Every Last Word

by Tamara Ireland Stone

  Sydney’s chatty, and that’s good because I can’t breathe, let alone speak. As we weave our way through the doors, down the stairs, and around the tight corners, I listen to her talk about her plans for the upcoming weekend, and I mutter a few “uh-huhs” sprinkled with some “that sounds like funs,” but I’m not really hearing a word she’s saying. I was feeling so confident once I found a poem to read, but apparently I left that emotion back in the classroom.

  Now, it’s all hitting me. As soon as I get through that door, they’ll all expect me to get on stage and let meaningful words emerge from my mouth. I can’t do that. I can’t even speak when I’m sitting on a patch of grass next to people I’ve known my entire life. The air must be thicker down here or maybe the ventilation in the basement doesn’t work as well as it should, because I. Can’t. Breathe.

  Sydney knocks hard on the door that leads inside and we wait. My fingernails find their usual spot and dig in. Hard.

  This is a mistake.

  The bolt clicks and the door squeaks as it opens, and there’s AJ, key in hand. “Hi,” he says.

  Sydney pulls the door open. Once we’re in the room, she spreads her arms wide. “Where do you want to sit?”

  I scan the room. The African American girl with the long black braids is resting her knee on one of the couches, talking and waving her arms animatedly, like she’s telling a funny story. The girl with the super curly blond hair and the short guy in the artsy glasses are watching her, laughing along.

  On the far end of the room, I spot pixie-cut girl, Abigail. She looks different today, eyes thickly lined in a dramatic cat’s-eye, and lips painted dark red. She wears it well. Confidently. Her arm is propped against the back of the couch, and she’s chatting with that girl with the short dark hair and the small silver nose ring.

  I don’t see Caroline anywhere.

  “Give me a minute, would you?” I say to Sydney as I point at AJ. She gets the message.

  He bolts the door and then turns around to face me. He doesn’t look angry. He doesn’t look upset. He doesn’t look anything.

  “Listen,” I say. “I can go if you’re uncomfortable with this. I’m…” What’s the word? Conflicted? Selfish? “I’m wondering if I should be here. I mean, if you don’t want me to be.”

  He doesn’t say anything at first. But then he gestures toward the others. “They want to hear what you have to say.”

  I don’t have anything to say.

  “I guess I want to hear what you have to say, too,” AJ adds.

  Now this feels less like an invitation to join the group and more like a test I need to pass. I write shitty poetry. For myself. I don’t have anything to say.

  “I’m not sure I’m ready for this.” The words come out before I can stop them. My breathing becomes shallow again, and my whole body feels like it’s on fire. My hands are clammy, my fingers tingly, and the thoughts start rushing in, one after the other.

  Everyone’s going to laugh at me.

  “Are you okay?” AJ asks, and without even thinking about it, I shake my head.

  “Where’s Car—” My throat goes dry before I can get her name out. I wrap my hand around my neck, and AJ takes my arm, leading me to one of the couches in the back row. “Sit down. I’ll get you some water,” he says. I rest my elbows on my knees and fix my gaze on the black painted floor.

  It’s just a thought.

  I feel a hand on my back, and I turn my head to the side, expecting to see AJ, but it’s Caroline. “Hey, it’s okay,” she says. As quickly as it began, the thought spiral starts to slow.

  “Caroline,” I whisper.

  “I’m right here,” she says. “It’s okay.”

  I can’t break down in front of them. I don’t want to be someone who breaks down.

  “Is everyone looking at us?” I ask.

  “Nope. No one’s paying any attention. Just breathe.”

  I listen to her. I do what I’m told.

  A few seconds later, AJ returns to my other side with a cup of water. “Here,” he says. I take it without looking at him, and drink it with my eyes closed. I imagine him and Caroline silently communicating above my head.

  I’m in control. I can do this.

  Instead of my own destructive thoughts, I now hear Sue’s voice in my head, telling me this is good. That this is something Summer Sam might do. That she’s proud of me.

