It's My Life - Stacie Ramey Page 0,12

wool blanket Mom left. I’m about to argue that I don’t need a blanket, that I enjoy a little chill every once in a while, when the blanket settles around my lap and my legs get warm. It’s a soft kind of warm that wraps around my heart; he put the blanket on me because he loves me, not because I’m disabled.

Ben waves his hand in front of my eyes. “So? Todd?”

“Oh, right. I give him a solid B plus.”

“B plus? I’ve got him down as an A minus at worst.”

“I feel he’s going to blossom in college, so I have to leave room for improvement.”

“Hank Stevens.”

“We’re doing the esses now?”

Ben smiles and his eyes go a little dreamy. “So much beauty at the end of the alphabet, don’t you think?”

I reach for one of the big sugar cookies Mom put out for us, hoping the pause in the conversation will keep Ben from venturing further down the alphabet. They’re soft and easy to break into small bites, which is essential for my eating to be controllable. Tiny little infant bites. “Why are we doing this anyway?”

“Rating guys? Because we always do?” Ben laughs. “We’ve got to be proactive. We have to narrow the field, select our victim—I mean, target—and go for it.”

I take another bite. Chew slowly.

“The field for me is wide open,” Ben says, “but you know there’s only one guy you’re interested in…the one the only…”

I can’t let him say it. I won’t let him say it. I lean forward and smack him on the arm. He puts his hands up. Which makes me go bigger. I hit him again and again.

“Stop getting violent, girl!”

“You started it.”

“So why not Julian?”

“He probably doesn’t even remember me.”

“How could anyone forget you?”

My eyes wander to Julian’s old house. I close them, and it’s like I can remember everything. The sights, sounds, and feels of our childhood together. My mind drifts to the time we were playing our version of street Marco Polo, one of my favorite memories. I was in my wheelchair then, having just had a muscle-lengthening surgery in my legs. I was supposed to be taking it easy, which means I was zipping up and down the street in my new electric wheelchair.

It was the year before he moved away. There was a little grass field at the end of our street and a small gravel area where Eric often played street hockey with some of the neighborhood kids. But that day, the street was ours alone—Eric, Rena, me…and Julian.

It was my turn to be blindfolded so Rena pulled the bandanna down, and I reached my hands in front of me. Marco Polo is ridiculously hard to play in a wheelchair, but it’s made easier when your brother and sister and friend can’t keep from laughing at your attempts to catch them.

“So close,” Eric’s voice was filled with happiness. “Almost, baby sister.”

My thumb on the joystick of my wheelchair, I made it careen forward. I could hear little bits of gravel kick up under my wheels.

“Uh oh,” Rena’s voice was muffled like she had her hand over her mouth. I felt her brush by me, heard her feet slide through the tiny pebbles.

“Ha!” I shouted and made my chair lurch forward. “Ha!” I inched forward. “Ha!”

The air was clear and crisp. I could hear steps, sure and solid while Eric’s were quick and light. Julian. I was sure of it. I zoomed forward. My fingertips brushed his shirt. His laugh was high pitched while Eric’s had already turned deeper.

“You have a license for that thing?” Eric joked as I lurched forward.

“Reckless driver coming through!” called Rena. I laughed, too, that uncontrollable, choke-on-your-own-happy-tears kind of laugh.

The front door banged open. “You’ve got to be kidding,” Mom yelled from the porch. We could hear her all the way down the street.

“Here comes the mom-ologue,” Rena said, joking. Mom’s voice got louder as she approached us, but I wasn’t about to stop. “Your sister can’t even see you, how’s she supposed to…”

I could hear Eric’s feet skid to a stop on the gravel. “She’s doing fine…” My ears locked on to his location. I leaned on the joystick, my wheelchair speeding up in time to grab his shirt. Rena took the blindfold off me. I shot my hands in the air in victory.

Eric fell backward onto the ground, doing an amazing job of faking it. “Did you have to help her, Mom? She’s already got the wheelchair advantage. Jeez.”

Rena wrapped her