"I'm not going to make it!"
Sarah skidded up the stairs, brushed dead leaves off her stockings, and tried to tie her oily, wet hair into a pony tail. The rain was dying off at least, but she was still a wet rat. She had to breathe. If she just popped into the class unnoticed, things would be fine. It wasn't the first time she'd been late.
The girls in the back were staring at her wet hair, and her face felt more pink than it'd ever been. She probably had mud on her skirt, too. She shoved her bookbag off her shoulders anyway and slid in line with the others. She'd practiced. First, she turned right. Then, she spun left. She knew that the steps repeated three times before the twist. But, her shoes were all wet. Her hair dripped down onto the floor. As she danced, Ava and Emily began to slip, slide, and wipe out on the floor like bowling pins. They were doing it on purpose. The floor wasn't that wet—a drop or two at most.
"Sarah!" Mr. Louie yelled like she knew he would. "Why are you all wet? You've got on the wrong shoes. You can't dance like this."
"They're just being jerks," she said and stared down at the water puddles she'd left on the floor. "It's not that wet. I mean, don't they know how to watch where they're going?"
"Ugh," Emily groaned. "It's your fault. I can't dance when the floor's all wet. Why do you have to mess everything up and be so weird?"
"Why do you have to be so whiny?" Sarah spat.
"I'm not whiny," Emily said and stuck her tongue out.
"Ugh, stop!" Sarah groaned. "Girls that do that look so gross."
"Mr. Louie," Emily whined. "She's being miso-gyn-is-tic."
"Misogo-what?" Sarah blurted.
"It means you hate girls."
Sarah rolled her eyes. "Why would I hate girls? I am one!"
"You said that girls who do that look gross, so you hate girls," Emily said back.
"I don't hate girls. I just hate stupid tongues...like yours!"
"Sarah!" Mr. Louie scolded.
"She started it," Sarah sighed. Tears brimmed over in her eyes, and her face spotted pink. "I don't hate girls. I don't hate anyone."
"Sarah, come here," Mr. Louie's voice softened. "Talk to me. Why are you all wet?"
"It's tree day," she shrugged.
"What?"
"Every Tuesday I go to the blue tree in my neighbor's yard, and I have to go across the creek to get there. My sister won't let me go if I don't sneak out, so I have to get wet anyways. Then it started raining, and I fell out of the tree. Landed in the mud again, but it doesn't matter, because I have to see the tree because my mom's inside it."
"Uh huh...," Mr. Louie sighed. "Sarah, I know this has been hard for you. I understand."
"No, you don't. Your mom's not even dead is she? Is she?"
"Whyyy don't you just wait here, Sarah? I'm going to go call your sister."
Sarah scooped up her bookbag and stuck her tongue out at the girls who were still staring behind her back. Not even Mr. Louie, who had to be older than dirt, knew what she was going through. Why did she have to go through something that not even some old people went through yet? What did they know? They all had their moms still. They had theirs, and she didn't.
She stomped off in her sloshing boots to the front porch and sat down. Dance class was over anyway. She'd been too late to start with.
Ava left first. She had one of those fancy watches where she could just call her mom whenever she wanted. Ava wouldn't look at her. She was usually nice, but whenever Emily came around, she turned into one of them.
Then, Emily left. Emily didn't have a watch, but she had those pretty, glittery gel pens all of the time that everyone always wanted to borrow. All Sarah had was her sister's patched book bag. It was dumb just like her.
When everyone else had gone, Sarah's older sister showed up. She was taller, smarter, and prettier. Her hair was long and blond. Her eyes were baby blue — like their mother's. Hers were stink-green — like their father's.
"Ah, Mila," Mr. Louie said. "I'm rooting for you. I really am. I know it's been hard. Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Can you get me a new job?" Mila sort of laughed, but it didn't sound like a real laugh. It sounded short and empty like all of her laughs since December. "My manager wasn't too happy with me having to leave early, so he, uh, fired me."
"Oh, Mila, I'm so sorry. I can ask around," Mr. Louie said. "Keep your chin up."
And then, he shut the front door, flipped the sign closed, and started snapping off the lights. People always said "if you need anything", but they never meant it.
"I had to talk to mom," Sarah whined.
"She's not there, Sarah."
"She is there. I know it. I heard her, Mi-la!"
