by Rachel Hruza
I’m not going to lie; I loved—relished, lived for—the moment I was able to ply that ugly, plastic hug from around my waist. But when I didn’t wear it, I felt guilty and paranoid, worried about my back suddenly getting worse. I thought Megan might worry about that, too. Apparently not.
I stared at the ceiling in the restroom until the bell rang, counting tiles so I wouldn’t start to cry. I considered joining a convent, or venturing out into the forest to live as a hermit. Maybe someone would write a book about me. They could call it The Hunchback of the Midwest, or Lonely Hunchbacked Hermit: A Tale of Travesty and Betrayal.
I liked the second one. It would sell better based on its title alone.
I was certain it wasn’t a “diamond” day when I felt Jodi, the girl who sat behind me in my next class, tap me on the shoulder. Not only was it awkward for me to strain my neck to get a glimpse of what she wanted, but also the Velcro of my brace crunched as I rotated around to face her.
“You have something on the back of your shirt,” she said.
As I attempted to look, she took her fingernail and tried to scratch it off, moving the fabric of my sweatshirt against the hard plastic of my brace.
I leaned forward in a frightened spasm, saying loudly, “It’s okay. It’s a stain.”
A few people around us looked, but I was just glad when Jodi pulled her hand away and said, “Oh. Okay.”
I went to the bathroom later on in the period and looked in the mirror; the pressure of the fabric being sandwiched between my brace and chair had left a permanent mark on my perfectly good sweatshirt. Not only that, but Jodi Phelps had copped a feel of my brace.
I felt violated. Why would she just reach out and touch my shirt? I would never do that to her.
As I walked back to class, though, I grew honest with myself: Before-Brace Truth would do that. Brace-Wearing Truth avoided all forms of physical contact. I’d literally separated myself from my peers because I was afraid they’d find out about my brace. I avoided social contact because of it. The exact thing I’d feared would happen I’d done myself, and no one even knew the truth.
To make matters worse, I passed Oliver in the hallway that afternoon. I stopped to apologize for never coming to see him anymore, but he just kept rolling right on by as if he hadn’t seen me.
I had no one.
Days went by, and I couldn’t pull myself out of my down-in-the-dumps funk. My world had been turned upside down: I could trust the person I used to think was pure evil (pretty, perfect Jennifer Henderson), but the person I would have given my life for in the past (Megan Borowitz, traitor to scolis everywhere) refused to even talk to me.
I also had no idea what to write for my presentation. It hadn’t seemed like such a big deal at first, but then I thought about being in front of the whole junior high in the auditorium, not just in a classroom. Bright spotlights would shine down on me for all to see. And I’d be wearing my brace.
The next Wednesday, after Trendon family game night (Harold had selected Junior Monopoly—he might only be in kindergarten, but he still managed to clear me out of half my money ten minutes into the game every time we played), my mom sat me down.
“We need to talk,” she said.
“We don’t need to do anything,” I said, slumping (as much as I could slump in my plastic posture protector) against the kitchen table.
Harold laughed maniacally, fanning colorful fake paper money in my face as he packed up the game. Mom pushed me back up, into a seated position. “Yes, we do. We all have to do things we don’t like.”
“I don’t,” Harold said, running away, the game semi–put away.
I flopped back onto the table, and looked at my mom out of the corner of my eye. She was headed somewhere—a horrifying place where good parents lead the conversation when they want their kid to realize she’s being overdramatic or insufferable: the land of logic.
“I don’t either,” I mumbled, my face now buried in the sleeve of my extra-large sweater. I hated the fact I had to wear an extra-large. Without my brace, I could wear sizes anywhere from one to five. With my brace on, I jumped to a size thirteen. My wardrobe looked like it belonged to a yo-yo dieter.
“Yes, we do.” To my surprise, Mom flopped her arms on top of me. I had been trying to isolate myself, but she wasn’t letting that happen. It made me feel connected, but also annoyed.
