It's My Life Page 4

  “I don’t have to see it all.” My hands do a flourish. “Leave a little to the imagination!”

  He puts his hands up like he’s testifying. “Preach it.”

  This is what we do. What we’ve always done. We pick a subject and evaluate it. Like the night we first met at one of the youth group’s sleep-ins. Boys and girls were supposed to be separate, but we hit it off immediately. We bonded over candy choice during the movie, M&M’s, original only. And our opinion of Avatar: The Last Airbender (best animated TV show ever), how disappointing M. Night Shyamalan’s version of it was, and how much we wished we could have a flying bison like Appa.

  The wind picks up and I shiver. Ben reaches behind me for the wool blanket Mom left. I’m about to argue that I don’t need a blanket, that I enjoy a little chill every once in a while, when the blanket settles around my lap and my legs get warm. It’s a soft kind of warm that wraps around my heart; he put the blanket on me because he loves me, not because I’m disabled.

  Ben waves his hand in front of my eyes. “So? Todd?”

  “Oh, right. I give him a solid B plus.”

  “B plus? I’ve got him down as an A minus at worst.”

  “I feel he’s going to blossom in college, so I have to leave room for improvement.”

  “Hank Stevens.”

  “We’re doing the esses now?”

  Ben smiles and his eyes go a little dreamy. “So much beauty at the end of the alphabet, don’t you think?”

  I reach for one of the big sugar cookies Mom put out for us, hoping the pause in the conversation will keep Ben from venturing further down the alphabet. They’re soft and easy to break into small bites, which is essential for my eating to be controllable. Tiny little infant bites. “Why are we doing this anyway?”

  “Rating guys? Because we always do?” Ben laughs. “We’ve got to be proactive. We have to narrow the field, select our victim—I mean, target—and go for it.”

  I take another bite. Chew slowly.

  “The field for me is wide open,” Ben says, “but you know there’s only one guy you’re interested in…the one the only…”

  I can’t let him say it. I won’t let him say it. I lean forward and smack him on the arm. He puts his hands up. Which makes me go bigger. I hit him again and again.

  “Stop getting violent, girl!”

  “You started it.”

  “So why not Julian?”

  “He probably doesn’t even remember me.”

  “How could anyone forget you?”

  My eyes wander to Julian’s old house. I close them, and it’s like I can remember everything. The sights, sounds, and feels of our childhood together. My mind drifts to the time we were playing our version of street Marco Polo, one of my favorite memories. I was in my wheelchair then, having just had a muscle-lengthening surgery in my legs. I was supposed to be taking it easy, which means I was zipping up and down the street in my new electric wheelchair.

  It was the year before he moved away. There was a little grass field at the end of our street and a small gravel area where Eric often played street hockey with some of the neighborhood kids. But that day, the street was ours alone—Eric, Rena, me…and Julian.

  It was my turn to be blindfolded so Rena pulled the bandanna down, and I reached my hands in front of me. Marco Polo is ridiculously hard to play in a wheelchair, but it’s made easier when your brother and sister and friend can’t keep from laughing at your attempts to catch them.

  “So close,” Eric’s voice was filled with happiness. “Almost, baby sister.”

  My thumb on the joystick of my wheelchair, I made it careen forward. I could hear little bits of gravel kick up under my wheels.

  “Uh oh,” Rena’s voice was muffled like she had her hand over her mouth. I felt her brush by me, heard her feet slide through the tiny pebbles.

  “Ha!” I shouted and made my chair lurch forward. “Ha!” I inched forward. “Ha!”

  The air was clear and crisp. I could hear steps, sure and solid while Eric’s were quick and light. Julian. I was sure of it. I zoomed forward. My fingertips brushed his shirt. His laugh was high pitched while Eric’s had already turned deeper.

  “You have a license for that thing?” Eric joked as I lurched forward.

  “Reckless driver coming through!” called Rena. I laughed, too, that uncontrollable, choke-on-your-own-happy-tears kind of laugh.

  The front door banged open. “You’ve got to be kidding,” Mom yelled from the porch. We could hear her all the way down the street.

