Every Last Word

I didn’t wake up feeling brave on Saturday, and I don’t feel brave on Sunday either. I feel sad and confused, scared and lonely, missing Caroline more than ever, and wishing everyone would just leave me alone.

Paige keeps knocking on my door to see if I want ice cream, and I can hear Mom on the other side of the door, telling her to give me my space. It’s good advice. I wish she’d take it herself, because she keeps checking on me, asking me if I want to talk, and I keep telling her I’m fine and sending her away.

While I was rocking in the dirt last Friday evening, AJ came to my house looking for me. Instead, he found my mom. He told her what I’d said about Caroline, and that he was worried about me. And she politely thanked him, hid her surprise that I’d never told him about my OCD, and protected my secret like she always has. Then she sent him away, asking him to leave me alone for a few days so I could figure things out.

I’m sure he was relieved. Every time I think about that look on his face when he first heard me say Caroline Madsen’s name, I want to be sick.

To distract myself, I’ve been going through my poems, thinking about the ones Caroline helped me write. Not always, but sometimes, there was that moment at the end, when we finished a piece and read it aloud, and the words were so perfect, so fitting, they gave me chills. I’d feel the urge to hug her, but I never did, and now I wonder what would have happened if I had. Would I have felt her the same way I felt her hand on my shoulder? Or would she have ghosted right through my arms as my body discovered that my brain had been tricking me all along?

I pick up my pen and tap it against my notebook, but I can’t write a poem. Not now. I don’t know what to say, not even to a blank sheet of paper that no one else will ever see. Besides, poetry isn’t going to help me piece all these emotions I’m feeling into a cohesive solution I can wrap my brain around.

I’m scared of my mind’s power. I’m angry with Caroline for leaving. I’m confused about all her personality traits, struggling to make sense of the ones I fabricated and the ones that might have existed in a girl who committed suicide in 2007.

I open my red notebook and label the left page “Caroline Madsen.” I label the right page “My Caroline.” And for the next two hours, I research everything I can find on the real one, listing it on the left, and detailing everything I know to be true about the one I created on the right.

When I’m done, I see the similarities, but I also spot distinct differences. And I realize that Sue was right: I took a face in a photo and gave her a lot of traits that deep down, I wish I possessed.

I bury my face in my pillow to block out the sunlight. I cry for a long time. And when I finally feel myself drifting off to sleep, I don’t fight it.

I hear a knock on my bedroom door. “Sam?” Mom says quietly.

“I’m sleeping,” I yell.

“Sam, there’s someone here to see you.”

I open my eyes and force myself to sit up. My room is dark. My T-shirt is tangled around me, my hair is matted against the side of my head, and I smell like sweat. My notebook is still splayed open across my comforter, and I slam it closed as Mom opens the door and steps inside.

“Please,” I say, pointing dramatically at my face. “Tell him I don’t want to see him right now.”

It’s true, but still, my chest feels a whole lot lighter. I knew he’d come over, even though my mom told him not to. I don’t want AJ to see me like this, but I’m dying for him to wrap his arms around me and kiss my forehead and tell me to stop thinking so hard. He’ll tell me to talk to him, and I will because all he has to do is say those words and my mouth seems to kick into gear before my brain can stop it. I start combing my fingers through my hair, hoping I can force it to comply with gravity.

“It isn’t AJ, honey. It’s Hailey.”

“Hailey.” Her name hits me like a punch in the gut. I haven’t seen Hailey or any of the Eights since I left the cafeteria last Friday, and none of them know what happened after I did. I’d practically forgotten about our fight. My whole face ignites with the thought, and I fall onto my bed and bury my face in my pillow.

I can’t deal with this right now.

“She looks pretty intent on coming upstairs,” Mom says as she sits on the edge of my bed. “She even brought flowers.”

“Flowers? Why? She didn’t do anything wrong.”

Mom starts rubbing my back. “Let her come in, Sam. Hear what she has to say. Who knows, maybe she’ll cheer you up.”

“I don’t want to cheer up.” I want to see Caroline. I want her to not be dead so I can not be crazy.

I can tell Mom’s not letting up, so I give her a “fine, whatever” as I climb out of bed. I stand in front of the full-length mirror, pulling myself together.

“Hailey has always been my favorite,” Mom says as she leaves the room.

