The Running Dream

by Wendelin Van Draanen

  Then, just as Kaylee’s footsteps are finally pounding down the stairs, Dad asks, “Do you think you’ll see your coach today?”

  “Uh … I don’t know. I hope so.”

  “Good,” he says, but there’s an edge to his voice.

  I rest my fork and study him. “It’s not his fault, Dad. Kyro’s a great guy. Fiona says I might have bled to death if it wasn’t for him.”

  Dad gives a solemn nod. “I know.”

  “Then why are you mad at him?”

  Mom shoots him a don’t-even-go-there look as Kaylee blasts into the kitchen. “You’re really going to school?” Kaylee asks.

  “I’m trying it out,” I tell her with a smile.

  She stops. “Do that,” she says, pointing at my face. “Do that right there and everything will be fine.” She hugs me and whispers “I’m sorry about yesterday” in my ear.

  Dad uses Kaylee’s interruption to beat a speedy exit, and then the doorbell rings.

  “Gotta run!” Kaylee says, gobbling down two bites of eggs and a swig of juice.

  I ask Mom why Dad’s mad at Kyro, but she says, “It’s nothing for you to be concerned about.”

  “What’s nothing to be concerned about?”

  But it’s not Kaylee’s ride at the door—it’s mine. “Fiona! Come in, come in,” my mom calls, completely sweeping my question out of the kitchen.

  “You ready?” Fiona asks, and she’s beaming with excitement.

  Suddenly the butterflies are back.

  So is the fear.

  But I nod, take a deep breath, and stand.

  I’m really sore from all my activity yesterday, and my armpits are chafed from my trip to Angelo’s. So after I brush my teeth and collect my things, I don’t put up much of a fuss about using the wheelchair.

  “Just be queen for the day,” Fiona says, thinking she needs to convince me.

  “It’s a big campus,” my mom chimes in.

  “Fine,” I tell them.

  So Fiona and my mom scurry to get me, my backpack, and the wheelchair into Fiona’s car. Mom gives me a kiss and tells me, “I’m so proud of you.”

  I smile at her and close the car door, and as we pull away from the curb, I roll down the window and wave like I’m a queen on parade.

  She laughs.

  I laugh.

  So far, so good.

  I’M NOT LAUGHING when we pull into the student parking lot. Instead, my heart’s hammering inside my chest, and I’m desperate to go home.

  I know I’m being irrational.

  Still, I’m having a complete panic attack.

  There are already swarms of people at school. Fiona and I had planned to arrive before seven-thirty, but it’s already seven-forty.

  Everything takes longer with only one leg.

  Everything.

  “It’ll be okay,” Fiona says as she pulls up the parking brake. “Give me a minute. I’ll be around with your throne.”

  I’m breaking out in a cold sweat. “We’ve only got ten minutes to get to class. Maybe we should—”

  “We’ll be fine,” she calls as she zips around to the hatchback. She pulls out the collapsed wheelchair and says over the backseat, “Jessica, really, this is the best thing you could be doing. You’ll see. It’ll be fine.”

  I manage to hobble out of the car as she opens up the chair and wheels it over to the passenger door.

  “There you go!” she says, and I sit.

  I’m not used to the wheelchair. It seems too small and too big, too precarious and too safe, all at the same time.

  My left leg feels cramped by the footrest.

  My right leg feels lost at sea.

  The jeans leg is pinned up, and I suddenly want it down.

  Maybe I won’t look like such a pathetic freak.

  I undo the safety pins while Fiona gets our backpacks. “Ready, Your Majesty?” she asks, and when I nod, she straps on her backpack and rests mine in my lap. “Then let’s roll!”

  The pant leg flaps as she hurries me toward the school entrance.

  Flap, flap, flap.

  It bothers me.

  Flusters me.

  Then totally freaks me out.

  “Stop!” I cry.

  She keeps pushing as she asks, “What’s wrong?”

  “STOP!”

  She does stop, and comes around to face me. “We’re almost there,” she says softly. “It’ll be all right. I promise you it’ll be all right.”

  I manage to choke out, “My pant leg is driving me crazy.”

