Until I Break

by Bietz, Kara M.

  Downstairs, Mom is in the sunroom, stretching. I look out the window. Grandpa’s truck is gone. I stand in the doorway of the sunroom, watching Mom.

  “Where’d Grandpa go?” I ask.

  “He had a meeting at the school,” she answers, her eyes closed as she stretches her hands toward her toes.

  “Oh,” I answer.

  Suddenly I feel like I don’t belong there. I have a sinking realization that the house was plenty full before I came back home, and now there’s another body here that doesn’t belong. The odd man out. The awkward puzzle piece that doesn’t quite fit into the empty hole.

  “I’m really sorry…” I start to say.

  She holds her hand up to me, but doesn’t turn my way or open her eyes.

  “Don’t do this,” she says. “Not now.”

  I sit down on the soft rug in the sunroom and try to mimic my mother’s movements. Three deep breaths from the bottoms of my feet. Hands in my lap, palms up. She still doesn’t open her eyes.

  “Your record will be sealed on your eighteenth birthday,” she says, her voice cracking.

  “I know,” I say. “Just two more weeks.”

  “You’ll finish your last semester at Gadsden High and start all over again. Apply to schools. Get a job. Everything is going to be fine,” she says, exhaling.

  “I know, Mom. I know how lucky I am that I can start to put this behind me. I don’t know that I would have been this lucky without Michael,” I say. I stare at her, but she never opens her eyes. I don’t think she’s talking to me. I think she’s talking to herself.

  “This will not define us,” she says.

  Us?

  I stand up from the floor and walk out of the sunroom. “I’m going to JC’s for dinner,” I say over my shoulder as I walk out the door.

  I walk to JC’s house, my heavy coat wrapped around me. I have a strange churning in my gut. Neither Mom nor Grandpa really seemed that excited to have me home. Everything feels completely off. It’s almost like Mom wants to pretend it never happened. I can’t do that.

  It happened. It happened to me. It happened because of me.

  There is a beat-up gray Honda in JC’s driveway with about a half dozen UConn bumper stickers on it. I smile. He’s already home.

  JC opens the door as I’m walking up the winding sidewalk. He comes running out, grabs my shoulders, and pulls me into a giant bear hug before I even make it to the front stoop.

  “Oh my God, Sam!” he says into my neck. His shoulders shake, but he doesn’t let go.

  I pat his back and try to return the hug. He lets go and ushers me into his living room, closing the door behind us.

  “Look what I found outside!” JC yells.

  “There he is!” Mrs. Cushman comes to the front door, wiping her hands on a dish towel. She throws it over her shoulder and pulls me into a hug.

  “I’ve missed you so much,” she says. “Did you get my letters?”

  “Every one of them,” I say, and I mean it. Mrs. C wrote me at least twice a week the entire six months I was in juvie. Nothing real deep, but long letters. Handwritten words of encouragement, short snippets about what JC was up to, sometimes pictures of the projects Mr. C was working on. I read every single one of them at least three times. I wrote her back too.

  She smiles and squeezes me around the shoulders. “You and JC go catch up. Dinner will be in a little bit,” she says.

  JC motions outside. He tucks his basketball under his arm, and we walk down the road to the playground court we went to when we were kids. The sun is setting, and the wind is howling. We are the only people at the playground.

  JC starts shooting and grabbing his own rebounds. I hover near the bench, not sure whether to sit down and watch or just stand here. JC sends me a perfect bounce pass. “Shoot,” he says, nodding toward the hoop.

  I dribble toward the basket, and it feels weird. My muscles are tight, and the ball scrapes my hand and feels too something. Too big. Too small. Too much.

  I bounce the ball back to JC. “How’s school?” I ask.

  “Awesome,” he says. “Did you get my letters too?”

  “I did,” I say. JC sent a few postcards from UConn. Short notes of the “thinking about ya” variety. I hung them up on my wall with gum. I tell him this.

  He smiles at his shoes. “What do you think about going to Gadsden?” he asks, shooting a three-pointer and making it easily.