  Without letting another negative thought creep in, I bend down, unzip my backpack, and remove my blue notebook.

  “I’m ready,” I say quietly, and I stand up tall, feigning confidence.

  “What are you doing?” AJ asks.

  “Reading.”

  “Sam—”

  I cut him off. “No. It’s okay.”

  I’m finally down here, and this is what they do when they’re down here. If I’m going to prove I belong, I need to get up on that stage and show them I’m not just one of the Crazy Eights. I’m just me.

  “Watch for today, Sam.” AJ motions toward the rest of the group, sitting, waiting to start. “Please.” But I’m already pushing past him, making my way to the stage.

  Stepping onto the platform doesn’t require any physical effort—it’s two feet off the floor at best—but it does call for a heavy dose of forced enthusiasm. I scoot onto the stool and sit up straight. The chatter dies immediately.

  I’m sure everyone can see my legs shaking.

  “Hi,” I say to the group, waving my little blue notebook in the air. “I’ve been writing a lot of poetry lately, but I’m really new at this.” I choose my words carefully. Even if I said my stuff sucked, I doubt they’d actually pelt me with paper balls on my first visit, but I don’t really want to test them on it. “So, be nice, okay?”

  Sydney opens her mouth like she’s about to say something. The others are silently watching me, shifting in place, looking at one another, and I can’t help but feel as if I’ve done something wrong. I find AJ and Caroline at the back of the room. I can’t read either one of their expressions.

  Keep going.

  I open my notebook to the page I dog-eared back in class. “This is called ‘Plunge,’” I say.

  I take a deep breath.

  “Three steps up,” I begin. But then I stop, giving myself a second to skim the rest of the poem. It looks different than it did back in U.S. History. Everything’s right here. My obsession with threes. My scratching habit. My parking ritual. How I can’t sleep.

  This poem isn’t about the pool at all. It’s about the crazy. My crazy. All here, spilled in ink. Suddenly, I feel more like a stripper than a poet, two minutes away from exposing myself to these total strangers who may think I’m plastic, but don’t currently think I’m nuts.

  Shit. Here they come again.

  The negative thoughts overpower all the positive ones, and the familiar swirl begins. But this time, the thoughts aren’t about standing on stage and reading out loud and wondering if everyone’s going to laugh at me. These thoughts are much worse.

  They’ll know I’m sick.

  I wanted to believe that I could get up on this stage and drop my guard like AJ and Sydney did so easily, but now I’m not so sure anymore. They’re all watching me, and I look at each of their faces, realizing that I know nothing about them. I don’t even know most of their names.

  “Three steps up…” I repeat, softer this time. My whole body is shaking and my palms are clammy. My stomach cramps into a tight knot and I feel like I’m about to throw up.

  I stand, preparing to bolt from the stage, but then something catches my eye at the back of the room. Caroline is on her feet. She brings her fingers to her eyes and mouths the words, “Look at me.”

  For a second, it helps. I lock my eyes on hers and open my mouth to speak again, but then the walls feel like they’re warping and bending, and Caroline’s face starts to blur.

  Oh, no.

  I force myself to bend my knees, like my mom always tells me to do when I have to give an oral report, so I won’t
lock them and faint.

  AJ was right. I don’t belong here.

  “I’m sorry,” I mutter to no one in particular as I roll my notebook into a tube, wishing I could make the whole thing disappear. Then I’m off, heading straight for the door.

  The door. I run my finger along the seams, over the dead bolt. I can’t get out without the key.

  “Hold on.” AJ steps in front of me and starts working the lock. “It’s okay,” he says. He sounds like he genuinely means it, like he’s trying to make me feel better. But I’m not stupid. I can hear a trace of relief in his voice.

  I don’t know how to write poetry, let alone read it aloud to a group of strangers. Besides, I’m not like the rest of them. I don’t need to be here. I have friends. I feel guilty for thinking it, but it’s true. My relationship with the Eights may be superficial, but at least they don’t expect me to spill my guts to them on a regular basis.

