Every Last Word

We’re all singing along with the music as we pull into the spa entrance, but then Alexis’s mom turns the stereo off and we all fall silent, looking around, taking everything in.

The long driveway is lined with lush green trees and pale pink rosebushes, and as the car winds up a steep hill and past a vineyard, I roll down the window and breathe in the scents of freshly cut grass and sweet-smelling lavender.

“Wow,” Olivia says from the backseat.

“No kidding,” Kaitlyn adds.

“I told you,” Alexis says.

I turn to Mrs. Mazeur. “This is incredible. Thank you.”

“You’re going to love this,” she tells me.

Hailey would have loved this, too.

We pull up to a circular driveway with an enormous fountain in the center. It must have a gravitational pull because I start walking toward it, and then I stand there, staring at the water cascading over the edge, listening to the thick droplets land with soothing plinks into the pond below. I close my eyes and let my mouth turn up at the corners the way it wants to.

“Come here, girls!” Mrs. Mazeur is standing at the back of the car, and we all gather around her. “I have a surprise.” She pops the trunk, reaches inside, and pulls out a bright green terry cloth bag with Alexis’s name embroidered in white. “One for you, birthday girl.”

As she reaches into the trunk again, Alexis unzips the bag and sifts through the contents, pulling out body lotion and cuticle cream and facial scrub.

“And one for you,” she says, handing Olivia the same personalized bag in red, her favorite color. “Of course purple for you, Kaitlyn,” she says.

Mine will be blue.

She closes the trunk and wraps her arm around my shoulders. “I’m sorry, Samantha. I tried to order another one yesterday, but it was too late.”

“That’s okay.” I feel my lower lip start to quiver, so I bite it hard.

“But I have something extra special for you. I want you to pick out anything you want from the gift shop, okay? And I mean anything.”

She squeezes my shoulder and takes off, dramatically gesturing toward the entrance. “Okay, follow me, everyone.”

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

Inside, the spa smells clean, like cucumbers and mint, and I’m relieved to see another fountain in the corner. I stand next to it and scratch the back of my neck three times, until a woman at the front desk calls us over, gives each of us a fluffy white robe, and assigns us a locker.

I change quickly, text Mom to tell her everything’s going well, and join everyone in the waiting area. We’re sipping cucumber water and whispering about how incredible this place is, when I hear my name.

Alexis waves at me. “Have fun.”

The aesthetician leads me to a room with peaceful, Zen-like music and reclines my chair. “I have you booked for our signature antiaging facial,” she says in a soft voice. “All you have to do is relax and close your eyes. Tell me if you need anything.”

I’m not sure how to tell her I’m sixteen and don’t need an antiaging facial, so I stay quiet, even when she starts chattering about the harmful effects of the sun. Eventually, I stop fixating on the mistake and let my thoughts drift back to one of the poems I wrote last night. I repeat it in my mind, over and over again, until my ninety minutes are up.

As we’re all dressing in the locker room, Alexis’s mom announces that we’re late for lunch and we need to hurry. A few minutes later, we’re in the car, winding back down the long driveway and heading into town.

The five of us troop single file along a narrow brick walkway and up a short staircase to the restaurant. “I knew this place was really popular, but this…” Mrs. Mazeur looks overwhelmed as she scans the packed café.

While we wait for her to get our table, Olivia reaches into her bag and removes her new lotion and passes it around so we can all try it. Alexis can’t stop buzzing about the new convertible she thinks will be waiting in the driveway when we get back to her house.

A few minutes later, the hostess tells us to follow her. She stops at a tiny table with three chairs squeezed around it.

“There are five of us,” Alexis’s mom says.

“The reservation is for two tables, ma’am.”

“And the person I spoke with yesterday assured me the tables would be together.” The hostess shifts the stack of menus from one arm to the other, and her eyes dart nervously around the room. “It’s okay,” Mrs. Mazeur says. “If you could add another chair to this table, I’ll sit alone at the other one.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I can’t do that. Fire code.”

No one says anything, but after a few uncomfortable seconds, I feel Mrs. Mazeur thread her arm through mine. “Want to keep me company?”

“Sure.” I bite the inside of my lip three times. Alexis doesn’t seem to know what to say.

“We’re ordering two desserts. Each,” she says to the group, and when the hostess steps in front of us, we follow her to the next table.

One. Breathe.

Two. Breathe.

Three. Breathe.

The two of us make small talk for the next twenty minutes while I try not to stare at my friends laughing and chatting and waving sympathetically at me from the other side of the room. When my salad arrives, I awkwardly pick at it. Finally, I excuse myself to go to the restroom and hide behind a potted plant out of view, holding back tears as I text Mom, telling her about my not-so-perfect spa day. She must sense the panic in my words, because after a bunch of texts telling me it’s not so bad, she says:

Come home.

Then she follows with back-to-back messages:

We’ll be out when you get here.

I love you.

You’re in control.

Take deep breaths.

I’m in control.

I take some deep breaths and return to my salad.

The car pulls into my driveway and I can’t get out fast enough.

She never wanted me to come.

Alexis tells me she hopes I feel better. Kaitlyn and Olivia echo her words, yelling out the window as they drive away.

“We’ll miss you tonight,” Kaitlyn says.

No you won’t.

“We love you,” Olivia adds.

No you don’t.

