by Brigit Young
She nodded.
“I know you understand. You also have a best friend like him, someone you’ve known forever. But I don’t have a brother or sister. Caleb was that for me.”
“Winston…,” she started to say, to stop him. She had to leave. She had to talk to Nessa.
“Okay. Wait.” He took a breath. “Everything I told you about myself was true. School was brutal for me. Caleb knew I was a target for guys like Brody, so going into middle school he became friends with him. He said it was to protect us both. But I found out that to be protected from guys like that, you have to become guys like that. And I couldn’t. But for Caleb … it seemed easy. He liked feeling, I dunno, in charge. And until this year, it wasn’t so bad. He worked on our robot project with me after school; he didn’t talk about girls all day long or something. But eighth grade? First, he got obsessed with Amina, saying all day how gorgeous she was and stuff, then he said Brody had told him she was ‘crazy,’ and so he started to get all obsessed with Rose. And he just … disappeared.” Winston spoke in a rush, the words pouring out of him as though, if he stopped speaking, she might leave.
“They’d text each other all day,” he went on, hardly catching a breath. “He would laugh at me when I talked about stuff we both used to like. It was just Rose and Caleb, nonstop. But, like, I started to get it. I got why they liked each other. Because Rose was a girl version of Caleb. She wanted to be friends with Sophie Kane, and Caleb wanted to be friends with Brody Dixon, and that was all that mattered.”
Eve nodded.
“So one day, Caleb told me to meet him at the library during breakfast. When I met him there, he was writing the”—Winston paused, like it was a bad word—“list. He told me he’d made the list for Rose and he was going to put her in the top five. He said she’d be so excited.”
No, no. This couldn’t be happening. Eve got up to leave.
“No, wait! I told him that it was a really bad idea. I swear. I told him that everyone would think she wrote it, and he was like, ‘That’s why I’m making her number four.’”
“That’s why it was a bad idea?” Eve fought the urge to shriek.
Winston kept going. “He said that nobody would suspect number four wrote it. He put Sophie Kane as number two, and you as number one.”
“But why?” she rasped.
“He said you … he said you had ‘a body.’” Winston couldn’t look at her, staring instead at the light switchboard. His words slowed. “He said over the summer you’d … changed.”
Eve felt tears begin to shoot down her cheeks even as her face remained still and no sound came out.
“Eve, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you then.”
“And why does it matter if you knew me or not?” Eve spoke in such a low whisper she couldn’t be sure if Winston even heard her.
“I thought, ‘Oh, that girl seems nice. Sure.’ I thought you’d like it. I mean, I thought that any girl getting called the prettiest would be, like, the greatest thing ever for them. I actually even remember thinking that the only good part about what Caleb was doing was that”—he sighed—“that someone who wasn’t popular would get such a big compliment. Like maybe it would change your life.”
“It did,” she whispered.
“I know, and I’m so sorry.”
“Stop saying sorry.”
“Okay. Okay.” He rubbed his temples. Down below, Nessa sang.
“What happened next?” Eve asked. She had to know.
“I don’t understand why he put certain girls in certain spots, exactly. He didn’t want Lara on there because she ‘seemed too full of herself’ or something, and not Miranda Garland because she was annoying, and it went on and on, and I was hardly listening to him, I promise! I was just sitting there!”
Back to the switchboard. Adjust the lights. Then back to her.
“Listen, I knew from the day of the assembly that I was wrong about it being a great compliment. I knew it when I saw you run out. And I found your poem.”
“What?” Eve said too loudly, and Winston put a finger to his mouth to quiet her. His shushing infuriated her. The tears stopped. She should leave. She needed to go. But he had more to say.
“It’s in my backpack. Always,” he said.
Eve vaguely remembered dropping some of her notebook pages on the way to the choir room that day. He’d read them?
“The poem … I mean, you were clearly really sad. I chased after you. Did you hear me calling you? Before you ran into the choir room? I spent weeks trying to figure out how to tell you who wrote it and say sorry. How to make it all go away.”