A few minutes later, Hailey walks in with her head bowed low. “Hi, Samantha.” She hands me a bouquet of cheery-looking flowers.

“Thanks. You didn’t need to do this.” I bring the bouquet to my nose. The scent reminds me of Sue’s garden, and I’m taken aback by the wave of sadness that passes over me when I think about sitting out there, talking about Caroline last Friday night.

I miss her.

“Are these from you? Or from all of you?”

Hailey understands what I’m really asking, and I know the answer before she even says a word; I can tell by the way she bites her bottom lip and shuffles her foot on the carpet. She’s not here as the group’s representative.

“Just me.” She glances around my room. “I’m so sorry. You stood up for me and I didn’t do the same for you. Twice.”

“It’s okay.”

“Wow…It’s been months since I was in your room. Why is that?” she asks, changing the subject.

“I don’t know,” I say, but it’s not true. The last time she was here, we were preparing for the Valentine’s Day fundraiser and my floor was covered with red roses and pink ribbon and sappy love notes.

“I’d forgotten how cozy it is in here. And the paint is really pretty.” She walks over to the collage on my wall, runs her fingertip along the words THE CRAZY 8S, and studies the photos. “Wow. Is this really us?” Hailey asks. “We were so sweet and happy and…we look like we genuinely liked each other.” She lets out a laugh. “I remember thinking I was the luckiest person in the world to be part of this group. When did we change?”

“I don’t know. But I’m starting to think we can’t change back.”

There’s a long pause. “Actually, I did stand up for you. It was a little late, but I hope it still counts.”

“You did?”

She nods. “And then I chased after you.”

“What?” No. That welcome sense of relief pops like a balloon. Now my mind is racing as I step through everything that happened in the minutes after I left the Crazy Eights in the cafeteria. I went straight to my locker. Caroline was there. She touched my face and told me she’d heard everything. We talked. When she disappeared, I followed her. I yelled her name through the corridors.

Oh, God. Hailey saw me talking to…nobody. She knows.

“We all got in a huge fight after you left the cafeteria. I told Kaitlyn she owed you an apology, but you know her. Alexis sided with her, of course, even though she looked a little unsure about it.”

What did you see?

“And Olivia…” Hailey rolls her eyes. “She could have come with me to find you, but…well, she didn’t.”

What. Did. You. See?

I try to think of a way to ask her without really asking. “Why didn’t you tell me this on Friday?” I ask, my voice shaking.

Hailey plops down on my bed and leans back on her hands. “I couldn’t find you,” she says.

I sit next to her and let out a sigh of relief. “You couldn’t?”

“No. I went straight to your locker, but you weren’t there.”

“Huh,” I say.

“You’re leaving us, aren’t you?” She folds her legs underneath her and sits up straight. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did. And you have a boyfriend now, so it would probably happen anyway, but…”

“Hailey.” I hug her. She squeezes my shoulders so hard, it’s like she’s being pulled underwater and I’m the only thing she has to keep her afloat. “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. But if I do leave, you can always come with me.”

She pulls away, shaking her head. “I’m not sure I could do that.”

I know what she’s thinking. Leaving the Eights changes everything. No more lunches. No more concerts. No more sleepovers or parties. We wouldn’t be included in Kaitlyn’s grand plans for Junior Prom, or invited to stay at the hotel in the city afterward. The rest of our high school experience would be completely different from the one we expected.

Or worse, the remaining Eights would give us the same treatment they gave Sarah. We’ll be shunned in the halls. They’ll start rumors about us, just in case the rest of our classmates consider feeling sorry for us or taking our side instead of theirs.

“How can I help you at school tomorrow?” she asks.

It might be the nicest thing she’s ever said to me, but I honestly don’t know how to answer her. I can’t face the Eights. I can’t go to Poet’s Corner. I’m too embarrassed to talk to AJ right now, and my heart can’t handle the idea of going to my locker multiple times throughout the day, looking for Caroline at every stop, knowing I won’t see her once. My eyes start to well up and I swallow a gulp of air.

“Actually, you can do two things.” I walk over to my desk and grab my backpack. “You know my combo. Would you get all my books out of my locker and meet me at yours before first period tomorrow?”

“All your books?” she asks.

I nod. Hailey throws my backpack over her shoulder. “No problem. What’s the second favor?”

“Will you please start calling me Sam?”