I have more important news.
I text Lauren.
Tell her I did her a favor,
after all I am her Secret Gifter:
You probably saw.
Got caught. Took the blame.
It feels familiar covering for her,
like all the times I’d call in for Mom—
pretending she was sick
and couldn’t work.
Pretending I was sick
and couldn’t go to school.
Lauren texts back:
Oh no.
You didn’t have to do that.
I can tell them.
But then her whole plan would be ruined.
And she would be in so much more trouble.
And me?
I’m gone
as soon as Mom can get me.
I write back:
NO. I’m leaving soon.
My mom’s coming to get me.
Sorry about the $300.
She texts back:
Did you get caught with the money too?
I tell her no.
Shame spirals through me.
What would Anne think of me
if she knew all that money was there, too?
Shove it out of my mind,
hold my kaleidoscope, turn the dial
focus on the future:
Mom will get me back
and we’ll move to
the new apartment complex,
Brighton Acres.
Spend next summer
in their gated pool,
laugh at how they tried to split us
a part
but we wouldn’t budge.
Text Lauren back:
Don’t worry.
Lauren asks again: Are you sure? This is OK?
And then in 8 Ball speak,
my mind on Mom, the pool,
the kaleidoscope’s spinning green swirls
I type:
Outlook good.
Decidedly So
Anne says
we need to walk to Audrey’s.
I need to give back
the bracelet,
apologize to Mrs. Lee.
It is decided.
My stomach flips.
I don’t want to do it.
But better me than Lauren, right?
As we walk,
Lauren is outside.
Says hi to Anne,
then pulls me aside.
Asks if I’m sure about this.
The wind blows her hair all around,
she doesn’t even have a coat on.
I tell her, yes, I am. I am sure.
“I get to leave—
but you have to stay.”
She bites her lip.
Turns around.
I put my head down.
Close my eyes, see Mom and me again in the pool.
On rafts, laughing, holding hands.
Our rippling reflections.
I move
steps, inches
forward.
The wind picks up.
Snow drifts.
Anne follows.
Already There
They’re already all there.
At the front of the house,
they knew we were coming.
No one yet has asked me why.
Maybe they all assume
it is because I’m not rich
like the rest of them?
Like it would be so hard
to be around all their things
and not want them for my own?
But what I want isn’t about things.
Anne puts a hand on my shoulder.
I’m surprised she touches me,
she must be so angry at me.
At what I have done
to Amy’s room.
She doesn’t even know
what I’m still
doing.
Anne
places the bracelet then
in my glove.
I pass it to Mrs. Lee
say I’m sorry for taking it.
Mrs. Lee nods
thanks me for returning it.
Audrey squints her eyes at me,
like I am a bug she’s studying
under a microscope.
Her cheeks pink in the cold.
But from her face
it looks like she may never
accept.
Crowding
Lauren apologizes again on the bus.
I tell her to stop, I’m OK, happy, even.
I’ll probably be gone within the month.
I cross my fingers when I say it.
Right off the bus,
the first people we see,
Audrey, Emma, Max
crowding in their circle.
Whispering.
Lauren looks at me again
before she leaves for class.
She’s out of earshot
when
Emma loudly says the word
thief.
Appearances
At lunch,
Lauren sits with me,
Mariah stops by,
her hair now bright yellow with orange tips,
says she heard what happened,
that that sure doesn’t seem like me.
Lauren coughs.
As she stands above us,
I think of what Audrey said
during that Meeting in October,
what Anne must think of me now,
how I thought Lauren seemed perfect
when I first met her.
I shrug, say:
“People
sometimes aren’t
who you think
they are.”
Not sure if I feel guilty or proud
when Mariah frowns.
Switch
Max usually talks to me
more than I ever talk to him
I pretend to not like it
but maybe I do
but today
all he says
while we are crammed together
as classes switch
is
“Move.”
Under my breath
so he doesn’t quite hear it
I say:
“Soon.”
Stops, Starts
I’m a little late coming home from school,
so much traffic on the Avenue.
Lauren got picked up early for a dentist appointment.
So, I’m alone.