Winston picked up his backpack and pulled out the poem, handing it to her. She saw her own handwriting. The first line began: I am large. I contain …
“I knew that I’d hurt you by not stopping him. So much. And I hurt so many people. And I really did want to take down Brody. Because he is a bad guy! I didn’t lie—he did brag that he wrote the list! Who would do that? And he ruined Caleb! Look, I know I lied. I wanted to tell the truth … And then your friends got this idea that I know something about IP addresses? I’m into mechanical engineering, not computer science, so … I guess theater kids think all science is the same? I just went along with it, I don’t know, I wanted to be there to help you, all of you, in some way…”
She could see that he knew he was losing her.
“And every time I wanted to tell you, every time I even brought it up to Caleb, Caleb told me I’d get expelled. And he saw that I was getting to know you. He told me my mom would never forgive me, and that you wouldn’t, either!”
She could feel him trying to catch her eye, but she refused to look at him. The curtains wheeled in from the wings, marking the end of the show.
“And you’re … wonderful. You’re smart and talented and such a good friend and you think all these thoughts that no one else could think and … and I just—”
“Caleb was right,” Eve interrupted him. “I won’t ever forgive you.”
She ran out of the booth. She had to get to Nessa.
47
NESSA
Nessa stood there, onstage for the curtain call, with her phone in her palm.
She saw Brody look out into the audience, searching the faces.
Was he looking for his dad? His fancy dad, who everyone knew was this big-time guy with lots of money and an actual model for a girlfriend (it was true—they’d seen her in a Kohl’s catalog once), but who couldn’t make the time to come see his kid be really good as the lead in a show? Even worse, what if he did have the time and didn’t think it was a big deal?
Out in the crowd she saw her mom and dad. Her mom was blowing her nose and wiping away tears with the same tissue (ew), and her dad was applauding as if he’d just heard music for the first time. And Nessa couldn’t help it, she beamed at them and waved. So unprofessional, but she had to.
She waved with the phone in her hand.
Brody looked at her hand, and then at her face. And something in his eyes stopped her thumb from hitting send. When he sang with her, even though his voice was brittle, those eyes filled up with feeling. When he saw the phone, and looked out at the audience without his dad in it, it was like his eyes went blank.
She glanced at Lara, who had an excited grin on her face, and at Erin, who couldn’t have looked more ready to put their plan into action, and at Sophie, who was mouthing something at her from the wings, waving her hands in the air, and at Principal Yu, who was heading toward the stage with flowers for Mr. Rhodes.
And as she was about to put the phone in her pocket to spare Brody, she heard him speak.
“Hey! Hey!” he hollered, quieting the audience down except for some people wondering aloud what was going on. “Hey, everyone. I have an announcement to make. It was me. I wrote the list. And I lied and said Eve did it. And I spray painted her locker, too. I’m really sorry.”
Audible shock filled the auditorium. And then boos. And someone screamed, “I HATE YOU, BRODY DIXON!”
And chaos began.
The entire ensemble dissolved into chatter, Principal Yu ran to the front of the stage to try to take control, and Brody stood there, staring out at everyone, at no one who really mattered, Nessa guessed. The person who mattered would get a call in a few minutes, she was sure about that.
Nessa caught Sophie’s eye finally, and Sophie mouthed something.
Nessa mouthed back, “What do I do? Do I bow again?” She acted out another little curtsy.
Sophie gestured for her to get off the stage. Lara and Erin, too.
“Coming through!” Erin yelled, and they all made their way into the wings.
Kids ran by them and pulled out their phones to enthusiastically text. A few took videos of Brody walking offstage with Principal Yu and Mr. Rhodes.
Sophie held on to Nessa by the arm, and all of the Shieldmaiden girls leaned in.
“He didn’t write the list,” Sophie told them. “I’m sure of it.”
