Every Last Word

In the lobby, I press the button for the elevator three times, and when nothing happens, I press it again, three more times. I slam my hand against the door, and the bell dings as the doors slide open. I press 7 three times.

I burst through the door and Colleen jumps out of her chair. “Sam?”

“I need to see Sue.” My voice doesn’t even sound like mine, and my legs feel wobbly underneath me. I walk straight for her office and open the door. Colleen is right behind me. “Where is she?” I yell with my fingertips pressed into my temples.

Colleen grabs my arms, pushes me into the chair, and crouches down in front of me. She’s trying to pull my hands away from my face, but I won’t let her. I’m crying hard and only half listening to what she’s saying, but I hear “hospital” and “won’t be back today” and “call her.” Then “wait” and “water” and “don’t move.”

When Colleen’s gone, I slide my hands down to my cheeks and look around the room. Two days ago, I sat here and told Sue I was better. I was better. I know I was. But then I remember Alexis’s words, “You’ve changed…and it’s not for the better, sweetie.”

What’s happening to me?

I stand up fast and hurry for the door, into the elevator, back into my car. There’s this spot on the top of the hill that looks down on the valley; it’s where everyone goes to park and make out, and at this time of day, it’ll be deserted.

My hands are tight on the wheel as I wind around the sharp twists and turns, climbing until the road dead-ends. I park next to the big oak tree and cut the engine.

AJ is wrong; he has to be. Caroline was there, at every reading, during every lunch hour. She sat next to me. She met me in the theater. She read my earliest poems, told me I was good. She taught me how to let go and write what I felt, and gave me words when I couldn’t find them myself. She helped me take the stage. She was one of the—how did I jokingly refer to it the other day—the Poetic Nine?

Wasn’t she?

I pull my phone from the cup holder and find the most recent group text, the one AJ sent last night to call the Poet’s Corner meeting. His name is right at the top. Next to it: To Sam and six more…

I know her number won’t be here, but I tap the word “more” to help me take inventory. Everyone is a jumble of unidentified phone numbers, and I assign each one a name as I count them. AJ. Cameron. Chelsea. Emily. Jessica. Abigail. Sydney.

Seven total.

“Technology is a trap,” Caroline had said, and I believed her.

She never called me. She never texted me. I thought it was odd, but I never questioned it.

My stomach rolls over, and my fingers are shaking so violently, I’m having a hard time holding the phone in my hands.

I open the browser and type in “Caroline Madsen 2007” and within seconds, the tiny screen is filled with links that lead to her story. Headline after headline reading, TEEN’S DEATH RULED A SUICIDE; BULLYING TO BLAME FOR LOCAL TEEN’S SUICIDE?; LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL DEVASTATED BY SUICIDE. The last one contains a picture, so I click through to the full story.

“Oh, my God,” I whisper. I remember reading this article, not last summer, but the summer before.

Cassidy had just come back from Southern California to spend the break with her dad. He bought a new house, and she was thrilled to finally have her own room when she came to visit. She’d heard a rumor that a girl had killed herself in the house years ago, and she asked me if I’d heard about it. I hadn’t.

Later that week, I went home with her after swim practice and she gave me a tour. We sat in Cassidy’s new room, did a quick Internet search for local teen suicides, and didn’t find much beyond this one case. We pulled up a bunch of articles, including this one.

Now, I’m looking at the story again, over a year later, this time on my phone. I scan it quickly for the salient points and latch on to words and phrases like “suicide” and “target of bullying” and “history of depression,” but the tears are welling up in my eyes.

Her parents were at a Christmas party, only a few houses away. While they were gone, Caroline Madsen threw back a bottle of sleeping pills and never woke up. Her mom and dad didn’t realize what happened until the following morning. By the time I get to the quote from her mom, talking about her daughter’s witty sense of humor and how she loved to write poetry, the words are so blurry, I can’t read any more.

Scrolling down to the photo, I find a girl who looks exactly like the Caroline I know. Hair slightly disheveled. No makeup. She’s wearing a flannel, unbuttoned, over a T-shirt.

I zoom in so I can read it: IF YOU COULD READ MY MIND, YOU WOULDN’T BE SMILING.

I run my finger across the screen, laughing at the shirt and fighting back tears at the same time. I remember sitting in Cassidy’s room, looking at this photo, skimming this article. We closed the browser, sad for this girl we never knew, and I don’t remember giving it another thought.

Now, everything starts to fall into place.

Caroline and I sat together in the theater one day, me complaining about my friends, her telling me I needed new ones. I confided in her about my OCD and she told me about her struggles with depression.

But Caroline never read on stage. She came to my house, but she always left before anyone got home. We wrote together in the theater, just the two of us, alone in the dark. She never minded being my secret.

She never led me to Poet’s Corner.

“She’s not real.” The words squeak out.

The tears are falling freely now, and I toss my phone hard on the passenger seat and it bounces onto the floor. I throw open the door, walk to the edge of the cliff, and stand there, looking out over the town. It’s overcast and chilly, but the bite in the early December air feels good in my lungs.

From up here, I can see my house. AJ’s is on the other side of town and harder to find, but I spot the dense cluster of trees that distinguish his neighborhood. Alexis’s house is on a hill on the opposite side of the canyon, massive and easy to see. The swim club is easy to find too, and from there, I trace the route I’ve driven and walked plenty of times—up the hill, round the hairpin turn, straight to the top, until I see Cassidy’s dad’s house.

Caroline lived there. She died there.

“Depression,” she’d told me the first time we sat together in the dark theater. “Sometimes it feels like it’s getting worse, not better.”

I walk over to the big oak tree and throw up in the dirt. And then I sit on the edge of the cliff, my knees to my chest, digging my nails into the back of my neck and scratching hard. I feel the sting on my skin, but I keep going, not bothering to wipe the tears as they stream down my cheeks, feeling empty and cold, mourning the loss of my best friend like it’s recent and raw, as if she killed herself this afternoon and not eight years ago. I rock back and forth, scratching harder, crying and muttering “Caroline” under my breath, over and over again.

Like the crazy person I now know I am.