  I just shrug and sit down on the bench, my hands in my pockets.

  “It’ll work out, Sam. It’s just a little detour,” he says, sitting down next to me on the bench.

  I nod and look at my feet. My gut is churning again. I thought it would feel okay to be with JC. I thought it would be easy.

  “The Quinns moved out of state,” he says, dribbling the ball between his knees.

  I nod again.

  “Ace is still here, though. At Oceanside,” he says, getting up and taking a few shots from the foul line.

  I hold my breath and wait for the news to sink in. I squeeze my fists in my coat pocket and wonder what I’m supposed to feel. All I feel is numb.

  “He had to do a bunch of community service, you know. He was scrubbing graffiti off the playground equipment at the public beach for a few weeks. Then someone said they saw him hauling canned goods for the soup kitchen right before he started school.” JC takes another shot from the foul line.

  “Community service, huh?” I scuff my foot in the loose gravel under the bench. My stomach turns.

  “Yeah. He lost his scholarship because of the…um.” JC stops dribbling and looks at my face. “You don’t want to hear about all of this, do you?”

  I shake my head. “Not really, no.”

  He dribbles from one end of the court to the other and makes a nice easy lay-up.

  “I talked to Marnie a few days ago,” he says.

  I sit up a little straighter. “She okay?”

  “She’s good,” he says.

  I want to know more, but I don’t feel like I can ask.

  “She went to Florida State, you know,” he says.

  I exhale. Florida State. That’s 1,300 miles from Oceanside. One thousand, three hundred miles between her and Ace.

  JC hands me the ball, and I dribble between my knees while I sit on the bench. It doesn’t feel as weird as it did. I get into a rhythm and stand up, not stopping my dribble. I walk toward the goal and take a shot. I miss by a lot. I bounce the ball back to JC. He shoots a foul shot and makes it.

  “We better go home. Almost dinnertime,” he says.

  I follow him away from the playground, casting one last glance toward the rusting hoops.

  The table is set with dark-blue linens, and white candles are burning when we walk back into the house. A pot roast is in the middle of the table, with small bowls of vegetables dotted around it.

  “This is wonderful, Mrs. C, but you didn’t have to go to all this trouble,” I say when we’re all seated.

  “Our days of TV trays are over, Sammy. It’s no trouble. Plus, our boys are home! There’s nothing more worth celebrating than that,” she says.

  Her boys. I feel my cheeks burn, and I have to look away. I don’t feel like an awkward puzzle piece.

  The Cushmans keep up a lively conversation during dinner, and I don’t have to say many words at all. No one comments that I’m being too quiet. Mrs. Cushman serves me more mashed potatoes when I finish mine, and Mr. Cushman fills my water glass every time I take a sip. JC talks about all of his classes and how much studying he thinks he’s going to have to do to get through his finals next month.

  Everything feels warm. For the first time in a long time, I smile and laugh without thinking. When dinner is over, I help clean up. JC is putting the last plate into the cupboard when the kitchen falls silent. I can feel all kinds of things start to bubble up in that silence.

  “I really should be going back home,” I say quietly.

  Mrs. Cushman smiles softly. She and her husband walk me to the
door.

  “It’s good to have you home, Sam. Don’t be a stranger. Our door is always open,” Mr. C says, patting me on the back.

  Mrs. C hugs me and rocks back and forth for a good minute.

  “I’ll walk with you,” JC says, pulling on his heavy coat and tucking his basketball under his arm.

  We walk a full block without speaking. My stomach isn’t churning anymore, and the silence feels okay.

  “Feel like hanging out tomorrow?” JC finally says when we get to the top of my street.

  “Sure,” I say, not really sure at all. Hanging out. It was something JC and I did all the time before. It was effortless. But now, I don’t even know what hanging out means. Nothing feels like it fits. Words I used to understand now have a completely different meaning. Michael said it would take awhile before things started to feel somewhat normal. And it would never be like it was before. Before. Is that what my life is going to be now? Separated into before and after?

