Sunny(14)

Diary, I’m going to try to tell you how it went, but I might get some parts wrong. But I’m going to try anyway. This is how it went.

I hate running the mile.

What do you mean, you hate running the mile?

I hate running it. I never liked it.

But you’ve been running the mile for so long. And you’re so good at it.

Because you made me. That’s not what I said. Not yet. I said, I know I’m good at it but

You’re not just good at it. You’re the best. First place. Your mother I know my mother would be proud. I know I’m doing it for her, but what about me?

What about her? She didn’t get to do this. To run her race, Sunny.

But but but

And then I started counting again. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. And then . . .

But when do I get to run MY race?

I pushed the bottom of my mother’s jaw into place, and judging by the shading of black and brown and gold, I could tell her cheek was lifted. She was smiling. I was not.

Then came the boomtick. But not with dance, with words. The stuff I usually write in you came out and flew right at him. And this time, I told him everything.

I don’t like running, I like dancing.

Running is boring, and nobody

even pays attention to the mile,

and you never asked me if I liked it,

never even asked me. Never asked me

what I do like, or if there’s anything else I want to try. Never noticed my brown face blue and gray like business suits. With one leg too long. As long as I kept winning, right?

And even when I do, you tell me it’s not good enough. My form was this, my stride was that, my breathing is off, breathe, Sunny. Breathe.

That’s what you say? You say I have to breathe, but I can’t. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.





Dear Diary,

Boom tick tick tickboom don’t mean shoulder shrugs and robotic moves and tippy-toe to heel . . . things. It don’t mean an explosion of dance. At least not for Darryl. But it does mean an explosion. An explosion that begins with a vibration. Darryl’s body shaking like you shake, Diary, when the wind hits your pages. Shaking like you might rip out and fly away. Darryl’s jaw was jumping, and he bit down on his own mouth to trap the cat in, I think. He kept nodding at me as we stood on opposite sides of the big table, nodding like he heard me, nodding like he heard someone else whispering to him. The nod turned into a bow. Him, folding in half.

I asked him if he was okay, and he just nodded. Then he bent over, his puzzled face kissing my mother’s puzzled cheek, then swiped the puzzle box off the table. All the peace, but none of the pieces.

Darryl apologized, his voice, eeee-ing like a creaky door. Like a house settling. Then he told me to go to bed.

So, I said night.





7


Thursday


Dear Diary,

You know how I always say I was born in the middle of a hurricane? Well, that’s true. But I realized last night that maybe I was born in the middle of two. And this morning felt like a third.

It started the usual way Thursdays start. No, it didn’t. It didn’t start the usual way at all. Aurelia was late. My father was already gone to work by the time the doorbell rang, and when I opened it, there she was, holding a paper bag with our sausage biscuits in it.

She said there had been an accident, and as soon as she said it I thought about Patty’s aunt, who got in a car accident a few weeks ago, and that scared me, but then I knew nothing was wrong because Aurelia was standing in front of me with her arms and legs and head connected to her body, so I knew she was okay. And because of that, I went from being all the way scared to all the way happy, and wrapped myself around her and squeezed tight.

Aurelia is like my best friend. I don’t need her to ever be accidented. Ever.

Then she said she wasn’t in an accident, somebody else was, but that it was just a fender bender and everybody was being nosy and we’d better hurry up and eat so we can get going.

Diary, the sausage biscuits were cold. We warmed them up and that made them hot, but also hard. But I had to eat, and I didn’t want to seem ungrateful because Aurelia bought them for us, so I started choking mine down, and then I actually choked, mid choke-down. A chunk of bread that had scientifically become a stone in the microwave got stuck in my throat. And well, I started to panic.

There are things that happen when you panic, especially when you’re choking. Things I never knew. I had never choked before. The first thing you do is think you’re going to die. That’s also the second thing you do. And then you start pointing at yourself. It’s weird. Every time I see someone choke in the movies, the people they’re with never seem to notice, and I always thought that was fake, until it happened to me. Aurelia was sitting right in front of me, looking right in my face, and she couldn’t tell I was choking and thinking about dying and thinking about dying again, until I pointed to myself. To my mouth and throat. And then the guessing game began.

Sunny?

Then, You choking? (Ding ding ding! Correctamundo, on the first try!)

I’m choking! I yelled in my head, but it just sounded like cack, cack, kech, krrr, krrr, all of which are basically the word “choke” without the vowel sounds. That’s what choking does. It eliminates vowels. I realized that, too.