Sam
Mrs. Mullins came to a stop on the track and said, “Sam, what is wrong with you today?”
I slowed down and stopped beside her. I’d been dragging behind through the whole run. It was a beautiful morning, the first time since the school year started when the heat wasn’t so oppressive I wanted to crawl under anything I could just to get some shade.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“Why not? Something going on at home? You want to talk about it?”
I hadn’t told anyone yet except Hayley. But Mrs. Mullins was different than any teacher I’d ever had. She understood in ways no other adult I knew was able to. I took a breath and said, “Please don’t say anything to … well, anyone? But, my sister—she turned up alive in Portland. Three weeks ago. We don’t know where she is now, but Mom flew out there yesterday to look for her.”
Mrs. Mullins’ eyes widened and a broad smile spread across her face. “Oh, Sam, that’s wonderful!”
I said in a quiet voice, “I hope so. She … see … she was picked up by the police,” my voice dropped even quieter, to a whisper, “for prostitution.”
Understanding swept across her face. “I see. Well, Sam. She’s alive. That’s the important thing. We’ll pray for her. I’ll ask my church to pray for her.”
I gave Mrs. Mullins a half smile. She was the sweetest lady I’d ever met, but I couldn’t imagine her church would have anything nice to say about Brenna, and even less so about me. But that wasn’t important. Right now what mattered was her kindness.
“Well,” she said. “I’m not in the best shape either. Let’s head back to the office and call it a day.”
“Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”
We turned and began walking back toward the main building.
Across the field, the class I would have been in was doing calisthenics. Ashley was in that class. I could see her standing near the other students, one hip extended to the side, her hand resting on it, doing nothing while the rest of the class worked out. Was it because she was a cheerleader? Or because she was a walking stereotype? I’d heard her dad was a city councilman or the mayor or something, and she dated the biggest dickhead—I mean football player—in the school. I hated her.
And, to be honest, I wanted to be her.
As we walked, Mrs. Mullins said, “Did you give any thought to my suggestion about the clinic in Anniston?”
I had. A week earlier, she’d asked again if I was in any kind of therapy. When I told her no, she’d given me the contact information for St. Michael’s Medical Clinic in Anniston, a sliding scale clinic which she thought might be willing to see me for free. I just couldn’t see doing it. “I really appreciate it, Mrs. Mullins. But I don’t think I need therapy.”
She chuckled. “Everyone could use a little therapy.”
I smiled. “I know. But really, it’s okay.”
I tried to picture the reaction I’d get. I’d be labeled. A transvestite. A freak. And what if they told my parents? I couldn’t risk anything like that.
“Well, Sam, I’m not going to push. But you know I’ll need some kind of good explanation to keep you out of PE next semester. And you still haven’t told me what the problem is.”
“I can’t,” I whispered.
She stopped in her tracks and put a hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay, Sam. I won’t push. I just care about you and want you to be okay. You must be going out of your skin knowing she’s alive but not being able to do anything.”
We started walking again, and I said, “I am. I’d do anything to be able to go to Portland with Mom and look. But Dad says I have to stay here and go to school. And … well, Dad can’t travel. He’s on probation.”
She nodded. “I’m so sorry you can’t go. But your parents are right. You need to stay in school.”
Like Brenna had a chance to stay in school? The bitter thought ran through my mind before I could think of anything to say. But I wasn’t going to say that to her.
Back in Mrs. Mullins’ office, I tapped out a quick text message to Mom. Did you find out anything? An alert popped up from Snapchat, a message from Hayley. I opened it. She was in first period history, and the picture showed her with her eyes crossed and her tongue sticking out of the right side of her mouth. The caption said, SO BORED I DIED.
I laughed. Mrs. Mullins raised an eyebrow, and I showed her the picture. She chuckled. “You and Hayley are pretty good friends, right?”
I nodded. “We’re BFFs.” Best friends forever.
“Can I ask you a question? The other day, Hayley had a pretty good bruise on her wrist. Did you see that?”
Jesus. Guilt flashed through me, even though I hadn’t done anything. Or maybe because I hadn’t done anything, and I knew I should.
“She said she fell. On the steps at her house.”
“She lives alone with her dad, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Mrs. Mullins nodded. “Sam … if something ever put Hayley in danger, would you tell me? To protect her?”
Hayley had made it very clear I couldn’t tell anyone.
“Sure,” I said. “But I don’t think it’s anything. I really don’t.”
“Okay. Just … keep your eyes open, okay? I worry about you kids.”
“I will.”
“Okay, Sam. You can go change.”
I walked down to the faculty bathroom next to the counselors’ office—it had an actual locking door—and Mrs. Mullins had let me use that room to change every day after PE. I really loved her. She understood teenagers. She had a huge bowl of candy on her desk, but it was an open secret that she kept condoms in it. Real sex-education was frowned upon in Alabama, but she was looking out for kids, not her career.