  We walk down my street until we reach the top of my driveway. I look over at Ace’s house. The driveway is empty, and there is a Realtor’s lockbox on the front door. JC shuffles his feet in the sandy gravel at the curb.

  “Remember what you said to me that day?” he asks.

  I shake my head. I only remember bits and pieces of that day. And the bits and pieces show up at random times too. While I’m brushing my teeth. Eating the Tuesday oatmeal breakfast. Changing my sheets.

  “What did I say?” I ask.

  “It’s not important,” JC says. “It’s not true anyway.”

  He claps me on the shoulder before turning and running back down the street toward his house. He dribbles the basketball the whole way. I watch him until he reaches the stop sign at the end of my street and turns left. Even when he’s gone, I can still hear the echo of his dribbling from the top of my driveway.

  I turn and look toward my house. The lights are on in the living room, and I can see Grandpa in the rocking chair, the newspaper spread across his lap. He catches sight of me standing in the pool of streetlight. He nods and waves without smiling. I nod and wave back. Michael’s words bounce around in my head: It’s going to take some time.

  32

  JANUARY

  Eight Months After

  Sometimes when it’s real quiet at night, I think about Marnie. How things happened. How much I miss the person she was. How much I miss the person I was when we were together.

  Sometimes I wonder what life would have been like if I hadn’t gone to school with a gun that day. Ace and I would have been at Oceanside College together. That’s usually where I stop wondering and remind myself that I did go to school with a gun that day. No amount of wishing or hoping or wondering will change that.

  Sometimes there’s shit you just can’t take back. Wondering how life would be different if I had made a different choice is one of those things Michael calls “an epic waste of a time.”

  I start the second semester of my senior year at Gadsden High School tomorrow. I worry that it will feel too much like Broadmeadow. I worry that people will want to talk to me about what happened with Ace. I worry that people will look at me and only see that one gigantic mistake. I worry that I will have no friends. I worry that I will have friends but they won’t be anything like JC.

  I have an appointment with Michael tonight.

  “You ready for your big day tomorrow?” he says, kicking his feet up onto the arm of the couch I am sitting on. He leans back in his spinny chair.

  “I think so,” I say, trying my best to swallow every bit of worry that has been sticking to my ribs since November.

  “It’s okay if you’re not, you know. It’s not going to be easy,” he says.

  I nod, but I can feel that swallowed worry trying to climb back up. Clawing its way from my throat to the back of my tongue.

  “I don’t expect that everything’s going to go perfectly, Sam. You’ll probably have a few hiccups. I need you to anticipate that,” he says. “You have my number in your phone. I’ve already spoken with your new guidance counselor, Ms. Waller. She’s expecting you tomorrow morning.”

  “Okay,” I say, the anxiety building in my gut. I know my appointment with Michael is almost over. I’ll be one step closer to starting over. High school. The belly of the beast.

  “You can do this, you know,” he says, standing up and clapping me on the shoulder.

  “I know,” I say, even though I’m not completely convinced.

  The next day, I’m up before the sun rises. I put on jeans and a green sweater. I leave my black hoodie hanging in the closet.

  Grandpa drives me to Gadsden High School on his way to Broadmeadow. He doesn’t say much and keeps the heat vent on full blast for the entire ride.

  A handful of rocks starts to tumble in my gut. “I’m sorry you have to bring me to school, Grandpa,” I say.

  At first, Grandpa says nothing, only grunts a little bit. More like a quiet humph than any meaningful noise. As we pull into the circular driveway in front of Gadsden, he turns the heat down a few notches.

  “Sammy,” he says finally, his voice a low rumble.

  “Yeah, Grandpa?”

  “You’ve got nothing to apologize for,” he says, not taking his eyes off the slow-moving traffic in front of him.

  I don’t answer.

  “You’re standing on your own two feet. That’s all anyone can ask of a man,” he says, putting his truck in park at the front door and letting the engine idle.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m proud of you. I know it can’t be easy to start over like this. Your dad would be proud of you too,” he says to his lap.

