After spending all day inside the windowless school auditorium and all evening in the car and the hospital, Wren was ready to explode.

  She looked out the window, down to the driveway.

  It was flat and empty and hard.

  Perfect.

  Wren zipped up her coat and walked out the back door. She had just landed her third single axel when a dog raced down the driveway and jumped on her, almost knocking Wren over.

  Next came Izzy, a leash dangling from her hand. “No, Row!” yelled Izzy.

  The dog dropped to the ground and rolled onto his back, his paws scrambling at nothing but the cold night air.

  “No, Row!” repeated Izzy. “Bad dog!”

  Wren laughed. She scratched the dog’s belly. “Is that his name? Noro?”

  Izzy smiled. “Just Row. It’s a long story. I was taking him out to use the bathroom and he saw you jumping out here. He bolted before I could put on his leash.”

  “Sorry,” said Wren.

  “What are you doing anyway?” asked Izzy. “It’s freezing. And dark. And . . . freezing.”

  “Off-ice training,” said Wren. “Once I get moving I hardly notice the cold. I’ve got a really important skating competition in three weeks. So I need to practice however I can. If I were home I’d be skating every day, but here . . .”

  Wren looked toward Izzy’s house and hoped that her glance was explanation enough. She was not in the mood to talk about everything the house implied. Hannah’s hospital stay. The upcoming surgery. Her parents’ worry. Wren’s own worry.

  Thankfully, Izzy nodded. She knelt down and grabbed Row’s collar. “Can you do it again?” she asked. “That jumping thing?”

  “Yeah,” said Wren.

  Nothing compared to being on the ice. But doing jumps on land was better than not practicing at all.

  Wren still got to spring and twist. She could give her body that moment of weightlessness that it craved.

  Wren took a few mini jumps, then pressed off her bent left leg into a single axel. One-and-a-half turns later, she landed on her right leg, bouncing in place to absorb the impact of her landing.

  Izzy let go of Row’s collar and clapped.

  It was only one clap. Because as soon as Izzy let go, Row bolted.

  One second Row was sitting next to Izzy, his tongue hanging lazily out of the side of his mouth, and the next second he was a blur of brown fur running down the driveway toward the street.

  “No, Row!” yelled Izzy.

  “Come back!” yelled Wren.

  Izzy stretched the leash across her forehead, panic in her eyes. She looked back at the garage, then down the driveway to the street, then back at Wren.

  Wr
en made the decision that Izzy could not. “Come on,” she said, pulling Izzy’s arm. “Let’s go.”

  Together, they ran. Past houses lit from within and underneath streetlights.

  They were fast, but Row was faster.

  “He’s going to the pond,” said Izzy, her breath creating tiny puffs of clouds. “It’s his favorite place.”

  “How far?” asked Wren.

  “One more block. There’s a wood sign that marks a path. He’ll turn there.”

  “Then he’ll stop?”

  “He better.”

  Panting, they reached a wooden post. Wren followed Izzy down a path into the woods. The ground was uneven and soft with pine needles. Occasional stones slowed their pace.

  It reminded Wren of Occom Pond.

  Row sat at the end of the path, lit by moonlight.

  He thumped his tail against the dirt as Izzy threw her arms around his neck. “No, Row,” said Izzy as she clipped his leash onto his collar and kissed the top of his head. “You’re the worst dog in the whole world and I’m never, ever going to forgive you.”

  Row licked Wren’s hand, but Wren barely noticed.

  She reached her foot onto the surface of the pond.

  It was frozen.

  “Does anyone skate here?” asked Wren.

  “I’m not sure,” said Izzy. “I think I might have gone once, a long time ago.”

  Once. A long time ago.

  So it was possible.

  “We should go back,” said Izzy.

  Wren looked across the pond. Its oval shape. The dense trees beyond. There was an occasional stick frozen into the ice surface, a pebble or two, but it was certainly big enough to skate on. If she planned it right, she might even be able to fit in a double lutz.

  Beside her, Izzy began to bounce. She was not wearing a coat.

  “Okay,” said Wren. “Let’s go.”

  When they got back to Izzy’s house, their parents were waiting at the end of the driveway. “Bird,” said Wren’s dad, wrapping her in his arms. “Thank God.”

  “I was one second away from calling the police,” said Izzy’s mom, raising her phone and shaking it side to side.

  “What were you thinking?” asked a man who had to be Izzy’s dad. He gave Izzy an long kiss on the head.

  “Row ran away,” explained Izzy. “All the way to Willoway Pond. We had to chase him. It happened so fast.”

  Wren nodded, her head pressed into her dad’s chest. He was wearing his favorite Dartmouth hockey sweatshirt. It was worn and soft. It smelled like home. But that’s not why Wren left her head there. She was thinking about the ice.

  And she wanted to stay wrapped in that thought for as long as possible.

  “I’m so sorry,” said Izzy’s mom. “This was the last thing you needed to worry about.”

  “They’re back now,” said Wren’s dad, hugging her tight. “It’s all good.”

  “So we’re still on for tomorrow morning?” asked Izzy’s mom.

  “Sure thing,” said Wren’s dad.

  After Wren said good-bye to Izzy and walked with her dad into the house, she asked, “On for what?”

  “Izzy’s older brother is going to drive you guys to theater camp tomorrow morning,” said her dad. “That okay?”

  Wren nodded. She didn’t care about theater camp or how she got there. “There’s a pond two blocks away,” she blurted out. “It was frozen.”

  “Was it cleared for skating? Like Occom Pond?”

  “I don’t know,” said Wren. She did know. Occom Pond had all kinds of signs warning people not to skate unless the ice was marked safe with green flags.

  This pond had no signs. No flags. But the ice felt just as solid as Occom Pond. And Izzy seemed to remember skating there.

