The Brave

by James Bird

  Orenda is in her wheelchair, painting. She doesn’t turn around.

  I move closer to her to see what she is working on. Wow. She’s painting yesterday. It is the two of us holding hands, standing at the edge of the bluff. There are butterflies all around us, in every imaginable color. That memory has been locked into my brain from the very moment it occurred, and she captures it perfectly.

  “That’s beautiful,” I say to her.

  She turns and sees me. So she wasn’t listening to music; she was just really in the zone. She is wearing a purple baseball cap. By the look of how worn it is, I’m guessing it was her dad’s once—or even her grandpa’s. I recognize the logo on it. It’s a football team my dad always rooted against. I can’t remember their name to save my life, but if I had to guess, I’d say they’re called the Minnesota Angry Blond Guys? Her black strands flow freely out of it, framing her beautiful fire-skinned face.

  I realize that as cool as I try to act around her, the moment she looks at me, I melt off any coolness and become … well, me. Which, strangely, feels … good.

  I can actually be myself around her. For the first time in my life, I don’t need to hide who I am in front of someone. And it feels really good. And feeling good is better than trying to feel cool. Both are four letters. Both are double o’ed, but they are so different from one another. I’d rather be seen as a good person than a cool person.

  “Did you finish the book?” she asks.

  Her voice sounds much thinner today, like she’s really tired.

  “Nineteen. I did. I cried.”

  She smiles and positions her wheelchair to face me. I notice her movements are a bit more forced, like her limbs aren’t moving as fast as her brain is telling them to.

  “I love happy endings,” she says.

  “Seventeen. Me too.”

  She extends her hand. I take it and hold it. Her skin is cold. Much colder than the air outside. “But like all good stories, the end is just the beginning.”

  “Forty-five. What do you mean?” I ask.

  “It means there is a sequel. And yeah, it’s scary,” she says, and lets out a tired giggle.

  “Thirty-six. Can you stand?” I ask.

  She purses her lips together. “Not very well today,” she says.

  “Sixteen. Why? What happened?”

  “I told you, I’m changing—”

  “I know you’re changing. But I need to know what that means.”

  “Hey! Look at that,” she says.

  “Look at what?” I ask.

  “You’re not counting my letters.”

  What? I play it back in my head. And sure enough, she’s right. I didn’t. Two whole sentences! This is huge. I want to celebrate this victory, but I can’t yet. I first need to know what is happening to her.

  “Twenty-five. What do you mean by changing?” I’m back to counting, but for once I don’t care. Numbers are the last thing on my mind, even if they are the first things on my mind right now.

  She releases my hand and rolls to her bed. I watch her carefully lift herself onto the mattress. It’s as if she’s moving in slow motion.

  “I don’t really want to talk about that right now,” she says.

  “Thirty-eight. Orenda, please.”

  “You know what you need to know. Can’t that be enough?”

  “Forty. No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Six. Because I don’t think you’re telling me everything,” I say. “And I’m worried.”

  “I never asked you to worry about me,” she says.

  “Twenty-eight. That’s not how worrying works. Just tell me what’s really happening to you.”

  Her eyes shoot daggers at me. I’ve never seen this side of her. Her eyebrows dart down, and her focus zeros in on me.

  “Are you calling me a liar?”

  “Twenty. No, I’m sorry—”

  “Get out!”

  She tries to stand, but her legs fail. She hits the floor, landing on her knees, and winces. I rush to help her, but she pushes me away.

  “Get out! Six! I did it for you, now leave!” she yells.

  Her words bubble and grow inside of me like storm clouds eating a clear sunny day. They darken, chew, and pour onto my brain. I want so badly for them to disappear, so I can try to make this better with Orenda, but they swell and flood my thoughts, causing me to seal my eyes shut so numbers don’t leak out of them.

  I drop to my knees, too. Please, numbers, get the hell out of my head! But right before I’m about to drown in the inundation of letters, I open my mouth and let them all surge out of me. “Thirty-five,” I shout.

