A Breath Too Late - Rocky Callen Page 0,42

drained out of me. All the dreaming.

The next day when school was done, I ripped the flyer out of my locker and I went to the trash can to throw it in. I was so tired of wanting things and not wanting things, of the rollercoaster of my emotions, of the way everything just felt too far and out of reach.

Maybe it was time to stop reaching, like Momma.

I was shaking, but I finally threw it in. I must’ve stayed there long after the bell rang, because by the time I looked up, the halls were empty except for you. You watched me with unjudging saucer eyes. My hand fell to my side, suddenly ashamed.

Girls like me shouldn’t have big dreams. They stay in their houses of secrets and die there.

I turned around and walked toward the front door of the school. I battled my thoughts all night, wrestling back and forth with the possibility of New York, of Columbia, of classrooms and professors and beautiful stained-oak doors. It seemed like it was galaxies away from my row house on Sunset Street.

The next day, I shuffled in a daze to my locker. I almost didn’t notice when the folded sheet fell out. It tumbled onto the floor and landed on top of my shoe. I leaned over to pick it up, eyes narrowed, and unfolded it. Glossy paper. A dream nestled in my hands. On the lower right corner were familiar scratchy letters. “Deadline for admission is in three months. Remember, we can go Anywhere.”

You didn’t sign it. But I knew it was you. Your penmanship never got much better after fourth grade, which was especially surprising because you drew and painted like someone destined for art galleries. I looked around the halls and couldn’t find you, but I searched hastily in my locker for Scotch tape. I held my breath, practically frantic. When I found it, I bit my lip and tore off a piece. Like before, the flyer fit perfectly on the inside of my locker door. Yes, it fit perfectly. My fingers traced over the letters again and I smiled.

I printed off the pages again in the school library.

I hid them in my closet.

37

Momma,

You were working later and later. Father had gotten a job down at the wood mill and his hours were longer too. There were still nights you came home later than him. I didn’t know why you’d risk that since that just made Father’s beatings worse. He was angry that you were working so much. I ignored your little noises of pain or the shower running to cover your tears late at night.

Not because I didn’t care, but because you had made your choices and I refused to make the same ones. I blocked out the world with words. Writing essays for Ms. Hooper. Writing and rewriting and throwing away stories for Columbia. I kept writing about broken things, secrets, sad things, but something felt wrong with the way the lines fit together. They weren’t the stories I wanted to write.

I wrote in the dark while you shook in the shower.

I tiptoed around my house and took the belt beatings whenever Father had too much whiskey and too many excuses for violence, but my bruises would go away.

The ink from my pen would remain.

I wrote even as I put a pillow over my ears so I couldn’t hear you cry.

I smooshed myself into the lines and lived there so I could pretend that Sunset Street didn’t exist at all.

38

August,

“I told them!” You were running toward me as I sat in a patch of green grass behind the school. Everyone had left and I had been enjoying the heat and the quiet. I raised my hand to block the sun from view and saw you, wild-eyed and grinning. How is there enough space in the world for those big eyes and smile? I couldn’t help but smile back even if I had no idea what you were talking about.

Then it clicked. You had told them that you were planning on going to art school.

You were on full blast, like an explosion of color and light, a giddy and breathless expression of joy.

I stand up. “No. Way.”

“Yes. Way.” You matched my staccato rhythm.

I raised my hand to awkwardly high-five you and you ignored it, leaned in, and wrapped me up in your arms. I sharply inhaled, a little uncertain. But you were warm and buzzing with an energy that barely fit inside the northern hemisphere, let