Push Girl (20 page)

As Ana rolled herself out the door, she turned her head back to face me. “Last time I saw you, you looked really sad.”

I nodded. “I was.”

“Before my accident, my dad and I fought all the time. He was never around. But it’s crazy. Now that he has to help me out so much, and I guess he thought he might not make it or something, things have totally changed between us.” She shrugged. “I’m not glad I got hurt, but I’m glad to have my dad back, you know?”

I knew what she meant. There was no way I would have realized my feelings for Jack if it hadn’t been for my accident. I’d still be with Curt, who sucked. It took this drastic, world-altering event for me to realize the awesome thing that was right in front of me all along.

*   *   *

Even though Amanda had driven me to PT, my parents asked if they could pick me up and take me out to dinner. Things had been odd in my house over the past few days, and their insistence on family time was leaving me a little uneasy.

The fight my parents had the night of my accident, and my mom’s confession about their possible divorce, was never far from my mind. And for good reason, because as soon as I settled myself in the car, I could sense weirdness, so obvious that it was almost like a fourth passenger, buckled up next to me.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

But instead of answering, Mom asked, “How was PT today?”

Mom hadn’t asked about it before, since it seemed like her mission in life was to avoid, avoid, avoid, so I jumped at the opportunity to tell her how it was going. “Amanda got most of it on video, actually, so you can watch it. I’m not making a ton of progress yet—”

“But it’s still early,” Dad broke in. “It’s only been a month. Tiny progress you make now snowballs as you go, and you’ll be wheeling circles around that place in no time.”

Or walking,
I thought, and I smiled at the possibility.

The weirdness from the car followed us into the restaurant, my favorite Mexican place with the best chips and salsa ever. There was no conversation as we perused the menus and ordered our dinner, and I watched through narrowed eyes as Mom and Dad shifted around and coughed and looked anywhere but at me.

“Okay, please just tell me what’s up,” I said when I couldn’t take the heavy silence for another second. “I can tell something is going on with you guys. Whatever it is, I can handle it.” I didn’t know if I
could
handle the reality of my parents getting a divorce, but I could handle it more easily than them keeping it from me and acting all shifty. The longer they hid things, the more my overactive imagination took over, and right now I was picturing the messiest divorce and custody battle this side of a daytime soap. There was no way the truth could be that bad. At least I hoped not, anyway.

Dad cleared his throat and Mom shifted around in her seat some more.

“Well,” Dad said, poking at the ice in his water with his straw. “You know your mother and I have been having some … difficulties.”

Here it was. I nodded, gripping the wheels of my chair until my hands started to tingle.

“I don’t know if you remember the conversation we had right before your accident,” Mom said, reaching across the table with her hand outstretched.

I nodded again, afraid to speak, and placed my hand in hers.

She smiled. “Sweetie, you have inspired us.”

I yanked my hand away and rolled my eyes. I was in no mood to deal with this crap from my parents, too. “God, Mom. Don’t—”

“Just listen to me,” she said. “I know you were struggling. With your chair, with your medication, and with all the feelings that came along with all of this. But you didn’t accept that. You wanted to do everything you could to feel normal again, even if it meant admitting you needed help and going to therapy.”

“That inspired me and your mother, Kara,” Dad said. “It really did.” Now he reached across the table and grabbed Mom’s hand, smiling at her. “So while you were at PT today, we went to our first session of marriage counseling.”

“What?” I blinked at him, trying to make sense of what he was telling me. “So you’re
not
getting a divorce?” I didn’t realize I’d been carrying the thought of my parents splitting up around with me like a weight on my lap, but the second my dad said counseling, I felt instantly lighter. Unburdened.

“We don’t know what the future holds right now. But I promise you that we’re going to try to work on our problems before we let it come to that,” Mom said.

“We know it’s not going to be easy.” Dad reached his free hand across the table and grabbed my hand, so we looked like we were about to start a prayer circle or something. “Things aren’t going to magically get better for us, sweetie. But we’re going to work hard on it. And we’ll need your help to work on our relationship as a family. Can you help us out?”