  Orenda’s smile cracks open. First a light chuckle exits her mouth, but before I can ask what’s so funny, she bursts out laughing.

  Her laugh is contagious, and soon we are both laughing hysterically. A whole new current of tears streams freely down my face. Not upset ones, but uncontrollable laugh-tears … One minute, shouting at each other, and the next, we’re laughing so hard that we can barely breathe.

  “That was our first fight,” she says.

  “Twenty. Yeah, I think you won.”

  “I don’t know, your ‘thirty-five’ was pretty good,” she says, which makes us laugh again.

  She wipes the funny from her cheeks and climbs back into her bed.

  “Thirty-six,” I say, and sit beside her.

  We just had an argument and an epic laughing session within two minutes. Both have left me exhausted. Maybe I’ll just lie here for a bit and—

  “My mom really likes you,” she says.

  And just like that, I am right back to needing answers.

  “Nineteen. You really think you’re turning into a butterfly, don’t you?”

  “I know I am,” she says.

  “Eight.”

  “You don’t believe me, do you?” she asks.

  “Twenty-one. I don’t know what to believe.”

  “That’s all right. You will,” she says, and offers me her hand again.

  I take it. We stare into each other’s eyes, and I’m suddenly okay with us being the two biggest weirdos in Minnesota.

  “Twenty.”

  She smiles at the number I whisper and leans into me. Her eyes close, and her mouth opens slightly. Here it is. I close my eyes and lean in toward her. Our lips touch. At first, it’s soft like two pillows pressing against each other, but her other hand grabs the back of my head and pulls me even closer.

  My entire body immediately goes warm. I touch the back of her head. I gently pull the baseball cap and run my fingers through her hair and then, something shifts. She pulls back and sits up. As she does, her black hair nearly slides off of her head. It’s a wig.

  “I have to go,” she says, and climbs back into her wheelchair.

  I can’t believe I just ruined the moment.

  “I’m sorry,” she says as she fastens the wheelchair to the rope, but her arms aren’t cooperating with her. She tries to shake it out, flapping her arms into obedience, but the frustration in her face mounts.

  “Sixteen. Orenda, let me help you.”

  “I don’t need help. I never need help, got it?” she fires back at me.

  Her words stop me in my tracks. “Thirty-two. Okay,” I say, and watch her struggle to get her wheelchair ready for its descent.

  She does need my help. She’s basically hyperventilating, and I’m just standing here. I rush forward and reach for the rope, but as I do, she loses her grip on it and the wheelchair plummets to the ground. It makes a crash so loud that it brings her father into the yard almost instantly.

  “Orenda! Are you all right?” Foxy shouts.

  “I’m fine. Please just go back inside!”

  I look through the hole in the floor and see him staring up at us. He doesn’t move. I wouldn’t either. I put my hand on her shoulder as she begins to cry.

  “It’s okay,” I say to her.

  But she shrugs my hand away and grabs hold of the rope. She takes two deep br
eaths and begins to lower herself. My entire body tenses. If she falls, hopefully Foxy will catch her. Before she leaves, we lock eyes again.

  “Don’t forget to train tonight,” she says, and lowers her head out of the tree house opening.

  I watch Foxy reach up and guide her into an embrace. She wraps her arms around his neck and buries her head into his shoulder. I can’t hear her crying, but I know that she is.

  She’s sicker than I thought. I drop to my knees and look directly below me. I see the overturned wheelchair lying on its side in the grass. It’s a pretty accurate representation of how I feel right now … Broken.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  BEAUTIFUL WINGS   (27)

  I stay up all night, not hitting the punching bag, and not even playing back everything that happened with Orenda in the tree house. I can’t sleep because Seven and my grandma haven’t come home yet. After pacing back and forth in my room until about three in the morning, I finally pass out.

  I wake up still fully dressed, and with Seven sleeping right beside me. I didn’t know that grandmas stayed out so late. Aren’t old people supposed to be in bed early? I didn’t even hear them come in. I need to have a talk with her about this. I have enough things to worry about right now. At least it’s Saturday so I don’t have to go to school looking like some sleep-deprived zombie.

