Revision Notice: No major plot points have been altered, but I have revised and added some new material since the original publication date. Most important to mention, I stuck some of the shorter chapters together and split up some of the longer ones to get a closer range on the chapter length. Due to these changes, some of the reviews from before June 20, 2018 may not correlate with the material in that chapter.
Where Courage Ignites
1. Yet Another Move
January 6th, 2018 (Saturday)
Before you judge me based on this rhinestone-laced spine and the Princess bedazzled in white and pink sparkles, know that I don't identify as someone who's obsessed with glitter, the color pink, or being a princess. When my choices were either this ancient birthday present from when I turned seven or explode, I had to swallow my pride. The truth is, it was nothing but my own sheer desperation that forced this particular journal into my hands.
I find myself curled up in the backseat of our congested 2006 minivan, anxiously scribbling these words as though they'll escape if I don't pen them quick enough. Three things impede my progress. One: my baby sister occasionally chucking cheerios over her head at me. Two: my father obnoxiously singing along to 80s music on the radio. Three: a wave of nausea and motion sickness from the subtle sway of the van as we rocket through the mountainous terrain.
Why did my parents think it was such a genius idea to take a six hour road trip from Phoenix to Albuquerque? Who cares about scenery when we're stuck with six hours of dirty public rest stops, gas station meals, and soul-crushing boredom? Just when I think I can't bare another millisecond trapped like this, our glitch-y GPS sent us off the wrong exit and onto an hour-long detour.
Once we finally arrived to the new house, I rested my hand on the door handle in anticipation for the moment my mother would park the vehicle. The locks finally popped up and I quickly slid the door open to hop onto the concrete below. I stretched my cramped legs until my knees and ankles released satisfying pops. I approached the garage door and laid my hand on its warm metal surface. I looked across the length of the house along the bland white siding that wrapped around the exterior.
I walked the length of the driveway all the way back to where it connected with the street. The conformity and silence of this perfect little bubble on the outskirts of the city probably made the homeowner's association feel safer, but to me, it felt eerie. The 'peaceful' quiet was trying to deceive me…I just knew it.
"Gabriella!" My mother barked from the driver window, "Get Isabella! Can't you hear her crying?"
I slid the door open and confronted my bawling three-year-old sister still held in by her car seat with snot dripping down her nose. "Hey, Isa-baby!" I greeted her happily, only to receive a disgruntled scream in response. I unlatched the car seat constraints and brought my hands underneath her arms to lift her out. The moment her feet connected with the ground, she instantly stopped crying. She looked up at me with a mischievous smirk on her little mouth. As expected, she took off towards the lawn. "Where do you think you're going?" I chased after her, her orange dress flowing behind her as she stomped atop the grass. "Get back here!" I laughed, reaching my hands out to her tauntingly. She joyfully screamed and kept running from me until she tripped over her clumsy feet that have always been too big for her. "Uh oh!" I knelt onto the grass in front of her. She wore a sad little pout until I offered my hands out to her and said, "Come here!" She eagerly pressed her small hands into my palms and we rose together. I twirled the little girl around, a joyous expression fixed on her face as the world spun behind her.
When I heard my father call out my name, I looked back to where he stood at the front door. He was awkwardly using the side of the house to balance a box on his knee while reaching into his pocket. I grasped for Isabella's little hand and led her over to him. He asked, "Could you open the door?" He offered out his ring of keys. I did as he asked and followed him inside with Isabella on my hip.
She gasped, "Sparkle!" I followed the gaze of her big, brown eyes to the ceiling where a modest chandelier twinkled above us. I wandered further into the house into the den where our furniture sat still covered in plastic wrap and packing material. Isabella poked me in the collarbone and said, "Look!" I spotted a staircase to the left of an arch back through the foyer. I took Isabella up the dim staircase, brought her to the first door on the left, and crouched down.
I asked in my baby voice, "Can you open it? Can you twist the handle?"
She stretched out her arm and wrapped her small fingers around the golden knob. "'Dere y'go," she said as I pushed the door in with my knee. Inside waited her low bed, armchair, and a mountain of toys.
"It's your room, Isabella!" She squirmed excitedly in my arms. I set the toddler down on the floor only for her to immediately run over to her kitchen set. "Do you want to find sissy's room?"
"No," she said, preferring to bang her plastic spatula against the fake stove in her kitchenette.
A voice from downstairs rang out, "Gabriella! Isabella!"
I gasped in exaggerated surprise, "Who is that?"
The voice below continued, "Come get dinner!"
"Do you want food?"
Isabella said, "I cook." She wielded her spatula in the air.
"Mommy and daddy have food. Let's go get some food. Come on!" I offered my hand over the little countertop to her.
"I cook!"