I smiled. It was a smile so big that it actually hurt.

No divorce.

And the crazy thing was, if I hadn’t gotten in an accident that night, this might never have happened. My parents would have divorced for sure. My family would have imploded, and there would have been nothing to prompt them to try to work things out.

Maybe good things could grow from the ashes of destruction. Maybe this accident was the end of my old life, but it was also the beginning of a new one. And maybe that new one had the potential to be okay after all.

CHAPTER 19

“Amanda, stop drooling over the competition,” Jack said, smacking her on the arm. “You’re not helping our cause that way.” The last few days before Homecoming were the fund-raising days, and today was the last lunch period we had to squeeze as many donations as we could from the pockets of the student body.

All the queen candidates had spent every free minute before school, during break, and all through lunch at tables in the quad, with bright, hand-colored posters announcing the club they represented and their fund-raiser. Most girls decorated their booths with ridiculous pictures of their silly project, and they tried to lure passersby and their money to their table with candy giveaways or crazy chants.

Since my fund-raiser was the only serious one in a sea of frivolity, I decided to go all the way. I created a presentation board with drunk-driving statistics. I printed out a handout with facts about spinal cord injuries and the freedom a wheelchair could provide to someone who needed one. I set up an iPad playing a rough cut of the footage Amanda had been shooting for her project, and I recruited her and Jack to help me out by talking to people who stopped by the booth to donate their spare change.

Of course, we were set up right next to Jenny Roy, who sank to new levels of ridiculous with her project of buying new Speedos for the water polo team. She even convinced some of the players, including Curt, who was earning a varsity letter in ignoring me, to actually stand at her table in their old Speedos and pass out candy with her name on it.

W. T. actual F.

“I’m sorry,” Amanda said, throwing up her hands, “but she’s just playing dirty. It’s impossible to compete with half-naked guys with perfect bodies. I mean, who knew Rob Chang had a freaking six-pack? My God.”

“Focus,” I said, handing her a stack of Walk and Roll flyers. “Maybe try to get some of their overflow to sign up for our club meeting.”

Crowds of students filed through the quad, stopping at the various booths and tossing change into the fund-raising jars. Our booth wasn’t as busy as Naked Guy Central next door, but there were definitely students interested in Walk and Roll.

“The jar is filling up,” Jack said. “Lots of pennies, though. Did you know it costs more to produce pennies than they’re worth? Pennies actually cost the government money. Isn’t that insane?”

“Jack,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I thought we were done with the trivia.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “Sorry. I’m just … I really want you to win, and it’s making me all nervous.”

I wheeled up to the table and examined my jar. It was filling up, but Jack was right. It wasn’t full of dollar bills, or even quarters. People were tossing change in, but it was nothing significant. Would it be enough to actually do something meaningful with? Starting a Walk and Roll chapter was great, but winning Homecoming Queen would really get the money and attention we’d need to get some great service projects going. With a jar full of pennies, it seemed like the whole thing might fall flat.

Amanda and Jack’s penny analysis, and my penny gazing, was interrupted by three girls who walked up to our booth and tossed a crumpled-up napkin covered in nacho cheese sauce into the jar.

“What the hell?” I snapped.

“You’re depressing,” the tallest one, clad in all black, said. “I can see why your club is called Walk and Roll. You’re making me want to freaking roll myself out into traffic.”

“You’re the one who looks like a walking corpse,” Amanda said, pulling out attitude from somewhere inside her I had no idea existed.

“Homecoming is supposed to be fun,” the shortest one said. She looked a bit like a troll, and she spit when she talked. “Not a time for charity work. No one cares.”

The middle one snorted. “I bet you’re just raising this money for yourself. So you can buy yourself a new wheelchair or something.”

I tightened my hand into a fist and held back the string of profanities that I wanted to spit at them. “Better than stealing my clothes from Goodwill.”

