Believe by Sarah Aronson

work. “You have such a unique point of view. Give yourself time. Put more of yourself—your heart—your emotion—in this work. Challenge yourself to take some risks. Show me what you can do.”
    I thought I did all that. I said, “This is what I can do.” And “I thought you said that visiting in the spring would be best.”
    She told me to pack everything up. “Why don’t you take some time and come back when you have something new?” She walked me to the door. “Trust me, Janine. There is no rush showing this off.”

    At lunch, I replayed the whole thing with Dan. “She basically canned every single piece.”
    He put one hand on my thigh, well past the critical radius.
    I pushed it off.
    He put it back on and squeezed a tiny bit too tight. “No need to be snippy.” With his free hand, he motioned to a brown paper bag on his tray. When I opened the top, steam escaped. It smelled like french-fry oil. He smiled, so I could see his dimples. “I got these for you.”
    Tater tots. My favorite. Perfect for victories. Essential in defeat. Now I felt bad. I popped two in my mouth, but they were so hot I had to spit them onto the tray.
    Dan slid his hand down to my knee. A safe place. “You can’t tell me Ms. Browning didn’t eat up that brown dress. That thing was a total do .”
    Out of the periphery of my eye, I watched Samantha and Miriam walk into the cafeteria. They stopped to talk to the local Young Life advisors, who always hung out at the cafeteria during lunch. They seemed nice enough, but naturally, I stayed as far away from them as I could. They made me really uncomfortable. Too smiley. Too friendly. Officially, they were educational assistants, but every Tuesday night they held a prayer meeting at their home.
    Everyone was invited.
    Maybe Miriam was just telling them to go visit Abe.
    As Dan talked on and on about the amazing brown dress, they fluttered from table to table, handing out pieces of green paper that I was sure were flyers. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. “It no longer exists,” I said, looking away from them back to Dan. “I wrecked it.”
    He spit a big wad of tater tot debris across his tray. “Sorry.”
    â€œEw.”
    He cleaned up the mess. “You did not.”
    I shrugged. “You were the one who told me that I could do better.”
    â€œBut I didn’t tell you to destroy it.” He acted like it was the greatest thing I ever made. “Do you want that picture I took? I think I still have it. If you want to, you could remake it.”
    I didn’t think Ms. Browning even paused at the sketch. “I think I’d rather make something else.”
    He pumped his fist like a jock. “Like the dress you dedicated to your mom?”
    I dipped a carrot into ranch dressing and chomped down on the inside of my mouth. “Don’t get too excited.” I tasted blood. “It’s just an idea. I don’t know how I’m going to pull it off.”
    He said, “I know you’ll figure it out.”
    I wasn’t so confident. Making a dress to honor my parents would say something about me—something personal and private and scary. And right now, I wasn’t sure how to do that.
    All I knew was, I didn’t want to talk about it in front of Samantha.
    â€œI hope we’re not interrupting,” she said, snatching the tater tots right off my tray. She popped one in her mouth and sat down opposite Dan. I couldn’t help noticing her lip color was now neutral.
    Miriam sat down across from me. “What a day. I am so frustrated.”
    Three things happened (There was no need to ask. Samantha explained everything in excruciating detail even with her mouth full.)
    One: The tree was officially, definitely still alive. I thought this was good news, but according to some botanist that Samantha had magically spoken to, it needed a lot of