I’m probably just getting that regular stomachache that Dad says I get when I worry too much. He says I worry about everything–calls me an emotional yo-yo. I just wonder who’s holding the string.
“C’mon Jenna, pick yourself up by your bootstraps,” Dad said last time I was curled up with a stomach ache.
“You can’t pick up your own self,” I murmured. “Only other people can pick you up.”
But my Dad didn’t get the hint.
“Jen-naaaaa.”
I shrink when mom calls from inside the house. Sensing she’s heard every thought I’ve been thinking all this time I don’t want to answer her. I won’t be able to explain why the poison was a temptation. I grasp my drawings nervously, fearing they might blow off into a trail that will lead me to be found.
I jam my hand deep into the massive berry bush beside me, fishing for a strong branch to grab and pull my body deep inside it. After a short spell of flying branches, breaking twigs and shedding leaves, I rest inside my shelter, a capsule of green shrubbery.
“Jenna, come on out of there.”
My mom is a twenty-seven-year old square faced blonde, her small frame still tan from the summer. She’s always pretty no matter what the sun does or doesn’t do to her.
“What’s going on?” Mom gets right to the point, never wasting a word.
She yanks up her pants at the knees to squat down to find my eyes. There’s no way she can deal with my troubles. As a social worker, she fixes people’s problems at work all week as it is. It’s not easy finding jobs for people with disabilities, she says. So I want to give her a break when she’s home.
I hug my legs tight, hoping she doesn’t see me peering out at her from inside my leafy shield of armor. I’m scared that whatever she’ll ask me will remind me I’m over-emotional, in other words, not normal. The worry I cause my family with my overdone emotions complicates what I’m going through. There’s no justification, just more damp patches of sadness on each faded knee of my jeans.
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