Overcomer

by Chris Fabry

  When her grandmother had asked why she took things, Hannah told the truth. She really didn’t know why. If she did, she would stop. It was just that every time she saw something of value, like the headphones on the bench or the watch on the bleachers, some inner switch flipped. It seemed each item she saw had a little sign only she could see, a voice whispering, “Take me! You need me!” She had to reach out and make them her own. Was it adrenaline that made her do it? Something else in her brain?

  In science class, Mrs. Harrison had talked about all the chemicals and hormones in the human body and how intricately people were designed. But sometimes things got out of balance. Could her problem be too much of a hormone? Maybe her asthma robbed her of something, disrupted some vital brain chemistry, and that was why she stole. Hannah had all kinds of theories and possibilities but no way to know.

  Another theory was that her parents had done this to her. One day she asked her grandmother about her mother. “When she was a kid, did she ever do anything that made you mad?”

  Just the mention of her mom sent her grandmother into some other world. She’d shake her head and scowl. Hannah never brought up her father anymore. That door was closed and locked tight. So she was left to guess and come up with ideas on her own.

  Mrs. Harrison had also talked about patterns of behavior and patterns of thinking that became paths in the mind. She said it was like water running through a channel and carving out a creek or a river. You do something over and over and it becomes a hard-to-break habit.

  The truth was, Hannah wanted to blame her problem on anything but herself. She wanted to feel she couldn’t control her actions, that she couldn’t say no. If there was something in her brain going wrong, she didn’t have to feel guilty. But that was just it—she did. Even now, riding in the back of the Harrisons’ car, the weight of all those things in the blue box pushed down on her. It was like running with a backpack filled with rocks, and the longer she carried it, the heavier it became. She knew she needed to take that backpack off and pull all the rocks out, but she had no idea how. She’d carried it for so long.

  She hadn’t needed the things she stole. It wasn’t like she was starving and grabbed a sandwich from someone’s lunch. She could explain that. She took things like the bracelet with shiny pendants from a younger girl at the Y. The girl wore it every day that summer, and the first time Hannah saw it hanging out of a zippered backpack pouch, she grabbed it. Later, the girl had gone from one person to another, tearfully asking if anyone had seen it.

  “My daddy gave it to me,” the girl said. “He’s in the Army over in Afghanistan.”

  That tore Hannah up. How would she have felt if someone had stolen something given by her father or mother? Hannah didn’t have anything like that, except for the pictures she kept squirreled away in her closet. Could that be why she wanted what others had? Were those things filling up a space inside? There was something about the objects—the digital camera, the cute blue watch with the flowers. She never wore the watches, never used the camera, but having them made her feel something. Hannah knew where the owners of these items lived and that they weren’t rich or spoiled, they couldn’t go out and replace the stolen items. So why did she keep them and not return them? Why didn’t she give back that girl’s bracelet if it meant so much?

  Deep inside, Hannah knew she could resist the urge to steal. It had happened many times. Something would be sitting on a table, a teacher’s purse would be open and Hannah would see a wallet. But because there were others in the room who would see her, she held back. She knew she could choose a better way. She simply didn’t, and that’s what bothered her and made her feel guilty.

  When they arrived at the meet, Hannah stretched and prepared for the race. Other runners paired off with team members or coaches, but Hannah stretched alone. Somehow she felt she didn’t deserve to have others around.

  “How are you feeling?” Coach Harrison said.

  Hannah shrugged. “Okay.”

  “I have big hopes for you today. All the interval training we’ve done in practice—I’ll bet this will be your fastest time yet. What do you think?”

  Hannah looked at the ground. “I’ll do my best, Coach.”

  “And that’s all I’m asking.”

  When the gun sounded, Hannah bolted, watching the girls in front of her running in a pack, teammates pacing each other. For the first half mile, she was shoulder to shoulder with several runners, fighting for position. Then she felt a burst of speed. When she ran alone in practice, she gauged her success by her own pace and looking at a watch. During a race, she could step to the side and fly past others. Each time she did, it felt like she was progressing. And in some ways she seemed to take something of value from those she passed. She had been in their position and she didn’t like it. To be the one moving ahead felt good.

