1
Sanctuary
February 15
I’m late to homeroom. Not because my bus was running behind schedule, or because my knee was flaring up again, or because of any other reasonable explanation. I walk into homeroom six minutes after the bell, because I couldn’t force myself to come straight here. I couldn’t walk in this direction. Couldn’t follow the same path I go down every day.
My classmates are journaling at their desks. Several heads snap up as the heavy door latches shut behind me, as I hurry to my seat in the middle of the room. Curious gazes cut back and forth between me and the clock. Ms. Porter looks up from her own journal entry to beam at me and say, “Welcome, Maisie.”
I drop into the cramped desk. Slender metal bars attach from the tabletop to the chair to the shiny tiled floor. Rooting the desk to this particular place. I fumble with my book bag. Pencil tips whisper against paper all around me, a gentle contrast to the coarse rip of my book bag’s zipper, the obnoxious clacking of its buckles.
Seven minutes after the bell, I finally slap my composition notebook down on my desk and read the prompt on the whiteboard. Ms. Porter changes it every day. She shares quotes from famous novels, random facts about nature, or sometimes even song lyrics. Today, she has shared this word and its definitions:
Sanctuary
A place of refuge or safety; a place of protection from danger or a difficult situation.
A nature reserve; a refuge for wildlife.
A holy or sacred place; a building or room for religious worship.
Synonyms: haven, harbor, retreat, shelter, immunity, asylum.
I stare at the words. Flip to the next open space in my notebook. Pause, with my pencil hovering above the blank page.
I never really know how to begin these entries. Ms. Porter always tells us to be creative and open and free, to write or draw or spill whatever we’re feeling, as we feel it. She never reads what we write; there are no grades in homeroom, just attendance and participation points. It’s also our only fifteen-minute period, which means that I have about eight minutes left to do this.
Sanctuary. I write the word across the top of the page. Underline it twice.
Hesitate.
And then, in a messier scrawl, I write: My ballet school has always been my sanctuary. I stare at this sentence. Tap my eraser against my chin. Suck in a deep breath and continue on: In the studio, I don’t have to worry about anything else that’s happening in my life, or in the world around me.
From there, the words flow through me. I describe the bright, airy space in my favorite studio. The mirror-lined wall, the tall ceiling, the wide windows. The aluminum barres, the grand piano in the corner, the squeaky pearl-gray floors. The openness of it. The peacefulness of it.
I describe what it’s like to dance in a room like that. To move through the sweeping gestures of a grand port de bras, the aching lift of an arabesque. To spin and step and reach as the piano notes pinwheel all around you.
From the front of the room, Ms. Porter claps and says, “Okay, students. Can I have your attention up here, please?”
I stop writing. Lean back as much as this rigid chair will let me.
Ms. Porter smiles. “It’s Friday,” she says. “And next week is midwinter break, so I won’t see you all for a while. I hope you stay warm, happy, and healthy during your time off. Take care and have fun.”
The shrill bell rings, and the classroom breaks into a flurry. I look down at the words I’ve written, feeling the yearning pull of them, like a fishhook in my stomach.
Then I close the notebook. Shove it inside my book bag. Stand up to join the stampede toward the door.
“Maisie!” Ms. Porter waves me down. “Maisie, can I have a word with you?”
I swallow. Extract myself from the chaotic rush out the door. Meet her gaze.
She offers me a small smile and asks, “Did your bus driver give you a late pass?”
I shake my head. In an instant, the other students are gone, swept away in the roaring tide of voices and slamming lockers and sneaker squeaks down the hallway outside. And it’s just me and Ms. Porter, standing in the awkward, muffled quiet of her empty classroom.
“Is your knee okay?”
“It’s fine,” I say automatically.
“Okay. Good.” She gives an apologetic wince and says, “I have to report your unexcused tardiness.”
I nod. Fidget slightly under her gaze.
“Try to get here a little earlier, okay? If it happens again this semester, I’ll be required to give you an after-school detention. It’s school policy.”
I nod again. “I know, ma’am.”
“All right. Have a good midwinter break.”
She moves toward her desk, and I turn to leave the classroom. But before I step through the doorway, she says:
“And, Maisie? If you ever want to talk—if something else is bothering you, or if you need extra help with anything—I’m here. The school counselors are here. We all just want to see you succeed. You know that, right?”
I tell her, “I know.” Even though I don’t plan on talking to her. Or to anyone at this school, really.
She grins, oblivious. “I’m so glad. I’m always rooting for you.”
2
Carry the X
February 15
By the end of the day, I’m frazzled and exhausted.
I wedge my way through the sea of students, between the locker-lined buildings and concrete pillars. The walls around us are cluttered with construction paper posters, marker-drawn announcements for spring sports tryouts, and Black History Month events. Blinds are shuttered over the classroom windows. We shuffle past the small and quiet library, which is where I used to spend most of my free time, until that day in November when I heard rodents scurrying around in the ceiling above me. I was still on my crutches then, but it didn’t matter. I managed to sprint out of there.
The crowd pushes me out and away from the campus, and down the row of idling yellow buses. Their exhaust pipes rattle as they wait for us. The smell of bus fumes fills the clear air. My book bag is heavy, the diagonal strap digging awkwardly against my shoulder. I’m surrounded by bulging backpacks and loud voices and people who laugh as they shove one another. I keep my head down, keep inching my way forward. An eighth grader in a football jersey lurches against my side, and I mumble an apology a split second after he’s gone. I tug at the fingers of my fuzzy pink mittens. I keep moving, careful not to make eye contact with anyone. Careful not to do much of anything.
I find bus 185. As I climb aboard, the thrum of the engine tickles the soles of my feet. The back of the bus is already packed with people. A boy in the last row is dribbling a soccer ball on his knees. He bounces it in a repetitive rhythm, a quick swooping arc as he pitches the ball into the air. I move past a girl seated with her head down, thick-padded headphones on, her music turned loud enough for me to hear the shrieking lyrics.
I reach my own empty seat and slide across the mud-colored vinyl. My book bag hits the floor with a thud. I unbuckle its pouch, reaching for my cell phone. As I pick through the mess of loose papers, snack bar wrappers, and composition notebooks, I glimpse my graded math test. The one I just received in my last class period.
I barely looked at it when Ms. Finch placed it on my desk. But now, in the privacy of my bus seat, I can’t help but stare.