  She watches me pin it back up, then asks, “You okay now?”

  I nod, but I’m not okay. I’m anything but okay.

  I know it’s not my fault. I know I haven’t done anything wrong. I know it’s irrational. But still, I’m mortified.

  Mortified to be me.

  MY DOWNWARD SPIRAL IS INTERRUPTED by Shandall Norwood. “Jessica?” she asks, coming toward us from the left. “Jessica!” she squeals, and charges at me, her arms spread wide. “Girl, you’re back!” she cries, smothering me in a hug.

  Shandall is a sophomore, is fast enough to run the 100 for varsity, and is potentially deadly with a discus. When she hits her release right, the discus soars, but once in a while she gets turned around and sends it off in the wrong direction. All of us have learned to stand clear when Shandall’s spinning toward her release.

  I return her hug and feel a bit calmer. “Good to see you too,” I mumble into her shoulder.

  She pulls back and smiles, and then … what is there to say?

  It’s not like I’ll be going to track practice.

  It’s not like we have anything else in common.

  “We’ve got to get moving,” Fiona says after an awkward few seconds. “Can’t have her tardy on her first day back!”

  So Shandall waves and hurries off, and Fiona rolls me across the parking lot and around the corner to the school’s entrance arch and onto campus. Fiona’s moving fast and chattering away. “We’re lucky we don’t go to one of those schools where everything’s, like, enclosed, and the halls are really crowded, and you have to go up and down levels to get to class.”

  She’s right, but what I’m thinking is, How will I do this in the rain?

  We enter the courtyard, and as Fiona pushes me along the sidewalk, I see the first signs that she’s been a busy bee. On our right is the outdoor theater—a Greek-style semicircle of stepped cement seats going down to a stage—an area that the upper classes tend to dominate during lunchtime. Along the far wall are balloons and a large WELCOME BACK JESSICA!!! banner.

  I smile over my shoulder at Fiona, and she leans forward and whispers, “Gavin helped me put it up.”

  The warning bell rings as she hurries me along to first period. A couple of people wave and call hello, but mostly it’s people shortcutting across the lawns, hurrying to beat the next bell.

  “You are the best friend ever,” I tell her. “I love the banner.” I twist around farther. “What time did you get here?”

  She laughs like, Oh, you have no idea, and simply says, “Early.”

  Liberty High is laid out like a wagon wheel, with the courtyard as the hub. In the old days the school was much smaller, but as time’s gone by, more and more portable classrooms have been added to the fields behind the school. Each segment of the wheel is called a wing, and every wing is for a certain subject area and is named with a number. Math is in the 900 Wing, science is in the 800 Wing, English is in the 200 Wing.…

  Not the most creative, but easy to figure out.

  Fiona rolls me into a portable unit in the 200 Wing. It’s really just the educational version of a double-wide trailer, and like all the portable units, it’s got a ramp. A long, zigzag ramp that’s always annoyed me. It’s a time killer when you’re running late, a bottleneck when the release bell rings; and it’s noisy. Clomp, clomp, clomp, people come up it in the middle of class to deliver messages and whatnot. It always wrecks my concentration when we’re testing.

>   Plus it’s ugly. Painted wood, pipe guardrail … Some teachers try, but there’s nothing anyone can do to camouflage it. It is what it is.

  And what it is now is my only way into the classroom.

  This bothers me more than it should. When I was a freshman, my friends and I used to swing under the guardrail to get inside the classroom, leap over it to get out. It was just quicker.

  Teachers scolded it out of us, or maybe we just grew up. But as Fiona rolls me up the ramp, I see my options as closed.

  I can no longer catapult.

  Or swing.

  Or slide.

  I can only roll.

  Something about this makes me grab the wheels and push.

  “Careful,” Fiona says. “Don’t get your fingers caught!”

  “Just let me do it,” I tell her, but when she lets go, I discover that pushing myself is not easy. The motion’s all forearms and triceps, and I don’t seem to have much strength in them.

  I also can’t steer very well, and by the time I’ve maneuvered the chair to face the second half of the ramp, I’m holding up traffic. “Go ahead,” I grumble to the people waiting, and I let Fiona finish pushing me inside. And then I’m distracted by something I hadn’t even considered.