I lowered my voice, "Isabella."
"I cook!" She grabbed the plastic fried egg, "Gabby eat!" She dropped the fake food on the counter.
"Gabby and Izzy go eat real food downstairs!"
"Gabby eat Izzy's food, here!"
I heard shuffling behind me and turned around to spot my mom leaning her slender figure against the doorframe. "Are you two still playing?" She shook her head.
"Egg!" Isabella said, picking up the plastic fried egg again and proudly lifting it into the air to show mom.
"Bring the egg with you and come downstairs with Mommy and sissy," she ordered, offering out her hand to her.
Isabella threw the egg over her shoulder onto the floor and ran to take my mom's hand.
I said, "Or not," and followed them out the door. While they descended the staircase, I continued my discovery exhibition into the next room. There, I found my twin bed barricaded in by countless boxes marked GABRIELLA. I sat down on the bare mattress and glanced around the room, the foreign location and unpacked boxes somehow still a familiar sight.
I stopped counting the moves after it got to fifteen, but some of them still stand out. I was only five when we lived in Chicago, so naturally, I gravitated towards a playground. It was an island of sand surrounded by sprawling, luscious grass in one of the city's biggest parks. I used to need my dad to pick me up just so I could reach the monkey bars. With his encouragement, but against my mom's caution, I would pull my nimble body through the gap in bars and come out on top of them. From there, I'd crawl around on top of the monkey bars, my dad's massive hands hovering along like protective shadows beneath me to catch me if I fell.
One afternoon, my mom and dad were preoccupied with an especially chatty neighbor, so I ran ahead to the playground without them. I climbed up the ladder and yelled for my dad to give me a boost to reach the bars. He started walking across the endless grass towards me, my impatience perceiving it to take longer. I looked up at the first bar, taunting me as its yellow paint glistening in the setting sunlight. I smiled at the thrill of its temptation. My father yelled, "Wait!" but I was already airborne. My small body stretched in the air until my right hand gripped onto the cold metal of the bar.
"I did it!" I squealed in excitement. My other hand joined at the bar and I dangled proudly, smiling at him, "I did it, daddy!" He stopped a few yards away from the monkey bars, his hands on his hips and a smile on his face as he peered at my great accomplishment.
Awhile later, shortly after I turned twelve, we moved from a cramped Manhattan apartment to a rural town in Minnesota. Our cabin was cozy with big, inviting windows that we would leave open in the Summer to welcome the cool Minnesotan breeze inside. I still remember the day that my mother and I decided to finally look through the cabinets full of dishes the previous owners had abandoned on their move. We tossed the majority of them, but I found a porcelain tea set equipped with an intricate pot and two saucers for three little cups. Whenever we made tea, I would give my mother the teacup with a red butterfly and my father the one with a brown owl. For myself, I'd save the bird with light blue feathers that faded to yellow on the very tips of its wings.
As wonderful as that afternoon tea tradition was, my favorite part of that house was the wooden dock. At the opposite side of the backyard, slabs of decorative stepping-stones served as a trail over the grass and mud. Overgrown shrubbery and tree branches would tickle at our legs and face as we passed through the threshold. On the other side was a lake so big we couldn't see the cabins and trees across it. I'd carefully maneuver atop the creaky and wobbly wooden boards to the very end of the dock where serenity and silence awaited. The bright sun above and the quiet chirps and buzzes of nature made for a perfect reading atmosphere. Occasionally during windy days, bigger waves would splash into the support beams submerged in the water. The boat would loudly hit against the dock and startle me, but that meant it was time to go inside. A storm was approaching.
I don't remember what came after Minnesota. I honestly don't remember a lot of places. I've been to so many, but very few stick with me like Minnesota and Chicago. I like a cool breeze underneath the sun and a tree within reach. I couldn't find a spot like that in Phoenix. Maybe I just didn't get enough time to discover one. Usually, I don't. I'm rarely ever given the chance to call a house "home" before they ship everything off again. Sitting in this new bedroom for the umpteenth time, I thought of an imaginary argument I could have with them and murmured the perfect rebuttal to myself. I felt my hands instinctively dig into the mattress beneath me and my face flush over with warm blood. In the middle of a rant about the unfairness of their decisions dictating my life, the sound of my name brought me back into reality and startled me enough to shake off the frustration. I yelled back, "Coming!"
My father had run to the nearest fast-food restaurant to pick us up some greasy burgers for dinner. I didn't want to finish mine, far too spoiled from my dad's expert grilling to be able to stomach a fast-food burger anymore.
As I was gathering paper bags to toss, my mother dug into her tote and exposed a sparkly book. "Gabriella, I found this in the backseat. Is it yours?"
