Priceless

  Because what followed was definitely the worst, most mortifying thing to ever happen to me.

  SARAH

  AGE 13

  One Month Later

  Reese was mad.

  I’d only ever seen my babysitter as bright and bubbly, always cheerful and energetic with what seemed to be a perpetual, ready grin. So when I turned my head on the mattress where I lay to send her an elated smile, I was stunned to find her lips thin and pinched with anger.

  She folded her arms over her chest as she watched my legs bicycle kick in the air above my hips.

  And here, I’d been so proud of myself. I could actually control some kind of movement. For a second, it’d been the best moment of my life. I’d just wanted to share my feat with my favorite person. But the rage emanating off her made my joy plummet.

  What had I done wrong?

  Worried, I stopped kicking, but the therapist on the opposite side of the mattress from Reese instructed in a calm, even voice, “No, don’t stop yet, Sarah. Just keep going. Think about how you feel as you move. And then try to slow the pace, putting the least amount of effort into it as possible.”

  I blew out a breath and turned my attention up to the ceiling, away from Reese’s anger, so I could concentrate on moving my legs. Just as they wobbled rampantly, Dr. Besby murmured, “Don’t worry about that. It’s fine. Just keep going if you can. You’re doing great.”

  After I completed a minute of slow reps, Dr. Besby told me to reverse the kicking and bicycle my legs in the other direction. “That’s great,” he congratulated. “Now picture your favorite kind of ice cream.”

  Bringing up a mental image of two scoops of Neapolitan on a waffle cone, my eyebrows knit with worry when my mental fantasy slotted Reese into the chair at the table across from me as she licked her own cone full of orange sherbet.

  Why was she so mad? What if she never wanted to eat ice cream with me ever again?

  “See how well she’s doing even after she took her mind off her actions,” Dr. Besby told Reese. “That’s a significant improvement from her last session. Have you been trying to get her to stand on her own and bear her weight on her feet?”

  “Yeah, but she loses her balance as soon as she lifts her head,” Reese answered.

  Was that the problem then? I turned my attention her way, wondering if she wanted me to be able to stand on my own. But when our gazes met, she flashed me a huge Reese-smile. There was a kind of sadness in her eyes, though, even when she held up both thumbs, telling me how proud she was.

  “Not to worry,” Dr. Besby said. “These things take time. Just keep practicing with her every day, and before you know it, she’ll be able to keep her head up, look around, and maintain stability all at the same time. The real milestone will come when she can shift her weight from leg to leg while doing all that. That’s a must for independent walking.”

  Hope lit Reese’s face as she darted her eyes toward the therapist. “Wait. You think she’ll actually be able to walk someday?”

  I didn’t realize I was holding my breath to hear that answer myself until Reese grabbed my fingers supportively. I clutched them like a lifeline.

  But Dr. Besby winced. “I think...such a large delay in starting her on physical therapy has hampered her a lot. After some time, she should be able to take a few unassisted steps by herself, but I doubt she’ll ever be able to throw out a wheelchair or walker for good.”

  Both Reese and I sighed in frustration, until Dr. Besby added, “You have to admit, though, her being able to get in and out of the wheelchair, use the restroom, and take a bath without help would be a huge achievement.”

  Okay, he had a point there. Still...it would’ve been nice to hear he could heal me completely.

  “You need to remember, Sarah’s cerebral palsy might be a disorder of involuntary muscle movements, but it still came from brain damage. If we concentrate on healing the part of her brain that harbors muscle control, she’ll always have some limitations, but you’ll be able to tell a notable difference over time.”

  “Oh, I can already tell a difference.” Reese’s smile was completely genuine this time as she glanced my way. “Her posture’s improved and she can keep her head up for longer periods of time. In my book, you’ve already performed a miracle, Dr. Besby.”

  The therapist flushed and averted his gaze to study my kicking legs. “Sarah’s the one who’s done all the work,” he mumbled, trying to ward off the praise.

