Free Our Song by Jordanna Fraiberg Page A

Derek kissing Betsy. The image was seared in my brain. The Derek I knew didn’t believe in PDA; he was much more private. He never gazed into my eyesor kissed me or even held my hand when we were at school. He saved it all for when we were alone, when he couldn’t keep his hands off me.
    I opened my eyes and tried to start over but the memory still burned. Derek caressing Betsy, playing with her hair. I sprang up and tried to shake it off, but looking around my room, all the reminders of Derek stared back at me. They all seemed to be taunting me—for being so foolish, for believing in happily ever after in the first place.
    Anger roiled inside me and I swiped the dried roses off the shelf. The flowers were so brittle, the petals practically disintegrated into dust mid-flight. Crouching down, I pulled a floral hatbox out from under the pink bed skirt and placed it on the bed. The hatbox originally belonged to my mother. She had given it to me when I was little, to store all the clothes and makeup she’d handed down for dress-up. Now it was where I kept my most treasured keepsakes from my relationship with Derek. But what was the point of keeping them now?
    I flipped off the cover and turned the box upside down. Everything came tumbling out—the cocktail napkin from our first date at Maggiano’s, the ticket stubs from our first movie, programs from all the debate matches I had attended over the last two years. I tore it all up, shredding every reminder of our happiest moments.
    I flopped down on the bed, the adrenaline still coursing through me. Staring up at the pink princess canopy, all I could think about were the countless times I had lain here with Derek. The way the billowing fabric draped down used to make mefeel so protected, especially with him next to me. Looking at it now, I felt like I was suffocating, which only made my anger flare more. Reaching up, I grabbed a fistful of fabric in my hand and pulled with all my strength. One of the bedposts snapped in half, bringing down the entire canopy in one fell swoop. A deflated pink parachute. It looked exactly the way I felt.
    About twenty seconds later, my bedroom door came flying open. My mother appeared, a frantic look on her face. She was wearing her gardening apron, holding a spatula. Chocolate icing dripped onto the remnants of a debate program. “What is going on in here?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Nothing?” She picked up a piece of the broken bedpost. “You call this nothing? I’m sure half the neighborhood heard the commotion.”
    “That must be very embarrassing for you,” I said, squaring my arms across my chest.
    She let out a deep sigh. For the first time I noticed lines forming on the edges of her pursed lips. “I know this has been a difficult time, but enough is enough. You’re moody and erratic. You won’t talk to me. You hardly leave this room, and now this?” she said, waving her arm across the debris, the shredded memories. “You’re not the same, Olive. I cannot and will not allow this to go on.”
    “Or what?” I said, digging my toes into the carpet. She was right about one thing. I wasn’t the same anymore. I never did things like challenge authority, talk back, tear down bedposts. Or crash cars. But I had nothing left to lose, no one to pretend for.
    She shook her head and surveyed the damage. “Is that the brochure from Dr. Green?” she said, noticing the bright orange paper poking out from my pile of schoolbooks.
    “How do you know about that?” I asked as she bent to pick it up.
    “Because she called me after your meeting. She’s concerned, and frankly so am I.”
    I waited while she flipped through the pamphlet, hoping that once she was done, this conversation, this topic, could somehow be forgotten, swept under the rug the way things usually were in this family. The photo of the depressed-looking girl on the cover stared back at me. She had long brown hair that covered half her face and was wearing an oversized gray