"How can mom be in a tree?" Mila groaned. "She's gone."
Mila helped her sister up. She tugged on her zippers. She pulled a soaking wet pony tail into her hand and began to wring it out. Water dripped down onto the porch and died into the wooden panels below.
"I'm sorry, Sarah," she sighed.
That was when Jay came jogging up from his car.
"Hey, Mila!"
"Not now, Jay. I've got to get Sarah home."
"I think I found you a job," he said with a grin. He worked with Mila down at the diner. He also thought Mila was cute, so he tried too hard around her. He always looked down at his feet and flashed a shy smile. He was always doing more for her than she did for him. "It's just two blocks away."
"You what?" Mila gasped. "Okay, Sarah. Let's go. You can wait outside."
"We can take my car," Jay said. "I can give you a ride there, but I have to get going once I drop you off. You okay with walking back?"
"Yeah. Oh, Jay, you are a life saver. Thank you!"
Sarah stared at the car and winced. "Do I have to?"
"Get in," Mila snapped.
They got in the car, shut the doors, and sped off. You couldn't bring bratty sisters into job interviews. Sarah knew that. It was the third job she'd tried to get that month. She just didn't want to wait outside. She was wet, and she wanted to change. Sarah shoved her hands under her legs to try and keep the water from soaking too far into Jay's seats.
"I gotta go," Jay said as they pulled in. "I really gotta get to Leon by four. Sarah going to be alright?"
"Yeah," Mila said. "She's always been good with that sort of thing. Sarah, you can wait out by the front door, alright?"
"Yeah, whatever," Sarah groaned.
She watched Jay wave as he drove off and listened to Mila greeting the old woman with her best, professional, fake voice. If getting jobs meant you had to walk on ice, she never wanted one.
Sarah sat back down on the door step and started digging through the crumb-filled bookbag for the rest of her crackers. She hated crackers. Mom never made her eat crackers, but they were better than nothing. She popped one between her teeth and chiseled away at it.
The trees above her swayed with their branches spread out like a green net. Birds flew past, black and fast as race cars. It wasn't fair for everything to look okay when it wasn't. How could the sky still be blue? How could the sun still be shining? They dumped her mom into dirt. Nothing should have been okay. Nothing should have been normal anymore. Dance was stupid. Emily was stupid. Mila was stupid, too. She threw the crackers down onto the dirt.
"What does she know?" she grumbled beneath her breath. "I'm going home anyway. Mom would never make me sit outside. I go to dance by myself now. I can go home and change by myself."
So, she trudged down the dirt road — kicking sticks and letting her fingers drag against the chain-link fence all the way home. Sometimes, it felt like she had a fence inside her, and it blocked off everything good.
She really knew better than to go off alone all the time, but she did it anyway. Mila was too busy to notice most of the time anyway. She'd change her clothes and then go back to the tree — away from everyone but mom.
The interview must have taken some time, because it took her a while to walk all the way home. And Mila hadn't come running up the road yelling at her yet. Maybe that meant she got the job. Mila could always get jobs; she just couldn't keep them. Another turn and the house came into view.
The house looked so empty. Every time she saw it, her stomach dipped inside. Her mom's white car sat in the driveway, but it didn't run. She used to remember it pulling up into the parking lot. It had oval headlights that were yellow and buttery. She used to look out the window for it when she was tired of being at school. But, it hadn't moved since the accident.
She snatched the spare key out from the busted pot by the steps and shoved it into the front door. She pulled the handle up and to the right. It was the only way the door would open any more. It always got stuck. Everything in her entire life always got stuck.
Her body flopped down on the living room floor. She listened to the bubbling stove and the rattle of the air conditioning unit in the window. Mila left the stove on — again. Everything else was quiet. She shoved a toe inside of one boot and kicked it across the floor. Water pooled out of it, too. She had to get wet. It wasn't her fault they couldn't handle themselves around a few puddles.
She muttered. "Babies."
Some days were worse than others, and that's when she usually listened to music. But no sooner had she gotten the headphones pulled out of the couch cushions, did she hear a knock at the door.
And knocks always made her heart freeze. The last time they'd gotten a knock on the door, there was a cop, and there were screams, and everything changed because her mom had died that day. And she never came back. Nobody they were used to had to even knock. Knocks were never good.