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Barsanti, The Real Stories
Renata Barsanti101 Stadium Drive
Chapel Hill, NC, [email protected]
Where the Real Stories Hide
When they read about Adam and Eve in Church, do you ever just want to yell out and tell
Eve not to eat the fruit?
That’s how I feel. I’m sitting in one of those hard benches, trying to be still but shifting
enough that my butt doesn’t fall asleep, and the old lady who’s reading gives every word more
syllables than it needs. And even though her voice is the same kind of soothing as rain plunking
on a roof and the clouds are so thick that the stained glass windows aren’t doing their job of
keeping everyone awake with sunlight, I want to jump up without worrying about hiking my
dress down and yell at Eve for what she did, because who even needs fruit?
I’m one hundred percent sure that if I had been in her position, I would have just eaten
something else, like steak, if there were cows in paradise. Which there had to be, because I eat at
the Paradise Burger all the time, and I figure that’s where they get their inspiration. I would have
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said, “no, you dumb snake, I don’t like fruit nor do I like snakes so you can just keep this apple
all to yourself.”
One of my teachers in high school told the class that the fruit in the Bible was probably a
metaphor for sex, but I don’t believe that. I’m sure Adam was great and all, but I can see
someone sinning for an apple way more than I can see her doing it for some fruitloop guy that’s
naked all the time. Eve must have known that there would be some kind of consequence, but
instead, she went and made us all have sinner genes and then made childbirth awful. My mom
can attest to that, except sometimes I think she’s exaggerating just to get us to stay away from
boys, because how could there ever be that much gunk coming out of your privates?
So all in all, I kind of wish God had made me back when he made them too, so I could
have followed Eve around and smacked her on the hand whenever she tried to pick fruit from the
knowledge tree. I think I would have been really good at that, kind of like a bodyguard to protect
her from sin. I tell you, there aren’t many things that I can do right on this earth, but that would
certainly have been one of them.
My sister Jenny fusses at me after the service about fidgeting, and it drives me nuts,
because I’m the older sister. But this is how it’s always been, just because she’s an honor student
and I barely made it out of high school. What’s really annoying is that she seems to think that I
want to be just like her even though I most definitely do not.
Besides, I finally have a one-up on her, which is money. She complains all the time about
needing scholarships, and sometimes, I can’t help but say “maybe you should get a job like me”
and she gets so mad that she either yells at me “after college, you’ll see!” or she runs and tells
Mom, who then gives me a talking-to. I don’t see why Mom gets mad at me for that, though,
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Barsanti, The Real Stories
because Jenny calls me names all the time and picks on me for not being the sharpest tool in the
shed or the brightest crayon in the box. I don’t appreciate being teased for something I can’t fix,
but when I tease her for something she can change, I get in trouble. Sometimes I wonder if she
hates me so much because I got more attention when we were little, because I had tutors and
Mom helped me extra. I would think she’d have gotten over it when she started getting all kinds
of awards for being smart, though, so I guess I just don’t understand her.
Then again, Mom isn’t my biggest fan either. I’m pretty sure she loves me, but she’s
always gotten really frustrated about things that are hard for me, like math and manners. I keep
asking her if I can move out, but she gets all teary-eyed and asks me things like “what are you
going to eat?” and I say “grilled cheese,” because I’m good at making that. And she says “how
are you going to get to work?” and I say “I could try harder to pass the driving test,” and usually
by this point she’s crying. I guess it’s kind of depressing to have your 24-year-old still living in
the house when your 18-year-old is fixing to move out. I know she just worries about me a lot,
but sometimes that gets in the way, and I keep telling her she should redirect it to something like
global warming or the war effort, except there is no war at the moment, so maybe some other
country’s war effort. And then she should help me move out, because I know I can do it.
