Where We Used to Roam by Jenn Bishop (sites to read books for free .TXT) 📕

People were dying. Every day, somewhere, someone was dying.

But every day, people were getting better too. They were resilient. Coming back strong, like the buffalo. Maybe even stronger than they knew.

Like my brother.

Since the morning he was discharged from the hospital, Austin went out for a run with Mom every day. They’d go for at least five miles, running on trails nearby or on the sidewalks through town. Sometimes if I was home, I’d tag along. Only for a mile or two though. And even then, I’d be all sweaty and out of breath by the end.

Austin said it helped, and of course Mom loved it. Running, her and Austin. Most of all, we were just happy to see Austin be Austin again. Maybe not the same Austin from before. I knew he’d never be exactly that Austin again, and that was okay.

The new Austin helped me with my homework and joined the cross-country team. He went to Narcotics Anonymous meetings and therapy and said he wasn’t going to have a girlfriend for a while. He said he had a lot to figure out about himself first.

He hadn’t relapsed yet. Sixty days, abstinent. Every day was a new day. Every day. For all of us.

I can’t tell you how many times I tried to sketch that baby buffalo. Each time it failed to match up to the image in my head. I could still see him so well in there. Tyler was the one who suggested going to my public library to use their 3D printer. Only then did he become real again, exactly how I saw him. The buffalo I saved. Or, well, tried to. He was probably strong enough to save himself.

I glued him to the bottom of the box. Behind him I tacked several empty orange pill bottles, the same kind Mom found in Austin’s room back in June.

“Emma?”

Her mouth full of cheese and crackers, Kennedy bounds over to me. Whoever set up this art show is taking us seriously with the snack spread. “Emma, it’s incredible.”

This summer at RISD she’d taken her drawing to a whole other level. Learned how to animate, so she wasn’t only drawing manga now. She’d made a five-minute anime video for the contest.

“It’s not as good as yours,” I say.

“It’s deeper,” Lucy says. “No offense, Ken, but… you know what I mean.”

Kennedy crunches on a cracker, examining my box from every angle. She flicks the white ribbon tacked up next to it. “Third place? Pssshh. The judges don’t know what they’re doing.”

Her video had been awarded first place in its category, though to be fair, there weren’t as many entries in video art as there were in mixed media. Lucy’s gigantic self-portrait made out of plastic pushpins had won first place and best in show. I still can’t wrap my mind around how she even thought of that—so brilliant, so Lucy.

We’d been back to school for two weeks now, though I’d opened the envelope the two of them mailed from RISD as soon as Delia sent it with all my stuff. Along with a bunch of drawings, Kennedy had written me a letter about how she felt so intimidated by Grace Collins and them that she just blurted it out. She wasn’t thinking and she never meant to make things so hard for Becca. She’d reached out to Becca on her own and apologized. I probably would’ve known that if I hadn’t waited so long to try to make things right myself.

And Lucy—get this—she wrote me about her stepsister Erin and how she still sleeps with her baby blanket even though she’s married! And about this comedian guy, this tall, handsome grown-up, who talked about his baby blanket in his Netflix special.

“Do you want to walk around, check out the other pieces?” Kennedy asks. “Or get some snacks?” She reveals her empty napkin and makes a melodramatic sad face.

“Sure,” I say, and we go over to the snack table to grab some grapes and Brie, like dignified artists. Well, until Kennedy tries to snag a grape branch and a bunch of loose ones end up rolling all over the floor.

As we’re walking to the front of the room where the crowd has finally thinned out, I catch Mom and Dad talking with some parents of Austin’s old friends from the football team. It’s not a secret anymore. Once Austin was home, Dad started going to those meetings on the North Shore with Mom. They were worried at first about what it would mean going public. Would it affect business at Mom’s store? Would people treat Dad differently at work?

But what happened was the opposite of what they feared. When the station ran a special on the opioid epidemic in greater Boston for National Recovery Month, Dad recorded the intro. Channel 7 even came and filmed a segment with him, Mom, and Austin in our living room. The response from viewers was overwhelming. So many people wrote in about how much it helped for him to put his name and Austin’s story out there. Dad said if they could help just one person suffering in silence, as Austin had been, to get help, it was worth it.

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch her by my shadow box. Her hair is back to its usual curliness, and she’s not wearing glasses. Her cable-knit sweater is tight, almost preppy-looking. I honestly wouldn’t be entirely sure it was Becca if not for what she’s holding in her right hand. Her security blanket. Well, the socially acceptable kind. A library book.

I barely see her in school—she’s taking more classes at the high school this year.

I tap Lucy on the shoulder. “Be right back.” And then I squeeze my way over, passing by Mom and Dad until I’m standing right beside her, staring at my shadow box.

“It’s really good, Emma.”

“Thanks,” I say quietly.

“Don’t you think the buffalo kinda looks like her?” Austin steps