  Where do I sit?

  Am I supposed to get out of the wheelchair and hop over to my regular seat?

  Should I stay in the wheelchair at the back of the classroom?

  How am I supposed to take notes?

  Ms. Aloi comes to my rescue. “Oh, Jessica!” she says, moving toward the back of the classroom. “It’s so good to see you! No one seemed to know when you’d be returning.…” She drags an empty desk alongside my wheelchair and says, “I’ll get them to deliver a table for you, but for today, will this work?”

  “Sure,” I tell her, and try to smile like everything’s just dandy.

  “Uh, Ms. Aloi?” Fiona says, signaling me to get out my English assignments sheet. “Here’s a list of the homework Jessica’s missed. She hasn’t been able to do it—I’m sure you can understand that. And now she’s overwhelmed by everything she has to catch up on, so we’re wondering which of these you’ll excuse her from.”

  Ms. Aloi looks directly at Fiona.

  Fiona holds her gaze. “She has six classes, Ms. Aloi.” She shakes the list a little and says, “They’re all like this.” Then she gives Ms. Aloi a pleading look. “There must be some leeway?”

  Ms. Aloi takes the list and smiles at me. “We’ll work something out.” The tardy bell has rung, so she heads to the front of the class calling, “Good morning, everybody! Let’s welcome Jessica back!”

  Everyone claps and whistles, and a couple of people even stand up.

  Fiona grins and gives me a wink as she moves to her assigned seat. It’s a wink that means something specific:

  You can make it.

  You can do this.

  One down, five to go.

  EVERYWHERE I GO, I feel like the elephant in the room. A lot of people do say hi and welcome me back, but a lot more don’t.

  Fiona notices it, too, whispering, “Maturity check!” in my ear when people pretend that I’m not there.

  I feel myself shutting down.

  Withdrawing.

  She gives me the same advice Kaylee did. “Smile,” she whispers. “Be open. If you’re friendly, they’ll be friendly.”

  This is not easy for me. And it seems backward. But I don’t want to be treated like I’m invisible, so I try.

  I also try to speak for myself and ask my teachers to excuse me from some of the homework. They’re all very nice about it, but what’s left is still overwhelming. Especially since I’m also diving into the middle of new lessons and new homework assignments.

  After science class is over, Mr. Vedder returns my assignment list, and I’m surprised to see that instead of having me do a big project, he’s allowing me to submit a five-hundred-word essay, and he’s whittled my worksheets down to three.

  “I wish I could excuse you from all of it,” he says as I’m checking it over. “What’s left is the bare minimum for the curriculum.”

  I’m so relieved to be excused from the project that I gush, “No, this is great! You have no idea how much this helps, Mr. Vedder!”

  He gives me a kind smile. “I’m just glad you’re back, Jessica. Anything you need, you just ask, okay?”

  I nod and thank him and tell him to have a nice weekend, but as Fiona starts pushing me toward the door, he asks, “How are your parents doing with all this?”

  The question’s quiet. Like he’s not really sure he should be asking but can’t seem to help himself.

  It’s also the first truly personal question I’ve been asked all day, and an odd one because Mr. Vedder doesn’t even know my parents.

  My skin prickles.

  Why is he asking me this?

  What business is it of his?

  But then my mind flashes to the pictures of his daughter, Hannah, on his desk; to his stories about Hannah catching lizards in their driveway; pranking him on April Fools’; crashing her bike and breaking her arm.

  Suddenly I get it.

  He doesn’t know my parents, but he is a parent.

  So I tell him the truth.

  “It’s hard,” I say softly. “Ups and downs, just like me.”

  He nods, then takes a deep breath and lets it out as he says, “I can’t even imagine.”

  On our way down Mr. Vedder’s ramp, Fiona whispers, “That was awkward.”

  “It was fine,” I tell her.

  It’s lunchtime, and I’m famished. But Fiona’s not heading toward the courtyard; she’s steering me away from it.

  “Hey, where are we going?” I ask over my shoulder.

  “To lunch,” she says with a mischievous grin.