Think of texting Cassidy
how excited I was to come home soon.
But then picture her telling me I’m lucky.
Instead—
Send her an emoticon of two girls dancing.
Listen to Dad’s old playlist,
count:
bare branches,
piles of dirty snow,
each time the bus stops, starts.
My breaths.
Home,
Anne says I missed
a caseworker call.
Must be an update on her new job, home.
Maybe I will be home before Christmas?
Now I wait by the phone,
pray to Mom
for luck.
Count the seconds
before the phone rings again.
But the way Maude says,
Hello, dear,
I can tell—
like winter’s brown grass—
and all those red lights on the way home—
all my green’s run out.
Stuck
“Your mom’s relapsed, Sierra.”
She asks if I know what that means.
Like I’m a small child.
“So sorry.
It may take longer than we hoped.
I guess right after discharge she met someone—”
Like I haven’t been through this before.
“I don’t know when she’ll be ready.”
I don’t need her to be ready. I just need her to be her.
“You need to settle in there.”
Can I settle in with Mom drinking again?
“Carl says you’ve been in some trouble.
I strongly advise you not to get into any more.”
I don’t know how to get out
without losing Lauren,
the only thing I have
here.
Complexes
Maude speaks with Anne.
Anne tells me she is so sorry,
asks do I want to talk about it.
How can she still feel bad for me
after what I’ve done to her?
I ask if there’s any way
home from school
tomorrow.
“A mental health day?”
she asks.
I nod.
I'm grateful Anne recognizes
how much I need it.
Later that night,
I hear Lauren come to the door.
I haven’t answered her texts.
I know she feels ignored.
Or is worried about the money.
She texted that she has a plan
to get something again
for the last $300.
How could she still want to do this?
I bury my head under the covers.
I hear Anne say
that I need some time alone.
Falling asleep,
I walk the halls of our old
apartment complexes.
Pass vending machine after vending machine,
try to remember which doors were ours.
Protection
The next day,
Anne lets me watch Netflix on her computer.
Makes me grilled cheeses,
and doesn’t make me answer any questions.
It makes me want to hug her.
Carl comes home early from work.
He says he wants to take me somewhere.
Handing me a bike helmet he says,
“You’ll need this.”
Breaking
Anne gently hands me an old bike.
It’s pink and a little small for me.
I put on the helmet, even though
Mom would’ve never made me.
I don’t argue.
Carl rides ahead of me.
We cross a bridge.
The cars speed past us.
I tighten my grip.
We
wind down
roads through an apartment complex.
The wind picks up.
The sun disappears.
The trees grow denser.
The road steeper.
Going fast now,
down.
I feel the fear like the moment before I know Mom’s lost control,
and there’s nothing I can do to save her.
My breath quickens
all I can think is
I need to save her.
I slam on the brakes.
Crash.
Fall.
Bandaging
Carl turns back.
My knee banged and scraped.
My hand bleeding.
I curl in.
Fight back tears.
He pulls bandages, Neosporin from his fanny pack.
“What do you say we walk awhile?”
I nod. We park our bikes.
Limp down the rest of the road.
And there’s a river.
Alongside it
the trees whisper.
Inside it
geese honk.
Stones shine in the sun.
I think how much Mom would like it here. How she loves moving water.
Carl tells me this is called Forbidden Drive,
where there are no cars allowed.
My hand throbs.
My knee stings.
I don’t ask to sit but Carl
guides me to a bench.
In the quiet,
my mind sings
“You Are My Sunshine.”
My mom used to sing it to me
when I was little
and got hurt.
You’ll never know, dear, how much I—
But Carl interrupts—
“We’re happy you’re with us, Sierra.”
The bare branches quiver
and I stay quiet, still
not sure what to say back.
My Fault
Anne picks me up from the woods
in her car.
Throws my bike into the back.
Says she’s sorry I got hurt.
Would she be sorry if she knew it was my own fault?
I only got hurt
because I braked suddenly.
Mom would probably yell at me if she was here.
Tell me I am always worrying about nothing.
Our whole lives one big
Brake.
Crash.
Fall.