So today I let Jenny’s words sail right over my head like the birds that used to fly around
the elementary school playground waiting for one of us to drop a Cheeto. Instead, I look around
the churchyard, reading all the graves a bunch of times and watching old people gush at each
other and hoping the clouds don’t burst open. And suddenly, my bored, not-paying-attention eyes
land on this guy who’s talking to the pastor. He’s tall and probably kind of muscley except I
can’t be sure because he’s dressed respectably, which is a good sign in a guy. His shirt is
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checkered and he turns and sees me staring, and boy, let me tell you about that smile. It looks
like moonlight on the lake downtown, all shiny and white.
I notice that I’ve probably been looking too long when off to a corner of my mind I
realize that “why can’t you just sit still for one damn minute” turns into “Samantha” (it’s Sam)
“why aren’t you listening? Is there anything at all going on in that brain of yours?” and so I snap
back and roll my eyes and say “of course there is” and push this man to the back of my thoughts.
I can’t get him to stay there, so when I see him heading for the table with the lemonade and
cookies, I do my best to convince Jenny that I’m dying of hunger and don’t know what to do.
That way, she’ll suggest going there and be okay with it, because she’ll feel smart for coming up
with a solution, even though that’s what I was thinking in the first place.
So I hurry and get there just in time to reach for a flowery paper cup as he’s doing the
same so that our hands touch a teensy bit and I have to apologize to his face. He smiles again and
I get nervous so that I can feel it in my stomach.
“I’m John,” he says and his voice sounds smooth and warm, just like the three-
tablespoons-of-sugar coffee I like to drink.
“Sam.” He reaches for my hand and shakes it all jerky-like. That’s good, I figure, a man
with a firm handshake, but I wonder if any more shaking might crunch my bones.
“Nice to meet you,” he winks, which seems kind of uncalled for but I figure he’s one of
those people who does that all the time and I really like it. I take in breaths that make my lungs
tickle because he’s still looking at me, not looking away uncomfortably, and he seems pretty
sincere, and I try not to be red. Of course, nothing gets past Jenny, so she picks on me the whole
ride home, but my happy tells me to ignore her.
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Barsanti, The Real Stories
The moment we get there, I tell Mom I need to go talk to Grandma and hurry over to her
house, which is only a few minutes’ walk from ours. It’s all in good neighborhoods, too, with
pointy fences and houses with porches. I think that’s why Mom lets me go by myself.
She opens the door with her hair loose, gray wispiness all escaping. She gives me a soft,
not-too-squeezy hug. We sit in the shade of her porch and I tell her everything.
Grandma’s always had a soft spot for me, because she was never the best student either.
That means she understands me way more than Mom and Jenny. I learned that one day when I
got upset in school because I was having a hard time reading a book that felt like it had too many
pages and big words that made me trip with my brain. I’d gotten so frustrated in class that my
teacher had sent me out of the classroom, and everyone had laughed, and I came home crying so
hard that not even fresh lemonade could snap me out of it.
I told Grandma what had happened, and she got mad. I’d never seen her like that before,
her wrinkles all bunched together while she muttered things that sounded mean and also possibly
demonic about they think they know what smart is. She pulled a wrinkly Kleenex out of her
purse, blotted my cheeks, and pulled me out of the house.
We drove downtown and went inside a café, but we stopped before we even made it to
the counter. She pointed at the bulletin board next to the door. “You listening, Sam? This is
where the real stories hide,” she said. “You don’t need to be able to read big fat books to get the
real stories, the important ones.”
I followed her finger to a flyer. Lost dog. Responds to Annie. Beloved pet, please call if
you see her! I nodded, but I wasn’t sure if I understood. She pointed to a couple other flyers, but
I kept seeing people out of the corner of my eye sipping coffee and reading books even bigger
than the one in class, so we moved on.
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Barsanti, The Real Stories
We did the same thing at the market.
Babysitter needed, four kids ages 5-12.
Ron’s Lawns, keeping yards tidy for five years. Price negotiable.