  I think he had a crush on my babysitter. I was tempted to tell him to back off; she was already taken, dating my brother Mason, and someday I was going to make her my sister-in-law. So he’d better just keep his hands to himself. But I kind of liked how much he’d helped me too, so I didn’t want to scare him away.

  “Okay, you can stop now, Sarah.” He sat his hand on my knee and sent me a warm smile. “That’s enough for today. We’ll pick up here tomorrow. Sound good?”

  “Oh! Uh...” Reese squeezed my fingers and coughed delicately. “Can we skip tomorrow? Sarah, um...she won’t be available then.”

  What she really meant was that my mom would be home.

  My mother didn’t exactly know about these physical therapy sessions. When Reese had discovered the home visits Dr. Besby was offering, she’d brought a pamphlet straight to Mom, so excited to sign me up for them. But Mom had vetoed them, saying she could never afford such one-on-one care.

  So...Reese had gone behind her back with the help of Mason and somehow funded and set up the therapy without Mom’s knowledge. I had a bad feeling my brother had either forged Mom’s signature a few times or illegally signed something as my guardian. Whatever the case, I wasn’t supposed to let Mom in on the secret.

  At first, it’d been thrilling to keep the news from her. But now, a few weeks after the sessions had started and I’d already improved so much, I was kind of scared. What if she did learn about them and stopped them, and I never got any better than I was now?

  I wanted to be the best I could possibly be.

  After Reese worked out a new time to meet later in the week and Dr. Besby went on his way, she turned to me with a cheery smile while she rubbed her hands together. “I don’t know about you, but all that talk about ice cream made me crave a heaping bowl of orange sherbet.”

  I laughed. How had I guessed she’d want that flavor?

  As she helped me into my wheelchair, I wondered what it’d be like if I could climb in by myself or downgrade to merely a walker someday. I could get around so much easier that way. I would love to ditch them both, but honestly, I’d take any improvement I could get. Sometimes I got so frustrated about things I couldn’t yet do.

  Once we made it to the kitchen, Reese hummed to herself as she fixed me my favorite, Neapolitan, before she got her orange sherbet. Then she sat across from me and went about cutting my ice cream into bite-sized chunks.

  I said nothing about how humiliating it was for her to baby me this way because at least she let me eat it myself. My mother still hand-fed me when she was home, oftentimes pureeing my meal to make me drink it through a straw. It might take me twice as long as a normal person, but I could definitely feed myself. I had lots better control over my arms than I did my legs.

  “So I have a surprise for you,” Reese started with a wiggle of her eyebrows as soon as we dipped our spoons into our respective bowls. “I told you my parents got me a new laptop last week for my birthday, right?” she started, only for her cell phone to ring.

  “Ack. Hold that thought.” Popping to her feet, she hurried to her purse, dug her phone free and checked the screen. “It’s Eva. I better take this. Be right back, kiddo.”

  She strolled into the other room as she answered, and I found myself abandoning my bowl to roll closer to the doorway and listen in on the conversation. Eva was her pregnant cousin who’d moved up here from Florida a few months after we had and begged for a place to stay with Mason and Reese. She was beautiful and flashy and had always been nice to me, so I liked her, bu
t I knew my brother wasn’t a fan and only let her stay to make Reese happy.

  Curious what she wanted, I stopped just on the other side of the doorway out of sight. It’d become a habit for me to eavesdrop over the years. I don’t think people realized I understood as much as I did, so they didn’t bother to tell me much. Ergo, I usually stole my intel by lingering in passageways, just out of sight.

  “Yes, of course,” Reese was saying. “You know I’ll always attend a doctor’s appointment with you, E. You don’t even need to ask. This one’s another sonogram, right? Ooh, how exciting. Yep, I’m free that afternoon.” She paused a moment, then rolled her eyes, “Yeah, the therapy sessions are going great. Wait until you see Sarah again. It’ll shock you how much she’s already improved. I just...” She shook her head and pressed her hand to her brow. “I can’t help but get livid every time I watch her work her heart out.”