  She tried hard to focus on the race, but she couldn’t get the face of her grandmother out of her head. She saw her holding Coach Harrison’s watch. Saw her toss it on her bed. She blinked and tried to forget the look her grandmother had given before she left the room. It was sheer disappointment in her grandmother’s eyes. She heard venom in her voice as she yelled her name.

  “Girl, you’re going to fool around and get your behind locked up.”

  Hannah imagined herself in an orange prison jumpsuit instead of a cross-country uniform. She saw razor wire and iron bars and the stern face of her dejected grandmother visiting a drab lunchroom, sitting across from her, shaking her head.

  “And there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  Running cross-country was hard enough when you could corral your thoughts. It was harder when they had free range to your soul. She tried pushing the memories away, tried outrunning them, but every time she took a breath, they condemned, accused, pointed a finger, passed her and looked back in frustration. The face of Headphone Guy flashed in her mind.

  “If I see her again, she’s gonna pay!”

  Hannah ran faster as if he were chasing her. Could she use these negative thoughts for something good?

  As she passed a runner on her left, something went wrong. She looked at the others ahead and her vision blurred. She heard a weird sound and realized it wasn’t from the woods. It was from her. It was the familiar dry wheeze. Each step became like lifting bags of sand. She couldn’t look ahead anymore, so she looked down and tried to breathe, just focus on that simple thing, breathing. But her lungs wouldn’t obey. They were protesting.

  Hannah hated asthma. She hated giving in to it and slowing down. She wanted to pretend it wasn’t there, but it was back now, with a vengeance, stealing her breath.

  Runners passed one by one until all of them were ahead of her. She didn’t care. When you can’t breathe, you focus all your energy and thoughts on that one thing. She slowed, bending to try any position to retrieve her breath. She stumbled toward a tree and put a hand out. Steadying herself, she remembered the inhaler.

  She pulled it from its carrier and lifted it to her mouth, the canister heavy as a dumbbell. She inhaled a puff and waited. Her legs gave way and she fell, her back scraping rough tree bark. Sweat dripped from her nose. Trees blurred. She thought of taking another puff, but even her thoughts had weight now. Everything was too heavy. She dropped the inhaler and it fell somewhere in the leaves.

  Where was she? Maybe halfway? No one would hear her if she yelled. And she couldn’t yell anyway. How would she get back? What would Coach Harrison think if she didn’t finish? His words weighed on her. He thought her time would be better. She wanted to finish in the top twenty. Maybe surprise everyone and get into the top ten. But now, sitting on the prickly pine needles, her back itching, she knew there was no finishing this race. And what was the point?

  She felt a gust of wind in the trees and looked up, the world swaying above and underneath her. Such a peaceful place. Such a storm inside. She heard voices in the distance. It sounded like echoes from some faraway land.

  “There she is!”

&n
bsp; “Hannah!”

  She didn’t realize it was the Harrisons until they reached her, grabbing her arms and helping her up. Mrs. Harrison found her inhaler on the ground and Hannah took another puff. She wasn’t getting the medicine.

  “Do you need to go to the hospital?” Mrs. Harrison said.

  Hannah shook her head. Her grandmother would kill her. “Replacement cartridge.”

  “Did you bring one?” Mrs. Harrison said.

  Hannah nodded. “Backpack.” Wheeze. “Front pouch.” Wheeze. “In a cool pack.”

  Coach Harrison took off through the woods. He looked scared but determined. He disappeared into the trees and Mrs. Harrison helped her walk, but they only made it about fifty yards. A few minutes later a runner with a Tucker High jersey found them. She had her hair in a blonde braid and wore braces. She handed the cartridge to Hannah.

  “Coach Harrison said I would get this to you faster than he could,” the girl said.

  “Thank you,” Mrs. Harrison said, looking through the trees.