  “Well then,” said her dad as he woke his sleeping laptop. “End of discussion.”

  For now, thought Wren.

  She walked upstairs to Izzy’s room and threw her jacket on the floor. Her muscles were warm and she placed her foot on Izzy’s desk to stretch the back of her legs. But as she brought her chest to her shin, her foot slipped and caught on the handle of a drawer.

  The drawer skidded open just a crack.

  Wren lowered her foot. She meant to close the drawer, but inside she saw a single piece of paper. It was facedown, but the imprint of colorful marker shone through.

  Wren couldn’t resist looking.

  It was a drawing of two stick figure girls. Each girl had a colorful stack of beaded bracelets on her wrist. One stick figure girl was holding a bright pink mitten with a word bubble that said: WHAT IF I CATCH HER GROSSNESS? The other stick figure girl said: THEN I’LL DITCH YOU IN A HEARTBEAT.

  Wren smiled. She’d never seen stick figures with such attitude.

  She almost slid the drawing back in the drawer. But it was odd that there was just one sheet of paper, all alone.

  Maybe this page was part of a story and Izzy had left it behind by mistake?

  She would give it to Izzy at theater camp tomorrow and find out what those stick figures were talking about.

  Wren placed the piece of paper on top of her jacket so she wouldn’t forget. As the sassy stick figures came to rest, Wren tingled with something other than dread when she imagined the rest of the week.

  A touch of excitement.

  13

  Izzy in Parenthesis

  “Quick pit stop,” said Nate on Tuesday morning as they turned down the street toward Starbucks.

  Izzy glanced at Wren, who was sitting next to her in the backseat. “He wants to see a girl,” she said.

  “What was that?” asked Nate. He turned down the music that was blaring a never-ending guitar medley. “You’re in awe of my superior driving skills and my refined taste in caffeine?”

  “Not exactly,” said Izzy.

  Nate turned the music back up. “Sorry,” he said, shrugging. “Can’t hear you.”

  Izzy smiled. Izzy was glad that Phoebe was driving separately for the rest of the week. Apparently Phoebe convinced her mom that she deserved every last minute of sleep since it was technically vacation week. And she glad that Nate was driving to theater camp instead of Izzy’s mom. Even though Nate was making them stop at Starbucks and they’d probably be late, things were easier with Nate around. If Izzy’s mom were driving, she’d be glancing at Izzy and Wren through the rearview mirror, her eyes searching for clues. Were Izzy and Wren talking? Were they becoming friends? Was that a laugh she heard?

  When Nate looked in the rearview mirror, it was to yell at a car that was driving too close. And he played the music so loudly that Izzy and Wren could barely talk. After all her recent carpools with Phoebe, feeling like she was always on the verge of saying the wrong thing or not knowing the answer to an impossible question, it was a relief just to sit next to Wren, their bags on the seat between them, and look out the window.

  “Arrived,” said Nate as he parked in front of Starbucks. “You guys wait in the car.”

  “No way,” said Izzy. “That’s not fair.”

  Nate huffed. “Fine. Come in. But be cool, okay?”

  Izzy and Wren waited by the door while Nate walked up to the counter. He snapped his wallet, open and shut. Open and shut.

  “He’s got a crush on that girl, Simone,” said Izzy. “The one with the gray yarn on her apron and all the earrings. I think she’s in college.”

  “Is he going to talk to her?” asked Wren.

  Izzy shook her head. “He just orders, does this smile thing, and leaves.”

  “Then how do you know he has a crush?”

  Because it’s obvious, thought Izzy. It’s in the way his cheeks flush and he fiddles with his hair. The snapping of his wallet. How he saves all the money he makes from refereeing youth soccer except for the twenty dollars a week that he calls his “crucial coffee fund.”

  Izzy had done doodles of Nate holding a Starbucks coffee cup with two big red hearts in the place of eyes. But she’d never shown the drawings to him. Nat
e’s crush wasn’t like the crushes at school, where the whole point was to get the other person to know you like them and then deny the crush as soon as that other person found out.

  Nate’s crush was something that he wanted to keep secret, even from his friends. A few weeks ago, Izzy and Nate had been out for pizza with Nate’s friend Tom when Izzy spotted Simone walking with three other girls, all of them carrying bags with the Wellesley College logo. The bags were tan with blue straps and the Wellesley College girls always carried them around town. The bags weren’t all that pretty, but the way the girls carried them over their shoulders, stuffed full of laptops and notebooks, made Izzy jealous, and a little worried. Bracelets, headbands, bags. Maybe it never ended?

  Nate and Tom had been debating whether the referee from last week’s indoor soccer game had it in for them when Izzy elbowed Nate in the side, nodding toward Simone. Nate froze.

  “Dude, you good?” asked Tom.

  Nate nodded. He began walking again, at a faster pace. “Totally. Thought I had something in my shoe. My bad.”

  Izzy was tempted to tell Tom about Simone. To point Simone out with an ooh-la-la tone to her voice. When she didn’t, the look of relief in Nate’s eyes was worth her silence. Nate was normally the one who looked out for her, especially in public. He let Izzy tag along to get pizza with his friends and sit in the front seat of the car when he picked her up from school.

  Even now, telling Wren about Nate’s crush, Izzy worried that she was betraying Nate. But Wren was not Tom. Wren was not Phoebe. Wren had popped into Izzy’s life and would pop right back out in four more days.

  Surprisingly, the thought made Izzy a little sad. But also grateful. Wren was safe.

  Mr. Blair made a trumpeting noise with his hands circling his mouth. “Warriors, gather with me on the stage. The time is drawing near for today’s theatrical battle. We know the players, we know the location, but do we know how it will all unfold? No! We do not!”