They watched him walk away. He seemed undisturbed. At peace.
“Why’d he say it, then?” Lara asked.
“It’s what people expected of him, anyway,” Sophie said with a sigh, as if surrendering.
“I thought this would feel good.” Nessa put her head on Sophie’s shoulder. “But I’m just tired.”
48
EVE
The world had flipped upside down. She couldn’t think straight. She couldn’t piece together who was guilty of what and why.
Eve heard an eruption inside the auditorium before she made it inside to warn Nessa.
Soon after, the doors of the theater burst open and she saw Principal Yu and Mr. Rhodes leading Brody toward the second floor, presumably to Principal Yu’s office.
“Wait!” Eve hollered. “Wait, Principal Yu!”
They continued to hurry off and within seconds were out of sight.
Moments after, the crowd trickled out of the side doors, and the cast came to meet them, all babbling and bustling, full of “Can you believe its?” and “I knew its!” and “Best show EVERs!”
As Nessa stepped into view, large swaths of the crowd cheered.
“Oh, stop, stop.” Nessa glowed.
Eve spotted Sophie’s little sister, Bella, asking for an autograph.
Sophie waved to Eve, motioning her over. When they reached each other, Eve grasped onto Sophie like she was a piece of land in the middle of the ocean.
“Winston and Caleb did it,” she whispered in Sophie’s ear.
Sophie pulled away, still holding Eve’s elbows, and her face held no surprise.
“You knew about Winston.” Eve stared in wonder.
“Let’s just say I had an idea.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Eve confessed.
“I think he was honestly on our side.” Sophie patted her arm. “He just messed up really, really bad.”
“But what about Brody?”
“I know,” Sophie whispered. “We have to tell, right?”
“Sophie, honey, it all looked great!” Sophie’s mom came to hug her, and Eve slipped out of sight.
Eve made her way to the front of the school. Before she could reach the entrance, an enormous swarm of girls surrounded her, all wearing masks.
“I believed you the whole time!” one of them said.
“We shouldn’t have to worry about how we look all the time!” a younger voice cried out to her.
“Look!” A girl held up a plastic bag filled with superhero masks. “I’ve been giving them to everybody!”
Eve looked around and saw them. Girls with masks in every color dotted the crowd.
“I’m tired of them looking at us.”
“Of them judging us!”
“And thinking we can be ranked! Like it’s a game!”
“Yeah! We are taking ourselves out of the running!”
The voices continued, and behind a couple of the kids Eve saw Miranda Garland come up to the girl passing out masks and grab one for herself. Miranda saw Eve watching her and waved the mask as if to say hello.
“You were right this whole time!” the girls kept repeating.
And Eve tried to say, “No, maybe not,” but they weren’t listening. She told them thanks and bye, and she rushed out of the school into the freezing air. She sat where she’d once sat with Brody, except now the bench felt ice cold. She pulled her down coat tight around herself.
Eve’s phone buzzed and she glanced at it. It was a text from Miranda Garland: hey just wanted to say im super sorry
Then Curtis:
sry i was mean to you
Unknown number:
hey sorry i didnt mean the stuff i said
Unknown number:
sorry for wht happnd to u
And then Nessa:
Hey. Sorry for not getting the mask thing. Or the Brody thing. We ok?
One night and so many sorrys.
Eve wished for snow. Snow would lighten the night sky. Snow would illuminate the concrete. She wanted something beautiful, right then and there.
Abe swerved up to the school a few minutes later.
“Hop in, Dickinson,” he said.
* * *
Eve readied herself for bed.
So who was she meant to be, a nobody or a somebody?
Were there only two choices?
Eve’s mother was surely down the hall praying for the sick. For her brother’s safety as he drove. For who knows what else. And then she’d whisper the Sh’ma. A poem itself. Like all prayers were.
The scenes of autumn replayed themselves in Eve’s head. And the words of poets who’d lived hundreds of years ago, with problems much bigger than her own, repeated themselves again and again in her mind like a soundtrack for her life.
