Unbroken: 13 Stories Starring Disabled Teens Page 21
“This is all going to pass,” she said after a few minutes. “This isn’t forever.”
She was talking about all of it. This low, the numbness and darkness as my meds were adjusted. Tabby and Marisa and Pauly. She was talking about plates in the microwave and appointments for other people in my planner and the clumsy dance of trying to find a new normal, and she said it like a belief and a prayer.
For a moment, one long, blessed moment, I believed it, too.
“I’m slipping,” I confessed to the space between us. “Losing myself.”
The blankets rustled as her hand slipped up and wrapped around my wrist, the pads of her fingers resting against my pulse point.
“You’re right here,” she breathed back. “We’ll call your doctor in the morning if we need to. But in the meantime, you are right here.”
My “yeah” came out hoarse and full of gravel.
“I see you, Reynolds,” she continued, attaching my mama’s name to me in a way that felt right. “I see you. You are your mother’s strength and your grandmothers’ bravery and you are fire. I see you. I see you.”
Her face was mostly in shadow, but my eyes found and traced her features from memory.
“I see you.”
Her smile was swift and lovely. “I know.”
It was a promise and a reminder. A pinky swear made in her backyard with dirt caked under our nails turned a blood oath pledged while huddled in the darkness under the covers. It was what had drawn us together, forged our souls. It was the foundation we were built on and the light that guided us through the moments when the night had claws.
It was our song, our ballad, and we sang it to each other now in low whispers and weary sighs as she slowly and methodically gathered up all my broken parts and stitched me back together with experienced fingers.
“I see you.”
“I know.”
The shadows retreated to the dusty corners. They’d be there in the morning. They always were.
But so was Lucy.
Mother Nature’s Youngest Daughter
KEAH BROWN
MILLIE HADN’T CREATED her first storm yet, but she knew when oneb was brewing. She shut her locker door just as she heard gum pop. Millie pressed her books to her chest and sighed. She could tell who it was without looking: Kacey Donovan and the Miserables, her band of flunkies who had been tormenting Millie since elementary school. Millie’s mother had taught her that hate took up too much room in the heart to be considered anything but useless. However, Millie felt like she had just enough room for Kacey.
“Hey, freak,” Kacey spat as she walked up to Millie’s closed locker door. The Miserables trailed behind her. Millie nearly gagged at their matching outfits in varying shades of purple. Not even Millie’s twin sister and brother, Mary and Finn, did that.
“You’re looking terrible today, as usual. Maybe you couldn’t tell, even with those huge glasses on your face. Are you wearing your sibling’s hand-me-downs again? Do they give you a lot of room to hobble around in? Or do you just enjoy looking as good as cat pee smells?”
In that moment, Millie hated her best friend, Whitney, for being out sick today. She would’ve had a comeback that stopped Kacey cold. Whitney was the levelheaded one in their friendship but was always ready and willing to fight Kacey with words. Millie preferred action. She knew the risks of exposing herself and her family, but Kacey needed to be taken down.
As she turned her back to her locker and Kacey, she caught her siblings’ curious eyes from across the hall. She sent them a silent prayer for intervention. This brand of bullying was not news in their household. Millie couldn’t remember a week when she hadn’t come home angry or in tears over Kacey’s childish cruelty. But the longer it went on, the less sympathetic Millie’s older siblings grew. They wanted her to stop crying and do something about it. Across the hall, Mary came close to helping, clenching and unclenching her fist, while Finn simply shook his head. After a silent argument between the two, Mary mouthed a sorry Millie’s way, and she and Finn turned the corner.
Millie faced her own personified hell.
“What is it today, Kacey?” Millie asked. The Miserables moved closer, surrounding her. Lacey, Kacey’s right-hand woman and head Miserable, chuckled.
“I just came to ask you a few questions,” Kacey said. “Deena says your sister Mariah was a loser, too.”