  I get up and walk toward the kitchen to find some food. My mom is on the phone, and from her tone of voice and animated body language, I glean that she’s in a really good mood. I wonder why.

  I fix Seven her breakfast and eat three large slices of blueberry buckle. I don’t know if my mom made it or if my grandma did, but whoever it was, they should win an award for this deliciousness. Seven scarfs down her second bowl of food before I am finished washing my plate. She’s always hungry, but this is some next-level appetite. She must have had quite the adventure. My mom gets off the phone and enters the kitchen.

  “You like weekends too, huh?” I ask.

  “Why?”

  “Because you look so happy,” I say.

  She does a spin and strikes a pose, which makes me laugh.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  She takes my hand, and I can feel her blood moving though her veins. She’s incredibly warm, and her skin is so soft it makes me sleepy.

  “Well?” I press her.

  “Ronnie is coming home in two weeks,” she says, and practically bounces off the walls in excitement.

  I want to bounce with her, but I have no idea who Ronnie is.

  “That’s so great. Who’s Ronnie?”

  “My … your … I’m not sure how to say?”

  “Just say it, Mama. I’ve never seen you this delighted.”

  “I’m happy!” she says, and does an impressive pirouette, then picks up a piece of the blueberry buckle and stuffs the entire thing into her mouth.

  “Who’s Ronnie?” I ask again.

  “Mmmm sonomnomnom,” she answers while chewing her food.

  “Mom? Chew. Swallow. Speak. Who’s Ronnie?” I ask for a third time.

  “My soul mate,” she squeals out. And just hearing it out loud makes her do a little happy dance.

  Out of all the ways to say it, that’s her choice? Her soul mate. My mom is so cheesy. I mean, she could have just said her … Wait! What? My mom has a boyfriend?

  “You have a … boyfriend?”

  “Yes. He’s been deployed overseas for the last year. That was him on the phone. He’s coming home!” she says, and her feet just can’t stop floating off of the floor.

  “Seventy-three.”

  “Seventy-three, wow,” she says.

  “Fifteen. Wait. He lives here?”

  “Of course.”

  “Eight. There’s no ‘of course’ about it. A minute ago I didn’t know he even existed!” I say.

  “Well, sweetie, a lot can happen in one minute,” she says.

  “Does he even know about me?”

  “Of course.”

  “Eight. No more of courses! I mean, does he know about me?” I say, and point to my head.

  “Oh, not yet, but he won’t care.”

  “Twenty-one. Everyone cares, Mama.”

  “Do I?”

  “Three. No, but you’re different.”

  “Around here, we’re all different, Collin. Have you not picked up on that yet?”

  She does have a point. Normal does not live anywhere near us. Whatever normal is. Was my dad normal? Not really. Are the kids at school normal? Is Josh McPee-on-people normal? No. Bullying is not normal. I guess my mom is right. Around here, we’re all different.

  “Fifty-nine. I see your point.”

  “So you’ll give him a chance just like Seven here gave me a chance?” she asks as Seven licks her leg like a kid with a lollipop.

  “Fifty-one. Yes. I’ll give him a chance if he gives me one.”

  My mom wraps her arms around me and squeezes. I feel a couple bones crack from the pressure. I sigh in relief. I really needed that.

  My mom dances her way into the living room. Her words linger in my head, not for me to count, but to reflect on.

  No one is normal, and we all have issues. We all deal with our problems differently. I usually hide in my room with mine. My dad drowns his problems in beer. Josh pees on people. I want to be there for Orenda and help her in any way that I can. Sometimes, the best we can do is be present.

  I need to be there for her.

  “I’ll be right back,” I shout to my dancing mom and rush out of the house.

  Seven runs with me until I reach the fence opening. “Stay here, girl,” I say, and squeeze my body through.

  The wheelchair is gone. I reach the rope and climb up into the tree house, but Orenda is not there. I need to tell her that I don’t care about her hair, that she is beautiful no matter what.

