this and you’ll be stuck here with me after all.”
Her comment is like barbed wire. It isn’t meant to hurt me. It’s meant to protect her.
“You’d just love that,” I say.
Campbell doesn’t answer, but she rests her head on mine in a silent kind of apology. I sneak my hand over one of hers and squeeze it. I don’t want to ever leave her. But I don’t know how to stay in this town one second longer than I have to, either.
How big is your brave? I think.
It isn’t very big. It’s small, and it’s shrinking.
What will it take to leave them: courage or cowardice?
Chapter Nineteen
OUR BUS DRIVES PAST THE FOOTBALL fields, where little boys practice for their flag football games. They can’t be much older than seven or eight, but the coaches are yelling, and the fathers on the sidelines are grim-faced.
What happens when you tell little boys every day of their lives that they must be the most? The fastest, or the tallest, or the strongest. Maybe you tell them to be bravest, like that’s better. Like they won’t take their fear and bury it down deep in an effort to please you.
But there isn’t so much room at the top, and while it might feel like disappointment when they’re seven, it starts to feel like failure when they’re seventeen. And then some of them become a different most. They become the meanest. The loudest. The angriest.
You’d think I was programmed to love this game, but I never could. My dad loved it so much it destroyed him. Why would anyone give something so stupid that much power over them?
But when I pull out the Auburn Gazette on the bus, the front page is the same it’s been for weeks: a full spread talking about the last game’s win and the next game’s challenge. I might not understand what goes into the sheer force of team spirit exhibited in this town, but it’s getting harder and harder to deny one thing: this team is newsworthy.
And if I want to be good at my job, I should try to understand why. Besides, Sofia loves cheering for the team and covering the games for the school paper. Maybe she can help me see it in a new way.
I finish homework at the kitchen table while we wait for my father to get home from a construction site out of town. Mom and the girls are cooking dinner and laughing. And things feel so calm, it makes me feel like I’ve overreacted to the other nights. This is what normal homes look like, isn’t it?
When he gets home, we can tell it was a good day, and there is a soft, but distinct, release of tension as Mom welcomes him.
Campbell and I set the table, and she smiles at me over the glasses. We are a few short, so we grab some of Juniper’s old plastic toddler cups instead. We know why there are too few glasses, but we brush the thought aside like a mosquito at our ear. Something we could forget instantly if it would just leave us alone.
Juniper climbs into her chair. “Cool, princesses! I missed these cups! Thanks!”
She grabs her plastic mug that we’ve filled with milk, unaware that we would switch her cup for any other reason than to bring her joy.
I get the spaghetti and meatballs while Mom fixes a salad. Dad’s construction jobs have been steady the past weeks; he just has to drive an hour away for them. It’s been a relief at home, and he’s been too tired to be mad, and there’s been some more money. A full fridge.
Dad showers the construction dust off quickly before joining us.
“Feels like I haven’t seen you guys in a week. Fill me in.”
Juniper talks about school. She’s excited to start a living history project, the same one I did in third grade, where we interview an Auburn resident over the age of sixty-five.
“Maybe we can stay with Nana overnight,” Campbell says. “So you can ask her your questions.”
I stare at my plate, not trusting myself to keep the worry from my face at her words. We only ever stayed with Nana when things were bad. When we were running away.
But Dad smiles. “That’s a great idea, Cammy,” he says. “I bet she misses you girls like crazy these days.”
He tells us about his construction job. It’s salvage work, so it’s messy and unpredictable. A fire in an apartment building, and they’re gutting the ruined