On Newberry Road
Gracie White
Newberry Road, or at least the part of it I knew, is the straightest road there is. When my parents decided I was too old for toys, I played with yardsticks. I would line them up on the border of the pebbles and the grass and walk along them like a tightrope.
We got Roscoe in the fifth grade. Cavaliers look like they have bird bones, like a strong wind could knock them over. Roscoe, despite this, was built like a football player. When he was born, the other puppies would bite his ears and push him over. He was only safe at his mother’s teat.
Because of his incredible size and because it was the thing to do, we took Roscoe on a walk every day after school. We turned left from the
yardstick line. I would tell my mom everything that came to mind. I asked her if it was true that you couldn’t get your period until you weighed 90 lbs.
Soon I was 130. Roscoe drove himself forward to sniff at a dead bird. I didn’t like the thought of the pebbles beneath his nails. I was starting to feel my legs beneath me. The blood would rush to my hands, and they would swell. In class, I would watch my best friend dig at her cuticles. Her fingers were always missing pieces. I wondered if her blood would be forced outward if they swelled.
I got into a fight with my best friend. She told me she was aggressive because she was on her period. That day at lunch, I sat with someone else. She had mismatched hair and eyes. The walls of her room were covered with drawings of soap bubbles in oil pastels. We would put our elbows together and talk about our favorite theme park rides.
One time, we turned left, and someone new had moved in. They had horses in a field that even I knew was too small. One of them was speckled black and white, and he didn’t have any eyes. I asked my mom about her wedding dress. I told her I had already made up my mind, I wanted a mermaid cut. It was the only kind of wedding dress I knew.
The mismatched girl and I would play games in her basement. There was a fully stocked bar, but we were young enough that we still believed our DARE classes. Her father was obsessed with Joe Paterno and had a life-sized cutout of him that watched us. The shiny cardboard reflected our game of Mario Odyssey. She put her head on my chest.
Around our 1,000th leftturnaversary, I told my mom. Not everything. I told her that I thought I might sort of like girls. Not that I was gay. But maybe I was bisexual? I didn’t tell her who it was, or that she made my stomach feel weird.
My mom was angry. She was embarrassed. She told me that if I were really gay, I would have known already. I didn’t know anything, so I believed her.
When we moved to Schoolhouse Road, we stopped taking walks. People would go 55 on a 30. One time, a man followed my mom, and she had to buy pepper spray. The road bent.