  That’s when it hits me: this is all a big joke. Payback for what I did to AJ all those years ago. I bet they’ll all have a good laugh about it when AJ finally gets this fucking door open.

  My whole face feels hot, and tears are welling up in my eyes as the bolt clicks and the door cracks open. “You proved your point,” I whisper to AJ, pushing past him. “Don’t worry, I won’t be back.” As quickly as I can, I slip back into the janitor’s closet, past the mops, brooms, and chemicals, and out the door into the hallway.

  Caroline will be right on my heels, but I don’t want to see her right now. For a second I think she may have set me up; then I remember the way she forced me to look at her. There’s no way she would have intentionally hurt me.

  I fly up the stairs and into the sun, making a beeline for the student lot. All I can think about is sliding into the driver’s seat, starting my In the Deep playlist, and shutting out the world. But when I get to the car and reach for my backpack, there’s nothing there.

  My backpack. It’s still on the floor back in Poet’s Corner along with everything else that matters. My keys. My phone. My music. My red and yellow notebooks. My secrets. I slump against the car door, hugging my blue notebook to my chest.

  The asphalt is getting hotter as the early October afternoon wears on, and I’ve had nothing to do out here in the parking lot but curse the California sun and count the bells.

  One: lunch ended. Two: fifth period began. Three: fifth ended. Four: sixth began. That’s my cue. I brush the parking lot dust off my butt and head back toward campus, praying I don’t see anybody.

  I head through the gate and across the grass until I can pick up the cement path that leads to my locker. Maybe Caroline fed a note through one of the vents, telling me where to find my backpack. As soon as I have it, I’ll go straight to the office, say I’m sick, and ask if I can call my mom so I can drive home.

  The corridors are empty and I reach my locker without running into anyone. I dial the combination and lift the latch. No note.

  To center myself, I look at the inside of my locker door, staring at the three pictures Shrink-Sue told me to tape there, and trying to reconnect with the stronger person I see in the images. I run my finger across the photo of me on the diving block, wearing that willful, determined expression. Confidence. That was the word I said that day.

  She wouldn’t have run away.

  I immediately realize my mistake, and it hits me with absolute certainty: I have to go back. Even if it was all a joke, even if they meant to embarrass me, I have to go back down there and prove I can do it, if not to them, at least to myself. If I can stand on diving blocks and win a medal, I can stand on a stage and read a poem.

  I belong in that room.

  “Hey.” I hear a voice behind me and I turn around. AJ is sitting at one of the round metal tables on the grass between the walking paths. There are two backpacks at his feet. As he stands, he reaches for mine. He crosses the lawn and hands it to me. “Here, Sam.”

  Sam.

  “You should have left it in the office or something,” I say, taking it from him. “You’re going to get in trouble for missing class.”

  “And you’re not?” he asks, raking his fingers through his hair.

  “I thought I’d go home for the day.” The brief moment of confidence is gone now that he’s standing here. I think about that stage and that stool, how AJ worked the lock to let me out of that room, and my face heats.

  He’s watching me, not saying a word. My gaze settles on a crack in the cement while I muster up the courage to tell him the truth.

  “I panicked,” I say. “I thought you guys would laugh at my poem.”

  “We wouldn’t have.”

  “And then I thought maybe it was all a joke. That you were trying to get me back for what I did to you when we were kids.” I force myself to meet his eyes.

  “I’d never do that.”

  I hear Shrink-Sue’s voice in my head, talking about mistakes. Reminding me that they serve a purpose.

  “I blew it, didn’t I?”

  “No. We did.” His expression is different now. It’s softer, almost apologetic. “Look, Sam, we went about that wrong. There’s this whole initiation process we sort of…skipped over.”

  I can’t tell if he’s joking. I hear the words “initiation process” and immediately think of blindfolds and candles and the possibility of water torture.