Stunned
In the afternoon,
the doorbell rings.
I look to Anne.
Her eyes widen.
She smacks her forehead.
She forgot, she says.
Audrey’s here for another lesson.
So much for a mental health day.
Anne’s hands in a chicken she’s preparing for dinner,
I get the door.
Before Audrey goes to the craft table,
she says:
“I know you’re lying for her.
Lauren hasn’t been the same since—
she’s not the same person anymore.”
Then—
“Sorry for Max and Emma the other day,
I told them it wasn’t you.”
I don’t know what to say,
so I step back, stunned,
hand and knee still hurting,
I head back up the stairway.
So Much More
I almost throw up
on my way.
So scared for Lauren,
for me.
I feel like I did on that bike.
The world moving so fast, it wouldn’t stop.
It’s all my fault.
Just like that day with Mom,
I should’ve made her stay home
and not take me to the mall.
I should’ve never gone into Amy’s room
to move the bracelet.
We would’ve never gotten caught otherwise.
I go to text Lauren,
to warn her,
but my hand slips,
knocking my kaleidoscope to the floor.
And the tears don’t stop,
as I sort through
the shards of mirrors,
all the pebbles,
bits of glass,
all that I have left
of my mother.
Finding
Anne finds me there,
crying,
sits down next to me.
She tells me
none of Mom’s choices
are my responsibility.
My mom has a disease.
It is so much bigger than me.
She tells me
she’s going to take me to AlaTeen.
I need to meet kids
with stories like my own.
She tells me
Audrey has a theory
she just shared with her.
That I wasn’t working alone.
She picks my chin up then,
makes me look into her eyes.
Says:
“Sometimes, the best thing we can do for anyone
is to let them fall.
This is the best—maybe the only—way to help them.”
I thought Mom’s fall
going to jail
would help her
it almost did
but maybe she still
hasn’t fallen hard enough.
Maybe it isn’t enough just to lose me to make her better?
Maybe she has to want it
for herself.
I think of falling off the bike.
How it hurt, but I did stop the bike myself.
By falling, I stopped the momentum.
The out-of-control feeling.
I saved myself
even though it hurt.
Look down at those splinters of glass, the beads.
Think how many pieces go into
making those swirling colors.
So much goes into making them spin.
Think about Lauren’s pieces.
How she’s so strong in her convictions
but how I’ve been worried about her, too.
I leave the mess there.
Walk into Amy’s room. Anne follows me,
to the place with all Lauren’s money.
“It’s Lauren’s.
She has a problem.
She needs help,”
I say,
trying not to look in Lauren’s window,
I keep my eyes on that parading unicorn.
LAUREN
Restitution
It was Sierra’s idea to take the blame for the bracelet, and she’d promised she wasn’t mad. But she wouldn’t talk to me when I went over Monday night, and she didn’t answer any of my texts when she was absent on Tuesday. And then on Wednesday, she didn’t sit with me on the bus home from school. She got on so late, I didn’t think she was going to make it, and then she took a seat right up front, next to a sixth grader.
As soon as the bus stopped at the end of our street, she sprinted straight home without even looking back at me, and then I saw Dad’s car. Parked in front of our house hours and hours before he should have been home.
He and Mom were in the study with the door closed and their voices fast and quiet—piling on top of each other’s but too soft for me to understand.
Ryan. Something must be wrong with Ryan. What if they decided he wasn’t coming home for winter break after all?
I went to my room, and I wasn’t surprised when Dad called up the stairs for me a little while later. They were going to break it to me, I figured. That we weren’t having Christmas as a family after all.
I wasn’t even surprised when he yelled up a second time, thirty seconds later, saying, “Right now, please, Lauren!”
But I was surprised when I followed his voice into the living room. He and Mom were sitting together on the smaller couch, just like when Mom found that stuff in my pajama drawer. But this time, the bigger couch wasn’t empty.
Anne and Sierra were there, side by side, with Anne’s arm linked through Sierra’s and Sierra’s head bent so far down that I couldn’t see her face at all.
“Sit down, Lauren,” Dad said in his lawyer voice. Absolutely definite.