Anything but Ordinary(12)

Bryce tried again. “You can trust them to be…you know, gentle.”

Again, her mom stayed silent. She bit her lip. Finally, she sighed. “Fine. Call Carter.”



As four o’clock approached, Bryce began to bite her nails. Sometime after breakfast she had returned to walking practice. She hated the idea of Greg and Gabby seeing her in a wheelchair.

She glanced at her reflection in her mother’s full-length mirror, clutching the shelves on either side of the closet. Her hair used to be platinum from the sun, and went past her chest; now it was dishwater-blond and hung to her shoulders. Her legs had long ago lost their tan; now they were pale and a little pink. What used to be muscular calves were thin as toothpicks. Too thin under swollen knees and sore thighs. That’s enough of that, Bryce thought, making a face, and she turned her back on her new reflection.

All that was left of Bryce’s closet, buried deep in a corner behind some skis, were a pair of deep red cowboy boots her mother had bought her from a leather dealer at the Tennessee State Fair. They were Bryce’s favorites, the leather so worn and molded to her feet that they felt like an extension of her body.

She threw them aside to put on a black dress from her mother’s closet. Maybe that would make her look grown-up and serious. Her hand shook as she applied mascara. She stepped back and looked in the mirror. A long-lost member of the Addams family stared back. With a struggle, she took off the dress.

Maybe something more casual. She had managed to sneak some clothes from Sydney’s closet. Sitting on the floor, she shimmied into a pair of her mother’s yoga leggings and one of Sydney’s oversized T-shirts that read PUNK IS DEAD. She squinted. She looked kind of like one of those washed-up celebrities just released from rehab that she saw in the gossip magazines.

God, who cared? Who cared what she wore?

Gabby did, that was who. She was always trying to get Bryce to borrow her clothes. But Bryce felt like she was playing dress up when she’d worn them, like Sydney trying to look “mature” in their mom’s pearls and heels.

She sighed.

Gabby seemed to float through everything like it was nothing. If Gabby had been the one in the coma, Bryce had a feeling she would have woken up speaking fluent French, or with a cure for cancer. She was better than Bryce in school, and she always wrote beautiful poems and essays about diving, like it was an art and not a sport. Gabby probably had the time of her life in Europe. Probably met some bullfighter in Spain and now they were in love. How was she going to talk to Gabby about any of this stuff? Bryce’s knowledge of the world was limited to the diving platform and the neurology wing.

Finally, she chose a simple V-neck from her mother’s pajama drawer and settled on a pair of cutoffs from Sydney’s pile. And her cowboy boots. To make herself taller. To make herself the same height as Greg.

Could she kiss him right when she saw him? On the cheek or something? She wondered about what her mom had said, that things had changed for Gabby and Greg. Maybe he was dating someone. Girls had always thrown themselves at Greg, like Rebecca from homeroom, who had lips like sausages. Or Rebecca’s friend Kate, who called Bryce “man shoulders” behind her back. They made Bryce want to punch her desk, and then she would go home and lie on her bed, wondering why Greg wanted her when he could have anyone. But he brushed the Rebeccas and Kates off with a polite smile and made his way down the hall to lean against the locker next to Bryce, with a dandelion he had picked for her. She’d asked him once, why her? “Because you’re special, Bryce. You can fly.”

One of the silly, poetic things Gabby wrote about diving was that her best friend, Bryce, moved like the air when she was around water. That she was a completely different person on the platform, like some soaring, glorious creature. But Bryce might never climb up to the platform again. She’d never again fly.

Bryce walked out of her mother’s room, trying not to lean on things, and glanced at the clock on the microwave. It was four. She grabbed her house keys, heading for the door. Her mother was still at the grocery store, and Carter would be here any minute.

She moved slowly to the entryway, clutching the wall, and jumped when she opened the door, spotting a pair of navy New Balance sneakers. She looked up. Carter, wearing a plaid shirt, was raising his fist to knock.

He put down his hand. “You’re standing.”

“Hi, yes.” Carter began to respond, but Bryce cut him off. “Sorry, but can we get going? I don’t want to be late.”

“How did you…I mean, that’s remarkable.”

Bryce made another sound of frustration.

Carter continued, drawing out his words, “Considering you recently came out of a coma.”

Bryce looked past him to a tiny white Honda. “Is that your car?”

Carter followed her gaze. “Thar she blows.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I’m not bringing my wheelchair. That thing is tiny.”

“First of all, it’s fuel efficient,” he explained as Bryce hobbled past him. “Second of all, your mother said I had to do a little checkup before we go—”

Bryce held up a hand. “My head is fine, my brain is fine, and my friends are waiting at a restaurant.”

He wasn’t budging. He took off his backpack, pulling out a doctor’s kit. “It will take two seconds.”

“You’re being such a nerd right now,” Bryce said under her breath, taking a seat on the porch swing.