  I held my breath and leaned closer, scared to hear why she was so mad at me, but also determined to know what I was doing wrong so I could fix it.

  “I just...” She shook her head and gritted her teeth. “I want to strangle Mason’s mother. How could she not want something that’s obviously good for her daughter? I know this is probably a crappy thing to say, but I swear, she wants Sarah to stay as dependent as possible just so she can keep getting government-funded checks. I mean, God forbid Sarah learn how to manage on her own so that she can someday move out and live independently. Do you know Dawn still feeds her blended food through a straw?”

  I blew out a breath as Reese raged on, relieved to learn her anger wasn’t directed at me. I was used to Mom’s ways, but the longer Reese was around us, the more it bugged her.

  “And get this, Dawn hadn’t even heard of the Anat Baniel method? It’s like she doesn’t want to learn any more about cerebral palsy than she has to. And guess what else. I did, like, five minutes of internet research to discover there’s a World CP Day every year on the first Wednesday in October and March is CP Awareness month. Dawn had no idea when I told her. No. Idea. How could someone treat her own daughter this way?”

  Satisfied I wasn’t the object of her anger, I rolled back to the table and returned to eating. When Reese appeared a few minutes later, she looked refreshed, as if her rant had actually helped.

  Her smile was a lot happier when she grabbed her book bag off the floor and pulled it into her lap as she sat back down.

  “Sorry about that. Eva’s letting me go to her next doctor’s appointment. They’re going to take another picture of the baby. I’ll sneak one away from her so I can show you. Anyway, where were we? Oh right. Since I got a new laptop, I don’t need my old one now, so I was wondering if you might want it.”

  She yanked her old one from the depths of her bag with a flourish. I gaped at the magenta-covered computer as she sat it on the table and flipped up the lid. “I even changed the screen saver to a picture of you and Mason. What do you think?”

  I thought I loved this woman!

  “Are you sure?” I asked, itching to grab it and clutch it to my chest.

  She laughed. “Of course. Lookie. I have the app for Facebook right here so you and I can message, like, all the time. And this icon is for the fashion design site that we like to visit.” As she showed me more features, tears prickled my eyes.

  A few months ago, no one had topped my brother Mason in my book. But Reese was beginning to take his place. If he ever did anything to lose her, I might have to disown him.

  Just as I brushed the moisture away so Reese wouldn’t notice my emotions, the back door opened and what do you know, Mason stepped into the kitchen.

  “Hey, you.” Immediately lighting with pleasure, Reese hurried to him for a big hug. “What’re you doing here? I thought you had to work this evening.”

  “I did, but Noel’s been begging for more hours lately. I let him take my shift so I could come watch one of Sarah’s sessions.”

  “Oh, shoot. You missed it. Dr. Besby just left. But Sarah’s doing great. You should see her bicycle her legs. They hardly wobbled at all today.”

  Wrapping her arms around his waist, she rested her cheek on Mason’s chest as she grinned my way. “He thinks someday she’ll be able to take a few steps at a time without any kind of help at all.”

  “Really?” Mason’s eyebrows lifted with surprise as he kissed Reese’s hair. “That’s amazing. And I see you’ve already given her the laptop too. I missed everything.”

  “You can still have some ice cream with us.” Reese batted her lashes temptingly right before she pressed her lips to his jaw.

  He chuckled and smoothed a hand down her back. “Eat ice cream with my two favorite girls? How could I resist?”

  So Mason pulled out the chair between me and Reese, and the three of us sat together.

  I lived for moments like these. Nothing beat family time with Mason and Reese.

  As my brother and I snarfed down our Neapolitan, Reese asked, “So how is everything with Noel going? If he’s asking for more hours at work, I guess that means Aspen hasn’t found another job yet, huh?”

  “Nope.” Mason licked the last of his ice cream off his spoon. “She hasn’t. But Noel moved his brothers and sister into her place, so now they don’t have to worry about double rent each month.”

