Little Battles by N.K. Smith Page B

bit more.
    She was so high during Horticulture, she teetered on the edge of moving too much, and not enough. I didn’t know what she was on, but it wasn’t just pot.
    She reminded me of my mother.
    I’d known early, very, very early, that my mother never really “lived.” Her life was nothing more than one high after another, her addiction driving her every move. Her eyes were never right. All they did was change from one cloud to another. When she was really high, they were frantic, and when she was coming down, they were heavy, like sludge. When she really needed a fix, they were panicked and frightened and more than just a little crazy.
    Sophie’s eyes shifted back and forth dangerously between a quiet calm and raging panic.
    Her hands kept moving, and at one point she was drumming her fingers so hard against the edge of the table that Mr. Reese kept glaring at our desk and the other students looked like they were about to shoot daggers due to the annoying rhythm she was tapping out.
    Even though I knew she didn’t like me touching her, I reached out and stilled her fingers, then brought our joined hands down from the table. I expected her to withdraw again, to pull away like always, but she sighed deeply as she coiled her fingers around mine and gripped them tightly. Her breathing slowed until it was almost what other people would call “normal.”
    The bell rang, ending Mr. Reese’s lecture, but Sophie didn’t get out of her seat and she didn’t let go of my hand.
    We sat there until everyone was gone and the new students filed in. I stood up and grabbed my bag, and nudged her to get up. When she finally moved, she dropped my hand.
    Out in the hallway, she turned toward the gym and mumbled a goodbye, but I couldn’t just let her leave. Again I risked touching her by reaching out and encircling her hand, only letting it stay for a moment before dropping it a little and keeping hold of just her pinkie finger. If she was scared or worried, she would be able to pull away and break the connection easily.
    I wanted it to be comforting to her. I didn’t want to take the choice away or make her think that I was forcing her to be touched.
    “Have to go,” she said while never trying to remove her finger from my hand.
    If she wound up going to P.E., she probably wouldn’t do much more than stand there. She was pretty out of it.
    “D-do you w-want to go?” It was a loaded question.
    She shook her head in response.
    I should have been clearer for her, because I didn’t know if she was saying that she didn’t want to go to P.E., or that she didn’t want to go someplace with me.
    “Can we go to your house?”
    Relief washed through me and I nodded. It took less than ten minutes to tell Mrs. Peters that I wasn’t going to re-stock the books for her today, and get Sophie into the car. After she buckled herself in, she drew her feet up and wrapped a protective arm around her bent legs.
    “Are you o-okay?”
    She shook her head, but I couldn’t see her face. “I feel sick.”
    As I drove, I thought. Was she sick like my mom was when she was coming down? Was she sick because everyone else in school seemed to have the stomach flu? Or was she sick because she hadn’t eaten much? Sophie was thin. A little too thin. When I thought about her during Study Hall today, I realized that she hadn’t even nibbled on a Pop-Tart or eaten an apple like she usually did. Sophie never went to lunch, and I doubted she ate in the woods with Jason.
    “You d-d-didn’t eat,” I said, forgetting that I hadn’t wanted to talk today.
    Sophie’s head snapped up. “Yes, I did.”
    I shook my head. “N-n-not in the library you d-didn’t. D-d-did you eat o-o-outside?”
    “Fuck,” she exhaled as her whole body launched itself into motion. I watched her out of the corner of my eye as she grabbed the blood sugar monitor from her bag and tested her glucose level. It was only moments after her machine beeped that she asked, “Is it