I tried to hide my initial surprise, but I'm certain she caught onto my nervousness. "Yes," I took the book from her. "I was just journaling a little."
"I didn't look at it," mom crossed to the sink to toss her water down the drain.
"You ready to wash up, Isabella?" I asked my sister who was still gnawing on her last chicken nugget.
"I'll take care of Isabella tonight. You should get some rest. I'm taking you on a lot of errands tomorrow."
January 7th, 2018 (Sunday)
The necessities for this breakfast had been unpacked, although we were still surrounded by stacks of boxes on the counters and floor. "Do you like your new room?" Dad asked me, his dark brown eyes still peering down at the crossword puzzle on the kitchen table between us. Some things never changed no matter where we are. For example, the morning paper always has a hypnotic hold on my father. The kitchen could catch on fire, but he wouldn't smell the burning until the cartoon section at least.
"What's not to like about it? Has a bed. A closet."
As she sautéed the vegetables at the stove, mom chimed in, "It's bigger than your last one."
"I don't think it is."
"Well, it sure will feel that way without your desk in there."
I quickly shook my head in confusion. "We didn't move my desk?" I could understand why they didn't want to keep it anymore since it wobbled horribly and had been found on the side of the road many years ago, but I had grown somewhat attached to that safety hazard. I've been studying on since I was ten when mom started homeschooling me. But why leave it in Phoenix? After all, I still needed something to study on.
Isabella called out, "Decks!" from her booster chair next to my father.
"Gabriella," my father piped up, putting the cap on his pen and laying it on the paper. "Your mother and I discussed some options and we've decided to put you back into public school."
Before I could object, mom was already boasting about the public school. "This district is one of the top ones in the nation! Besides, I'm not sure how much longer I can assistant you now that you're progressing so quickly."
"Wait," I said with my fingers stretched out in front of me as though they were trying to physically get a grip on the situation as well. "You want me to go back to public school because I'm doing so well with homeschooling?"
"Gabriella, the teachers have excellent ratings, the extra-curricular activities are nearly endless, there is so much more opportunity for you in this public school than I could give you at home. Besides, it's not just for your education and opportunities. I want to go back to work."
"Then let me study alone! I can watch Isabella!"
"Absolutely not. We will not leave a fifteen year old home alone with a three year old during the whole work day."
"I'd just be studying and watching her," I whined, "don't you trust me?"
Dad said, "Of course we trust you, Gabriella. This isn't an issue of trust."
"Then I don't understand why I can't stay at home and study online. I don't have to be with other people to learn."
"Well, that's another thing. We think there are many great social benefits that come with attending a public high school. We admire your independence, but you still need to have friends."
I quipped back, "Homeschooling doesn't prevent me from making friends, but shipping us off every other month sure does."
Mom spoke up, "We don't have time to argue about this. Your placement tests are in half an hour. Finish your breakfast."
"I can't eat anymore." I stood from my seat and rushed through the box-lined den and foyer, up the stairs, and into my room. What do I do? Should I flunk their tests? Would that somehow show in my record? Should I escape out the window, descend the balcony, and catch the next flight back to Minnesota? A girl can dream.
…
The brick building had an overwhelmingly dusty grey hue, but there was red and white text centered above the doors spelling East High School. A fountain stood in the middle of a concrete walkway whose slabs reached from the street to the row of doors. Positioned directly above them was a massive clock overlooking the courtyard from the third story. I hesitated approaching the intimidating structure, but mom locked her arm in mine and wouldn't leave me behind.
We glanced around the entrance to the locker-lined hallways and staircases, unsure of where to go. "There," my mother pointed to a support pillar with a sign directing us to the main office. She set off down the proper hallway, but I let the gap between us steadily grow as I lazily let my feet drag. I sheepishly glanced at the lockers to the right of me, intimidated by them somehow. They were new to me, something I'd only seen in the movies. I didn't have a locker in my room, but this was High School. This wasn't home. "Pick up your feet, Gabriella!" She demanded, irritated by the admittedly annoying squeaks of my sneakers dragging across the tile floor.
Inside the office, the counselor greeted us with a pile of paperwork for mom to fill out. I sat deep in my chair next to her at the man's desk, gazing ahead at some fidget toys atop the dark wood.
"Okay," the man said, taking the paperwork back and lining up its edges in a neat pile. "Gabriella, if you could please follow me down the hallway," he stood and crossed from behind his desk. "The test usually takes about two hours to complete, Mrs. Montez."
She nodded and I followed the man into a small, quiet room with only a table and a chair. He felt the need to read the written directions to me and encouraged me to answer every question, as though I wouldn't know to do that already. I finished their test ten minutes short of an hour.
