Watch How We Walk by Jennifer LoveGrove

drugs and have scars on their faces and live at the mall. Or maybe the song is about fornication, like Brother Bulchinsky warned against the night before.
    Then Lenora stops and lifts the foam headphones from her ears, and spins around. Emily ducks behind a tree but trips over a root, falls, and yelps as she lands on her elbow.
    â€” I knew I was being followed. I could feel it.
    Emily’s elbow stings and throbs, surging with a million little stabs and she’s sure it must be bleeding and maybe even broken, but she won’t cry in front of Lenora.
    â€” I’m sorry. But I didn’t want to stay home. I wanted to see where you were going. Emily shields her eyes with her hand as the sun glares onto the snow and up at her.
    â€” Whatever. Is Dad still mad at me?
    â€” Yeah. They were screaming at each other about who is the worst parent and whose fault your hair is.
    Lenora snorts.
    â€” My hair has nothing to do with those narrow-minded control freaks. I did it because I like it and it looks cool.
    Emily remembers the bandanna during Family Study.
    â€” When did you dye it?
    â€” A few days ago. Marla helped me.
    Emily doesn’t remember Lenora being late after school that week. She hopes she isn’t skipping school — she’d get in even more trouble than she is over her hair.
    â€” We did it at her place while her mom was still sleeping. She works nights at the hospital as a nurse and isn’t all strict like Mom and Dad.
    â€” Was it during your spare?
    â€” What? Yeah, during spare.
    Emily scrutinizes the almost-white tufts that stick out from under her hat. She’s trying to get used it.
    â€” Do you like it? Do you want to do yours the same? She takes a step toward Emily, who jumps back.
    â€” No way! I mean, it’s okay for you, I guess, but I don’t want it. She touches her own brown braid as though unsure if it’s still there and the same colour it was all day. Lenora doesn’t seem as angry at being followed as she had anticipated. She passes her headphones to Emily.
    â€” Here, listen to this song. It’s so cool.
    A barrage of noise and growls bombards her eardrums, the singer snarls and shouts amid the thunder of what sounds like a jackhammer attacking a slab of concrete. She wants to like it, she wants to be like the new sixteen-year-old Lenora, but at the same time, she wants everything to go back to how it used to be. The music sounds terrible, like a catastrophe, the soundtrack for the end of the world. She hands back the headphones.
    â€” Yeah. That’s cool.
    Lenora laughs.
    â€” It’s my new favourite band.
    They walk along the main path until it forks and then they turn to loop back toward home. The wind has returned and stirs up the snow in the trees and tosses it into their faces. Emily shivers.
    â€” I like walking out here. I come out and just wander around when I need to think. That and to listen to my music. I never see anyone else out here, it’s relaxing.
    Emily nods. Maybe she should do that too; every time someone starts to argue or fight in the house, she could leave and just go for a long walk outside in the bush. They’re quiet for a while, and then Lenora takes off her headphones and lets them curl around her neck in silence.
    â€” So do you think Mom likes going to the Hall?
    Lenora has a way of changing the subject when you least expect it. It makes Emily’s stomach hurt and her hands sweat and makes her feel stupid to never see it coming. She probably does it on purpose, to catch her off guard, maybe trick into saying something wrong.
    â€” What do you mean? What are you talking about?
    Lenora tosses her head in that way that means she knows something that no one else does.
    â€” Oh, come on! She doesn’t even listen half the time. I can tell; I watch her. She just stares into space. And when she does listen, her eyebrows scrunch up and she gets this angry look in her eyes.
    Emily