“To feel human,” I say.
So Daniel shows me how to do it: The trick, as he shows me, is not to go toe-heel, toe-heel, as one might think, but to go heel-arch-ball, heel-arch-ball, just as if you were walking. He knows this from hiking with his dad in Oregon, well, before his dad got sick. “Just respect the laws of physics,” he says. “Use the entire surface area of your feet, and allow gravity to be your friend.”
“The laws of physics? I hardly passed chemistry.…”
“Just use your feet, and go slowly, at first. Then, pick up speed, and let yourself be.”
I run down the hill, just like he shows me how.
It’s pretty easy, when you know what to do.
And with that, I’ve completed numbers 1, 13, and 14 all in one day.
16
Of course, the very next day the envelope comes from the University of Illinois.
And it’s a thin one.
I sit on the front steps of my building, rip open the envelope, and skim the letter: Your application … blah blah blah … carefully reviewed … blah blah blah … We are sorry to inform you … blah blah blah …
Shit.
Well then.
Dad’s leaving for California, so my one option is to go with him, apply to a city college somewhere in the middle of L.A., and see what happens from there.
My other option is …
I have no other options.
Just when things were turning around. Just when I had friends again. And just when Daniel and I started whatever it is that we’re starting. Of course the letter would come today.
Daniel and Liss are going to U of I.
And I’m not.
Now what.
* * *
It’s the last week of school, and we’re all checked out, and the teachers could care less and everyone’s talking about summer road trips and dorm rooms and prereqs for fall. I get daily texts from Liss to join her and her new friends, Avery and Chloe, and the others for lunch, and so I do. Turns out they’re okay, I guess. I don’t have to love them like she does, but it’s nice to be included for once. What matters most is that we still have afternoons together, just her and me, and those feel like the old days.
I get hourly texts from Evelyn with little notes about the—and I quote—shitty-ass hospital food and the young male doctors who are beyond sexxxy.
And I get hourly kisses from Daniel, which are the best.
I never thought I’d be the one to say this, but I wish high school weren’t ending so soon.
On the last Thursday before graduation, Marquez calls me over after class, and for once, he doesn’t ask me to go sit outside on a bench. “Congratulations on a great year,” he says, shaking my hand.
“Thanks.”
“Sit down. What are your plans for fall?”
“Not sure.” I shrug. I tell him about the U of I and my move to California. “I don’t really want to go, though. I’m not sure how I can tell my dad that. I was hoping to get accepted to U of I just so I could stay in Illinois. It would have been a great excuse. I just don’t see myself as a California girl.”
“What about Columbia College? They have rolling admissions. It might not be too late. Go online and fill out the application, and I’ll make a couple of phone calls. I can’t promise anything, but you never know. If not in the fall, maybe in the spring? You’re going to do art, right?”
Oh. Wow. What?
“To be perfectly honest, I hadn’t thought about what I’m going to do, but that would be amazing if you could—”
He interrupts me and puts up his hand. “You are going to do art. That much I know.”
Really? Is this what I want? To be an artist?
To live the same life as her?
I watched her swim in colors and drown herself on the flat surfaces of canvas and ask questions about the universe without living in it.
I watched her sit in her studio, sketching, reading, painting, destroying—for hours and hours, days and days sometimes—disconnected from us, from her body, from what was real.
I watched her deteriorate. I watched her wither. I watched her shrivel.
Obesity, diabetes, heart disease, kidney failure, sepsis, death.
She didn’t choose this life, but she didn’t fight against it, either.
And here I am, an artist. Starting out, just like her.
What is it that I want?
“Do I have to decide right now?” I say this aloud, but I know the answer right as I finish the question.
Marquez looks surprised and, frankly, a little disappointed, but then he says finally, “No, you don’t have to decide anything. You have to live your life. No one else is going to do it for you.”
I hear my mom’s words: Be brave, Georgia.
The bravest thing I could do right now is to step out into the unknown, away from her.
Maybe I will go to art school.
Maybe I won’t.
But I know that there are other options. Other items that aren’t on the list. Other lists, long lists, that have yet to be written.
* * *
I almost don’t go to graduation because I hate last things. But I do, for my dad. I’m sweating under my polyester gown and the ceremony is cheesy and long and I can’t sit for this long in the glaring sun, but in the end, when we throw our caps into the air, I can’t help crying. We need finality. We need conclusions. We need to know when the old ends and the new begins.
After the ceremony and the obligatory Greektown lunch with Maria and all the cousins who drove in from the suburbs, Dad and I drive home in silence. He closed the restaurant for the day (only three weeks left until he closes it for good), so we have the whole day to ourselves, which is something we’re really not used to.
“Tell me, koúkla mou, what now? What should we do?”
I blurt it out. “Dad, I don’t want to move to California. I want to stay here in Chicago. Go to school here. Maybe live with Evelyn. Make sure she’s okay. I want to live my life here.” I don’t even realize that this is what I want until I say it aloud. And when I say it, I know it’s exactly what I need to do.
He looks over at me, and he isn’t at all startled or worried or unnerved. “Okay, koúkla. Whatever you want. We can figure it all out in good time.” He pauses. “But, I meant to say, what do you want to do today? For the rest of the afternoon?”