  “Great.” I cover my head with both hands and find that crack in the cement again.

  “Don’t worry,” he says. I can hear the laugh in his voice, and something about it makes me feel more at ease. If he’s laughing, maybe he’s smiling too. I’ve seen him smile, that one time he was performing on stage, but I’ve never seen him smile at me. I look up. Sure enough, he is.

  “Instead of skipping sixth and going home, can I convince you to skip sixth and come with me?”

  “Where?”

  “Downstairs.”

  “Why? Is everyone else there?”

  “No. That’s kind of the point. You’re supposed to get the room all to yourself. I’ll show you what I mean.” He gestures toward the theater with his chin and takes two steps backward, moving toward the path.

  After that first time, all I wanted to do was hang out in Poet’s Corner for the rest of the afternoon, reading the walls. I wanted to be alone. I wanted to read every single poem without interruption.

  I want to follow him.

  I take a tentative step in AJ’s direction.

  I want to trust him.

  He turns around and starts walking, stopping briefly at the table to grab his backpack, and we continue across the grass, straight to the theater. I follow him up to the stage, down the stairs, past the mops and brooms, and into Poet’s Corner. He keeps the door open to let light in, and points at the closest lamp. “Hit the light?” he asks.

  He bolts the door behind us, and together, the two of us round the room, turning on lamps as we go. He’s faster than I am, but we still meet each other near the front.

  “Sit down.” He sits on the edge of the short, makeshift stage and I settle in next to him, trying to forget how I made a complete ass of myself in this very spot less than three hours ago.

  “So here’s how this works.” He clears his throat. “The current members have discussed it, and we would like to consider you, Samantha—Sam—McAllister, for membership in Poet’s Corner.”

  “Why?”

  His brow furrows. “Why what?”

  “Why do you want me to join? You guys don’t even know me.”

  “Well, it’s not that simple. You’ll need to read first. Then we vote.”

  “So if my poem sucks, I don’t get to stay?”

  “No. We all write stuff that sucks. We’re not judging your poetry.”

  “What are you judging?”

  “I don’t know. Your…sincerity, I guess.”

  He slaps his palms on his legs, stands quickly, and then holds his hand out to help me up. I take it. I think he’s going to let it drop, but he doesn’t. He pulls me over to the center
of the stage, right next to the stool.

  “You should see things from this vantage point first, so you can get used to being up here.” He grabs my arms and pivots me around so I’m facing the rows of empty chairs and couches.

  “How often?”

  “No rules around that.” I hear his voice from behind my right shoulder. “You can come up here as often or as little as you like. You have to read once, to put yourself on even ground with the rest of us, but after that, it’s up to you.”

  The idea of reading makes me feel sick again, so I reach for a new topic. “Where did all this furniture come from?” I can’t imagine how they got all this stuff in here. It looks impossible, especially when you consider that steep, narrow staircase.

  When I turn around again, AJ is perched on the stool with one leg resting on the rung and the other on the floor. His arms are crossed over his chest. From this vantage point, they look kind of muscular. Up until this moment, I thought he was tall and kind of lanky, in a cute way. He’s not lanky.

  “Prop room,” he says.

  “What do you mean?”

  “When you come down the stairs, you turn to the right to get in here. But if you take a left instead, you wind up in the prop room.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “The prop room?”

  “It’s the room directly beneath the stage,” he explains. “There’s this huge freight elevator they use to bring the furniture up and down for performances. Once the play is done and they no longer need the stage set, those items live in the prop room until they need them again. Or, until they’re relocated.”

  “Relocated?”

  He uncrosses his arms and points to the orange couch he sat in the first time I was here. “That’s our newest acquisition. Cameron and I had to take the legs off to get it around that tight corner at the bottom of the stairs. It was wedged in the doorframe for a good ten minutes before we were finally able to jiggle it through.” He stands up quickly, takes a bow, and sits down again. “But we pulled it off.”

  I grin at him. “You got that couch through that door?”