And then we drove to the hospital, where the boards had papers with studies on them and
phone numbers dangling at the bottom.
Needed for study: Mothers who smoked during pregnancy. Compensation available.
That’s when I finally started to understand, because I’d heard my mom say that maybe
that’s why I am like I am, because she smoked a lot when I was in her belly, even though the
doctors said that there’s no way to know and that plenty of moms do the same thing and have
babies that aren’t like me. I figured that there was a story tucked into the flyer itself, of the
people who wanted to study moms, and a story in each of the slips that had been taken, and
Grandma was right: it didn’t take much to find them. We drove home quieter than usual, but it
was a good quiet.
These days I tell Grandma everything, right down to what kind of Poptart I have for
breakfast and whether or not my room is clean. She listens and nods in all the right places. Now,
I tell her about John from church and how nice he looked, and how he made me feel tingly like
there were sparklers in my belly, the ones they bring to the church picnic on the Fourth of July.
And you know what she tells me? “Go for it, sweet pea.”
My mouth falls open, because I was expecting her to tell me to stay away from boys.
“You’re a grown girl, there’s nothing wrong with that.” She twists her wedding ring
around on her finger, the one she still wears even though Grandpa died when I was ten. “You
deserve a good man. And he would be lucky to have you.”
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Barsanti, The Real Stories
I start to plan what I’m going to wear to next Sunday’s church before I even get home,
because I know I need to make a good impression. I practice my smile in the mirror until I’m
convinced that the teeth-to-lip ratio is just right and I put on my highest, pinkest heels to walk
around until I don’t teeter-totter anymore.
But then, later that afternoon, I’m working my evening shift at Walgreens, changing all
of the sale labels to get ready for next week. I’ve just gotten to the point where my “yes ma’am,”
happy-to-be-there motivation starts to fizzle out when I hear that voice, the one like sweet coffee,
from what I guess is the next aisle. I almost drop the stack of tags I’m holding as I fling myself
another aisle down, hoping to postpone seeing him.
I’m not ready for this. I’m wearing my scratchy light blue uniform polo that I didn’t
realize I shouldn’t wash with a new pair of dark jeans, so it’s actually kind of grayish blue now,
and I didn’t feel like doing my laundry this weekend so my khakis have a mustard stain from last
week’s barbecue above the right knee. I am in no shape to see him, and my stomach does
somersaults like I used to do before I dropped out of kiddie gymnastics.
“Sam, is that you?” There he is, right next to me, his basket full of junk food, all Coke
and Lays and M&M’s, even though I know for a fact that none of them are on sale. He is most
definitely my kind of man.
“Oh, hi, I didn’t see you there, how are you, I mean since church and all?” My words
feel bubbly and I’m not sure whether they sound as good to him as they do to me.
“I’ve been fine,” I try not to gawk too much. “This is my friend Jeremy.” He gestures at
the guy next to him who I haven’t even noticed, and he’s even more muscular than John, his skin
just a little dark so that it reminds me of a chocolate milkshake. I recognize him from church, but
I’m pretty sure he’s one of the people that only come on holidays. He nods, not saying anything.
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Barsanti, The Real Stories
“Nice to meet you,” I gush.
Kind of suddenly, and still without saying anything to me, Jeremy claps him on the back
and walks away, and John’s eyes get all warm, light moving through them just like it spreads
through glow sticks right after you crack them. “I know this might seem kind of soon,” he says,
rubbing his arm. “but…would you like to go out with me?”
My mouth falls open and my insides squeal. I want to say something, but the sound gets
trapped and bounces around inside me right along with the rest of my organs. I know I’ve smiled
at him a lot, and I wore one of my nicer dresses to church today, and to think these things are
suddenly paying off makes me extra happy.
“You know…just dinner sometime?” His cheeks are dotted with pink and I know it’s
nothing compared to how red I must be. I take deep breaths and I’m so excited that I say yes,
yes, of course, definitely, when, tomorrow at five, that’s perfect, can’t wait.