I slowly slid off the table. Mom looked at me, her mouth set in a sort-of-smile my dad called “the mom face.”
“You will get through junior high, with or without Brendan, Megan, or a back brace. Life gives us lollipops, you know.”
“I thought it was lemons.”
“Nope, lollipops,” she said. Harold ran back into the room and leapt onto Mom’s lap, wrapping his arms around her neck. “Oof. We take our licks, and then we get to the sweet stuff.”
“But a lollipop’s sweet as you’re licking it, so that metaphor doesn’t work.”
“Tell her, Harold,” Mom said.
“Yesterday I cut my tongue on the crack of a Tootsie Pop,” Harold said, sounding like he was dictating what Mom told him after it happened. “My tongue was bleeding and I wanted to cry, but Mom told me it would get better if I drank some water. So I did, and it stopped.”
“Did you finish the Tootsie Pop then?” I asked.
“No! It hurt me! I don’t want any more, ever!”
“See?” I said to my mom. “Faulty metaphor.”
“But now I don’t have to worry about him climbing on the cupboards to sneak one and then falling off the countertop.”
“So you’re talking about benefiting from other people’s ‘lollipops of life.’”
“Yes,” Mom nodded.
“So if Brendan was a lollipop, now Megan is benefiting from my being hurt?”
“Exactly. Trendons are smart. We just get it.”
“But,” I paused, thinking it was strange my mother was telling me I had basically licked a boy. “That doesn’t make Megan sound like a good person. How is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Someday, you’ll get a drink of water and the hurting part will disappear,” Harold said.
My mom laughed.
“My tongue spull hurs,” Harold said, pulling out his tongue to show us.
“You’re so brave,” I said. “Prince Harry, the courageous knight who was defeated by the sugar-coated chocolate-on-a-stick!”
“Huzzah!” Harold shouted. He thrust his hand in the air, narrowly missing Mom’s face, and took off sprinting into the living room. I chased after him, glad I could still catch him while wearing my brace.
As I chased him, I thought about how little he had to worry. His biggest concern was lollipops. I’d never imagined having to go through junior high without my best friend by my side. Even with everything that had happened, I realized that until my mom had said it out loud, I hadn’t thought of it as a real possibility.
I lifted Harold off the ground and he squealed as I tossed him onto the couch. I tickled him and he giggled uncontrollably for several seconds after I stopped. Then his face turned deadly serious.
“Tru?” he said.
“Yeah?”
“It was a big Tootsie Pop.”
“I believe you, Prince Harry. I believe you.”
CHAPTER 17
From the Mouths of Toads
Time was passing quickly, and with the day of my “big presentation” (as my parents called it) almost a week away, I began to dread every minute of school life. I still hadn’t decided what I would speak about. Talking about why I liked school wouldn’t make for a riveting speech. No one would be listening to me anyway. No one cared about the thoughts of Truth Trendon, secret scoli. Though I small-talked with my peers and answered questions if I was called on in class, I didn’t have anyone I could talk to about anything really important. Even worse, Brendan and Megan were still hanging out, growing closer than ever. I’d see them holding hands in the hallway, and Megan was always laughing when they walked b
y. I’d spent enough time with Brendan to know he wasn’t that funny.
At lunch, I tried to sneak my way into several other groups of people, without success. I never felt like I was truly wanted. So I ended up taking my food to the locker room and reading a book every day. Honestly, I enjoyed this new predicament—as long as no one else came into the locker room. When they did, I hid my lunch and pretended to be getting deodorant out of my locker.
It actually happened quite a bit. That day, for instance, an eighth grader, Holly, walked in on me when I was right in the middle of one of the many devastating parts of The Grapes of Wrath. Just as a few tears had started to form in my eyes, the door flew open. I hid the book and tossed my egg salad into my backpack. Holly turned the corner, and as I looked up at her, a single tear slid down my cheek. Sir Newton’s gravity once again leading to my demise.
