The Unbreakable Balance
The last thing thirteen-year-old Cheri Franklin remembers is the smell of her gym bag, the feel of a gold medal around her neck, and her parents' proud laughter from the front seat. The next thing she knows, she's waking up in a hospital room that is too white and too quiet. The world has become a blur of beeping machines and kind, pitying looks from nurses. And when the fog of medicine finally clears, she learns the terrible truth: the car crash that killed her parents also took her legs.
Told she'll never walk again, let alone tumble across a four-inch wide beam, Cheri is plunged into a darkness deeper than any she's ever known. The future she dreamed of is gone, shattered alongside the family car. She's sent to live with the Davenports, a kind but unfamiliar foster family, where she retreats into a shell of grief and anger. The world seems determined to define her by what she's lost. Even the kids at her new school whisper and stare, and one particularly cruel boy makes sure she knows she'll never be a real gymnast again.
Everyone has given up on her. Everyone except for Velma Davenport, the sharp-eyed, warm-hearted grandmother of the family who lives in the small apartment out back. Velma doesn't see a broken girl. She sees a fallow garden, waiting for the right seeds. She sees a spirit as strong as the old oak tree in her backyard.
"The world broke you wide open, child," Velma tells her, her voice as steady as the earth. "That just means there's more room for something new to grow."
But what can possibly grow from such devastation? How can she ever find her balance in a world that has been tipped completely upside down? The answer won't be found in a doctor's report or a pitying glance. It will be found in the gritty chalk dust of a gym she's terrified to re-enter, in the unexpected friendship with her foster brother Liam, and in the quiet, stubborn wisdom of a grandmother who believes that the most beautiful strength is often forged in the hottest fire.
This is the story of a girl who lost everything, and the journey she must take to find the one thing no one can ever take from her: herself.
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