Upstander by James Preller (free ereaders .TXT) 📕

heart, their first hug as family. Ernesto was as excited and proud as a boy with a new kite. He showed Mary the ring. Then he took Mary by the shoulders, held her at arm’s length, and said with great solemnity, “I’ll be good to your mother, Mary, and also to you. That’s my promise. I’m not a perfect man, but I’ll try my best. I’ll go to work, I’ll do my job, I’ll cook, fix things around the house…”

“I know, I’m glad,” Mary said. “You’ve made my mom very happy. She was broken for a long time. It’s time to feel whole again. When are you going to ask her?”

“Tonight,” he told her. “We’re going to a fancy restaurant. I have it all planned out.”

The following day, Mary found three smooth, round, white stones on her pillow. On each stone was a hand-painted word: EYE, SEA, YOU. There was also an envelope addressed to Mary, which contained a note:

My Mary,

First off, please be assured that I didn’t buy these at the mall. I found these beautiful stones at the ocean and they made me think of you. You are such a good, kind, upstanding young woman. No one is perfect. We all do the best we can. Mostly, I want you to know that I see you. I see who you are. And I’m so proud of the person you’ve become.

Love,

Mom

P.S. I borrowed your paints without asking, hope you don’t mind!

Jonny sent a letter every week. He seemed to be doing okay, claimed that he was beginning to deal with his demons. He wrote that he was trying to learn how to love himself, a brand of self-help talk that Mary had never heard from him before. It didn’t sound like him, but whatever worked. He wrote, I think this is it.

Like so many times before, she hoped it was true.

Experience had taught Mary to draw a line between optimism and hope. Optimism was the head, the intellect. You looked at something, analyzed the data, and decided there could be a positive outcome. Hope was something stronger. It came from the heart. No matter what happened, you never gave up hope.

Only Jonny could make it so.

38[sticks]

After the fallout from the fight, Eric and Mary created the “misfits table” in the lunchroom. For the time being, it was just the two of them eating together in social exile, but there was room for more misfits. Maybe one day they’d have a crowded table of friends who didn’t belong to any clique or group.

Eric made the basketball team, which was amazing. Just him and one other seventh grader in the whole school. Their first practice scrimmage against another school was scheduled for that afternoon. Griffin’s table had a new member, David Hallenback, which was just too weird for words. Pretty sad, actually, because nobody over there actually liked him. One day, Mary watched as Hakeem got up from Griff’s table, walked right past Alexis and Chrissie without a look, and came to sit beside Mary, across from Eric. “You guys look so damn lonely,” he joked, grinning.

He told Eric that his father knew a guy who knew a guy, and somehow he got free tickets to see the Nets in Brooklyn next weekend. Against the Lakers.

“Cool,” Eric said.

“So do you want to come?” Hakeem asked.

“Wait, you’re asking if I want to see my first NBA basketball game ever in my life? Seriously?”

That was pretty great, Mary thought. The smile on Eric’s face. And, yeah, the way he jumped around ecstatically. His happy dance.

Best of all, Chantel started coming by the table. She didn’t sit, but lingered for a few minutes. Mary knew it was mostly because of Hakeem, but Chantel sent little signals that all was forgiven, if not ever forgotten.

“I never told you,” Mary said, “how much I love that your mother calls you Chanti. It’s so sweet.”

“Chanti? I never heard that,” Hakeem said, “I like it, too! Chanti, Chanti,” he sang in a warm, rich voice.

Chantel blushed, delighted.

Mary pointed at Eric’s supply of Double Stuf Oreos. “You going to eat those, or are they just going to sit there?” She didn’t wait for a reply. It wasn’t that kind of question.

After the last bell of the school day, Mary waited by Griffin Connelly’s locker. She stood with her back against it, arms crossed, one knee bent. He saw her from a distance, but failed to muster his usual swagger.

“What?” he said as if letting out a groan.

“Can we talk?”

“We are,” he said. “This is talking.”

Mary shook her head a little sadly. “Not here.”

“What about?”

“You know,” Mary said. “Vivvy.”

With a flick of his fingers, Griff gestured for Mary to step aside. He spun the dial, stuffed some books into his backpack, turned around. “Where to?”

Mary led him behind the school, past the court and track, up a path into the woods to where they had biked together on a scalding summer day that felt so long ago. She had not been to that spot since. There were still ketchup packets on the ground, along with other accumulated litter. Mary pulled out a kitchen trash bag she had brought from home for this purpose and started to clean up. Griffin watched her, unmoving. After a while, he picked up a plastic soda bottle and dumped it in the bag. Not a lot of help, but it was something.

“How’s your sister doing?” Mary asked.

Griffin paused—he breathed in, he breathed out—and worked very hard to hide any emotion. But his eyes darted about, unable to fix on any object. He looked down. And his hands lifted in a sort of helpless shrug. He didn’t know.

Mary waited him out, refusing to fill the empty space with words.

He said, “She’s…”

Griff looked up, and in that instant Mary saw a different boy than she’d seen before. The surface toughness melted away. The anger, the cruelty. Beneath it all he was merely a boy who was lost: vulnerable and shaken. He reflexively blew the