Unbroken: 13 Stories Starring Disabled Teens Read online

  “Didn’t you have another life, before all this? Something you want to go back to?”

  The girl cocks her head. “It is all my life. Just different times.”

  My heart slows. Perhaps we don’t have much in common after all. Suddenly I am so tired. I feel myself sinking into the sandy earth. Desperate, I look for hope. “Does it help, at least?”

  “The treatment? A little.” Her voice is much softer now—she reaches out and brushes one of the amulets on my chest. “More than these do, anyway.”

  “Then why do you wear one?” I say quickly. Then I feel it—a flush in my cheeks at my own rudeness. It’s been too long since I spoke—I am out of practice.

  The girl only smiles, tucking her own amulet back into her shirt. “Because even if it doesn’t work, it reminds me that someone I love wishes it did. You must have a lot of people who love you.”

  I look down at the mass of necklaces and take a deep breath under their weight—chung, chung. “This isn’t how I want to be reminded.”

  The girl shrugs, as though she couldn’t say either way.

  “Do you want to know what helps me most? More than amulets, more than clean living?”

  I look up at her then, meeting her eyes. “Yes. Please.”

  “Talking. Finding others like me. You’ll meet more on the journey.”

  Is she lying? I consider it—do I feel better now, or worse? Worse, knowing there is no cure. But I would have learned that eventually. And it is better knowing I’m not alone. Still, I don’t know if I’m ready to tell her that, not just yet. Instead I make a face and grip the strands of my necklaces. “If this is a journey, I am a pack animal.”

  “Let go of what doesn’t work, and find out what does. Try the exercise, maybe.” She wrinkles her nose. “And the baths.”

  I laugh then—the first time in a while—and the sound is too loud in the dark. Camels shift on their feet, and the cool air rings. “Have to get past the Takla Makan first.”

  “The garden of the desert,” she says then. “We named it after the poplars, you know. Takli.”

  I frown at her. “In Xi’an, we say it means the Place of No Return.”

  “Taqlar?” She shakes her head and helps me to my feet. “The sound is similar, but the meanings are very different.”

  * * *

  The next morning I look for the girl, but I can’t find her. I wake slowly, eat slowly, pack slowly, but it is still early when we have to leave, and she has not yet come out of her tent.

  Did I only imagine her, or will we meet again on the journey? If we do, I will have to ask her name.

  The sun is bright but not yet overwhelming as we leave the oasis and travel down the road. Our shadows fly before us like arrows, as the camels fall into their steady pace, Father first, then Mother, and me behind.

  Chung, chung, chung, chung. As we travel, I work my fingers into the knotted tangle, pulling one of the strands over my head. A piece of carved bone, warm on my palm. The piece my sister gave me. I bite my lip as I remember her expression—her eyes everywhere but on my face. As though what I had might leap through the air and take her by the throat if she looked me in the eye. This is not a memory I want to hang around my neck. And as the camel walks, I let the charm slide free, down into the sand.

  Chung, chung, thump.

  The next is a smooth wooden frog. Had I ever wanted to marry the merchant? Or was I only wedded to the idea of the life I’d expected?

  Chung, chung, thoomp.

  One by one I lift the amulets off my shoulders—a bit of brass, a rounded stone, a silk packet of faded herbs—and as they fall away into the dust, I am lighter with every step. I take a deep breath of fresh air—not better, not yet, but freer. I pull them off, piece by piece, lifting away the weight, until there is one left—one from my parents, shaped a little like an eye.

  That one rests against my heart—a memento of their watchful care. I feel so light. A laugh bubbles up on my tongue, and Miloo senses it like she senses water. She stretches her long legs with a ridiculous groan, and I am laughing in earnest now as the wind takes my hair. Suddenly we are flying west as the road stretches away before and behind, and all I can hear is the sound of my heart racing.

  “Lihua!” My father’s voice tugs me back; I pull on the rope and Miloo slows. Using the reins, I turn her in a circle to wait as my parents urge their own camels toward me. My father’s brow is furrowed at first, but a smile tugs at my mother’s lips when she sees my own. “Where are your amulets?” he calls, but he has already turned his eyes to the long road behind us, as though he knows I will not answer.