“And without as much effort,” Tracey, the Miserable in the brightest shade of purple, cut in. Her eyes traveled down to Millie’s right hand and leg. Millie’s hand curled into a fist involuntarily, and she wished with all her might she had the strength to punch Tracey, Lacey, and Kacey.
Kacey winked at Tracey, and the small hint of praise lit up Tracey’s eyes like Christmas trees. Millie wanted to laugh at how pathetic it all was, but they’d only get going again.
“Actually, Mariah is amazing and twice the woman your sister is. And honestly, don’t you think it’s a little sad that Deena is still worrying about my sister all these years later?” Millie asked.
Kacey rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to speak, but Millie cut her off.
“Oh, and the hand and limp jokes are so original.” Millie switched her books to the right side of her body to get it used to more weight. Away from the school’s watchful eye, Finn and Mary had been helping her work at her goal to lessen the strain on the left side of her body. Today they obviously didn’t want to be seen caring about the drama of freshmen, so they left her hanging like she wasn’t family at all.
“Maybe not, but they’re still effective, aren’t they?” Kacey paused for a beat and smirked at the way Millie’s face fell. The action put pep in her step. “Oops.” Kacey knocked Millie’s books out of her arm while her Miserables laughed, as if on cue, before they all walked away. Millie flipped them off, and when she bent down to grab her books, she saw Mrs. Arnold turn her head quickly. Millie knew she was supposed to be the bigger person, but when her siblings and her teachers refused to step in, why should she be?
And her classmates. They never defended her. Not because they were scared; they just didn’t care enough. They let Kacey run rampant. And the Miserables were always making fun of her for the tiniest things. Mother Nature raised her youngest daughter to believe that everything about her was beautiful, especially her cerebral palsy. Millie may have been the only sibling in her family with a physical disability, but it wasn’t an issue at home the way it was at school. At school, the kids who thought Kacey was wrong for the way she treated Millie said nothing when it counted. The teachers who cared sent her to detention and to the principal’s office, but most of them looked the other way because Kacey’s family gave a lot of money to the school. After today, Millie had enough. She’d spent too many days being harassed and too many days doing nothing about it. Millie had to toughen up like her siblings told her to and take matters into her own hands.
After Millie got to class, she sat down in a huff. Her desk was at the back of the room and out of her teacher’s eye line, so she had the time to sit, doodle, and think. Millie had watched a lot of romantic comedies this past summer while her mother was at work and her siblings out with their friends. She watched them for the romance, admittedly, but there was often revenge, too. The type of revenge that she could pull off. Millie could get red dye from the art department and pour it on Kacey’s clothes during gym class. (Her teacher always excused Millie early so she’d have enough time to change.) Or she could use her morning announcements position to start a gross rumor about Kacey. The problem with those ideas was that Millie would be the clear culprit.
Millie lifted the pen from the shoe she was drawing on. She was three hearts in on her left sneaker and wanted six on each, but before she knew it, she was drawing hearts without worrying about the number. She needed a plan that wouldn’t implicate her so quickly. There was one other thing … But it was risky. Millie tapped her pen on her desk as she weighed the pros and cons. The execution would be messy because Millie still had a lot
to learn, but she always picked things up quickly. Her body wasn’t aching today, and yet she knew she should take it easy. Millie could do all the damage she wanted with just a twirl of her finger. Mother Nature always said practice makes perfect, didn’t she? Well, Millie could practice honing her snow element on Kacey. She grinned at the thought.
* * *
After a torturous lunch period, where Tracey, still high from her earlier praise, stuck her foot out, causing Millie to trip and fall into her tray of mac and cheese, Kacey started a childish chant in the hallway: Millie Billie the ugly tramp.
But Millie had patience. During her free period, when she was delivering papers to teachers from the office, she put her plan into action.