  “Oh, wow. Noel and all three of his siblings moved in with Aspen? That’s moving their relationship along kind of fast, isn’t it? I hope everything goes okay.”

  “Yeah, but they seem pretty resolved to the task of taking care of his younger siblings.” Mason glanced my way and murmured, “Gotta admire the guy for that.”

  Reese suddenly brightened. “Oh, that reminds me! Sarah...” She turned to me, her blue eyes twinkling with excitement. “Noel brought his family over this past Saturday, and Aspen told me one of Noel’s younger brothers is your age. They just enrolled him and he’ll be starting at the middle school with you next week.”

  I furrowed my brow, wondering why someone had transferred schools when there was literally like only one week left of classes. Hmm. Strange. They must’ve had to move in a hurry if they couldn’t have even waited a few more days.

  “I can’t remember if it was Brandt or Colton who was your age,” Reese was saying. “You know, you should say hi to him on his first day. He doesn’t know anyone in town. He’d probably appreciate the welcome.”

  “What?!” I gaped at her as if she were insane, because she was insane for even suggesting such a thing. “No way.”

  I couldn’t get girls my own age to talk to me. No way was a boy going to give me the time of day. Besides, looking at cute boys lately made me feel all flushed and warm in my belly. It was strange and uncomfortable and no way would I be able to approach Colton, or Brandt, or whatever his name was if he was even remotely cute.

  Mason chuckled at my reaction and ruffled my hair. “That’s it, kiddo. You stay away from boys altogether. I don’t want to have to threaten anyone to treat you right for at least ten more years.”

  I almost snorted. It was very unlikely that any boy, ever, was going to show any kind of interest in me to even prompt half a threatening from my big brother. But it was sweet that he thought so. Made me love Mason even more.

  I was still curious about this Colton-Brandt character, though. So after Reese and Mason left and Mom came home to feed me supper, through a straw, I retreated to my room with my new computer and opened it on my lap before clicking on the Facebook app.

  I logged in and went straight to Reese’s page. She had over eight hundred friends. I had no idea how she even knew that many people, but it awed me every time I saw her numbers. Shaking my head, I went into her list of acquaintances and did a search for the name Noel.

  She had only one friend named Noel. A Noel Gamble. So I clicked into his page, happy to see it wasn’t private. He didn’t have any Facebook friends named Colton, but he had three named Brandt. I was worried at first that I wouldn’t be able to determine which Brandt was his brother. No one seemed to have t
he same last name these days. Mason and I didn’t; we’d taken on our different fathers’ surnames. But luckily enough, one of the Brandts had the same last name as Noel.

  So I clicked into his page. His profile picture showed two boys together, one older, about my age, and one younger, maybe seven or eight years old. The older one was cute. Way too cute for me to ever talk to face-to-face at school. But growing more and more curious about him, I clicked into his “about” page.

  Brandt Gamble was a month younger than I was and lived in Pennsylvania. Hmm, he must not have updated that part yet.

  Before I knew quite what I was doing, I swirled my finger over the mouse pad until the cursor was hovering over the “Add Friend” button. When I applied the slightest bit of pressure, the words changed from “Add Friend” to “Friend Request Sent.”

  I gasped. Oh my God, no!! What had I just done? I hadn’t wanted to send a complete stranger who was as cute as he was a friend request.

  Panicking, I scrambled to figure out how to undo it. Clicking into the request button, I saw the “Delete Request” option and skimmed the cursor toward it. Before I could click on it, though, a new notification popped up, saying, “You are now friends with Brandt Gamble.”

  “Oh my God,” I squeaked aloud. He’d actually accepted my request. I couldn’t believe it. A warm little glow of accomplishment lit up inside me.

  A second later, a message box popped up.

  Do I know you? Brandt Gamble asked me.

  Oh my God, times two! He’d just messaged me. My disbelief grew exponentially.

  Crap, I should probably answer.

  When I reread his message and really soaked in what he’d just asked, I rolled my eyes. Why had he accepted the request if he didn’t know me? Wasn’t the idiot worried about catfishers?