Two hours later, I was sitting in English, texting back and forth with Hayley. She was sitting three rows behind me, but our English teacher, Mrs. Gottlieb, rarely bothered anyone with their phones out unless it was during a test. For the last week, we had been reading short autobiographical essays at the beginning of class, followed by a writing prompt. I rarely felt confident about anything in school, but I had enjoyed this unit a lot. I had written essays before, of course, but this was different. Somehow it was difficult to pin down exactly why, except that like when I played in Second Life, it was a chance to express myself. And I never got to express myself.
Hayley: did u hear back from ur mom?
Sam: she said she would call me l8r.
Mrs. Gottlieb began to write on the whiteboard in her spidery, barely legible cursive. Her message read: Select an important memory in your life. Write about what happened. Describe the smell, taste, sounds, texture.
Hands shot up across the room. Mrs. Gottlieb pointed to Ashley first. Naturally.
“How long does it have to be?”
“Length isn’t the point, Ashley. What matters is that you give a clear and vivid description. James?”
“Does it have to be real?”
Mrs. Gottlieb looked impatient. “I want you to write about something you remember, something that is important to you. It can be happy, it can be sad. It can be last week or last year or when you were three years old. Stretch yourselves. I want to feel why it’s important to you.” Several hands slowly dropped, and she picked one more person.
“What happens if we don’t finish in time?”
Mrs. Gottlieb rolled her eyes. “No more questions. I want you to take the first five minutes to pick a memory. Then I want you to start writing.”
She checked her watch. ”Begin. Put your phones away. I don’t want to see anything on your desk but paper and pencil.”
I dropped my phone in my backpack and took out several sheets of paper.
I tried to think of a significant memory. My mind immediately turned to Brenna’s birthday and her disappearance. I thought of the raw terror I’d felt when the police told us they had found her crushed phone.
No. I didn’t want to write about that. I reached further back. Birthdays. Fights between Mom and Dad. Brenna teaching me how to put on makeup. I sure couldn’t write about that. I sat there with my eyes closed, digging in my past.
A vision of Brenna laughing.
I remembered. I must have been eight or so, Brenna ten. Mom and Dad had taken us camping for three or four nights in the Shenandoah Mountains. It had to have been in the fall, because I remember the leaves, brilliant oranges and reds and yellows everywhere.
I took out my pencil and began to write. I started with a simple detail: the turtles. Mom and Dad had rented two canoes, and we spent a long and lazy afternoon floating down the river. The canoes occasionally scraped over gentle rapids and in and out of shoals and curves. At one point we had rounded a corner in the river and came into view of two trees that had fallen and were floating on the west side of the river, still barely attached to their stumps. Lined up in rows on both trees, heads and necks extended far out of their shells, were at least two dozen turtles sunning themselves.
Brenna had pointed, shouting, “Daddy, look!” Two dozen tiny heads turned slightly toward us, but the turtles stayed in position, apparently deciding that we weren’t a threat. Mom and Dad stopped paddling and let us drift for a few minutes, our canoes floating side by side. Mom leaned back, basking in the sunshine, then looked over at Dad and said, “This is heaven. I love you.”
Dad smiled. “It is pretty nice, isn’t it?” Then he paddled our boat right up next to Mom and Brenna’s. He leaned toward Mom. “I love you, babe.” I involuntarily let out a squeal as the boat tilted slightly, and Mom said, “Cole, you’ll tip the boat!”
“Just one kiss.”
Mom rolled her eyes and leaned toward him, then he leaned a little further, and then I let out a scream as our canoe capsized.
The water was a shock, but it wasn’t that cold, nor was it particularly deep. My feet touched the bottom and I kicked off, my life vest taking me back to the surface almost instantly. Dad reached out and pulled me toward him. He had a huge grin on his face, as he grabbed for the boat with his left hand while holding me with his right. Brenna was hysterically laughing and pointing. Mom tried to look annoyed then stern, but she couldn’t maintain the look: she cracked a smile.
Dad said, “Whoops.” That started Mom laughing.
I was half asleep when, a few hours later, Dad slowed the car to a halt on Skyline Drive. We were on our way back to the campsite.
“Oh my God.”
Something in Mom’s tone made my eyes pop open. Brenna said, “It’s a baby bear!”
Fifteen or twenty feet away, on the side of the road, a black ball of fluff was rolling on its back, paws extended in the air. It was a baby black bear.
“Can I pet it?” I asked.
“No way!” Brenna shouted.
“No, Sam. Mama bear is around here somewhere, and she won’t let anybody touch her baby. This is as close as we can get, and we stay in the car.”