She designed her route so that she would first have to drop the papers off at the classroom just past Kacey’s locker on the second floor. This gave her an alibi. She could hear Whitney in her head as she walked. Snow? Mill, seriously? Do you want to get caught? But when Millie got to Kacey’s locker, she let out a breath and cleared her head. She couldn’t open the locker without raising suspicion, so she’d have to do the job without seeing where the snow would land. Her hands began to shake as she lifted them, a sign that her nerves had set in. She let out another breath and lowered her hands. Millie was excited, but she couldn’t let her nerves get the best of her. In order to create the snow, Millie imagined it traveling through her veins and materializing in her hands. The process made her body shiver, but she didn’t mind. This was the only way she knew to make the snow appear; this was how it worked when she practiced in secret at home; and this was how it would have to work here. She closed her eyes for a moment and opened them again when her hands stopped shaking, the snow at the tips of her fingers, waiting for her command. She raised them once more, her hands gesturing toward Kacey’s locker like Vanna White, willing the snow to appear there.
After she finished with Kacey’s locker, she heard Whitney again. Okay, Mill, that was enough. Finish the papers and go back to class.
Millie wanted to. But she couldn’t quite control her powers yet. She was younger than her siblings were when her element developed, and she always lost control a little when she was nervous. And so the snow kept on materializing. More than she had intended. The only thing she could do was to stick it in Tracey’s locker. Thankfully, Tracey’s locker was close enough to Kacey’s.
* * *
Millie would’ve felt a little guilty if it were anyone else, but Kacey only cared about what people thought of her. If she was distracted by her own humiliation, Millie might have a few days of torture-free high school. Millie’s next stop was Mr. Diaz’s fourth-period Spanish class, where she knew she would find Kacey. Millie handed the forms to Mr. Diaz, then stood off to the side to wait for him to sign them.
Millie didn’t consider herself an angry or petty person, but sometimes, when opportunity knocks, you should be polite and answer the door. Millie saw Kacey’s half-unzipped backpack on the floor. Kacey was turned around, talking to the girl in the seat behind her. Millie glanced at Mr. Diaz and saw he was still signing papers, so the coast was clear. Long gone were the nerves she had at Kacey’s locker, and in their place was the confidence of a girl on a mission. She tapped her leg four times, and a small pile of snow for every book Kacey had knocked out of her arms earlier now sat in Kacey’s backpack. Millie also put twenty snowflakes in the bottom of Kacey’s purse. She smiled to herself. Slowly, her account with Kacey was getting settled.
“You’re all set, Señorita Fairway. Thank you for the papers,” Mr. Diaz said as he handed Millie the stack of papers. She took a moment to nod politely at him. Spanish wasn’t her favorite subject, but he was her favorite teacher. He believed in her and always encouraged her art, even when he caught her drawing in his class.
“De nada,” Millie replied.
Millie walked as fast as she could down the stairs, her hand holding tight to the railing as the bag full of papers smacked against her right leg. She had three minutes left of her free period when she reached the office. She dropped off the papers with the secretary and made a beeline for Kacey’s locker.
The sound of Kacey’s shrieks was going to make Millie smile for months. Snow everywhere in the middle of April? Well, she thought it was genius. Millie made it upstairs and across the hall from Kacey’s locker just as the bell rang. She caught her breath and waited silently as Kacey opened her locker. Millie hoped her snow looked good. Crisp and fluffy and milky white. She practiced after dinner on weekends when she knew she could sneak the mop up to her room to hide the evidence. However, when Kacey’s locker door opened wide enough for Millie to see her handiwork, there was much more snow than she had intended. Obviously Millie still had a lot of learning to do. She sighed and focused back on the task at hand: Kacey’s reaction. First, the shock came, quickly followed by the shriek Millie was hoping for. As the hallway filled with students who heard Kacey’s screams, Millie realized the gravity of what she had done. Knowing her mother, it was likely that she already knew what Millie had done today. The crowd that normally fed Kacey’s ego now aided in her mortification as she began to sob.
“Nice job, sis,” Finn said, seemingly appearing out of thin air. He crossed his arms and leaned against the lockers to her left.
“Acknowledgment from you at school?” Millie kept her gaze on the scene in front of her. “I’m touched.”
