It's My Life

by Stacie Ramey

  Rena laughs. “Slow down, Jenna, it’s not a race.”

  I adjust my stride, take normal-sized steps.

  “Hey, Jenna, wait up,” Kate, one of the girls from the AP classes, calls from behind us. “I heard you’re back in class with us again. Cool.”

  Another girl, Selene, jogs to catch up. “Yeah. We can give you the lay of the land. Swanson? Terrible teacher. Leads? Better. Don’t worry, you’ll catch up.”

  Rena gives me her two-finger salute and is off with her friends.

  Every single time I walk now, I feel the length of my gait. When we get to the courtyard I see a group of hockey players hanging around. I almost don’t want to look, but I can’t help it. I’ve been looking for that boy since kindergarten. But Julian is not there.

  “You’ve got to get moving on your project for AP Psych. We’re doing one on psychology awareness month. Maybe we can add you on,” Kate says.

  “She’s spoken for,” Ben says, showing up out of nowhere. “But thank you, anyway, Kate.”

  And somehow, I’m right back in my stride, like the Jennifer I always wanted to be. That’s when I see Julian. His eyes do a slow crawl from the sidewalk in front of me and up until they land on my face.

  “Hey,” he says.

  Kate looks at Selene, who looks at me. “We’ll catch you inside.” Ben goes with them.

  “So,” Julian says once we’re alone. “You’re back.”

  “I am.”

  “So…” he says. “You look like you’re moving great.”

  “I’m doing pretty good,” I say. “How’s everything with…”

  “Oh. The police? They dropped the charges.”

  I smile. “That’s great.”

  “This isn’t awkward at all,” he says.

  I nod, searching for something to say. “I got your letter!” I blurt.

  His turn to smile. “Yeah, it was so cool. I saw the sign, and it felt like a sign, and I’ve said all of this before…”

  “Yeah. Very cool.”

  “So,” he says again.

  “So.”

  The bell rings.

  His eyes flit to the administrators trying to corral us toward our classes. “What does that mean? For us?” he asks.

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On whether or not you ask me out.”

  He looks at the ground. Then back up to me. That sexy but nervous grin on his face. “What are the odds you’ll say yes?”

  I lift the sleeve off my wrist. Expose his Batman watch. “I’d say pretty good.”

  Julian walks me to my new AP English class. “Mr. S. is going to miss you, you know.”

  “Aw. Poor Mr. S. He the only one?”

  “Well, that Tommy seemed really into you, so…”

  “Tommy, huh. Okay. Well, give him a kiss for me then.”

  “Not a chance.”

  Then, right in the middle of the hallway, Julian leans down and kisses me. My stomach flutters, and the feelings are so much bigger than the ones from that fantasy goodbye when I was Jennifer and I was leaving on the train.

  “Get in here, girl,” Ben calls from the classroom. “Saved you a seat.”

  Julian and I pull away from each other, and I send Ben an embarrassed grin. “Be right there.”

  Julian gives a little wave goodbye, and I stand there for another moment watching him leave, the feeling of his kiss still on my lips.

  And for the first time, I realize my real life has far exceeded my fantasy one.

  Author’s Note

  Authors shouldn’t love one of their books more than the others. I know this. But sometimes we can’t help ourselves. (Shh…don’t tell my other books.) The thing is, Jenna’s voice came to me right away, but her story still took me ten years to write. Ten years is a long time to work on one book, but I felt like Jenna deserved my time and effort.

  For me, this book wasn’t about a kid with a disability. This book was about a girl who believed something about herself that wasn’t true. Something that made her doubt herself and made her change the way she saw her future. Made her double down on wanting to make her own decisions, even when those decisions were not serving her. We all feel like that at times, though, right? We all think our ways out of things. We stop taking ballet because we didn’t like the teacher. We stop playing the violin because we don’t want to lug it around anymore. We put our manuscript away because someone (an editor, an agent, or a critique partner) didn’t like it. There are so many ways we give up on ourselves.

  Jenna’s story is about how one girl gave up on herself and also how, when she wanted to help someone else, she found herself again. I think that’s how those things work, too. I think when you do something for someone else, you end up benefiting even more than they do. To me, that’s pretty cool.

  I’ve been a speech language pathologist for thirty years, and have worked with many children and teens with cerebral palsy. This condition is different for every single person and everyone who has it has a different story to tell. This is just one of those stories. Jenna’s story. I hope you like it.

  Acknowledgments

  Every book has its own journey. This book took ten years from conception to print and went through many, many different versions. It also needed lots of people to help it along its way. I mean, so many people, that I’m certain I will inevitably forget to include someone in these acknowledgments. To those people I am sorry. It isn’t that your contribution was unimportant. It’s that my memory is faulty and ten years is a long time.

  To start with, I need to thank my agent, Nicole Resciniti, for her tireless belief in me and my writing. We’ve been working together for almost five years now, and I can honestly say that with her tending my career, I have felt free to pursue the thing that means the most to me—the creation of books. For that I am eternally grateful.

  I also have to thank my original editor, Annette Pollert-Morgan, who bought this book. And to the editor who has worked tirelessly on It’s My Life to get it to its current state, thank you so much, Eliza Swift. You made this book better, more resonant, and more accessible. I am lucky to have all the people at Sourcebooks who help in immeasurable ways from acquisition to delivery and beyond. What a team!

  As usual I have to thank my critique groups. The Tuesdays, of course, but also the Boca SCBWI group, the original Wellington SCBWI group, the Boynton group, the PGAs, and the Palm Springs group. Early reads of a very different version of this book passed through Laen Ghiloni and David Case’s hands and your input and friendship have been so appreciated.

  I was lucky to have Lorin Oberweger take a peek at an early version of this and assist with story development. Her skill at finding the heart of story is something that influenced more than just this book, but my entire writing career. Thank you for being in my life.

  To Joyce Sweeney, my mentor, friend, and faithful supporter. I cannot express how much you’ve shaped my writing world.

  To Jonathan Rosen, Steven dos Santos, and Jill Nadler, each of you contributed so much to this book. You were faithful beta readers and more importantly, friends. I am always at a loss for how to fully thank you all. Maybe by my next book, I’ll have worked that out. But the point is, you all believed in this book from the very beginning. Thank you all so much.

  To Consuelo Kreider, who owned a pediatric therapy practice with me for years, thank you for all the lessons on the way. For always believing I was up to any challenge. For believing in the kids we worked with. That everyone has a right to live their best life.

  Thank you to Marjetta Geerling for so many things, but in terms of this book, for setting me on my path to getting my MFA at Spalding University, where Beth Ann Bauman, one of my workshop leaders, helped me find my way when I was flailing. And to all of the workshop participants, thanks for helping me revise and revisit this
book of my heart.

  As to the people of my heart, much and eternal thanks to my family, my husband, my children, and my nieces and nephews. To my sisters-in-law and my brother-in-law. My dogs. My brother and sister. You all are my world.

  About the Author

  Photo © Hannah Mayo Photography

  Stacie Ramey learned to read at a very early age to escape the endless tormenting from her older siblings. She attended the University of Florida, where she majored in communication sciences, and Penn State, where she received a master of science degree in speech pathology. When she’s not writing, she engages in Netflix wars with her children or beats her husband in Scrabble. She lives in Wellington, Florida, with her husband and their rescue dogs.

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