1
Aria
“Ms. Aria,I want to show you my cartwheel!” Sophie exclaims as she and three other little girls circle around me. All I can do is smile and look down at their angelic faces.
Little angels. Young and beaming with joy.
“Let’s stretch, and then you can show me,” I reply. The girls rush to their spots on the mats. Even when I’m having a bad day, I come here and can’t help but smile. These little girls mean the world to me, and I love teaching gymnastics, even if I’ll never compete again.
Once upon a time, I had big dreams. I was going to attend Georgia University on a scholarship for gymnastics. I’d trained hard and worked my butt off from the time I was a little girl all the way through high school.
In my junior year of high school, during my floor exercise for nationals, I did a backflip. When I came down, my footing was off. I landed hard, tore my ACL, and fractured my spine. I’m lucky to even be alive and able to walk.
The thoughts of my past evaporate into thin air when I step in front of the girls.
“It’s time to stretch,” I tell the ten little girls, each standing in their own square.
I go through the stretches, and afterward, Sophie gleefully shows me her cartwheel, which she has been practicing for weeks now.
“Good job!” I clap my hands.
Sophie’s smile grows, and the rest of the girls start practicing their cartwheels. It’s not much to teach here and is nothing like the training I endured in high school, but it keeps me busy and happy.
I’m thankful Lisa offered me the job over the summer.
We work on tumbling next, and by the time we get done with that, the thirty-minute session is over. It’s hard to keep a smile on my face and even harder to keep the dread from churning in my gut when I know what’s coming next.
Parents scurry inside to pick up their children. I wave goodbye to my students, and the dread mounts once I’m alone. Most would love to go home at the end of the day, but I’m not one of those people. I’d rather be anywhere else, but I have nowhere else to go.
I grab my water bottle, purse, and jacket. There are still a few classes in session, and I slip through the crowd of parents congregating in the waiting room near the office. It’s too bad I still have a twenty-minute bus ride home and then a two-block walk because I’m tired as hell. Working three jobs is not helping matters either, but I have no choice.
The cool night air whips through my hair the moment I step out of the dance studio. I shiver and pull my jacket on as I walk to the bus stop. Like clockwork, the bus arrives at the same time it always does, and I place my money into the meter as I climb on.
I enjoy the silence that surrounds me on the way home, especially since I know what will happen if Dale, my stepdad, is awake when I arrive. Sometimes he’s sleeping by the time I get home, though it’s on rare occasions.
The bus ride goes by way too fast, and I begrudgingly step off and on to the street. My mother and stepdad live in a nice residential area, so I’m not all that worried as I walk the two blocks to the house. The house is huge, a two-story with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. It’s a home that’s meant for a family, something I don’t have. I don’t even have the luxury of sleeping in one of the bedrooms.
My room is in the basement—a cold and dark space where I sleep on a cot and use a bucket to pee in. The reminder of what my life is like makes me want to turn and run the other way.
Tightening my grip on my purse, I walk up the front steps and say a silent prayer, hoping Dale has drunk himself into a coma by now. I’ll keep praying until the day it happens. My hands tremble as they always do when I let myself into the house. I try to move as quietly as possible, making a beeline for the basement door so I’m not seen or heard by anyone.
That’s my plan until my stomach rumbles so loudly I’m sure the next-door neighbors can hear it. I place a hand over my angry belly and try to think back to the last time I ate something? Yesterday, maybe? When I was at the restaurant?
I don’t allow myself to think long about it and make a plan to get food and into the basement as soon as possible. The last thing I need for my mental sanity is to have a run-in with my stepdad. The kitchen is dark, except for a small light above the sink.
How is it that I can be in my own home, where I should feel safe and warm, but feel neither of those things?
My fingers close around the cool stainless-steel handle of the fridge, and I’m a millisecond from pulling the door open when a hand slams against the door, startling me. I don’t have to turn around to know who it is. I release the handle and drop my hand, bringing it to my chest. The organ races inside, threatening to burst from my chest.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” The cruel edge of his voice slices through me. Dale is not a good or kind man. When he and my mother first got married, I thought he was the nicest guy on the planet. He would take me to the park, and we would go camping. We were a true, real family. After my injury, everything changed.
Overnight, he became a nightmare that I could never escape.
“I-I’m hungry. I was just getting something to eat,” I stutter. Anxiety coils in my gut, overwhelming the hunger I was previously feeling. I should’ve gone downstairs. I should’ve ignored the hunger.
Dale’s grim face twists, and his lips curl with rage. A shiver runs down my spine. I know that look. It’s the one that gets me beaten.
“Your mother and I have decided you can’t eat here anymore. If you’re hungry, you’ll have to eat before you come home.”