Page 32 of The Glass Girl

I’m frozen in place until I feel the tiniest movement against my elbow.

It’s Dawn. “We can sit now,” she whispers. “It’s over.”

I walk back to my easel, my legs rubbery, Cherie and Lemon staring at me, everyone staring at me. I hide behind my easel. The underarms of my flannel shirt are damp and sticky. I look at my stupid tree with its stupid charcoal branches and I no longer love it. It’s just a stupid sketch of a stupid thing that proves I can’t do anything right, no matter how hard I try.

I hate everything.

—

I have to take the bus after school to pick up Ricci, because my dad has a meeting and Vanessa is working. We stop at the 7-Eleven by the bus stop near her school to get her a snack before our bus to Dad’s comes. “I petted the goat today,” she says as she grabs a bar of chocolate. “Her name is Teddy.”

“Cool,” I say.

We’re across from the beer cooler. I always see those kids in movies who grab beer and stuff it in their coat or pants. Is that really a thing? I would so much like to just chill now, after the art presentation debacle. Just smooth everything over. Look at all those bottles. They aren’t that big. Who would notice? There’s a giant line at the register and just one cashier. I look up. Cameras in the ceiling corners and on the wall above the coolers. Maybe Ricci and I could take the bus to Laurel’s and I could make a bottle there. But how would I do it with Riccithere? She’d tell. And what if Mrs. Rabinowitz saw us and told my mother? Or if my mother was out at the mailbox and saw us walking down the sidewalk when we’re supposed to be at Dad’s?

“Bella,” Ricci says. “Earth to Bella.”

“What?” I say, looking down at her. Messy hair falling out of her scrunchie. A smudge of dirt on her cheek. She was happy today when I picked her up, shoving a bunch of drawings at me, showing me her special beanbag in the quiet room, where she goes when the classroom gets too noisy for her. “Sorry. I wasn’t listening to you.”

“Are you okay?”

No,says my brain.

Ricci’s blue eyes are wide and worried. “Are you sick? Did I give you icky germs again?”

“I’m fine, Ricci. Let’s go pay. We don’t want to miss our bus. I’ll let you listen to music on my phone. I added to your bus playlist the other day.”

She gives me a big smile.

—

At home, I set her up with her YouTube cat videos and look in the refrigerator. It’s practically bare, except for a six-pack of beer, peanut butter, jelly, bread, and some yogurt and milk. In the freezer, I find a frozen pizza and a bag of frozen peas, so I guess that’s dinner. I put the pizza in the oven and the peas in water on the stove.

My phone jingles.

“Bella,” my mom says. “I miss you.”

Relief floods through me at the sound of her voice. “Hi, Mommy.”

There’s a pause. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Just…”Everything,I want to say, but I don’t.

“Did something happen at school?”

“It’s okay. I’m fine.” Can she hear me sniffle? Water is bubbling furiously over the peas. I shake some salt on them.

“Your sister okay?”

“Yes.” I pause. “Mom? I forgot about Thanksgiving. It’s the first one…without Grandma, you know?”

My mom is quiet for a minute and I’m afraid maybe I upset her. I know she doesn’t like to talk about her mom all that much because it makes her cry, and I think she doesn’t want us to see that, like we all have to be strong or something, but I kind of wish shewouldcry sometimes.

“I know,” she says finally. I think I hear a catch in her voice, but I can’t be sure.

“Are you going out to Agnes’s?” I ask.

“I am,” my mother says slowly. “I thought about not going, but then I realized how so many of Grandma’s friends will be there, and how much they miss her.”

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