Push Girl (19 page)

“Mrs. Mendoza,” I said, not letting my voice waver even though it wanted to. “I want you to put me back on the Homecoming ballot.”

Her face fell, and lines of concern creased into her forehead. “Oh, hon, I’m sorry. I can’t do that. When you gave up your nomination, water polo nominated someone else in your place.” She picked up her clipboard and ran her finger down the paper on the front of it. “It looks like … yes, they nominated Jenny Roy.”

It was what I’d expected to hear, but I couldn’t help but flinch when I heard her name. I guess some part of me had been hoping that they didn’t replace me, or didn’t replace me with her, but that part of me was pretty ridiculous.

“That’s okay, Mrs. Mendoza,” Jack said. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper that had been folded into a small square. He spread it out in the desk in front of her, using both hands to attempt to smooth it out. “I’m starting a new club. Here’s all the paperwork right here. And my first order of business is to nominate Kara Moore as my club’s Homecoming Queen nominee.”

Now the lines of concern on Mrs. Mendoza’s face smoothed out, and her eyebrows drew together. “Now, Jack. You’re the Commissioner of Clubs for Student Government. You know the rules. You can’t start up a club just to nominate someone for Homecoming. It doesn’t work that way.”

I noticed him steal a look at Amanda, who gave a tiny nod without moving the camera. Yeah, she was getting this.

“Of course I know that. But this isn’t a club we’re starting just to nominate Kara. It’s a school chapter of the Walk and Roll Foundation.”

“We want to raise awareness of the realities of spinal cord injuries and the dangers of drunk driving with the students here on campus,” I said. “And the Homecoming fund-raiser is the perfect place to start.”

When I dropped out of the running for Homecoming before, a big part of it was because I didn’t want to represent water polo and fund-raise for a bunch of guys who wanted nothing to do with me now that I was in a wheelchair. Curt grabbed his first opportunity to distance himself from me, and I wanted to get as far away from him as I could, too. But Jack had the idea of starting a chapter of a club that really mattered to me and representing that. Doing Homecoming on my own terms. After a lot of research online, we found Walk and Roll, a foundation that’s all about raising awareness for spinal cord injuries and educating teens on the dangers of drunk and distracted driving. As soon as I started reading about Walk and Roll, I completely changed my mind about this whole Homecoming thing. Fund-raising to get a club on campus to raise drunk-driving awareness—now, that was the way to get me more enthusiastic about putting myself out there as a queen nominee.

Mrs. Mendoza scanned Jack’s paperwork. “I don’t know, you guys,” she said, shaking her head. “You know how the Homecoming fund-raisers are. They’re silly and lighthearted. Remember last year? Tegan Foster and the drama department did a fund-raiser to repaint the mascot’s loincloth on the mural outside the theater. Don’t get me wrong—I think this is a completely worthy cause, and a fantastic club to have on campus. And I can see why it’s so important to you, Kara. It’s just … I don’t think Homecoming is the time or place for this type of fund-raiser. Isn’t it something you want people to take seriously?”

“That’s why we think people will really pay attention,” I said. “We think that by being the one serious fund-raiser of the bunch, we can really get people thinking about drunk driving. I know I’m not going to win. But I think I have an opportunity here to make an impact and really open the eyes of some people here on campus, you know?”

A line of wrinkles formed on Mrs. Mendoza’s forehead as she glanced over Jack’s paperwork one more time. Then she looked to her left, where Amanda stood, quietly filming everything, and finally her eyes traveled down to me. Me and my chair.

“Fine,” she said. “But don’t say that I didn’t warn you when this becomes weird.” She picked up the clipboard again and scribbled on the bottom of her master list. “Now, there’s a meeting after school today in the gym for all the nominees, so make sure you’re there, okay, Kara?”

“Oh, we’ll be there,” I said. And by “we,” I meant the adorable boy who was hugging me like his life depended on it, and the awesome girl behind the camera who was beaming and giving me a thumbs-up.

*   *   *

Amanda met me outside the room for the Homecoming meeting after school, camera in hand.

“You know that me following you around with this thing—” She waved the camera in my face. “—is only going to bring more attention to you, right?”