Holly kind of tilted her head and looked at me. “Rough day?” she said sympathetically.
It hadn’t been a horrible day, but I ran with it. “Uh-huh,” I said quietly.
“I heard about Brendan and Megan. Talk about stabbing your best friend in the back, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said. Her sympathy was starting to actually bring me down. I felt another tear coming on.
“You can do better. Right, Charity?”
I was taken aback for only a second, and then I laughed, knowing how angry Charity was going to be that someone thought I was her.
“I’m Truth,” I said. “Charity’s sister.”
“Oh, that’s what I meant,” Holly said. “Charity’s so cool. Don’t tell her I messed you two up, okay?”
I wanted to say, “So I’m not cool?” But I didn’t. I just smiled. Holly spritzed her already cemented ponytail with a pink bottle of hairspray and then walked back out the door. I pulled out my egg salad, not caring about the bits of it left behind in my bag—maybe they’d rot in there, and I’d be able to get a new backpack sans wheels.
Back to alone time, and back to the Joad family. I could have felt sorry for myself, but at least I wasn’t a sharecropper trying to survive in 1930s California. John Steinbeck made wearing a back brace seem like eating cotton candy compared to what that family went through.
Maybe my mom was right. Other people survived many worse hardships than suffering through junior high relationships with handsome boys who broke hearts and best friends who stabbed you in the back. Maybe I’d end up okay. (Just not very cool, if Holly’s reaction was any indication).
Lunch period neared to a close. I carried my book to my locker, still lost in its world in my mind, when suddenly my body stopped in its tracks before my brain registered what it was seeing: Megan standing up on her tiptoes and kissing Brendan on the lips.
Megan had just kissed Brendan in front of our locker.
How was I supposed to react to that?! My mind took off, spiraling in thousands of different directions—I imagined myself pulling the fire alarm, or calmly walking up and karate-chopping Megan’s head off, or sprinting like a linebacker and plowing into the two of them. But instead, my body picked the cowardly choice and I ran back toward the locker room.
I could hardly breathe or function, and my movements were mechanical and jerky like I had turned into a robot. I almost tripped several times.
When my hand touched the locker room doorknob, the bell rang. I stood there for several seconds, my brain completely empty and bursting with thought at the same time. I’d never felt so betrayed, so violated.
“I’ll have trust issues for the rest of my life,” I muttered.
“Just forget them,” a voice said.
I turned around. Jenny Henderson was behind me. Her sad smile told me she’d seen what I had. Then she hugged me. How was this happening?
“It’ll be okay,” she said. “Don’t cry.”
“I’m not crying,” I said.
“You will later,” she said. “It’s okay.”
“I gotta get to class,” I said. I peeked around the corner to look at my locker, relieved to see Megan and Brendan were gone.
“This school needs a rule about PDA,” Jenny said.
I laughed, thinking of all the times I’d seen her flirting with guys, touching their hair and leaning closer to them as she spoke. “Yeah,” I agreed.
“If you need to talk to someone, you can call me,” Jenny said.
I paused. Something just felt wrong. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Why are you suddenly being so nice to me? You’ve been mean for years, and suddenly, after Brendan broke up with me, you’ve been so nice. I’m not going to break up him and Megan for you or anything.”
Jenny stood there, her kind smile fading as her eyes narrowed. “I was being nice because I felt sorry for you.”
“I don’t want your pity.”
“You need it. You’re pathetic lately. Someone has to try to turn you around.”
I glared back at her. Some part of my brain realized that it wasn’t so bad that she was trying to be nice, and in fact, she was probably the only person I might be able to label as a friend right now. But my anger about Brendan and Megan had caught up to me, and I couldn’t control it. Unfortunately, Jenny was the one to receive it.
I cleared my throat and then said slowly, “You’re the pathetic one. Brendan doesn’t like you. He never did. So get over him.”