When I tell my mom she cries tears that turn happy once Jenny assures her that she saw
him at church and he seemed very very nice and I’m not even annoyed that she has a say in the
matter. We decide to go dress shopping the next morning, which is usually not my forte, because
who likes trying on clothes? It makes me mad when Mom wants me to turn around so she can
make sure stuff fits, because I’m capable of knowing that without her help.
This time actually goes well because I like the first dress I see. It’s this pinkish-orangish
color that I love because of a teacher I had in fourth grade who always wore lipstick that was the
same color. Her name was Mrs. Meyer, and at first I hated her, because she always made me stay
after class and sometimes during recess. But she was always nice, and I realized that she was
making me stay just to be sure I understood what we were learning so that I could keep up with
the class. Even better, sometimes she would help me get ahead.
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She was the best teacher I ever had. On the last day of school, she gave me the “most
motivated student” award, and I remember how tightly she hugged me when she handed it to me.
She said, “Sam, I just know you’re going to go places. Thanks for being an amazing student” and
it made me cry, because school was always so hard and no teacher, not even a family member,
had ever said anything like that to me. I still have the certificate. I keep it in my box of special
things, with the pictures of me and grandpa and the yoyo I won at Chuckie Cheese’s and the mini
shampoo bottles I collect from hotels. I haven’t seen Mrs. Meyer since the last day of class, but I
think about her all the time.
And that’s why I think the dress is perfect, because it reminds me so much of her, and I
figure it must be good luck. It even fits nicely, tight around the top but flowy on the bottom so it
poofs out when I spin and hangs all nice and flattering when I don’t.
That night, Jenny does my make-up and hair. She doesn’t clamp my ear with the hair
straightener like last time, thank heavens. Instead, she styles each poof of brown carefully. She
blots my face and paints my lips and uses the eyeliner stick that’s funny because it’s basically a
colored pencil. My grandmother watches and smiles in a way that makes my nervousness fade.
When I look at myself in the mirror, I get a little teary, because I never feel particularly
beautiful, seeing as my hair does whatever it wants which generally involves being a curly mass
of tangles and my face is just an average face so it doesn’t stand out and my eyes hide behind
glasses because the one time I tried to do contacts I hated touching my eyeballs so much that I
just wore my glasses instead and my mom got mad that we’d wasted the money.
But now, my hair is controlled and my eyes pop out, like they’re saying “hey, we’re here,
don’t ‘cha know?” I spin around in my dress and I learn what being gorgeous feels like, and it’s
like jumping into a swimming pool on a hot day except the relief is all on the inside.
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John comes inside like a gentleman and shakes my Mom’s and my sister’s and my
grandma’s hands. Mom and Jenny like him a lot, and Jenny even starts to get a bit of jealous on
her face, which makes me happy. Grandma looks a little more skeptical, looking him up and
down and studying his face with her lips scrunched, even though he’s nothing but charming.
I figure it’s because she’s had a tough time with guys. She’s been married three times: the
first was when she was sixteen and he turned out to be a dud except for giving her my mom, the
second was just plain mean, and the third died way too early. I used to ask her if she was going
to get another husband, and she would always say no, her heart was too broken. So I know she
just wants to protect me from what she’s gone through, and despite her not-so-nice faces, I
appreciate her concern. I figure he understands too, so I smile the whole time and leave with a
floaty heart.
He takes me to a restaurant where we sit outside at a table with a big umbrella and those
black, patterned chairs that make loud scraping noises when you move them. We talk about
family, which is small for him because he’s an only child. He tells me about how he just
graduated college and is staying with his grandparents for a few weeks because they want him to,
and because free room and board is nice, and because he thinks small towns are charming, and
because he wants to be lazy before he starts his real job, which is in a sports equipment company.
