“It was just in there,” she repeated.
Time to backpedal. “Somebody played a joke on me.” I pasted on a fake smile. “I thought it was y’all. Family meeting over. Go back to House of Cards. I’m really sorry I raised my voice.”
Mom stared at the envelope. Dad looked uncertain how to proceed. I saw him wondering what it was about the envelope that had caused me to unhinge.
“Would you like to talk about it?” Mom asked.
I shook my head. “No. I’m sorry. I thought . . . I just thought wrong.”
After a moment of uncomfortable silence, Dad said, “Honey, is all this”—he waved at my emotions as if they were another person in the room—“about the anniversary?”
“Don’t talk about Trent, Dad. Please, I . . .” My voice shook, but I kept the tears in check. I missed Trent like I missed the person I used to be.
Makeup covered parts of my scars, but nothing covered up grief. My dad saw it on me.
“Look, kiddo.” He knocked his knuckles on the table. “You’ve got to buck up.”
“Tony.” My mom tried to stop him, but he ignored her.
“No, Tara,” he warned my mom in the same stern voice he’d warned me in earlier. “She’s got enough courage in her, and we’re going to help her get it out. We’ve talked about this.”
“Hello, I’m right here.” I waved, annoyed.
Dad turned his attention back to me. “I’m not trying to be insensitive. Just the opposite. I’m worried about you. . . . We’re worried about you. Mom said we shouldn’t push you back into school, but this outburst, or whatever it is, is more proof you need to be around people. This summer . . . you’re going to be around people.”
My stomach dropped into my toes. My voice quivered. “You’re going to make me, aren’t you?”
Mom and Dad exchanged a glance. “Yes,” they said together.
I got up from the table and quietly pushed in my chair. “You don’t understand—”
“We do.”
It was a solemn chorus, a firm decision.
Mom stood and walked toward me. Her arms folded around me, stroking my hair. Her heart pressed into mine. I felt it beating against me, fast and strong, afraid and confident. Heartbeats are a dichotomy. I left my hands at my side.
“This isn’t a punishment,” she said. “We almost lost you. We’re not going to stand back and watch you lose yourself.”
“I get it. I get it,” I mumbled.
I broke the embrace and walked down the hallway to my bathroom. I stripped myself down to skin and scars and stepped into a cold shower.
I didn’t understand that paper, but I understood my mom and dad. Understood that they wouldn’t budge, and my screaming And if I don’t? would only force them to lay down more consequences. But I wanted to argue. I wanted to fight some more, and I didn’t know why. I wanted to be furious at them, but some part of my brain said they were probably right.
I wouldn’t be making lists in the sand if they weren’t.
When a bad habit became a rut, people noticed. Especially when that rut was the size of the Grand Canyon.
The shower calmed my muscles but not my emotions. I retreated to my room and eyeballed the traitor, Big.
The stuffed blue ostrich sat, floppy and worn, in the middle of my pillows. Just where I’d left him this morning. It wasn’t exactly public knowledge that I’d removed much of Big’s polyfill stuffing and replaced it with paper scraps of my random thoughts. Actually, it narrowed the whodunthisshit to Gina, Gray, Max, Fletcher, Metal Pete . . . Who else? There were maybe a couple of girls from school who had seen Big on an overnight trip, but surely none of those people had time for something like this.
Big was soft in my hands and crinkly to my ears as I squeeze-checked him. He sounded and felt full. Digging carefully into the hole, I removed the first scrap and read. Shame is a fast emotion; I felt it within the first five words I’d written just last week.