  I don’t move from the seat. I grip the strap of my backpack in my lap and search my head for the right words.

  “No one is disappointed, Sammy,” he says, turning the heater up full blast again and putting the truck in drive.

  I climb out of the truck, the last dregs of fear and worry seeping from my fingertips. I watch Grandpa drive away from me, and I take a deep breath of cold January air.

  I open the door to the school, and a fresh blast of warm air greets me. No one notices. No one looks at me and stares. No one points or whispers.

  I’m not just the broken kid who shot the Broadmeadow quarterback. I’m no longer the silent boy that pulled his black hoodie around his head and disappeared from reality. I’m not the scared kid that was afraid to ask for help. I’m not a disappointment.

  “Excuse me, can you tell me where to find Ms. Waller?” I ask a kid walking near me.

  “Right in there.” He points to his left. “You new here?”

  “Yeah, I am,” I say.

  “I’m Raj,” he says, sticking his hand out.

  I hesitate for just a minute. “Sam,” I say, shaking Raj’s hand.

  He blinks and stares at my face for a beat longer than necessary. “Welcome to Gadsden,” he says.

  RESOURCES

  If you’re being bullied, or if you have thoughts of harming yourself or someone else, help is out there.

  The website www.teensagainstbullying.org has extensive information and support for those who are bullied or witness bullying.

  Need someone to talk to? The following resources offer free and confidential twenty-four-hour assistance:

  121help.me Call 1-855-201-2121 or text HELP to 20121. www.121help.me

  Crisis Text Line Text START to 741-741. Website also includes listings for live chat with other support organizations. www.crisistextline.org

  National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Call 1-800-273-TALK (8255). www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Without the tireless efforts of many, Sam, Ace, and Marnie would still be sitting in an untouched folder on my laptop. Several people deserve boisterous applause for the role they played in helping me share Sam’s story.

  To my editor, Wendy McClure: Your insight and gentle guidance took this story to places I never dreamed it could go. Thank you for believing in me a
nd in Sam’s voice.

  To the team at Albert Whitman: Thank you for the little fixes (and the not-so-little fixes) and for bringing this book to life.

  To my agent, Courtney Miller-Callihan: Thank you for having my back. Thank you for always saying “Yeah! Try that!” whenever I called to say, “I have this really screwy idea…” Thank you for knowing I could get here. Thank you for bridges and hot tubs and endless text chats. Thank you for being you.

  To Ash Parsons and Vicky Shecter: Your unwavering encouragement—coupled with Friday Night Lights references and shirtless, cute guy GIFs—carried me through many a dark moment. I love you both. TUDlife fist bump.

  To the DSDs: Lauren Karcz, Ashleigh Hally, and Cathi O’Tyson, you’ve been with me on this journey since day one. There’s no way I could ever have gotten to this point without all of you.

  To Cathy C. Hall and Doraine Bennett: The universe put you in my path for a reason. Your enthusiasm and friendship pulled me through many a thorny plot problem! I will forever be grateful.

  To Suzanne Waller: You’ve shown me how to be brave. There is no greater lesson than this. You’re always in my heart.

  To Mom, Dad, and Kristen: My very first cheering section! Thank you for never saying I couldn’t, shouldn’t, or wouldn’t. I love you.

  To Ryan and Lauren: Look! I did it! Thank you for your patience and understanding throughout my endless dinner chats about people that only exist in my head. You are the best things to ever happen to me, and you make me so proud every day.

  To Steve: You knew. You always knew. You’re my cheerleader, my BS-meter, my idea machine, and my best friend. For all of these reasons and a million more, I’m forever grateful. Love you to the moon and back.

  Finally, to Gram and Gramps: I hope I’ve made you proud. I miss you both every single day.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Kara Bietz lives with her husband and their two children near Houston, Texas, where she works in a high school library. She spends her evenings dictating story ideas to her dogs, jotting down plots, character arcs, and story lines on a giant whiteboard, and eventually turning those conversations and notes into manuscripts. This is her first novel.