We both eat fancy BLT’s on thick, toasted bread with crispy fries on the side, and we
both don’t want dessert, and when the waitress asks how we want to pay the check, he says
“together” at the same time I say “separate” and we laugh and then say the opposite and then he
says he’ll pay and we keep laughing.
And then, when we get to the car, we decide we actually do want dessert, and he says that
there are Oreos at his house, and that sounds perfect to me. So we speed there, and it turns out
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Barsanti, The Real Stories
his grandparents don’t live too far from my grandma, only a couple streets over. We hurry into
his kitchen and pour ourselves tall glasses of milk, and I laugh at him because he eats his Oreos
without licking the cream off first. I keep eating cookies until I’m sure I’m going to burst, and
then I feel bursty in another way, because he scoots a little closer to me so that our arms touch.
And then, even though I’m sure my teeth are gross and chocolaty, he touches my cheek
and his hand makes the side of my face feel like it’s melting. He pushes his lips to mine, and it’s
soft and quick but it makes me feel like my whole body is smiling.
He whisper-asks if I want to go to his bedroom, and assures me that it’s movie night at
the senior center so his grandparents will be gone for at least another two hours. I feel a little
jumpy and nervous but once we’re kissing, all of that leaves my system. We tangle together and I
keep hugging him closer to me because he’s so warm and I feel so good, like all of the worries
I’ve ever had are flying away, and all of me feels fizzy and alive, like I’m full of those little soda
bubbles and they’re all floating to the surface.
Before long, he’s shirtless and I’m not wearing my dress anymore, just my bra and
underwear, which are kind of embarrassing because they have cats on them. He doesn’t seem to
notice and his hands are in places where hands have never exactly been, and I breathe kind of
hard because I never knew things could feel so good. And then we just keep going further, and
then we aren’t wearing anything, and I never thought this was ever going to happen because I’m
just plain old me, nothing special. I keep getting all dizzy thinking that I’m really here, and he’s
really here, and even when it gets to hurt just a little, it’s a good kind of uncomfortable, a grown-
up kind. I just keep holding tight to his back, which is warm and smooth like satiny pajamas
when you wake up all toasty under the covers, and letting all my new feelings sprinkle over my
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brain. I keep thinking that I’ve never been this close to someone, and my family didn’t even have
a say in it, and I’m overwhelmed with gladness and freedom so that it pokes behind my eyes.
I keep feeling happy after he’s done and so I cuddle up to his chest and hold onto him
tightly even though we’re kind of sweaty, because I know a good thing when I see it and I don’t
want him or the sparklers in my belly to go away, ever. He rubs my back all gentle, and
everything feels so right that I get the giggles just a bit, and my mind bounces around. Finally, at
one point, he pulls back a bit to look at me, and I laugh and say “you know, that was probably a
sin” because it pops into my head and makes me smile, because why on earth could something so
nice be so bad? I lean in for a kiss, but my lips just hit air, and I see him rolling his eyes.
“You don’t really believe in that bullshit, do you?”
His voice is kind of chuckley, but his words make the goodness stop really fast, like when
Mom almost runs red lights and slams on the breaks. “Of course I believe it,” I say, moving my
hand to rest on his cheek. “Why wouldn’t you?”
“Because it’s ridiculous,” he shrugs, all matter-of-fact, his voice starting to sound an
awful lot like the kids that used to talk to me like I had no idea what was going on. “There’s no
way half of it could have happened.”
“I didn’t mean that I minded the sinfulness,” I bite my lip, a little nervous and a lot
surprised. “But now I don’t know about this.”
I ease away from him, watching his stunned expression. “Seriously? Just because I don’t
believe in the Bible?”
“More because you’re so mean about it.”
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I see anger push into his face, and I’m almost afraid he’s going to hit me. But then he
does worse. “God, I can’t believe you.” The light is gone from his eyes, which now look full of
disgust. “Jeremy told me you were retarded, but not that retarded.”