“I’m not the one who needs to get over him,” she said. “Sorry for trying to be your friend. I just thought you could use one right now.”
She spun around and walked away. The bell rang again. I was late for class, but I didn’t care.
I’d cut class before; maybe I’d do it again now. I left the locker room and then I turned the corner and ran right into a brightly-clad body.
“Whoa there!” Miss Peters said.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, looking at the floor.
“Maybe it’d be easier to walk if you looked ahead of you, instead of at the floor.” Miss Peters laughed.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Are you okay, Truth?”
I thought about bursting into tears and telling her everything—that Brendan couldn’t read and that he and Megan had together ferociously ripped out my heart and continued to stomp on it over and over again with their large (his) and tiny (hers) feet.
Instead, I felt my eyes slowly fill with tears as I looked up at her and said, “I’m sad.”
“Well, that definitely won’t do.” She looked at her watch. “I have about ten minutes left of my planning period. Do you want to walk with me?”
“Okay.” I thought she meant that we’d walk back up to her room, but she directed me outside, around the building. I took advantage of the fact that Miss Peters didn’t even ask if I was missing class.
“I like to walk during my lunch hour, but I didn’t have time today. Thanks for coming with me. The colder weather always turns me off to walking alone.” She paused, letting her breath catch up to her. “So, what’s up?”
I liked Miss Peters. In class, she was straightforward, cracked jokes once in a while, and pursued people until they got their assignments done. But I never expected she’d actually care about what was going on in my life.
I sighed, took a deep breath, and told one more person what I’d been trying to keep secret from every living soul. “I have a back brace and I’ve been wearing it since July, and it sucks.”
I looked at Miss Peters. Most teachers didn’t like the word “sucks” because it wasn’t a good descriptive word, but I found it apt for my situation.
“Really? I didn’t realize that,” she said. “Should I have?”
“No! I don’t want people to know. But it’s really hard to deal with some days.” I shoved my hands in my pockets to keep the chilly pre-winter air from drying out my skin. “But please don’t tell anyone. I don’t want a lot of people to know. Ms. Eastin and Mr. Landers know—and Megan and Brendan and Jenny Henderson. Oh, and Oliver Nelson.”
“Oliver?”
“Yeah, the counselor made us meet to talk to each other. I don’t think it was the best idea.”
“He’s making huge progress in his physical therapy, though. Have you talked to him lately?”
I hesitated, my shoulders drooping as I admitted my guilt. “No.”
“You should.”
I was quiet. She kept the interrogation going.
“Have Megan and Brendan been supportive?”
“Not as supportive as this brace!” I joked. Miss Peters didn’t laugh and I looked away, embarrassed. “Yeah, they have. They were. They just don’t get what it’s like, exactly.”
“It’s important to surround yourself with people who understand you for who you are. Junior high is tough because a lot of people don’t know who they are yet.”
“You can say that again,” I said.
But I knew who I was: Truth Trendon. Believer in morals and ethics, and resister of peer pressure. Former friend. Now friendless.
“When I was in junior high, I dyed my hair bright pink, wore all black, and went through an awful black eyeliner phase. I had black streaks all the way down to my chin!”
“Me too! Well, the eyeliner only. But I wasn’t very good with it, either.”
“See, we would have been friends.” Miss Peters grinned down at me.
Even though it was cold outside, my heart warmed me up head to toe. “Thanks, Miss Peters.”
“Now, I believe you are late for class. Here’s a late slip. I’ll sign it. Just tell your teacher I was helping you with an assignment.”
“Thank you,” I said. I was glad she had the slip with her; otherwise I would have had to stay after school to make up for the time I’d missed.
“And remember, things get better. Even if they get worse for a while, they get better eventually. They always do.”
Miss Peters kept walking, her arms pumping to help propel her legs faster around the parking lot. I slipped back into school with my note, and with a feeling that my life would indeed improve at some point; brace or no brace, Brendan or no Brendan.