  “Here comes the mom-ologue,” Rena said, joking. Mom’s voice got louder as she approached us, but I wasn’t about to stop. “Your sister can’t even see you, how’s she supposed to…”

  I could hear Eric’s feet skid to a stop on the gravel. “She’s doing fine…” My ears locked on to his location. I leaned on the joystick, my wheelchair speeding up in time to grab his shirt. Rena took the blindfold off me. I shot my hands in the air in victory.

  Eric fell backward onto the ground, doing an amazing job of faking it. “Did you have to help her, Mom? She’s already got the wheelchair advantage. Jeez.”

  Rena wrapped her arms around my shoulders. “And she’s won the last ten times!”

  Julian shot me a look of complete approval, which made me blush.

  Eric pushed himself to his feet in one swift move, climbed on the back of my wheelchair, and pointed forward. “Onward.”

  “You’re such a dork,” Rena said.

  “Dork!” I agreed, but we zoomed toward Mom, who was now standing in front of us.

  “You’re going to break that…” Mom started running the other way, aware now how close we were to catching her. “Very expensive…”

  I remember Julian’s laughter. “Go, Jenna,” he’d said, his hazel eyes lit up the whole time.

  I must be smiling, because Ben says, “Hey, where’d you go?”

  “Oh yeah. I was just remembering…”

  “Julian…” He puts his hands over his heart. “Oh, Julian…”

  “Gee, I wonder why I don’t want to talk with you about the boy.”

  Ben laughs. “Look, no judgment here. I mean, you remember how moony I was over that Kevin guy…shudder.”

  “We were friends. Best friends. That was before you moved here.”

  “I know the timetable. What I don’t know is what happened between you two.”

  I lie back and sigh. “It doesn’t matter.” I pull my legs out of Ben’s lap. Sit up. He puts his hand on my arm. “I’m undateable.”

  “That’s not true.”

  I take another bite of cookie. “Maybe I’m going to blossom in college, like Todd Stein.”

  Ben leans me against his chest. He brushes the hair off my forehead. “You’ve got classic beauty. Gorgeous blue eyes. Sultry lips. Wavy curls.”

  “You mean frizzy hair, and lips that get stuck. Not to mention how sexy it is when I have a severe spasm.”

  “Just makes you you.” Ben rubs my head in the most mesmerizing movement. It’s the kind of caress that makes you feel loved and safe. “You are a great beauty.”

  I stop the swing. Sit up again. “You mean a terrible beauty.”

  He makes me face him. Ben’s eyes get all sweet and fierce. “No. I said what I mean. Listen to your dad. Go see those other doctors. See what they can do.”

  My mood nose-dives. “They can’t do anything. My body is impossible.”

  He pulls me against him again, and we swing. Back and forth. Back and forth. “For a girl who loves stories, you seem kind of oblivious.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning you’re at the point of the story when everything changes. And this year happens to fall at the denouement. Kind of convenient, no?”

  “Are you throwing story at me, Ben? You may have to stick to busines
s.”

  “How so?”

  “If anything, we are at the inciting incident of my story. It is certainly not the denouement. You just like to throw around French words!”

  “They roll off my tongue, don’t they? The point is, you need to live your story, not fantasize about it.”

  “Is that even possible?”

  “Anything is possible in your story.”

  I close my eyes and let Ben swing me to sleep, my mind filled with his soft voice and sweet promises.

  Six

  Sunday night leads to Monday, and I wake up in the morning, just me—no voices, no besties, no nothing. No feelings of impending wonder. Just a normal day. And maybe that is for the best. We all need a break from drama.

  In the van on the way to school, it feels like there’s this silence hanging over us as we all hold our collective breath. This is how it always is after I return to the scene of my last seizure. Mom’s not superstitious in general, other than writing checks for cousins’ bar and bat mitzvahs in increments of eighteen, but even she is exceedingly careful after a biggie.

  When I’ve missed school, I feel like everyone else knows things that went on. And I don’t. I feel like I’m coming back to a place that has been saved for me by a spacer or something, and I wonder if it’s worth trying to fit in there when everyone else has undoubtedly moved on.