My hand flies to my mouth, and I gasp for air, but I can’t get enough. His words start
hurting in my toes, and the shock goes from there to the rest of me. I imagine that I see his face
flicker with a bit of sorry, but before I know if it’s me just making it up or if it’s for real, he
grabs his clothes and storms out of the room.
I sit on his bed in the twisted sheets, more naked than is comfortable, and I’m vulnerable
and alone and the tears are so quick that they’re dripping onto my chest before I even know that
they’re happening. I’m shattered and achey and still surprised, too, in a burning way. Before he
comes back, I pull my dress on so hard and fast that the lacey sleeves tear a little, which makes
me even more embarrassed, and I just pick up my shoes because I can’t run in them, and I don’t
look behind me as I run as fast as I can out of his house and over to Grandma’s.
It’s late enough that the door is locked, so I bang on it, sobbing so loud that I’m scared
that the neighbors will hear, and see how ridiculous I am, dressed up like some guy will ever like
me even though I’m not pretty and I’m even less smart. I try not to look at my reflection, which
is all runny make-up and ugly sadness. Grandma comes to the door in her nightgown that looks
like something from the Victorian paper dolls I had when I was little. She doesn’t even need to
look at me all the way before she leads me inside to the bedroom where I used to spend the night
when I was little.
She tucks me in and sits next to me, rubbing my back, just like she used to when I was
little. It’s soothing but it doesn’t help much, because I just keep crying and hiccupping and
coughing and I can’t believe this happened. I don’t know how much time passes with us there
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together, but I know that it finally gets really dark, not just grey, and grandma doesn’t even get
up to turn on the lights. We sit there in the dark, me shaking and her soothing, my eyes leaking
and her arms pulling me close until finally, somehow, I slip out of reality and into a cottony,
unhappy sleep.
I wake up to the bright colors of the bedroom and the memories that come with it. It has
pink, checkered curtains that match the bedspread and porcelain dolls in flowy dresses on the
shelves. The sun trickles in through gaps in the curtains, and I stare at the glow-in-the-dark stars
stuck all over the ceiling until Grandma brings me a cup of coffee and my favorite kind of
PopTarts, the frosted cinnamon ones, toasted to gooiness.
For a long time, she just sits on the edge of my bed while I nibble. But then I start crying,
because what happened last night hits again. My sobs are the kind that make my heart hurt, but I
figure she deserves to know what happened, so my words fight past them.
“He knew I was stupid enough to let him get something out of me,” I moan, swiping at
my tears. “Apparently people even told him I was. So I guess he never thought I was pretty or
nice in the first place.”
“Now, Sam…”
“How am I this stupid, Grandma?” I look up at her with eyes that ache. I search for help
in her wrinkles, and for once, I’m scared that I’m not going to find it. “I can’t do anything right
and I’m never going to.”
“Oh, sweetie,” she sighs, her eyes big and shiny like she’s going to cry too. “The same
damn thing happened to me, you know that?”
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I shake my head and wrap my arms around myself, trying pull the tears back but only
making them come out faster, because who wants to know that their sweet grandparents have had
awful things happen to them too?
“I’ve told you about my second husband,” she leans her forehead into unsteady hands. “I
thought he was a good man. He was everything I wanted – he had a job that could support me
and your mama, a smile that made him look like someone in a magazine…he knew I wanted
stability and a bit of sweetness, too,” she says, and she reaches for my hand. “He knew that if he
gave me a bit of that, I wouldn’t realize who he really was. And of course I didn’t figure it out
until we were married. He called me horrible names, and he made me feel less than I was, just
like your man did there.”
I look away, focusing on the small chest in the corner that has clothes that fit me when I
was nine, full of little Walmart packs of cotton underwear and t-shirts made with the same
magenta patterns as the shorts that go with them.
“I left when I finally admitted to myself that he was wrong. He was yelling at me for
messing something or other up, and it just clicked. He was wrong. I’m not an idiot. He was the
problem, not me.”
