Part 2: Missing Beats

Today she’s going to school. She couldn’t go last week because I had a stomach bug, but I seem to have gotten better over the weekend. I can’t help but feel guilty for making her miss her ballet lessons all last week; she’s dreamed of being a ballerina since we were four. I have to make sure we don’t miss too many classes on account of me, or she might not be welcome back. But I can’t help it if she doesn’t get her calcium everyday or get all her vitamins. It was easier when we were four; her mother always made sure she got every essential mineral. It was like that for a while, and when mom forgot, we remembered.

We used to be so good at that; she was the perfect child and student: never missing homework, A’s on every test, keeping the cleanest room in the house, practicing our splits right before bed. She never missed a beat. But I’m just skin, blood, and bones, I couldn’t really do anything when she needed me most. Needed me to stop, to pull away, to let go, when she couldn’t.

Ninth grade, her first year in high school, and she was on top of everything. While her peers could barely snatch a B in Freshman English, she was the star pupil, and passed her first quarter with a 97. It would’ve been a 98 too, if it hadn’t been for that group project. That was the project, wasn’t it? It was while they were reading To Kill a Mockingbird. The teacher assigned them random partners, and they had to act out a scene from the book. Oh, if it had been any other project. But there's no going back now, no changing the past. She went over to his house, so that they could work on the project together. It started out that way, at least. But even after the project was turned in, we still walked to his house every day. We started going out later and later and later, even staying till morning some nights. Mom had trusted us so much, she’d never set a curfew, but even she was able to see what was going on. Mom wouldn't stand for it any longer. And she was grounded. Just like that. “You should’ve known better.” That’s what Mom would say. It became her motto over the next few years, but it didn’t even take that long for the star pupil, the perfect daughter, God’s favorite angel, to fall from grace, though. Here’s how it went…