Jack, who turned out to be full of great plans last night, gave Amanda the idea of switching topics for the media class scholarship project, and she had been completely on board. She acted like she’d do pretty much anything to avoid the cross-country team, but I knew she was super pumped about showing how active a disabled high school student could be. She’d follow me around during my Homecoming campaign, going to physical therapy, adjusting to life in my wheelchair, and film the whole thing for her project, which she would edit into an awesome documentary-style video that met all the requirements of the scholarship contest. It would help her to have a totally original project that she was so much more invested in than the cross-country team, and it would help me pump up awareness for our new chapter of Walk and Roll and raise funds for drunk-driving education in the school and the community. It was pretty fantastic for everyone.

So, I was okay with the extra eyeballs on me, since it was all for a good cause.

Well, most of the eyeballs. The only unwelcome ones were Jenny Roy’s.

Any truce that might have passed between me and Jenny Roy on my first day back was broken the second I entered the room for the Homecoming meeting after school, which was slowly filling up with the other nominees. Instead of ignoring me, as she had every time I saw her around campus over the past week or so, she shot daggers at me with her eyes. When I smiled at her in an attempt to be friendly, she jumped up from her chair, literally pushed a girl out of her way, and crossed the distance between the two of us within seconds.

She opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, I noticed her shoot a glance at Amanda and her camera, and Amanda lifted her hand and waved at Jenny. I laughed at this, especially because Jenny’s face started to twitch as the wheels turned in her simple little head. Would she let the camera keep her from saying the awful things she wanted to say to me? Knowing our past, how she never let anything stop her before, probably not. Apparently, her solution was to step closer to me, so she was practically in my lap, and lower her voice—as if that could keep Amanda’s camera from picking up her vitriol.

“What are you doing here?” she spat at me. “Didn’t you get the memo? I’m water polo’s nominee now.”

“Didn’t
you
get the memo? I didn’t want to represent water polo anymore. I gave up the nomination. So, you know, you’re welcome.” Okay, so I let a little bit of snark creep out through my voice. I couldn’t help it.

Her eyebrows drew together, wrinkling her forehead. “Just because you’re confined to a wheelchair, you think—”

I gave her the sympathetic head tilt. “No, you have it backwards. The wheelchair is what keeps me from being confined somewhere. If I didn’t have it, I’d be confined to my house.” I patted the wheels of my chair and smiled. “I’m super grateful for my chair, actually. It’s not something I’m stuck in like some kind of prison.”

“Whatever,” she said. “I know you think you can turn Homecoming into your own personal soapbox, but here’s a newsflash for you: No one cares, okay? You’re not the big deal you think you are, Kara, and no one wants a depressing Homecoming full of PSAs and life lessons and charity work and whatever other nonsense fund-raiser you have going on. Stop trying to make everyone feel bad for you all the time and let us have fun.”

Anger bubbled up under my skin, ready to burst. Like I wanted people to feel bad for me. Like I wanted everything to be about my chair. None of this had been my choice.

Everything inside me wanted to explode at Jenny.

But I thought back to my argument with Curt when I first came back to school. I had been upset, and I really let him get to me. I went crazy and made a scene, and even though Curt had been a total dick to me in front of everyone, I was the one who left embarrassed.

I didn’t give two effs about Jenny Roy or what she said or thought about me. She obviously wanted some kind of fight, but I wasn’t going to let her get to me like that. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.

So, instead of picking one of the colorful insults flying through my head to throw back at her like a grenade, I folded my hands on my lap and smiled. “Good luck with your fund-raiser, Jenny. I hope it’s wildly successful.”

Then, as the meeting was about to begin, I pushed myself away from her, over to the other end of the room, so I could find out exactly what I’d need to do to win Homecoming and roll over Jenny Roy on my way there.

CHAPTER 18

“If I’m wincing in pain, you need to turn off the camera, okay? No ugly face on video.” I settled into my chair in the parking lot as Amanda slammed her trunk closed and locked up her car. The hospital had referred me to a new physical therapy center that focused specifically on spinal cord injuries, and Amanda was tagging along on this visit to get some footage for her video.

Amanda accompanying me to physical therapy was like worlds colliding, but she said it would make her project better to show me being active in multiple ways. Better video project, better Homecoming campaign, better chance of beating Jenny Roy, better chance of making more money for our project.