After my test, mom took me on a quick shopping trip to the local office store for the supplies we didn't have already. By then it was lunchtime, so she pulled into a diner with a neon marquee that had Ringo's Chicken n' Waffles written in sun-faded turquoise paint. We entered the diner and stood in awe at the 50's décor, jukeboxes and arcade games, and waitresses on skates. Just when one rolled over with three large plates balanced precariously on her forearms, dad walked in behind us with a fussy Isabella flailing around in his arms.
"Hiya, honey!" He led us to a booth with bright red seating and set Isabella on mom's side before sliding in next to me.
I mimicked a silent, ugly cry at Isabella from across the table until she giggled, saying "Gabby silly!"
Once we were ordered and I told them about the test, the waitress quickly returned with our baskets of food. She said, "Let me know if y'all need anything else." She kicked off the floor and skated away.
Dad asked me, "What do you think of the food?" I glanced down at Pinterest wet dream in front of me. The layers of fluffy pancakes elevated a bountiful serving of deep fried chicken strips as a drizzle of sticky maple syrup cascaded over all of it.
"Good," I responded quickly before having to swallow from all my salivating.
"Bet it tastes even better." He winked.
We were all silent the few ten minutes into our meal, just the sound of forks and knives scraping the plates as we filled our empty bellies. I was the first to slow down, not much needing to get me full. Bored, I began dipping my fork in my syrup and slowly lifting it up, studying the strands of syrup as they stretched.
Mom asked, "You're done already?"
"Yeah. It's a heavy meal and I'm not that hungry."
"Alright," she said, glancing over at my father across from us who was still inhaling his food. I smiled at the interaction; dad has always been the oblivious one, but mom tries to control each one of my hairs that are out of place. I wouldn't trade them for the world, even if they don't always do what's best for me.
…
While my mom washed and cut the veggies for our dinner salad and Isabella made a mess drawing at the kitchen table, I helped my dad cook the salmon outside. We both sat on the bench inside the screened porch while the grill warmed. He had a ball cap low on over his eyes as he relaxed in the darkening evening. I sat with my legs curled up underneath me, engulfed in the last book of a trilogy I started yesterday.
Dad's voice was soft and tired when he asked, "You think you'll use this porch?"
Confused, I asked, "Aren't we using it now?"
"I mean for reading."
"I guess." I shrugged, gently nudging my bookmark into the crevasse of the book's bindings and closing it over my lap. "I don't exactly have any other option."
"It'll get pretty hot out here in the summer, and most of the year for that matter. You'll need a reading nook inside, too."
"I didn't need a nook in Minnesota."
"Don't do that." My throat tightened. What had I done wrong?
"Don't do what?"
"You can't hold every new experience up to Minnesota. It's not fair to the present to immediately compare it to the best you've had before. If you only wait for the next best thing to appreciate anything, countless good, but smaller things will go by unnoticed." It's incredible how my dad is most wise and helpful when he's too exhausted to sugarcoat things.
…
Dinner was good, but the glutton that I am strongly preferred our lunch at the waffle house. After helping put the few dishes away and reading Isabella to sleep, I rushed upstairs to my bedroom to continue reading my book. In bizarrely perfect timing, I heard my mom's footsteps approach the door as I skimmed the last few lines of the novel.
"Gabriella?" She slowly pushed my door open on its squeaky hinges.
"Yeah, mom?"
"What are you doing still reading? You should go to sleep." She passed through the doorway and I saw that she had a box marked GABRIELLA: CLOTHES on her hip. "You have your first day tomorrow."
"Not if I'm sick." I coughed.
"Now wouldn't that be too convenient to believe?" She set the box down next to my bed and pivoting to sit by my feet. "Honey, I hope that you give tomorrow a chance before deciding that it isn't for you. I'm not going to lie to you, public high school can be an uncomfortable experience, but we wouldn't be putting you in it if we thought you couldn't handle it."
"I know."
"Get some sleep." She gave my feet one farewell pat before departing.
As I lied in bed and stared ahead at that glow-in-the-dark stars I had stuck on the ceiling, I wondered how my parents could be so sure. I mean, how could they know without a doubt that putting me in public school would be what's best for me? Aren't I the one to decide my limits, to know what I can or cannot endure? I've heard growth begins outside one's comfort zone, but it wasn't only my comfort being tested. My intuition warned me that this wasn't going to be a gentle nudge into the unknown, and that the result wouldn't be growth or maturity. Rather, whatever sinister thing lurking in that school would demolish me beyond repair. To my core, I knew that this high school wasn't the right decision. Whether I was prepared to face it or not, there was nothing I could do to change my parents' mind.
A/N: Thank you so much for reading! Do you think Gabriella is right to be irritated at her parents for moving so much? Do you think she'll be correct about the new high school testing her limits? Please leave your thoughts in a review. Thanks again!
