Every Last Word

“Fill me in,” Sue says. “How are things with your friends this week?”

I stretch the putty between my fingers, testing to see how far I can pull it before it snaps. “Better in some ways. But different.”

“Do you mean they’re treating you differently?”

I kind of wish they were. That would be easier. “No. It’s more…the other way around.”

It’s been a month since I tried to give AJ my poem. Ever since that day, something’s shifted in me. I’m quieter during lunch. Last Saturday night, I skipped a party and went to the movies with my family instead. I’ve been hanging out with Paige after school, taking her to gymnastics practice, helping her with her homework. I’m having a hard time being around the Eights. I can’t even look at Kaitlyn. Every time I do, I think of that smug look on her face when she said we “cured” AJ, and I feel sick.

I kick off my shoes and pull my feet onto the chair, curling myself into a ball. “I don’t feel like talking about them today. Can we change the subject?” I ask, resting my chin on my knees.

“Of course. What do you want to talk about?”

I glance over at the clock. I’ve spent the week obsessing about sitting in this chair, talking to Sue, hearing her advice, playing with my putty. Now I’m here and I have no idea what I want to say.

“I’ve been swimming every day. I’m feeling good about that. I can tell I’m getting stronger, and it’s taking my mind off, well, everything. And I’ve been writing a lot. It’s cathartic, you know? It makes me feel…” I search for the right word, something Sue will like, and settle on, “Healthy.”

“Hmm. I like that word. Healthy.” She says it slowly, letting it linger in the air for a while. I feel a pang of guilt when I picture myself huddled under the covers with a flashlight, writing until late night becomes early morning. This probably isn’t the best time to tell her I haven’t been taking my sleep meds.

“How are things with Caroline?” she asks. As soon as I hear her name, I feel my shoulders sink a little lower.

“Good. We’ve been spending a lot of time together. We meet in the theater after school and she helps me with my poetry.” God, if the Eights overheard me say that, I’d never hear the end of it, but Sue clearly isn’t one of them, because she rests her elbows on the armrest and leans forward to keep me talking.

“I like writing with her. When I can’t figure out how to articulate what I want to say, she seems to have the perfect words. And we talk, you know? Really talk about things.” I shift in my chair, squeeze my putty into a tight ball. “The Eights and I used to talk like that, but we haven’t in a long time. It feels kind of…strange to have a friend like that again.”

“But good strange.”

“Yeah. Definitely good strange.”

My fingers work the putty while Sue settles back in her chair and consults her notes, flipping back to earlier pages, previous sessions.

“We haven’t talked about Brandon in a while. Are you still thinking about him?”

Brandon? Wow. Now that I think about it, I haven’t given him much thought in the last month. “No. Not really.”

She writes it down. “How about Kurt?”

“Kurt? Ew. No.” I saw him at lunch today, but that didn’t even prompt me to think about him in the way Sue’s referring to.

“Are you thinking about any other boys?”

“You mean, Am I obsessing about any other boys?”

“Not necessarily. Unless that’s what it feels like to you.”

I grin at her. “Nice spin.”

Sue cocks her head to one side, looking smug.

I haven’t talked to AJ since I gave him my apology poem and he kicked me out of Poet’s Corner, but I think about that day a lot. I think about him a lot. I changed the route I take to third period so I’m more likely to cross paths with him. I write about him almost every night before I fall asleep. I was up late last night making a playlist of acoustic guitar songs I could imagine him playing and titled it Song for You.

I’ve figured out where he lives, but I’ve fought the urge to drive by his house. I know where he eats lunch when he’s not downstairs—I’ve seen him sitting at the round table over by the bathrooms with that other guy and one of the girls from Poet’s Corner—but I don’t stare at him or intentionally drop objects as I walk by or anything.

I picture his dimple and that sexy, fluid way he throws his guitar over his back. But then I think about the look on his face when he told me I didn’t belong in Poet’s Corner, and reality hits. I’m not sure I’m obsessed with him, but I’m definitely obsessed with him forgiving me. And I’m curious about him. Caroline knows. Sue would probably want me to tell her, too.

“No, I’m not obsessed with any boys,” I say.

She raises her eyebrows, looking at me like she knows me far too well to believe it. I’m not offended. I’ve been preoccupied with guys since the day she met me.

“But I can’t stop thinking about AJ. The boy Kaitlyn and I teased when we were kids.” I rest my forehead on my knees, hiding my face.

“You’ve apologized to him, haven’t you?” she asks. I nod without looking at her.

But I can’t undo what I did.

I let out a heavy sigh. “When am I going to stop making mistakes, Sue?”

Her laugh catches me off guard, and I look up at her, wide-eyed and confused. “Why on earth would you want to do that?” she asks.

I stare at her.

“Mistakes. Trial and error. Same thing. Mistakes are how we learned to walk and run and that hot things burn when you touch them. You’ve made mistakes all your life and you’re going to keep making them.”

“Terrific.”

“The trick is to recognize your mistakes, take what you need from them, and move on.”

“I can’t move on.”

“You can’t beat yourself up, either.”

The room is quiet for a long time. Finally she clears her throat to get my attention. “Why are you scratching?” she asks. I hadn’t even realized I was doing it, and when I pull my fingers away, the back of my neck feels sore and raw. I smash my thumb into my putty.

“I need him to forgive me,” I say.

It’s all I think about. It’s making me crazy.

“You can’t need that, Sam,” she says, slowly shaking her head. “That one’s out of your control. You’ve done your part, and now it’s up to him. He’ll either forgive you or he won’t.”

He won’t.

I haven’t let myself cry over what Kaitlyn and I did to AJ—not when I found out, not when I told Sue a month ago—but I can’t hold back the tears anymore, so I let them fall. My chest already feels lighter with the release.

“Hey,” Sue says, resting her elbows on her knees. “Look at me. You’re a good person who made a mistake.” That makes me cry even harder. “Did you learn something?”

I hide my face behind my hand, nodding fast.

“Then this particular mistake has done its job. Forgive yourself and move on, Sam.” When Sue hands me a tissue, my eyes meet hers. “Go for it,” she says quietly.

I’m not sure how long I sit there wiping my eyes and blowing my nose, but I know even if we go overtime on our session today, there’s no way she’ll let me leave this chair until I say it. And mean it.

“I forgive myself,” I finally say, my voice cracking on each word.