Oh.
I think for a moment. #8. “I want to go fishing. Do you know how?”
We stop home to change, and then he drives us up to the North Side, where we rent fishing gear and stroll along the Des Plaines River, where the forest preserves drown out the suburbs.
He shows me how to hold the rod and cast the line and how to sit quietly and wait. We catch a few pike—they are golden, stolid creatures—and then we unhook their mouths and throw them back in.
“Dad,” I say as we’re packing up the car, “I’d like to go skydiving, too.”
He plants a kiss on my forehead. “Not today, koúkla. Maybe tomorrow.”
* * *
Somehow, I’ve made it this far. And now, somehow, despite all my deeply ingrained fears, I have to learn how to swing from four ropes twenty-five feet off the ground.
Shit.
But I made a promise to myself.
And to my friends.
With the money I earned from my painting sales, I offered to pay for their trapeze lessons if they would do it with me. There’s a place on the lakefront where they teach you how to fly. “Come be a monkey with me,” I told them. Of course, they were all in, no questions asked.
So two weeks after graduation, a mere three weeks after my grand art debut and my reunion with Liss and Evelyn’s shaky return to our world and my first kiss with Daniel, I’m here, suspended upside down, with all of Chicago inverted around me.
And this is what it’s like:
I’m oscillating from one end of the ladder to the other.
The net is so very far below my head.
Th
e blood rushes to my head and
my friends, they call out to me, and
I’m screaming and
laughing and
howling
above the world.
The entire city moves under me.
It’s all there, waiting.
I’m marking air,
I’m moving time.
The molecules around me sway and
bump and
move right along
with me.
I’m doing everything.
I’m doing it all, Mom.
Even more than you could have ever imagined.
For me, and
for you.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to Rose Hilliard, for your guidance, encouragement, and excitement. Thanks to everyone at St. Martin’s Press, including Jen Enderlin, Anne Marie Tallberg, Michelle Cashman, Emily Walters, and Lizzie Poteet. Olga Grlic, thank you for the beautiful cover. A thank-you to Courtney Miller-Callihan, for your wisdom and grace; also, special thanks to everyone at Sanford J. Greenburger Associates.
So much gratitude to my soul sisters, Kate Eberle (also the very first reader), Aimee Kandelman, and Kara Noe. To my first readers, Pamela Zimny and J. A. Ward, who encouraged me to take the leap to send this story out into the world. Thank you to my California family: “Papa” Ray Elias, Chuck Bush, Karnit Galmidi (bubba), Michael Braun, Mandy Berkowitz, Jon Berkowitz, Hannah Maximova, Michael Hartigan, and Tessa Taylor. This also includes my Yoga Blend family: Christy Marsden, Bekah Turner, Nicole Honnig, and absolutely everyone at the studio. Thanks to my family in Chicago and Greece. Special long-distance hugs to Shirley Mann, for the weekly calls, candles, and “attagirls.” I am grateful to be surrounded by so much love.
I am eternally grateful to the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Special thanks to Francesca Rusackas and Q. L. Pearce at the SCBWI SoCal chapter. Also, thanks to my writer friends, Lori Polydoros, Kathleen Green, Teri Keeler, Hilde Garcia, Amy Elaine Mills-Klipstine, Amaris Glass, Autumn Hilden, Farrah Penn, Frey Hoffman, and Antonio Borrego. Robyn Schneider, thank you for your good advice. Corrie Shatto, thank you for your friendship. Your spirit is a gift in my life. Over the past year, the YA Binders have added another amazing dimension to my community. To my writing teachers, Noel Alumit, Mandy Hubbard, and Margo Dill, thank you for your honest feedback and guidance. Thanks to the UCLA Extension and LitReactor for the fantastic classes. Thanks to my friends and colleagues at Pasadena City College and to my students for your constant curiosity and openness.
This book is also dedicated to my parents, Ted and Eleanor Kottaras. I miss you.
Finally, to the two loves of my life, Matthew and Madeline. In the moments that I am brave, it’s because of you.
If you or someone you love is thinking about suicide, please call
1-800-273-TALK (8255)
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available to help.
For more information about warning signs and resources, visit
www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
E. Katherine Kottaras is at her happiest when she is either (1) at the playground with her husband and daughter and their wonderful community of friends, (2) breathing deeply in a full handstand, or (3) writing. She is originally from Chicago, but now she writes and teaches in the Los Angeles area.
www.ekatwrites.com. Or sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Part 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Part 2
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Acknowledgments
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Information
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
HOW TO BE BRAVE. Copyright © 2015 by E. Katherine Kottaras. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the authors to reproduce from the following:
Carol S. Eliel, Lee Mullican, Amy Gerstler, and Lari Pittman, Lee Mullican: An Abundant Harvest of Sun (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2005).
Cover design by Olga Grlic
Cover photographs: girl © Ondine32/Getty Images; doodles © Oksana Alekseeva/Shutterstock
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-07280-1 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-8467-0 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466884670
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].
First Edition: November 2015
How to Be Brave Page 19
