Chapter 32

One Year Later

After an oppressive summer, the air tonight is cool as we sit in the football stands. I lean into Travis, and he puts his arm around me to warm me. A few people stop to chat with us, and then move on as the game begins.

On the track Ashley bounces around with the rest of the cheerleaders, a sight that still makes me laugh.

"For true? A cheerleader?" I asked when she brought the form home and asked to try out.

"It just looks like fun."

I find it hard to say no these days, so I signed the form. She went to tryouts and jumped and yelled and flipped her hair and now is the proud owner of a blue and yellow skirt short enough to give her dad a heart attack.

She waves her pom poms along with the rest of her freshman squad as the football players run onto the field. I look for Brian Lee and find him easily, waving his helmet in her direction and smiling through his black striped face. Ashley is all lit up, her cheeks rosy, her finally thickened blond hair pulled back into a ponytail with blue and gold ribbons and glitter sparkling under the stadium lights. She looks magical.

Logan sees us and climbs the stands and offers us a tray of hot chocolate. Girls walk by and giggle, but he seems not to notice. His hair is short now, and all brown, but he sports a tattoo on his shoulder instead, a small red staff with two snakes circling it. He calls it a caduceus. It's the symbol of doctors. In January he will enter Johns Hopkins University as a pre-med major.

The air smells of fall, that smoky, leafy smell that brings back memories of my own days as a kid. It's the smell of beginnings and endings. It's anticipation.

This weekend I take the GED. I'm not nervous. Logan tutored me for a while, but it turns out I'm not too bad at learning on my own. In the practice exams I've scored nearly a hundred percent. When I showed them to Logan, he just gave it back to me with a smile and said, "See? You were right after all."

"About what?"

"We're two peas in a pod."

Travis thinks I should go to college. Logan suggested UT in Austin, but I may start closer to home in the community college. I'm thinking of being a nurse.

Last year seems a long time ago, and just a minute ago at the same time. We're not the same people, the same family. We can't bring ourselves to say that this whole experience was a good thing. The thought of how close we came to losing Ashley . . . it still stops my heart. But we can't say it was bad either.

I lean my head against Travis, and he leans his head on mine. Logan holds his Styrofoam cup out to us in a toast. Ashley beams.

Someone once said faith is standing on a cliff and knowing that if you jump, someone will catch you, or you will be given wings to fly.

I am flying.

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