“Deal,” she said. “Now, let’s do this. You hold the camera pointed at yourself and I’ll push you up to PT while I interview you, okay?”

I told her how to get to the physical therapy room at the medical center, and I positioned the camera so it was facing me, selfie-style.

“So, Kara,” Amanda said in her best investigative-journalist voice. “What do you want to get out of physical therapy? Do you have a specific goal, or is it for general recovery and well-being?”

“I want to walk again.” I didn’t think about my answer for a second; it just leapt from my mouth like it had a life of its own.

It’s not like I’d been spending time thinking specifically about walking. Between my parents, Jack, Homecoming, and all the drama at school, I’d had enough on my mind as it was. Especially because it wasn’t something I’d thought was possible. Dr. Nguyen told me I would never walk again.

The end.

But deep in my heart, in the place I kept my wildest hopes and craziest secrets, it was what I wanted. I wanted to be able to walk.

And, even more, I wanted to dance.

“Do you think that will happen?” Amanda asked.

I let out a long sigh. “Well, nothing will happen if I just sit in my chair, right? If I accept the fact that my legs are never going to work again, then they aren’t, for sure. But if I work hard at PT and do everything in my power, then maybe there’s a chance. It might take twenty years or forty years, but I need to start now, and work for it every day.”

Amanda pushed me through the automatic doors, and we followed the hallway down to the PT room.

“I want my life to be full of possibilities, not regret, you know?”

“That’s a sound bite if I’ve ever heard one.” Amanda leaned over my shoulder so her face was in the lens of the camera, smooshed up right next to mine. “Note to self: Self, put that in, for sure.”

I made a face at the camera, and I handed it back to her. Pushing my shoulders back, I wheeled myself into the PT room, Amanda followed with her camera, and the first person I saw was Ana, saying good-bye to the techs and gathering her things.

“Kara!” She wore her usual smile, like physical therapy on her paralyzed legs was the most fun she could imagine having today.

“You’re coming here now?” I asked. “How was your PT session?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Sometimes I think they’re trying to kill me. But in a good way, I guess.”

I introduced Amanda to Ana and explained the video project. Ana, who was still in middle school, hung on every word, like high school Homecoming was everything the movies and TV shows told her it would be. I guess my story did have a lot of drama.

“Kara’s going to be Homecoming Queen,” Amanda said, smiling.

Ana clapped excitedly. “Oh my God, really? I want to see pictures! Will you show me pictures?”

Amanda chimed in with a singsong voice, “And Kara has a boooy-friend, so—”

“You have a boyfriend?” Ana squealed. “Tell me! Do you have a picture?”

Heat rushed to my cheeks. Jack made sure to tell me before he left my house after we’d kissed that he wanted to be my boyfriend again, and I had agreed. And, of course, the second he was out the door, I’d called Amanda and filled her in on the details. She’d been relieved to hear that Jack finally made his move; apparently, he’d been asking her for advice on how to go for it since my first day back at school. She’d even faked that stupid popcorn sickness after our mall date to give us some alone time so he’d do something about it. I’d been worried that our new couple status might upset the Kara–Amanda–Jack balance, but we’d done this threesome before with no issues, and it was like falling back into a familiar pattern. It was comforting to know that some things could go back to how they used to be.

I was about to try to explain our situation to Ana, but a tall man with a mustache poked his head in the room before I could even begin. “Ana,” he said. “Time to go,
mija
.”

Ana smiled. “That’s my dad. I have to go. But you’ll tell me about your boyfriend the next time we run into each other, okay, Kara?”

“Or just give me your number,” I said. “I’ll text you.” Somewhere in the middle of all this, even though she was so much younger than me, Ana had become an actual friend. Going through all these wheelchair adventures together could really bond you to someone, I guess, and it was pretty awesome to have someone who could really understand it, even if she was still in middle school. She was like the real-life version of all the people on the disability message boards I’d come to count on every night before I went to sleep. She understood the sometimes-conflicting, always-confusing feelings I had about life in a wheelchair, and she got me in ways Jack and Amanda and my parents never would, no matter how hard they tried.