  “Lunch” is located in Coach Kyro’s portable classroom.

  “Lunch” consists of pizza, salads, cupcakes, sodas, cookies, and licorice.

  “Lunch” is decorated with balloons and streamers and WELCOME BACK JESSICA written all over the whiteboards.

  “Lunch” is a gathering of runners and friends and coaches. “SURPRISE!” they all shout, and blow party horns or shower me with confetti.

  “Lunch” makes me cry.

  I suddenly realize how much I miss these people.

  It’s not just running.

  It’s the team.

  “You guys are the best,” I finally choke out, wiping the tears away.

  Someone starts up with “For she’s a jolly good fellow …,” which makes absolutely no sense, but it doesn’t matter. And then someone shouts, “Speech! Speech!” like I’ve done something great instead of survived something awful.

  I shake my head and wave off that crazy idea and simply say, “Eat! Eat!”

  Everyone laughs and dives for food, because, come on—when is a runner not hungry?

  As Fiona delivers me a plate with salad and a slice of pepperoni-pineapple, Kyro pulls up a desk beside me and says, “You have no idea how much we’ve missed you.”

  I nod and attempt a smile. He looks grayer than I remember. Older. I notice a woven green-and-black name bracelet tied around his wrist.

  The letters spell “Lucy.”

  I look away, feeling bad that I haven’t spoken to him since the accident. I feel bad that he tried and I didn’t; that he came to the hospital and I didn’t want to see him. After three years of him believing in me, pushing me, tailoring my workouts, I’d become the fastest 400-meter sprinter in the league.

  And I never even bothered to call him back.

  “I’d really like to talk to you sometime,” he says.

  I nod. “Me too. I’m sorry that I’ve been so … shut down.”

  He shakes his head. “Who can blame you, Jess? Come on.”

  I look at him and blurt out, “What’s going on with you and my dad?”

  He seems to weigh things in his mind, then says, “There’s a tangle of insurance issues, and things are not resolving as
quickly as either of us would like. I’m afraid your dad thinks I could be doing more to pressure things along, but it really is out of my hands.”

  “It’s about insurance?”

  He nods. “It’ll get straightened out, but these things can take time.”

  I’m baffled.

  My dad’s been down on Kyro about insurance?

  How could that possibly be the coach’s responsibility?

  But then I start wondering: So who paid for the hospital?

  Or the ambulance?

  Or the physical therapist?

  Or the wheelchair or the crutches or the shrinker socks or the … or the anything?

  Before this, it never even crossed my mind. I thought it was just … taken care of.

  “Hey,” he says, standing. “I sure didn’t mean to put a damper on your party. Enjoy yourself, would you? We’ve waited a long time to celebrate your return.” He turns to my teammates, huddled around the food. “Hey! People! Get over here and talk to Jessica, or I’ll make you do laps!”

  When Kyro barks, runners listen. In an instant I’m surrounded by love and chatter and half-eaten pizza. And despite the weirdness of my first day back, I’m happy to be there.

  Happy to see that I’ve been missed.

  MY ONLY CLASS WITHOUT FIONA is math, and it’s the last period of the day. I have algebra II/trig; Fiona’s down the wing in pre-calculus. She swears she’s not taking calculus next year, and I refuse to take pre-calc. Enough is enough.

  After fifth, Fiona rushes me clear across campus to the 900 Wing and is panting as she rolls me up to the front of the classroom, where Ms. Rucker is erasing the board.

  Ms. Rucker is the one teacher we’re both nervous about. She is a machine. Never smiling, never flexing, never sharing anything personal.

  Her life is all about numbers, and her demeanor is as severe as her haircut, which is a dark, straight, asymmetrical bob. I’m sure there’s a real person inside her somewhere, but after having her for algebra I and II, I’ve quit trying to find her. I’m just looking forward to being done with math, and being done with her.

  She knows who Fiona is. Not only did she have her in class last year, but Fiona’s been getting my assignments from her. And obviously she knows who I am. Still, when she turns from erasing the board, she doesn’t say anything like, Welcome back, or It’s good to see you. She simply sizes me up.