I think I pouted for just a minute. But then I stopped. Because a massive rumbling in the bushes beside the road signaled something coming, and the next thing I saw was a full-size adult bear wandering into the road. She pushed the baby along with her snout, and the baby sprawled, then ran ahead, off the road. The baby bear wrapped its paws around a tree and scooted right up the trunk. Then the mama bear followed.
“Holy cow,” Dad said. He put his arm up, resting his hand on Mom’s shoulder. She looked at him and smiled, and they leaned toward each other and kissed.
“Ewwww!” Brenna screamed.
“Gross!” I yelled.
Dad laughed maniacally and said, “I’ll show you gross!” Then he kissed her again.
A car behind us honked, and Dad broke away, and Mom giggled a little as we began driving up Skyline Drive again.
Concentrating on the smell of the fall woods, the feel of the water, the sounds of the bear rustling in the trees, I wrote my essay for class. And I remembered. And I wondered. Could Mom find Brenna? And if so, could she bring her home? For a second, I imagined Mom was like that bear we saw all those years ago: cute, but dangerous as hell. At least that’s what I hoped for. Because I wanted my sister back.
I wanted my family back.
Sam
The text message from Mom was stark: I have some leads I’m working on, but we don’t know anything for sure yet except that she was here. I promise I’ll keep you updated. Call me before bed?
I immediately texted back: I will.
Mom: School going okay?
Me: boring
Mom: Can’t you come up with something more expressive than boring?
Me: it was soul crushing.
Mom: That made me smile. Love you
I was so wrapped up in texting Mom, I had forgotten my surroundings on the school bus. Normally that could be hazardous, but as I looked up from my phone I breathed a sigh of relief. No one seemed to be paying any attention. I had spent the day alternately ecstatic about Brenna and terrified about my run-in yesterday with Ashley and Cody. I didn’t know what form it would take, but I knew bullies well enough to know that at some point, today or tomorrow, next week or next year, Cody and Ashley would get their revenge. My guess from my encounters with him so far was that Cody had a short attention span and primarily only went after targets of opportunity. Ashley, however … she would keep him focused on target as long as it took. I needed to watch my back.
Whatever. I couldn’t spend my entire life freaking out about when and how I was going to have to deal with bullies.
I picked up my phone and opened Snapchat, bared my teeth in a growl, then took a quick selfie. I sent it to Hayley with the caption: mall tomorrow?
A response came immediately, a photo of her, smiling, with her smile stretched and exaggerated. I laughed.
It was a couple of minutes later that the giggling at the front of the bus began to get louder. Three of the girls were laughing and looking back toward the back of the bus. I sat about halfway back. Were they looking at me? I felt heat on my face. Across the aisle from the girls, two boys suddenly burst out laughing. They were all looking down … laughing at something on their phones. Whatever the joke was, I wasn’t included. The laughter spread to the back of the bus, and the driver shouted, “Pipe down! Or some of y’all will be walking home.”
I looked down at the floor then fiddled with my phone so I could at least look busy. But then Billy, sitting next to me, burst into laughter. He doubled over, then looked at me and back to his phone, laughing even harder.
What the hell? “What is it?” My voice came out in a croak.
Billy just shook his head, murmured a muffled, “Oh my God,” then started laughing hysterically. I twisted over to get a look at his phone and froze. Then I reached out and grabbed it, stunned.
“Let go, freak!”
I didn’t listen. I stared at the phone in shock. It was a picture. My face, a little blurred but clearly me. I was red-faced, with hair in my eyes. It must have been taken by somebody when I was running with Mrs. Mullins. Someone had crudely Photoshopped my face onto a pornographic picture of a naked woman who was being held down on a desk with no clothes on. A muscular man with extremely dark brown skin and a large penis was fucking the girl from behind. Mrs. Mullins’ face, a black and white yearbook photo, had been Photoshopped in place of the man’s face.
I barely heard Billy shout, “Let go of my fucking phone!” I felt a twisting in my stomach as nausea swept over me. But then he grabbed the phone out of my hands and stood over me and began throwing punches.
The first connected with my nose, knocking my head back against the glass with a loud crack. The second hit was in the eye, and my vision went white. I threw my arms up in front of my face as he continued to wildly throw punches.
The bus jerked to a stop, and a moment later Billy was pulled off of me. I stared up in shock, feeling hot wet liquid running down my face.
“What the hell got into you, Billy?”
“Freak tried to steal my phone, sir! He wouldn’t give it back!”
The driver whirled on me. “Is this true, boy? You stealing on my bus?”
I shook my head rapidly, unable to speak.
The driver gave an expression of disgust. “Billy, get to the back of the bus and keep your hands to yourself. And you, boy, you ever try something like that on my bus again and you’ll be walking the rest of the year.”
Nobody said a word. I rode the rest of the bus ride home in silence, holding my face in an effort to stop the bleeding from my nose.