  The girl studied Hannah. “I passed you on the course and heard you breathing hard, but I didn’t know you had asthma. I’m sorry. I should have stopped.”

  “It’s okay,” Hannah said, plugging in the new vial and taking a puff. Immediately she felt the difference. “Thank you for bringing this.”

  “Oh, no problem. Like I said, if I’d have known, I would have stopped.”

  When Coach Harrison returned, his blue coach’s shirt was soaked with sweat. He kept looking at Hannah, obviously distraught. He walked with them to the starting line, where coaches and parents waited. Hannah didn’t want to be seen. She didn’t want their pity. She stared at the ground until they made it to the car and she waited inside while they took down the tent and packed up.

  I hate asthma.

  Was this God’s way of punishing her? Had all her stealing piled up enough for Him to zap her during the race? Perhaps that was how life worked. If you did more good than bad, God would leave you alone. But when something tipped the scales, He acted. Maybe that was why her mother and father had died. They did one too many bad things and God punished them.

  Her grandmother asked, but Hannah didn’t tell her much about the race, only that she had to stop halfway through. She rested on Sunday, staying in bed all morning, then tried to study for a test but couldn’t concentrate.

  Hannah returned to school Monday with a better attitude. She had decided not to let that one failure derail her running career. It was just one race. She needed to put it behind her and move on. Besides, nobody at school knew about it except the Harrisons.

  Two girls from her algebra class sat at a lunch table, and to her surprise they asked Hannah to join them. Leslie was tall, had long brown hair, and had played on the girls’ basketball team the year before. Grace was African American and a whiz at algebra. She knew every answer when the teacher called on her. Hannah wanted to ask for help on a homework assignment, but she was new to the class and kept her questions to herself and tried to figure it out on her own.

  “Leslie was telling me about a retreat she went on this weekend,” Grace said.

  “Where’d you go?” Hannah said.

  “It was at a camp our church owns. Hiking trails and a lake. The cabins are pretty rustic, but it was fun.”

  “What did you do?” Hannah said. “I’ve never been to a campground.”

  “You should come to our youth group,” Leslie said. “We do Bible studies and play games. Best part of the weekend was the campfire. We sang and roasted marshmallows and ate s’mores.”

  Hannah had heard of s’mores, but she had no idea how to roast a marshmallow, and she didn’t want to ask and look stupid. Her heart fluttered a little and she felt somehow her world was changing. Maybe she would try the youth group, if her grandmother let her. Maybe she didn’t have to be on the outside looking in at everyone in the school.

  She heard a familiar voice and looked up as Robert stopped in front of her. He spoke with a sneer. “So, Hannah, I heard you didn’t even finish the race. What’s up with that?” He said it loud enough for Leslie and Grace to hear.

  Hannah looked at her food. To her surprise, Grace spoke up.

  “Go away, Robert.”

  No one had ever stuck up for her like that and goose bumps rose on her arms. Hannah studied her food and hoped Robert would be gone when she looked up. Instead, he inched closer, staring as if he were waiting to see the look on her face when he zinged her again.

  “I mean, giving up is even worse than coming in last.”

  Something rose up in Hannah and she grabbed the first thing she could find, a cup of red soda, and threw it at him. It splashed on his striped shirt. Good luck getting that out, she thought.

  Suddenly Robert was receiving something he hadn’t planned. He obviously didn’t have a lot of experience with anyone responding to his taunts. The lunchroom quieted as he dropped his tray on the table. His mouth fell open in horror.

  “Are you kidding me? You’re such a loser!”

  If Robert had gone away, none of this would have happened. If Robert had kept his mouth shut, there would be no stain on his brightly colored shirt. But Robert had finally hit the nerve of Hannah’s anger and she wasn’t through teaching him a lesson.

  She rose from the table and in one motion tossed the contents of her entire tray at him. He recoiled, but not quickly enough. The tray slammed against his chest and food splattered to the floor. Students gasped at the scene and stared, suddenly quiet and riveted to the two, as if this were a reality show.

