Where the Staircase Ends(14)

HELL HATH NO FURY LIKE A GIRL IN GYM SHORTS





This time I wasn’t surprised when I appeared back on the staircase. The posters on my bedroom wall faded into a blue sky, and like before, my feet were moving up the steps like they’d never stopped. Was it possible to be in two places at once?

I squinted against the bright afternoon, searching the steps. Something green swayed in the distance. At first I thought it was another ghost waiting to torture me, but as I got closer I saw that it was nothing more than the reaching stem of a sunflower.

Weird. I climbed closer to the plant. It was the first sign of life I’d seen since appearing on the staircase. How had a flower managed to grow in the middle of bumblebutt nowhere?

The green stalk stretched up through a crack in the stone until it was almost at my knees. Bright leaves splayed helter-skelter along the stem, and at the top sat a perfect circle of yellow petals, opened like a palm toward the sky.

There was something brave about the flower, something defiant in the way it broke through the steps like nothing could hold it back. Maybe my brain was still mash-potatoed from the car crash, but I thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

I wanted it. No, I needed it. There was no way I could take another step without having the perfect yellow petals to keep me company.

I wrapped my hands around the stem, surprised at how sturdy it felt, and gave it a sharp tug.

The flower didn’t move.

I tried again, this time pulling and yanking and twisting with everything I had, but the damn thing wouldn’t budge. It stayed rooted in place like it was planted in cement.

Something inside me snapped. It wasn’t just the flower—it was everything. The staircase. Sunny. Logan. Justin. It all welled up inside me until I couldn’t take it anymore. I wanted to take it all out on the immobile flower. The stupid, stupid flower that was so hell-bent on staying put.

I jumped on top of it, using my heels to grind the stem into the staircase. I kicked it and clawed it, then hopped and danced and jumped until I was sure the flower was mashed into paste.

But when I stepped to the side to admire my destruction, the flower looked unfazed. Its leaves still stretched toward the sky, and its yellow petals beamed as brightly as ever. It was as if nothing happened.

As if I didn’t exist.

No. There was no effing way I was going to leave there without yanking that stupid flower from the ground.

I tried again, this time pounding and pounding until I was sure my fists would bleed from the force, but nothing happened. My hands were clean and blood-free, and the flower looked as if no one had ever touched it. It didn’t seem fair. How could it still sit there like that? How was it that my actions had no effect on it?

As if that wasn’t strange enough, I realized that all the jumping and tugging and pounding wasn’t making me tired. I used every ounce of strength I had to try to smash the flower, but I hadn’t so much as broken a sweat. In fact, I didn’t think I’d felt winded since arriving on the stairs—not even when I ran to catch up to the source of the voice.

The obvious answer to the riddle was probably that I was dead. It’s not like dead people needed to breathe or use their lungs. But I didn’t feel any different. To prove it, I tried sucking a breath in and out to see if I could, and sure enough, I breathed like I always did. So why wasn’t I getting tired?

I kicked at the flower again and lost my balance, tumbling forward onto the steps so that the plant was locked behind me where I couldn’t reach.

“God, if you’re up there, I want you to know that this sucks. Can you hear me? This place sucks!”

I didn’t know why I bothered saying the words out loud. No one was listening.

I stood and started to brush myself off until I realized there was nothing to brush off. Everything was as it had been, because nothing ever changed on this godforsaken staircase.

Two hands touched my back, their fingers splaying out against my skin in a comforting gesture. They reached around my shoulders and neck until they were holding me in a tight hug, and I felt a warm cheek press against my back.

A sigh escaped my lips. It felt nice to be held. It made me think of my mother’s warm arms, always willing to give me an encouraging embrace when I was younger. Somewhere along the way a rift had formed between us. I wasn’t even sure what started it, but one day I started to feel like she wanted me to be someone else, like I wasn’t good enough for her.

I leaned into her arms, happy and sad all at the same time because I suddenly missed her so much; because I wanted a chance to close the distance between us and be the daughter she wanted me to be. I would study harder. I would be better. I would do whatever she needed me to do, if I could just get another chance.

“Mom?” I looked down at the hands that were folded against my heart, hoping to see the familiar curve of her unpolished fingernails.

Instead I saw Sunny’s signature French manicure.

No.

“Get off me,” I snapped, shaking myself free from her claws. Tears pricked at the corner of my eyes. I pressed my thumbs into my tear ducts, trying to keep the wetness from seeping out. She would not make me cry.

Sunny launched herself in front of me to block my path. In her hand, she held the sunflower, its roots dropping clumps of dirt onto the ground in front of me. An amused grin split her face as she held it out to me, as if to say, “Look what I so easily pulled out of the ground. Jealous much?”