Elizabeth’s Bio:

Elizabeth Maria Naranjo is the author of The Fourth Wall. Her short fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in Brevity Magazine, Superstition Review, Hunger Mountain, Hospital Drive, The Portland Review, YA Review Net (YARN), Literary Mama, Motherwell, and several other places. She is currently revising her third novel (a ghost story for adults) and seeking an agent for a middle grade book and a collection of short stories. Elizabeth lives in Tempe, Arizona, with her husband and two children. She blogs about books and writing at elizabethmarianaranjo.com.

 

Gratitude

By Elizabeth Maria Naranjo

 

Today Bree and I walk to the ice cream shop at lunch and split a strawberry sundae with extra whipped cream. “Mountains of it,” Bree tells the cashier, who eyes us suspiciously.

“Don’t you girls ever eat real food?”

“Toss in some more cherries,” Bree suggests, even though we never eat them. “That’s fruit.”

It’s my turn to pay, so I hand over a crumpled five-dollar bill and a few sweaty quarters while the cashier mutters about the good old days when freshmen had to earn their way off campus with good behavior. I look at Bree and roll my eyes.

We sit outside on the cool grass, scooping up soft serve dripping with strawberry sauce and occasionally flicking spoonfuls of whipped cream at the pigeons. It’s my favorite kind of afternoon. And then, out of nowhere, my eyes blur and the next thing I swallow are tears.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

Last month my dad and I were shopping for cookbooks for Mom’s birthday and I saw this whole shelf of gratitude journals, the kind where you write every day about one good thing. I picked a pretty green one with blue vines spread over the cover. “I’ll buy it with my allowance,” I told my dad. He shrugged and then, with a big dorky grin, held up a recipe book, just knowing Mom would love the gift he’d chosen. He was right; she did. My parents still hold hands like they’re in high school.

Bree’s parents hate each other. They divorced last year and, even living apart, they argue about everything. Bree laughs about it, but I know she hurts. I know she does.

Filling out my gratitude journal is easy because there is nothing wrong with my life. My parents are not only crazy about each other but they love me, too. Despite what the cashier at the ice cream shop thinks, I’m a well-behaved, straight-A student.

Did I buy the journal as an act of masochism, to make myself feel even guiltier about randomly crying for no reason? Or was I hoping it’s like a riddle where if I fill in all the lines I’ll find an answer between them?

Today I am grateful for:

Day 1: Chocolate milk and full moons

Day 2: Pedicures

Day 3: Watching Mom and Dad try to reel in a catfish, screaming and laughing at the same time

Later, I’ll probably pencil in that today I am grateful for strawberry sundaes at lunch, a best friend, cool grass, and sunshine.

I start to tell Bree that even though my life is perfect I just swallowed tears with my ice cream, but if I was her and she was me and she said that, I think I’d hate her.

Instead, I tell her it’s time to get back, and I throw away the carton where all the untouched cherries float in a pool of melted ice cream.

 

 

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