A Special Thanks

April 18th, 1976

Nine-year-old Azalea nervously glanced around the arcade, swallowing as if off to her execution. Her half-brother still held her hand firmly, but Azalea knew he had a date to be at. Azalea also knew the wonderful lady he was going to date. Her name was Seraphina, and she was very sweet and caring, perfect for her brother.

Azalea had warned Sera through shaky handwriting that her brother, Theo, could be bossy and mean sometimes, but that he was just broken. Sera had smiled sadly at Azalea and told her that “I’m sure I can help fix him.”

She was happy for her brother and told herself that if she didn’t let go of his hand and join the other children, he would be late for his reservation at a restaurant nearby. Azalea didn’t want to make him late, didn’t want to mess up his relationship.

Holding her floppy, fluffy white rabbit toy in one arm, holding Theo’s hand in the other, Azalea took deep breaths like Dr. Ellison told her to. Maybe one day all of his techniques would help her with a lot of things. Maybe one day her and Theo wouldn’t be so broken. Maybe one day her and Theo would be healed.

The carpeted floor of the arcade was black with depictions of swirling, curly rainbow ribbons and confetti. It was filled with bright lights and arcade games swarmed by children and indoor playgrounds made of slides, foam blocks, and ball pits. There was a bowling alley that would be used later in the night, after pizza and cake. However, it was in a separate part of the entertainment center.

“Are you okay?” Theo asked, getting down on one knee and holding her shoulders so that she faced him. Theo was the only person Azalea could hold eye contact with. She fidgeted with her now-free hand, picking on the hem of her cardigan, white with pink spots. Under the cardigan, she wore overalls over a white T-shirt.

Azalea nodded, hugging the white rabbit close. His name was Snowcone, but nobody knew that. She never talked about it. She never talked about anything.

“How’s your hearing aids? Good?” Azalea nodded again. She could hear the laughter of children, cheers, talking endlessly. It was a bit scary, but she could handle it, she was sure. If she ever needed a break, she could always take her hearing aids out, Theo had told her so.

“Alright. Sera and I are going now, okay?” Theo said, glancing back towards the car. Sera smiled and waved to Azalea, and she waved back, though she didn’t smile. This was her first social event without Theo since the accident. She was utterly terrified. “Remember,” Theo reminded her, “If you want to go home, just tell Mrs. Merton, okay? She’ll call me and I’ll come and pick you up.”

Azalea nodded. Inside, she promised herself that she could do this. No matter what, Theo’s date wouldn’t be ruined. He deserved it, so Azalea swore she wouldn’t ruin it.

Theo stood, hugged Azalea, and then waved over his shoulder as he went back to Sera. Even so, they both stood next to Theo’s car, watching. Seeing if Azalea would go inside.

She took a deep breath, checked the change in her pocket, then disappeared into the mayhem. As she delved deeper and deeper into the gleeful chaos, her heart tugged and her lungs pulled, begging her to stop, begging her to turn around and run back to the safety of Theo.

No, Azalea told herself, angry at nothing but the girl wearing a spotty cardigan. No, I won’t. I can do this.

She didn’t really know where she was going. The arcade was a mess of games, with a prize counter and an indoor play structure made of plastic towers and tunnels interspersed with children. Safety, Azalea told herself.

Before she could get there, she was stopped by Mrs. Merton herself. “Oh, hello, Azalea!” She plastered on the standard fake adult smile, the sort that said, “Happy to see you here!” But in Azalea’s mind meant, “We didn’t think you would come!”

Azalea picked on the hem of her cardigan more and more aggressively. She avoided eye contact and glanced nervously at the play structure. Her mind went on pause and said over and over again, safety safety safety safety safety safety safety safety safety safety safety safety.

Azalea hated this. She really, really hated this.

Mrs. Merton gestured to a small table full of little white stickers on sheets. They said “Hello, my name is. . .” with an empty slot below it. There was every color of Sharpie and markers scattered on the little table.

“Could you grab one, sign your name, and stick it on your sweater? It’d be easier for you to make friends.”