How dreary to be somebody. How public, like a frog. To tell one’s name, the livelong June, to an admiring bog …
I am the daughter of Earth and Water, And the nursling of the Sky …
I am large, I contain multitudes …
She still didn’t know what she contained. She just knew the million things that other people assumed she was. Her parents. Brody. Sophie. Winston. Even Nessa. All she knew was that she wasn’t who any of them thought she should be. She was something else entirely. But what?
She contained multitudes. That was it. She contained a poet, the prettiest girl, a plain Jane, a girl who looked for the beauty in little things, who liked her quiet room, who could disappear within herself, maybe for too long sometimes, who wanted some attention, but not too much, a person who loved her one best friend but had started to like having more of them. She wasn’t one thing. None of them were.
They were more than numbers on a list, more than their cafeteria tables, or their hobbies, or their groups.
Within each of them were a million universes.
Multitudes.
And with that thought, Eve dropped her mask into the waste basket. She picked up her phone, ignoring the dozens of notifications from the Shieldmaidens group chat. She wrote, I’m okay. Busy. What an intense night. You were all amazing.
Eve wrote privately to Nessa: Of course we’re ok. There’s a lot I didn’t get, too.
She grabbed last year’s yearbook, sat at her desk, and opened a notebook. She went through every name, endowing each with a sliver of insight, painting a piece of every one with words, able only to merely graze over the tiniest star of the universes within each, but opening the door for more.
Then Eve typed it up, took a screenshot, posted it online, softly recited the Sh’ma, and went to sleep.
49
SOPHIE
They all woke up to the poem. Or was it a poem? Sophie didn’t really know.
It was a list, made up of one or two lines about each girl in the eighth grade.
Lara Alexander is elegance in motion. I imagine her in lengthy gowns, holding court in palace gardens, keeping cruelty forever locked out of the castle gates.
Amina Alvi shimmers. We watch her closely, and it’s hard not t
o, because when she blinks it’s like her eyelids open and close their doors on the moonlight. Maybe that light is her kindness.
Nessa Flores-Brady, a walking, beating heart, who sings like all hearts sing, with wonder, with melancholy. I always thought I knew the story behind each scab and scar, but now, today, I know there’s more.
Miranda Garland, she knows all this better than I because she watches the world and notes its details. A mind like hers could paint people, hallways, planets from memory.
Liv Henry, I see her surrounded by floating numbers and bubbling potions, rewiring a galaxy. She holds supernovas within, black holes and newborn stars.
Erin O’Brien has discovered the answer to questions we haven’t even thought of yet. Sometimes, when she thinks no one’s looking, I see the tips of her mouth rise up in a smile. What’s her daydream?
A tiger lily is orange and so is Rose Reed, bright in the bland gray of middle school, a flame in the ice. She will take over the world if she wants, molding earth with bare hands.
Hayley Salem, floating on clouds, grounded by legs strong as a gazelle’s, she can run and fly. I see her giggle and want to know if she ever frowns, and why.
And who am I?
I am large. I am a million somebodys. I’m Eve Hoffman. The daughter of Deb and Joe. Not Number One or Liar or Body. I am a girl of contradictions. I drink English class like it’s lemonade in August, but my words stumble when I speak. I am constantly baffled and afraid, and sometimes, just sometimes, I am incredibly strong.
I contain multitudes, we all contain multitudes, we are a million things unfolding eternally and we’ll never even know our own full stories.
You are not a number. You are not a body.
What’s one piece of one more universe inside you? What are your multitudes?
And below, the comments section had dozens of comments. And then, within a few hours, a hundred. And then a hundred more, from seventh and eighth graders and girls who didn’t even go to their school. But … they weren’t quite comments. More like confessions—the things people hid, or that didn’t fit with their group or face. They weren’t quite poetry, like Eve’s post. But maybe they were?