  “I only need one,” I call back, and my voice is rusty but loud. “The others slow me down, and I’m eager to get to Persia.”

  His head snaps up, and suddenly he is the one at a loss for words. But my mother kicks her camel forward, till she is eye-to-eye with me. “Understandable,” my mother says carefully. “What do you think we’ll find there?”

  “Good food,” I say impulsively, and my father laughs then.

  “Peacocks, too,” he adds. “And fountains.”

  “Beautiful baths,” my mother says with longing.

  “And people like me,” I add, and their smiles only deepen as they catch up. I take one last look east—back toward Xi’an—before I turn to join them, side by side as we journey on the long road.

  Britt and the Bike God

  KODY KEPLINGER

  I’VE ALWAYS LOVED the climbs.

  I love the pain in my legs. The feel of the handlebars gripped tightly beneath my gloved palms. My feet on the pedals, spinning and spinning and spinning as I tell myself that it’s just a little bit farther, whether that’s true or not. And then, just when I think I can’t keep this up, the path begins to flatten out. And then it slopes downward.

  And that’s when I get to fly.

  “Thank God,” Lorna rasped from the captain’s seat of the tandem. “I’m dying.”

  I balanced my feet on the pedals and pushed upward, standing with my hands still on the handlebars. I laughed as the wind whipped past, glad to relieve some of the pressure from my aching backside.

  “Are you even tired?” Lorna demanded, then added, “Turning right,” as we coasted around a bend in the path.

  “You should probably go ahead and change gears,” I reminded her. “And I’m a little tired.”

  She scoffed.

  “To be fair, I’ve been riding this loop with Dad for years,” I told her. “I’m pretty used to Puckett Hill. Keep riding with us and you’ll get there.”

  “We’ll see,” she said. “Gears should be good. I’m about to start pedaling again.”

  I felt it when her feet began to move, and I tried to match her pace. It was slower than what I was used to, but that was okay. Lorna was new to the club, and at least I didn’t feel like I was holding her back.

  That was one of the challenges of riding a tandem bike. It was easy for someone to not pull their weight. Or to push too hard and overpower their partner. The captain and the stoker have to find the right balance of speed and resistance. And, most important, communication.

  Especially when the stoker—the person riding in back—can’t see.

  We started coasting again, and I knew we were getting close to the park benches where the rest of the cycling club would be waiting for us.

  “Don’t forget to count us down,” I said, “when we’re going to stop.”

  “Right,” Lorna said. “Thanks for the reminder. Okay. In three … two … one.”

  I put my foot down as the bike came to a halt. I hopped off the stoker’s seat and stretched before turning toward the benches. I only saw Dad when his pale face, slightly pink with sunburn, was hovering a couple of feet in front of me. He held out my cane and a cold bottle of water.

  “Thank you,” I said, taking both from him.

  “How was the ride?” he asked.

  “Good. We did two loops, so about fourteen miles. Lorna is a good partner.”r />
  “I don’t know about that,” Lorna said. I couldn’t see her, but when she spoke, I realized she was standing just to my left. And based on the swigging sound after her words, Dad had handed her a water bottle, too.

  “I’m sure Britt’s telling the truth,” Dad said. “We’re glad to have you in the club, Lorna. And now that everyone’s back, I better go make sure we’re all prepped for the big ride tomorrow. Excuse me.”

  When he was gone, I turned to Lorna. “I wasn’t lying, you know. You are a good captain. Usually it takes me much longer to train the newbies.”

  Like a lot of the people in our cycling club, Lorna was a student at the local college. I’d only met her for the first time a few weeks earlier, when she’d showed up to one of our meetings at the park. Gabe, one of the other cyclists, had a class with her and had invited her to join. She may have been our newest member, but she really was fitting in pretty well.

  She smiled. “Thanks, Britt.” She paused and raised a tanned arm to wipe sweat from her forehead before saying, “Can I ask you something?”