Azalea frowned. She hated it when adults assumed stuff. She could make friends! They didn’t have to know her name in order to be friends, right? Plus, she doubted she would become buddies with someone on purpose. Theo had hoped she would, but she didn’t think so.

Eager to get Mrs. Merton off her radar, Azalea grabbed a sticker sheet, scrawled her name in the slot with a pink marker, then ripped the sticker off. She delicately stuck it onto her chest, right on the big pocket of her overalls.

“Thank you so much, sweetie,” Mrs. Merton said. She beamed. It was her son’s birthday today, wasn’t it? Adam Merton, who was turning nine that very day, loved the entertainment center. What child wouldn’t?

The center was called The Rainbow Carousel, a round building with different parts to it, like a jigsaw puzzle. There were multiple party rooms next to the cheery pizzeria, an arcade close to the bowling alley and roller skating rink. A child’s dream. Family fun, delicious pizza, cute prizes!

Now that the obstacle was resolved, Azalea started to move towards safety, the indoor play structure that surely had some sort of spot where no child was. She speed-walked past arcade games with children crowded around them and dodged kids running to and fro. She finally let out a breath of relief upon standing at the entrance to the indoor playground. Safety soon.

First, she took off her pink-and-white tennis shoes and slipped them into a cubby next to the entrance. With only her socks protecting her feet from the crumbs, dust, and dirt on the floor, she approached the play structure.

The entrance to the castle-themed playground split into three tunnels: a blue one leading to the ball pit, a red one leading to the foam block pit, and the one in front of Azalea, ending in a climbing tower. Azalea decided to climb up.

She crawled through the tube, bumping into a brunette boy before ending up at the bottom of the tower. She climbed onto the first step, turned around, then progressed to the next, clambering back and forth as she pushed her stuffed rabbit, Snowcone, just a step further. Unfortunately, he was too big for her large front pocket on her overalls. She kept banging into other kids either going up or down. The tower was a mess of children, completely out of order and chaotic. It was scarier than the arcade in a way, because it was more cramped and hotter. At some point in the climb, Azalea had to take off her cardigan and tie it around her waist.

Once she got halfway through the tower, she had the option to keep going or slip down a short slide. Glancing down that slide, she couldn’t see any kids. Most of them were aiming for the top, where there was an elaborate plastic tunnel system. They were playing tag, but Azalea didn’t want to have anything to do with them.

She tumbled down the slide, then turned left down a bright foam hallway where she had to crouch. She supposed the area was meant to provide a sense of imagination from kids, making them think that they were in a train tunnel or a rabbit hole, or maybe some creepy entrance to a magical kingdom.

Azalea finally reached the end of the hallway, which expanded into an area filled with foam shapes, neon ribbons reaching down from the ceiling, and little, even brighter cushiony squares covering the floor.

The voices of other children’s laughter, screams, and excited conversations were muffled. Azalea was tempted to take off her hearing aids, but she kept them on and carefully tucked her short brown hair behind her ears. She hated having her hair over her ears, but she also hated when people asked her about the bulky box-like contraptions attached to her ears. If she kept her hair over them, she could avoid questions.

“It’s loud over there a bunch,” a voice commented.

Azalea nearly jumped out of her skin. She snapped her head in the direction of the voice only to see a young boy around her age sitting in the corner, his head just lifted from his knees. His face was streaked with tears, freckles scattered all over his pale skin. His hair was a mess of fiery red curls. His brown eyes, covered by round black glasses, looked like Snowcone’s.

Reluctantly, the girl in overalls nodded.

“I like your socks,” the boy said, shifting his sitting position as he pointed at the girl’s ankles. Her striped socks were a blinding array of neon reds, dark greens and blues, and sunny yellows. They were her favorite socks. She knew the automated response to something like this, but she couldn’t even fathom the thought of speaking, much less tell him that.

So she signed it, just like she had learned from the books. Her flat right hand against her chin, then reaching her hand out. Usually she was supposed to smile when signing her thanks, but she had lost that after the accident.

“What?” the boy asked, cocking his head. Azalea liked the boy’s shirt. She wished she could tell him that. It was white with short green sleeves and a matching collar, and a green T-rex on the front. Slapped near his shoulder was a name sticker that said “Archie”.

