Part 2Pushing Me Forward

During dinner, the house phone suddenly rang.

My mom put down her fork and ran to answer it.

"Hello? Hi!"

"You're looking for Harper? Sure."

"Harper is home, come on over."

She walked back to the table, chewing on a piece of leftover toast from yesterday.

"Harper, that was Chloe and Zoe. They said they're downstairs and they want to take you out shopping."

My mom's tone was incredibly cautious, as if terrified I would throw another tantrum.

And of course, I did.

I screamed at her:

"Shopping? You want me, a paraplegic, to go shopping with them?"

"You want me to sit there and watch them walk around in their pretty dresses with their perfectly working legs?"

"Did you even consider how I would feel?"

"Are you even my mother?"

My mom's face went sheet white. She looked at me in a panic and quickly crouched down to soothe me.

"No, sweetheart, Mom didn't mean it like that."

"They were your best friends. I just thought you'd want to see them."

"It's okay, if you don't want to see them, you don't have to. Mom will go call them and tell them to go home."

I turned my face away, ignoring her.

Suddenly, a heavy fist slammed onto the dining table.

"Harper Davis!"

"Are you ever going to stop?"

"This entire family has quit jobs and fallen ill just to take care of you."

"We haven't had a single good day."

"What? Are you the only person in the whole world who doesn't have legs?"

"Why is it that everyone else can find a way to move on, but you insist on wallowing in misery?"

"It's been two years. How long are you going to keep doing this?"

"If you act like this, how can your mother ever rest easy... how can she..."

He seemed to realize something, cutting his sentence short and falling silent.

I continued to pretend I couldn't hear him, biting down hard on the tip of my tongue to swallow the surge of anger.

My mom was terrified. She rushed over and pried my jaw open with her bare hands.

"Okay, okay, we won't force you anymore."

"Be a good girl, Harper. If you don't want to go out, we won't go out."

"Whenever you feel ready, then we'll take you..."

Before she could finish, there was a knock on our front door.

Followed by a chorus of long-lost, giggling voices.

"Harper! Open the door, I really have to pee!"

"Harper, we heard you were depressed, so the girls are here to cheer you up."

"Harper, we brought your favorite boba, but there's only half left because haha, I drank the other half."

Hearing their voices, a completely indescribable feeling washed over me.

It was complicated.

But there was also a strange, undeniable spark of joy.