It wasn’t my best comeback ever, but they didn’t listen, anyway. They walked off, probably in search of a booth that was less depressing. But they left behind the seeds of doubt they had planted.

“What’s wrong with people?” Jack grabbed my hand and squeezed it, but I yanked it away. I wasn’t in the mood for comfort.

Instead, I covered my face with my hands. “They’re right. This was stupid. I never should have done this.”

Jack squatted down next to me and looked me right in the eyes. “You know that’s not true,” he said. “You’re doing something good. Most people respect that. Sure, there are some A-holes, but just ignore them, okay? You’re amazing.”

“Look at her.” I pointed to Jenny’s booth, which started to resemble a beehive with all the people buzzing around it. “She’s had a crowd the whole time.”

“Crowds don’t matter,” Amanda said, leaning back against our table. “Not if she’s not making any—”

“Even Alice from the Japanese Club has more people stopping at her booth than we do. She’s raising money to do an anime intro on the morning announcement video. Is that more important to people than a fund-raiser that will actually help people? Our club could save lives. What do they do?”

Self-doubt was drowning me, crashing down on me like waves. I had no idea what I was doing. Thinking that anyone else besides me and my friends cared about drunk driving and spinal cord injuries was ridiculous. Those girls were right. I thought I could swoop in here with my tragic story and change the world, but really, Speedos were going to win every time.

Could I drop out of the running now? No, everyone would know I quit out of embarrassment. But I’d just be humiliated at the Homecoming assembly, when I lost after having raised hardly any money for my club.

I was seconds away from asking Jack and Amanda to help me brainstorm an exit strategy when Baker, a guy from my English class, came up to our booth and shoved a twenty-dollar bill in the jar.

“Wow.” Baker had been on my radar since he spoke up in my behalf to Mr. David when I first came back to school, but this was quite a shock. No one had donated that much yet, and his generosity quickly snapped me out of my spiral of self-pity. “Thank you, Baker. Really.”

“No big deal.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at the ground, his voice growing quiet. “My cousin Owen has been in a wheelchair for five years. He was in a drunk-driving accident, too. It killed his twin brother.”

Amanda’s hand flew to her mouth, and I gasped. I couldn’t help it.

“I know,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “It … it sucked. So, uh, if you need any help with Walk and Roll or anything, just let me know. I’m down to do whatever I can.”

Jack walked up to Baker and slapped him on the back. “That’s awesome, man. Thanks.” The two of them walked behind the booth, talking about this drunk-driving awareness program called Rally4Reality that the Walk and Roll Foundation put on at Baker’s cousin’s high school and coming up with ideas on how Student Government could help host it.

Baker was just the reality check I needed. Jenny Roy’s booth may have drawn in the quantity, but there were some people on campus who knew there were more important things in life than Speedos. I’d take that kind of quality any day.

*   *   *

The night before Homecoming, Amanda came over to help me get ready for the Homecoming assembly. Our school loved to make the Homecoming hoopla last as long as possible, so we held an all-school assembly during the day on Friday to crown the queen. Friday night was the Homecoming football game, where the queen got to be escorted by her dad down a red carpet on the field during halftime. Finally, the Homecoming Dance was on Saturday night, so all the girls would have plenty of time to get done up, and the queen and her date were the guests of honor. It was all a production, but it was usually pretty fun. This year, though, it was causing me nothing but stress. Good thing I had Amanda to help me get organized.

After my dress, shoes, and makeup for the assembly were all laid out and ready to go, the two of us sat on my bed, watching TV and talking about our plans for the dance. I was going with Jack, and Amanda had gotten up the nerve to ask Sergio, this guy from her media class she’d been admiring from afar, and he’d said yes. She was in the middle of dissecting their most recent text exchange with me when she jumped to her feet, excited. “I totally forgot. I have an early cut of my video project ready. You want to see?”

“Of course I do! Grab my laptop.”

Amanda picked up my computer from my desk and grabbed a disk from her bag, which she slid into the side of my laptop. “You can keep this disk for now, and I’ll get you a copy of the final one when it’s ready to go.”