Azalea rolled her eyes. Whatever, it didn’t matter. She turned to leave.

“Wait!” Archie called, standing up quickly. “Do you wanna play with me?”

Azalea swiveled her head, staring straight into Archie’s eyes like he had asked the most absurd question ever.

“I mean—” Archie grabbed fistfuls of his shirt and twisted them, especially near the hem. “If you want to, they have cups of crayons and paper. I grabbed some and because it’s so scary over there, I was just thinking. . .”

Azalea surprised herself by nodding frantically. She found that she was lonely, just like those days before the accident. It was called the accident for one purpose: so that Theo and Azalea didn’t have to talk about it. Sera didn’t know. Azalea’s teacher didn’t know all of the details. Nobody but Theo and Azalea knew. They promised to keep it like that.

Even so, Azalea suddenly remembered being thrown all over the place, being slapped and kicked and chained to her own bed. Being locked in the basement, watching Theo fighting with their parents, things hitting him on the head as he protected Azalea.

“I like to draw dinosaurs,” Archie said, grinning like Azalea had granted him the most fun experience in the world. Azalea took a few deep breaths, hugging Snowcone close. She would be fine. Safety. True, real safety.

She sat next to Archie, who divided the pile of paper into two roughly even stacks. He put the red plastic cup of crayons between them and started to draw with the green crayon.

Azalea got to work drawing Theo and her side by side. She liked drawing them together, because Theo was her world. Even if he was bossy and mean sometimes, he was amazing.

“What’re those boxes on your ears?” Archie asked, still drawing the dinosaur. It resembled a stegosaurus.

Azalea hmphed and flipped her hair over the hearing aids. They were roughly the same color of her skin so that they were more subtle, but they still poked out from behind her ears.

“Whatcha drawing?” Archie tried again, working on the stegosaurus’s tail.

Azalea didn’t respond.

“Do you talk?” Archie said skeptically, which surprisingly didn’t offend Azalea. Theo had told her that this was just how young kids worded it. They weren’t being mean; they were just curious.

Azalea shook her head casually, sticking her tongue between her teeth like she did when she concentrated. And she was concentrating on that picture. She imagined that she would give it to Theo when she got out of that horridly loud and musty-smelling place.

“Oh,” Archie said, dragging the exclamation out. “That makes a little more sense now.”

They drew in silence for a bit more before Mrs. Merton called out, “Pizza!”

Lots of cries of children arose all around the pair as a horde of kids ran for food.

Archie jumped like Azalea had earlier, seemingly terrified of the thought of leaving the safety of their little hideout. Azalea wanted to tell him that it was okay, that they could make it out alive.

But how?

Azalea had finished her drawing. She folded it in half twice, then tucked it into her big front pocket. Archie stood, mumbling something about getting everything later. Azalea nodded, rose, and tucked Snowcone under one arm as she slipped her hand into Archie’s. He didn’t look surprised. Instead, he glanced at her with the side of his eye.

Azalea nodded again, firmer this time. Together, they walked through the hallway and up the slide, down the tower and through the tunnel. And all the way, the knot in Azalea’s stomach got less and less of a mess and less and less scary. Suddenly, facing all of those children didn’t seem so terrifying, because she had Archie holding her hand, guiding her through.

And some sort of barrier broke, some sort of bubble rising up. She smiled, watching the other kids heap slices of pizza onto their paper plates. She would do this. She could do this, because she had a friend by her side.

Azalea turned her head, looking Archie in the eye. When he saw her smile, he grinned back. She wanted him to be her friend, because there was some sort of magic in him. It made her happy, it made her feel safe, and she trusted it. Just like Theo.

Theo had been right. She had made a friend.

“You’re a sweetheart,” Theo had said as they drove to the birthday party, Sera nodding right along with him. “Who wouldn’t want to be friends with you?”

There was still a long road ahead for the little scarred nine-year-old girl. Even so, she knew that road would be easier if she surrounded herself with friends instead of the bad, bad thoughts.

So, she worked around the cracks and rasps of her voice and told Archie,

“Thank you.”