I turn back and latch my blurry eyes on her face. “And even though we had to live in a
motel for a few weeks after we moved out, and it took a while to get back on our feet…I learned
that just because someone calls you names doesn’t mean that’s what you are.”
She actually smiles. “Other people can’t define you.” She rubs my hand, and I breathe a
little easier. “You aren’t stupid at all. You know all the important things, like how to love and
how to be sweet. You know about God’s presence. You’re great at your job. You know more
than you think. And we’re here to help you with what you don’t.”
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I’m not ready to let myself feel better, but I thank her and nod like I’m supposed to, and I
tell her I’m ready to go home. But once she takes me inside, I see Mom all teary and Jenny
uncomfortable, rubbing her upper arms, and I think it means that, for once, she feels really bad
for me. I can’t look at this, so I run upstairs to my room.
I call in sick to work, but my boss tells me that Grandma already called and to feel better.
I lie on my bed, pulling my knees so close to my chest that it’s like I’m trying to absorb them.
My heart keeps feeling tight, like one of those hair ties that don’t stretch far enough to wrap
around a ponytail without strangling my fingers.
I doze a little, but it’s the kind of sleep where I dream that I’m going to get food or a
glass of water and I’m not really sure if I’ve done it or not, so it isn’t really restful. I snap out of
it when I hear the door open and feel someone plop down on my bed. I assume it’s Grandma, but
when I open my sticky eyes, I see Jenny.
She smiles kind of soft. “I’ve got good news.”
I don’t believe her, so I just stare at her freckle-free, make-up covered face, thinking that
if my eyes were the same blue as hers, maybe all this wouldn’t have happened because I would
have been more of a catch.
“He’s left. I talked to Margie, who’s friends with his cousin. And he took off last night.
He feels bad, Sammie.”
My chest starts to feel a little less sore.
“And he’s done stuff like this before,” She smiles with one side of her mouth. “Even his
cousin doesn’t like him that much. So, well…it’s not your fault.”
I feel relief start to swim into my vision with fresh, happier tears.
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Barsanti, The Real Stories
“And…I guess I wanted to say that I love you. And I’m sorry.” She looks down and picks
lint off of her stretchy pants. “And…I’m here for you.” She gives me one last look, and her eyes
are a lot less narrow than they usually are. She walks out of the room, and I gaze through the
slots in my shutters, drinking in the light.
Mom and Jenny make all my favorite foods that night – bacon and popcorn and French
fries and peanut butter cookies – and the combination makes me laugh, which makes them look
relieved. We eat on the back porch just as it’s starting to get dusky so that the sky is a bluish gray
that seems to want to wrap its arms around me. We point at fireflies and tell bad jokes, even as
bad as the “orange you glad I didn’t say banana” one, and we laugh so hard. I feel warm and
fuzzy, and also a little thankful.
I think about my family, and how even though they bother me, I’m lucky that they’re
here. I think about John, and I feel kind of bad for him, even after he was so horrible. If you’re
mean enough that your own cousin doesn’t like you, I guess you deserve sympathy. I also think
about Eve a little bit. I guess I can’t really blame her anymore, if things are how my high school
teacher said, because I pretty much did the same thing, and the guy wasn’t even as nice as Adam.
But I’m starting to think that, no offense, God might have come down on her a little too hard,
because if it happened to her, my grandma, and me, it must be pretty normal.
At the same time, I’m kind of glad God was a strict parent, because I figure the world
would be different if He wasn’t. Right now, I kind of like where I am. I’ve got my problems and
I’ve made my mistakes, that’s for sure. But something about this moment, with the sun escaping
and the warm light from our windows washing over us and the crickets having a party with all
their loud chirping – something about it makes me feel like my heart is full, teddy-bear stuffed so
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Barsanti, The Real Stories
that it’s firm but there’s still room for softness and hugs. I stop minding being me for a bit, and I
like it.
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