  “You just did, but sure.”

  “Is it scary? To ride in the back? I feel like it would freak me out to not have control of the bike.”

  “Well, when you can’t see, the idea of having control of the bike freaks you out a little more.”

  “Fair point, I guess.”

  “I get what you’re asking, though,” I said, tucking my water bottle under my arm so I could use my free hand to unhook the chinstrap of my helmet. “And it used to. Back when I had more vision. I would sit on the stoker’s seat and try to turn the handlebars. I kept forgetting that I couldn’t actually do that. But I got used to it.”

  “You’re brave,” Lorna said.

  “I’m not,” I assured her, trying not to bristle. I hated being called brave. It was almost as bad as inspiring. “It’s not bravery. I just really like bikes.”

  That was an understatement. Mom used to joke that I’d come out of the womb pedaling, and the reality wasn’t too far off.

  Dad had been into cycling since he was a teenager, so the minute I was big enough, he bought my first tricycle. It wasn’t long before I got my first real bike, and only a few months after that that the training wheels came off. By the time I was seven, Dad was taking me out to the local bike path with him every day.

  I wasn’t the fastest or the strongest, and, usually, I didn’t mind. It wasn’t about being the best for me. It was about that rush when I coasted down a big hill after a challenging climb. About the satisfaction of aching leg muscles the next day. It all felt like home. For me, cycling felt as natural as walking.

  So when my vision first started to go, not being able to ride anymore was my biggest fear.

  “We’ll deal with it as it comes,” Dad had promised me.

  And for a while, it came slowly. Retinitis pigmentosa is gradual, but persistent. First to go were the night rides. Even with the lights along the bike path in Kuehn Park, it was too dark for me to see well enough to ride safely anymore. So Dad and I started riding in the mornings. And that worked for a while. But then the edges of my vision begin to creep inward. My field of vision steadily narrowed, until I was missing turns and not noticing other cyclists off to my left and right.

  And that’s when Dad brought home Tandy.

  Tandy was not your typical tandem bike. She wasn’t like the big, clunky things you see cute older couples riding on vacation. No. Tandy was a road bike. Slim and light and fast. She was a beautiful hunk of metal, and she’s what kept me pedaling—sight be damned.

  It’s been three years since Tandy and I got together. She is my prized possession.

  “How many miles did you get in?”

  I turned and found myself almost nose to nose with Andre. He smiled at me, a grin so big and bright even the blind girl couldn’t miss it. It spread wide across his face, stretching the dark brown skin of his cheeks and causing his eyes to nearly disappear. I didn’t normally notice this much about other people’s smiles, but I’d spent way too much time using what little vision I had left looking at Andre.

  Not that I was going to let him know that.

  “Fourteen,” I said. “Just two laps. We got started a little late, though. What about you? Seventy miles?”

  “I’m not that fast,” he said.

  “Sixty-three, then?”

  “Twenty-eight,” he said. “Four laps.”

  “Oh no,” I teased. “Slow day. You’ll get ’em next time, Dre.”

  He touched my arm when he laughed, and I thought I was going to die. Luckily, Lorna spoke up, distracting Andre from the fact that I was seconds away from melting into a puddle on the sidewalk.

  “Andre,” she said. “You help with the bike maintenance, right?”

  “Oh yeah,” he said. “Sorry, Lorna. I was being rude. Hope you had a good ride, too.”

  “I did,” she said, a hint of amusement in her voice.

  “And thanks for reminding me. I was coming over to ask—is everything good with Tandy? She ready for tomorrow’s ride?”

  “For the most part,” I said. “The gears were jumping a little bit, but nothing too bad.”

  “I’ll take a look just to be safe,” he said. “I don’t want her giving us any problems tomorrow.”

  “Andre!” I recognized the voice as belonging to Sid, Andre’s roommate and one of the other cyclists in our little club. I couldn’t see him, but it sounded like he was a few yards away, off on the other side of the benches. “Did you stick that extra patch kit in your backpack?”

