It's My Life - Stacie Ramey Page 0,58

a half. After school,” Mom adds because she sees me start to balk.

Uncle Steve clears his throat.

“If she agrees,” Mom says.

“Well if it’s all worked out,” Dad says, an edge to his voice.

Mom puts her hand on Dad’s arm. “It’s fine, David. We want Jenna to have a say. She should. It’s her body.”

“And we should have a say, also!”

“We do. But ultimately it’s her decision.” Mom holds up one of the photo albums she made for me. Mom’s a photographer—gets paid serious money to take other people’s pictures. She always said her family was her favorite subject. “I’ve been looking through these.”

Dad says, “And…?”

“And Jenna has been through so many procedures. Procedures we decided—”

“We decided with the counsel of the doctors.” Dad’s got one finger raised like he’s the one in court, testifying.

“Yes. Of course,” Mom says, continuing. “But I remember there were times I wasn’t sure if we should try something or not. It might ease my mind to know how she feels.”

“She’s a kid,” Dad says. “She doesn’t know what she wants.”

“She’s growing up.”

Dad sighs. “Okay. Fine. We do the class. Together. Then we decide. Together.”

Mom smiles. Looks at me. I try my best to smile. “I’ll call Dr. Rodriguez and tell him we want to hold off for now.”

Uncle Steve turns to me. “We okay with that plan, Jenna?”

I nod. But I’m not unaware that the entire convo between Mom and Dad happened as if I wasn’t in the room. I want to point that out, but can’t bring myself to do it. Uncle Steve slides my atomic bomb into his pocket. “Okay. Now let’s talk about what you’ll be serving for Hanukkah, assuming I’m still invited?”

Mom says, “I’m thinking honey cake.”

Uncle Steve makes a face. “You wouldn’t.”

Mom laughs.

Steve leans forward, holding his tie down, and clears his throat. “My client requests chocolate torte.”

“You’ll be lucky if you get any cake whatsoever,” Dad says, but he’s using his teasing voice, so I know that, for now at least, my family is intact.

* * *

9:23 P.M.

Your biggest fear?

You mean in real life or like a phobia or something?

Phobia.

The usual. Spiders. Any bugs, really.

Understandable.

You?

What’s that fear of things living in holes?

Trypophobia?

Shiver.

Yeah. It’s pretty creepy.

What about in real life?

That I won’t get into college. That I’ll never figure my life out.

Everybody thinks that.

You’re smart, though. So you don’t think it.

You have no idea. I think it all the time.

When I was little, it was like I could look ahead in time and know, just know that I’d be ok. I saw myself winning at life. You know?

Yeah. I do.

But now, I’m not sure of anything anymore.

Let’s run away.

Where should we go?

I’m very into mountains these days.

I’m always into mountains. Northeast? West Coast? Midwest?

Prettiest?

How could you choose just one?

Like books for me.

Let’s go to Colorado.

For weed?

To ski.

I’m not very athletic.

Then North Carolina. To hike.

Slow hiking. With no packs.

We can stay in a cabin and you can read or write or both. We can take small hikes during the day and canoe on the lake.

Is it summer?

At this cabin, it always is. If that’s what you want.

Sometimes I like winter.

We could stay in by the fire.

And watch hockey.

Now that’s a story I would read. Or maybe we could find something else to do?

Blushing emoji.

Gnite, Elsa. Sweet dreams.

Sweet dreams you too. About the cabin in the woods.

Twenty-One

Wednesday. It’s exactly two days until the Hockey Homecoming dance. We won the final game in the series which means I’ve got to pay up on my deal with Julian and actually go. I’ve finally made it back to a somewhat normal routine. For the moment I’ve put off any talk of rehab centers, though my baclofen class is happening early next week. I’ve got my aide trailing behind me, and I’m in my wheelchair. Rena has fitted it with a leopard-print backing, because why the heck not? I’m moving forward, and isn’t that the point anyway?

Back in English, I am all in. In my other classes, I keep up. It’s not like it’s hard, but the problem is, I’m worn down physically and emotionally. At home I stop doing the practice AP tests. It seems weird. And what’s the point, anyway? I’ve got no future as an AP student. Every time I try to do something different, it ends badly.

At lunch, Ben sits with his classmates, and I sit with them and they make plans. And I don’t. My only plan is to keep texting Julian, not just because it’s Julian, but also because it’s