  The radio is on low and I hear “R.E.M.” Rena takes my hand, because we both love Ariana Grande. She sings the melody, and I hum the harmony inside my head where all of the notes are perfect and full-bodied.

  We pull in front of the school, and there are a few girls walking with leather jackets and scarves and wool beanies—the girls in the AP classes. I pretend I am one of them, a college in the Northeast in my future, carrying a Dunkin’ coffee cup, pausing my conversation to take small sips. In a fair world, I’d be one of those girls, walking like they do, stride for stride, living my best life. We would be inseparable. If only I had a body that worked and a doctor who hadn’t screwed up. Even when I was in the AP classes with them, before I dropped down to classes that don’t take any effort, I was never truly one of them. I am so into my fantasy, the one where I’m an able-bodied AP girl, that in real life, I can’t make myself move forward. I’m not in my wheelchair today but have a brace on my knee and my elbow crutches, and I’m stuck like my chair when it runs out of battery.

  Mom gets out of the car. “You okay, honey?”

  Rena says, “I’ll walk her in.”

  “No. I’m fine.”

  I collect myself, put my crutches squarely on the ground. The sound they make is so loud to me, but a quick glance around tells me that no one else seems to notice.

  “Jenna?” Mom asks, demanding my attention. Mom leans forward, her face in front of mine. She whispers, “Jenna?”

  “Yeah. Sorry.”

  “Listen, Mrs. Wilson is going to walk you around today.”

  My face automatically sets into resting pissed face.

  “Give me a break, Jenna. It’s just for today.”

  “One break coming up.” Eric’s joke.

  Mom waves one hand over her head as if to say “good one” as she heads back to her car. I watch her drive away, a tiny speck of regret in my stomach. I should give her a break. I want to. It’s just I can’t help thinking that she gave Dr. Jerkoby too many breaks. I often fantasize about how the entire thing played out. Like maybe he was out playing pool with his buddies and pounding shots of Bacardi the night before I was born. Or maybe he’d spent all night playing video games like a huge dork. Who knows? The point is, he didn’t bring his A game for me, did he?

  Our high school consists of four buildings, all connected by a courtyard. I’m stopped in front of the one hundred building. Mrs. Wilson opens the door for me.

  All of a sudden, there’s an influx of bodies. Hockey players, throwing their arms around the AP girls’ shoulders. One girl says, “Watch it! Don’t spill the coffee. Respect the coffee.”

  My stomach tightens. I hope Julian isn’t in that crowd, his arm around another girl. Please.

  But now I’m staring at the guys’ backs. Their butts, really, and I’m relieved because none of them are Julian. And just like that I’ve become a total stalker.

  But who could blame me? Julian’s back.

  Maybe that does means something in my story. I’m not saying he’s going to see me, drop to his knees, and profess his love for me—although that would be cool if he did. I mean, maybe we can go back to being friends. Of the close variety.

  Mrs. Wilson walks me to my first-period English III class. She opens the door as I approach, and a bunch of the other kids in my class say, “Thank you,” as they scooch under her arm into the classroom, which makes her scowl. One of them, Tommy Luca, turns around and flashes me a grin. Solidarity. They get how annoying Mrs. Wilson can be, and this is one way to be on my side.

  So I’m smiling a little as I make my way into the room. I walk to my desk—the special one they have for me in all of my classes, the one that can be adjusted to suit my wheelchair as needed—and put my backpack on my chair, all while Mrs. Wilson stands by, ready to help me. My backpack falls, and Mrs. Wilson makes a face and goes to retrieve it—but not before Tommy gets there.

  He rehangs it on my chair. “Glad you’re back, Jenna,” he says. I shoot him a very grateful smile.

  But as I do, something happens that illustrates the presence of a divine power: The door opens, and Julian strolls into my English class. My English class. Mine. He walks with his head down, red wavy curls trailing over his eyes the tiniest bit. Hockey players get to wear their hair long and outrageous. I am definitely a fan.