“It’s what she deserves,” Mary chimed in from her right side. Millie studied her sister for a moment. Mary was a nonviolent type. She preferred to get her revenge by being the better person, but Millie was happy she had made an exception for this.
“So, what did you do with the rest of it?” Finn asked, turning to Millie conspiratorially. “I know this isn’t all the snow you have in your heart.”
She thought about lying only briefly. Kacey shut her locker with a huff before bursting into tears again, and students flickered away from the scene.
“Tracey’s locker?” Mary switched her backpack from her right to her left side. Millie’s mouth opened slightly. How did Mary know? “Nice.”
* * *
Kacey left school in tears, and Millie was able to enjoy the rest of her day in relative silence. Her only distractions were the murmurs from other kids about who could’ve done it, but she stayed quiet, vowing to tell only Whitney. Millie was on cloud nine.
At least, until she got home.
“You did something. I can feel it,” Mother Nature said as soon as Millie stepped inside the house, a house Millie loved despite the fact that awkward pictures of her and her siblings lined the entryway. Mother Nature was into photography and candid photos, even when Millie had just woken up and before she’d brushed her teeth. She also loved earth tones and blues that matched the ocean. She made sure the house had different shades of blue accents in every room, with cream on every wall except the kitchen. The kitchen had been green for four months after Mother Nature fell in love with the color called fern. Where Millie stood now, as she faced her doom at the front door, was on a red carpet that ran from the entryway of the house to the start of the kitchen. This Aegean rug was new; two weeks ago there had been a shorter, teal one in its place. Sometimes her mother was such a cliché.
“I’m giving you one chance to tell me what it was.”
Millie put on her perfected “I’m the baby” face and said nothing. If she were being honest, Millie knew that there was no getting out of this, but as a first-time offender, she figured her mother would go easy on her. Still, Millie wondered how Mother Nature knew what had happened so quickly and narrowed it down to two people in her mind. When Mary and Finn rounded the corner, she spoke.
“You rats,” Millie bit out.
“We didn’t tell,” Mary whispered. “We thought it was great.”
“She means we were as appalled as you, Ma,” Finn cut in when their mother turned on them. He eyed Mary, who shrugged an apology.
Millie bit her lip. She walked slowly to the living room couch, where she dro
pped her backpack before plopping down next to it. She was caught.
“Millicent Grace Fairway, why did you put snow in that girl’s locker, purse, and backpack?” Mother Nature asked calmly. She followed her daughter into the living room and waited for her to speak. The calm before the storm—Millie hadn’t experienced it before this moment, but she knew what was coming from watching her siblings’ faces. The thought of her mother’s anger made Millie angry. She understood the risk she had taken; her decision had been impulsive, but necessary. Mother Nature didn’t know what it was like to live in Millie’s body and to go to a school that didn’t care how she was being treated.
“How did you know?” Millie asked. The anger and fear she felt at being the weakest person in the family was bubbling up inside her, nearing the back of her throat. She fought the urge to let it out.
“I’m Mother Nature. I know everything.”
“Well, and word travels fast,” Mariah said. Millie’s eldest sister did little to hide the pride in her voice.
“It wasn’t that big of a deal,” Millie said.
“You put snow in a girl’s backpack!” Mother Nature yelled. “In April!”
“Honestly, you guys are lucky I didn’t do worse,” Millie said.
“You couldn’t have done worse,” Finn said chidingly.
“This kind of attitude is exactly why we don’t let children begin training until their junior year,” Mother Nature sighed. “You are just not mature enough.”
“I mean, the execution could’ve been better, if you ask me,” Finn commented. Millie turned around to glare at him.
“I didn’t ask,” she shot back.
“Silence,” Mother Nature commanded. “Mariah, Mary, Finn, please leave.”
“But, Ma…” Finn nudged Mary for support, and his twin sister ignored him. Mary knew when to pick her battles. After all, her mom had let her make it rain for four days straight when her ex-boyfriend Kyle broke up with her last month to date her ex–best friend Gina.