  I go down the rope so fast that my hands nearly burn. I run up to her back door and knock three times. After a few passing moments, her father answers the door. Wow. Foxy is so much bigger up close. He stands over six feet tall and his shoulders are almost the width of the doorway. She wasn’t exaggerating when she said he was as strong as five men. But he has her kind eyes, or maybe she has his.

  “Hi. Is Orenda home?”

  He looks me up and down.

  “Are you the boy who kissed my daughter?” he asks in the deepest voice I have ever heard.

  I swallow. “Thirty-one. Ummm. Yeah. Sorry. I mean, I’m not sorry. Unless you want me to be sorry, then I am. Is she home?”

  He cracks a smile. “We’re about to leave, so make it quick,” he says, and steps aside, allowing me to barely squeeze through the door frame we are sharing.

  The house is full of Orenda’s artwork. There are beautifully knitted butterflies hanging on the walls, paintings of butterflies, and photographs of her family (in human form). I stop and stare at one in particular. It is a framed picture of a younger Orenda, her father, and her mother, who looks so much like her daughter. Long black hair, golden skin, and a smile that makes me instantly sad that I will never see it in person.

  “That’s her mother,” Foxy says from behind me.

  “Fourteen. They look identical,” I say.

  “They were one and the same, those two,” he says, and leads me toward Orenda.

  “Twenty-nine,” I respond, but his strides are long, and he’s already too far ahead to hear me.

  Foxy opens the door to one of the back bedrooms and steps aside for me to enter. Orenda is lying in bed, wearing a red knitted beanie on her head.

  She sits up when she sees me. I just now notice that her dad and she are wearing matching denim button-up shirts. They are one and the same too.

  “Ren, I’ll be out in the truck. We’re running late,” Foxy says.

  “I’ll be right there, Dad,” she says, and gives him a look that demands privacy.

  Foxy gets the hint and walks out of her room, which is mostly decorated with plants and exotic flowers.

  “So t
his is your other room, huh?” I say, and take a step closer to her.

  “Yeah. I call it my garden.”

  “Nineteen. It smells really good in here.”

  “Look, about last night…”

  “No wait … Hold on … Eighteen … Let me go first.”

  “Okay,” she says. “What ya got?”

  “Thirteen. I don’t care about your hair. I don’t care about that stuff at all. I just want to be around you. I feel really good when you’re near me. And if I upset you or made you feel embarrassed, I’m sorry.”

  She lifts herself out of the bed and climbs into her wheelchair. It looks fully repaired. Foxy must have stayed up all night fixing it. But I also take notice of the way she is moving. It’s much slower and much more forced, like someone cautiously walking on thin ice. She takes careful, steady steps.

  “I loved my hair,” she says. “And when you love something, you got to be able to set it free.”

  “What do you mean? You set your hair free?” I ask.

  “Where I’m going, I won’t need hair.”

  “I’m confused. Your hair didn’t fall out?” I ask.

  “I gave it away to people who need it. My mom did the same thing before she changed.”

  “Wow. Well, I don’t care whether you have hair or not. As long as you’re here, I’m happy.”

  My words make her pause. Maybe because what I said was from my heart, or maybe because she doesn’t plan on being here much longer. I can’t tell.

  I reach out my hand to her.

  She takes it. “I guess I totally ruined our kiss, huh?” she says with a smirk.

  “I’m the one who probably ruined it,” I say.

  “I guess we’ll just have to try again,” she says.

  I lean toward her, but her dad honks the horn from outside. I perk up.

  “I swear he’s psychic,” she says.

  “I think my mom is too,” I say, smiling.

  I shove my hands into my pockets, just in case he’s not only psychic, but can also see through walls.

  “I gotta go,” she says.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to pick out my wings,” she says, and rolls past me and out of the room.

  “Twenty-three.”

  Near the front door, she grabs a bag of peaches from the shelf and hands them to me. “Will you feed the butterflies while I’m gone?”