  “Yeah,” Andre called back. “Just a second and I’ll grab it.” He turned back to me. “See you guys tomorrow. It’s gonna be great.”

  “Bye, Andre,” Lorna said.

  “Later,” I said.

  Two years ago, Dad had decided to start a cycling club. Partly because he liked riding with other people, but I think it mostly had to do with me. My high school didn’t have any blind-friendly sports, and while I loved riding with my dad, sometimes I wished I had real teammates. People close to my age who loved the same sport I did. We lived in a college town full of cyclists, so it just sort of made sense.

  A few of our members were older men and women, bike enthusiasts like Dad, but most were like Lorna, Sid, and Andre—college students. It was a mix of avid cyclists and newcomers just looking for a way to stay active. We accepted everyone. No skill level required. All we asked was that they let me teach them how to captain a tandem bike and, if they felt comfortable with it, volunteered to captain for me every once in a while.

  Andre had joined about a year ago, at the start of his freshman year at the local university. And he was good. I’d been riding since I was a kid, but I was nowhere near as fast as Andre. He was by far the fastest on our team, which had won him a lot of favor with Dad. And the admiration of basically everyone else.

  He was also a total bike nerd. After riding with us for about three months, he worked up the nerve to tell Dad that the mechanic everyone was paying to service our bikes was ripping us off. He wasn’t fixing them properly so we’d just have to keep coming back to him. So Dad offered to pay him to take care of our bikes—and ask the rest of the club to hire him, too. Andre agreed. Our bikes had never been better.

  Basically he was a nineteen-year-old Bike God.

  A really attractive nineteen-year-old Bike God.

  “So,” Lorna said once Andre had walked away. “When’s the wedding?”

  “What? Never. No. Shut up.” I hoped that if anyone saw the blush creeping up my face, they’d just excuse it as a side effect of exercise.

  She giggled but was quickly drowned out by Dad’s voice.

  “Listen up, guys,” he said. “Tomorrow is the annual Lake Sussman ride, and all of you who signed up are now registered. As you know, there are three different course lengths, and we’ve got riders in all three. Start time is at nine a.m., but we should get there by eight at the latest. If you’re driving yourself, let me know, and I will m
ake sure you have directions. Otherwise, be at my house by six to ride in the van. Talk to Andre if your bike needs anything before tomorrow morning. And remember, guys. This isn’t a race; it’s just a ride. So let’s keep it fun. Barbecue at my house afterwards.”

  A few people cheered at that last bit.

  I turned to Lorna and grinned. “So will I be riding with you tomorrow?”

  “Sorry, Britt,” she said. “You said you were gonna do the fifty-mile course, and I just … cannot handle that yet. I’m nervous about the twenty. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I wonder who Dad put me with, then.”

  Captains usually worked on a volunteer basis, and the same handful of people typically agreed to ride with me. Lorna, though new, was one of them. Sometimes Dad would just pick someone at random, which I hated because I didn’t want anyone to feel forced to ride with me. I’d told him that several times, but he didn’t change the system. He refused to let me be left out just because no one volunteered. “Besides,” he always said, “no one minds riding with you at all. They’d tell me if it was a problem.”

  But of course they wouldn’t. He was my dad. Even if they acted cool about it, I was sure that, inside, they were frustrated and resentful.

  “Ready to go, kid?” Dad asked a minute later.

  “All set,” I said. “But quick question. Lorna says she’s doing the twenty-mile, so does that mean Gabe is riding with me tomorrow?”

  “No. Gabe’s not doing the ride. I think he said his sister’s getting married.”

  “Oh. Well, then who is my captain?”

  “Right, I forgot to tell you. You’re riding with Andre.”

  It felt like I’d been hit in the gut with a baseball bat. I wanted to be sick. Or maybe just to cry a little. Because doing a long-distance ride with Andre was literally the last thing I wanted.

  I flashed back to our conversation about Tandy a few minutes earlier. When he’d said he didn’t want her to give us problems, I’d assumed us meant the team as a whole. But no. Oh God, he’d meant us, as in me and him, on a fifty-mile bike ride.