  I’m surprised to see him at first. The hockey players here are part jock, all student. Most of them are in AP classes. That makes their team even sexier than some of the meathead jocks, I’ve heard girls say before—they’re athletic and smart to boot.

  But then I remember that Julian’s always had trouble in school. His intensity on the ice is absent in all academic pursuits, so he used to tell me, as in, when he was grounded for the two longest weeks in fifth grade because of his report card. Then again in sixth grade. And seventh.

  But Julian’s brain doesn’t make him less sexy. And his inability to get his brain moving at lightning speed doesn’t make him less datable, either. He just needs someone to help him.

  Someone whose mind works better than her body.

  You know, someone like me.

  His eyes crawl across the room as he searches for his seat. As he sees me, Tommy’s handing me a notebook, saying, “This is what you missed.”

  “Thanks, Tommy.”

  I can feel the heat of Julian’s stare, so I make my eyes meet his. It’s two seconds of delicious eye contact. Eye contact that tells me everything I need to know. First, he remembers me. So that horrible fantasy is off the table. Thank God. And second, there is no way that gorgeous piece of hockey player is ever going to be into me. I only got a quick glimpse of him the other day. Now I can see him full on. He’s way out of my league these days.

  “Jenna.” His face lights up. At least he’s glad to see me. But it lights up in a way that is not romantic. He waves, and I wave back. It’s all so innocent, but even this tiny dose of the boy is enough to make me momentarily happy. I start to doodle on my notebook, and I swear I have to make a conscious effort not to draw his name.

  Julian sits down. I work hard not to breathe out a big sigh. My head is filled with so many possibilities and one big certainty. Julian is in my English class, two rows ahead of me and at perfect staring position. So that means I am guaranteed a front-row seat. Even now, instead of listening to Mr. S., I’m gazing at Julian, wondering if he’s feeling like I am—or even in the zip code of how I’m feeling. Which is why I am caught completely unaware when Mr. Stechshulte asks, “Who wants to get our new student caught up afte
r class today?”

  Julian gives me a look like he wants me to save him from this embarrassment, and I so want to raise my hand, but my hand isn’t cooperating. My arm is stubbornly pasted at my side, and, without my arm on board, my hand is not going to make the show. So I shout at my brain to get this done. To make my hand and arm lift. To open my hand. But by the time my arm lifts the tiniest bit, Tori says, “I’ll do it, Mr. S.”

  And I want to die. I want the floor to open up and swallow me whole. I want to disappear. More than that, I want to yell at myself. I should be the one helping Julian. I should be his class buddy.

  “In the meantime, it’s time for one of our SAT prep quizzes.”

  There are groans all around, but it’s not the hardest SAT prep quiz ever given. It’s standard vocab plus analogies. That stuff doesn’t trip me up. I take a quick glance at Julian, and I see his shoulders are slumped and he’s chewing on his eraser.

  If I was sitting next to him, I could say something to make him feel better.

  “Exchange papers,” Mr. S. says.

  Tommy takes mine and gives me his.

  As Mr. S. starts to go over the answers, I steal a look at Julian. He’s rubbing his hands against his legs and that kills me a little, because I know he’s feeling bad about how he did. Julian was never a scholar. He always had to be pulled out and get extra help with reading and stuff.

  Tommy passes my paper back, a big “100%” written at the top. He makes pretend explosions with his hands. “You are off-the-charts smart!”

  I slide his paper back—only five wrong. Not too shabby for him. I try to think of something nice to say but can only come up with a weak “‘Adulation’ and ‘benevolent’ are toughies.” Which earns me a big, goofy Tommy grin.

  “I’m no genius, but I’m getting better, right?”

  If he means compared to the paper I graded for him last week where he got all of them wrong, then, well, sure. “Yup.”

  I give him a thumbs-up, and he laughs. “You’re funny, Jenna.”

  Mr. S. does a walk around the room, glancing at people’s papers, answering questions. As he passes by Julian’s desk, he puts his hand on Julian’s shoulder and points to the paper that Tori graded for him. He clicks his pen open. “Actually, this is the correct answer for this one.”