  Robert had potato on his neck and chin and the lasagna had left a tomato-sauce stain on his shirt. If there had been judges watching the toss, Hannah thought she would have received a perfect 10 for accuracy.

  Hannah looked for something else to toss his way when Mrs. Charles, the lunchroom monitor, swept in. “Robert, stop it! Now you go get cleaned up and come to the office.”

  Robert turned and walked without speaking, dripping as he trudged away. Hannah felt vindicated. Mrs. Charles had obviously seen how mean he had been and that he’d deserved to wear Hannah’s lunch. She looked toward the two girls at her table. Leslie and Grace looked horrified. Hannah couldn’t tell whether she’d just lost her only chance at new friends.

  “And you,” Mrs. Charles said, looking straight at Hannah, “come with me now.”

  It was the same look her grandmother had given and her voice was filled with disappointment and judgment. Hannah made the long walk through the lunchroom with people whispering and tittering around her.

  She passed Ethan Harrison, the coach’s son. He would tell his dad and even if she wasn’t expelled, it felt like her cross-country career was over.

  Mrs. Charles led Hannah to the principal’s office, a long walk down a hall of shame, past staring students. Hannah sat in a chair and waited in the outer office while an assistant contacted Mrs. Brooks and alerted her there was a “DS” and she was needed. Hannah had been reduced to an acronym.

  Waiting was always hardest. If she could have walked in and explained everything, just tossed the story out there, surely Mrs. Brooks would have understood. But the longer she waited, the more she stewed, and the more she felt everyone was against her.

  She’d overheard one of the kids in the lunchroom saying Principal Brooks was tough. Hannah was inclined to agree. She had a nice smile, but you could tell she was in control, like a general overseeing an army. She’d been kind to Hannah, had remembered her name. But now Hannah was sure she was about to become an example.

  Hannah heard heels striking tile and Mrs. Brooks arrived. She looked at Mrs. Charles, then glanced down and her mouth dropped open. “Hannah, what are you doing here?”

  Mrs. Charles was more than ready to answer. They stepped inside Mrs. Brooks’s office and closed the door, leaving Hannah straining to hear. The noise in the office and the thickness of the door made that impossible.

  Finally the door opened. “Come on, let’s go,” Mrs. Brooks sa
id when Mrs. Charles left, motioning Hannah inside with a tilt of her head.

  Two chairs sat in front of Mrs. Brooks’s desk and Hannah chose the one closest to the window. Mrs. Brooks closed the door and slowly sat at her desk. Her office was decorated with pictures of the Brooks family and her desk was busy but organized. A Brookshire coffee mug sat next to the biggest calendar Hannah had ever seen. There were sticky notes on the woman’s computer monitor and a picture of her and a man Hannah guessed was her husband. The man had his arm around her, and Mrs. Brooks leaned against his shoulder. They looked happy. In love. A real family, like the magazine ad Hannah kept on her nightstand.

  “What did Robert say to you?” Mrs. Brooks said. “Mrs. Charles didn’t hear it.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Mrs. Brooks tipped her head. “Hannah, if it didn’t matter, I wouldn’t have asked. Mrs. Charles saw you toss your drink and heard him say something. That’s evidently when you decided he needed to wear your lunch.”

  Hannah looked up and saw the woman staring at her with . . . not a smile but something close to it.

  “What did he say?”

  Hannah told her.

  She pursed her lips. “My guess is, knowing Robert, this is not the first time he’s done something like this to you. Am I right?”

  Hannah nodded. “He’s been doing this since the first day.”

  “And you didn’t tell anybody because . . . ?”

  “I thought if I ignored him, he’d go away.”

  “And how’s that working out for you?”

  “Not too good.”

  “So you held it in and it built up and today you exploded.”

  Hannah sat up, her adrenaline kicking in. “I didn’t start it.”

  “I know you didn’t start it. But you don’t fight wrong by doing something wrong yourself.”

  Hannah stared out the window, waiting for the bad news. Waiting for the word expulsion.