As soon as I close the front door behind me, the tears start falling and the thoughts flood in faster and faster, tumbling over each other, pushing themselves to the front, fighting for my attention.

I shouldn’t have gone.

The sun is setting and it’s dark and quiet in the entryway. I slide down to the floor and wrap my arms around my knees, letting myself cry, allowing the thoughts to come as fast as they want to. The surrender feels good in a weird way.

The knock on the door makes me jump.

“Just a minute,” I yell, dashing into the hall bathroom to check my face. The mascara I carefully applied at the spa is everywhere but my eyelashes, and my whole face is bright red and puffy. I clean up as fast as I can and look through the peephole.

Caroline?

“What are you doing here?” I ask as I open the door, and immediately regret my words.

Caroline’s face falls and she takes two steps backward. “You invited me over,” she says, flustered. “To watch a movie. Remember?”

Oh, no.

“It is Saturday night, isn’t it?” The lilt in her voice sounds a little forced. She gives her flannel shirtsleeve a tug and checks the time on that beat-up watch of hers. “You didn’t tell me when to come by, so I took a chance.” She narrows her eyes, studying my face. “Hey, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”

Now that I think about it, I am okay. The thoughts are actually gone, and as far as I can tell, they’re not quietly waiting in the wings, whispering and preparing to pounce again. They’re completely gone.

“Yeah.” I pull the door open so she has room to step inside, and I voice the only thought in my head. “I’m really glad you’re here.”

She obviously knows that I forgot all about our plans, but she doesn’t call me on it, so I don’t say anything either. To break the tension, I ask her if she wants some water, but she says she’s not thirsty. I ask her if she wants some ice cream, but she says she’s not hungry. It seems a little too early to start a movie, so I ask her if she wants to come upstairs to hang out in my room and listen to music. She doesn’t answer, but I start walking toward the stairs and she follows me.

My room’s a mess. I scurry around, scooping up piles of clothes and stuffing them into the laundry hamper.

“I thought people with OCD were supposed to be neat,” she says.

“Popular misconception,” I say as I kick all the textbooks strewn across the floor into a haphazard pile.

“You don’t have to clean up for me, you know. You should see my room. It’s a disaster. Stuff everywhere.” I ignore her and keep picking things up.

Caroline walks around my room, looking at the pictures on my walls. She stops in front of the collage I made in eighth grade. THE CRAZY 8S is written across the top in hot pink, bubbly letters, and pictures spanning more than a decade are clustered below.

“Wow. You’ve known your friends for a long time,” Caroline says as I’m docking my phone. I start my In the Deep playlist. My nerves are still a little rattled.

I walk over and join her. She gestures to the poster. “Do you want to tell me what happened today?” she says, as if she knows my red eyes and puffy face had something to do with my friends.

“How do you know something happened?”

“I have a knack for reading people,” she says casually. “Here, look into my eyes and think of a number. Not three.” I look at her funny but fix my eyes on hers and think about the number nine. Caroline stares back. And then a huge smile forms across her face. “I’m just messing with you. I was only two houses away when your friend’s mom pulled into your driveway.”

I feel like an idiot. Caroline laughs and takes a couple of steps backward until she reaches my bed. She drops back on my comforter and rests her weight on her hands, legs crossed in front of her. I read her T-shirt: FREE SHRUGS.

“So what happened today?”

She looks like she genuinely wants to hear the story. And I definitely want to talk about it. If Mom were here, we’d be downstairs on the couch eating ice cream straight out of the carton while I spilled every detail. I flop down on the opposite side of the bed, mimicking Caroline’s pose.

“Today was Alexis’s birthday.”

“Alexis? The little Barbie one? Wears high heels, like, every day?” I nod. It’s funny to hear how other people see her.

Then I fill her in on the details of the spa day I wasn’t originally invited to. I tell her about the drive and the sound of the fountain and the smell of flowers on the breeze, but when I get to the part about the personalized bags, my chest feels tight. I pull at a loose thread on the pant leg of my jeans.

“It’s dumb, right? I shouldn’t be upset. It was last minute…” I let my words hang in the air as I check Caroline’s reaction. She doesn’t say anything, but her face scrunches up and I can tell she doesn’t think I’m dumb at all.

“Her mom obviously felt bad,” I continue. “She said I could pick anything I wanted from the gift shop.”

“I hope you picked something ridiculously expensive.”

I shake my head. “After our appointments were finished, we were running late and she rushed us off to lunch.”

Caroline bites her lip.

“But, hey, on the bright side, look at my skin.” I lean in a little closer. “Don’t I look ten years younger?”

She leans in too. “You’re asking me if you look like you’re six?” I laugh, and Caroline joins in. “I hope lunch was better.”

“Worse.”

She stops laughing. “How is that possible?”

“When her mom called the restaurant to change the reservation from four people to five, they told her we had to be at separate tables. I guess she assumed they’d push them together or something.”

“No.”

“Yep. It was a French restaurant with these tiny café tables—”

“Wait, so you sat with your friend’s mom while everyone else sat together at another table?” I’m glad I didn’t have to say it out loud. I have a feeling it still wouldn’t be funny.

I cross my arms. I faked a headache to come home early, but now I feel a real one coming on with the retelling. “I’m overreacting, right?”

As I wait for her response, I study her eyes. They’re narrow and hooded, but I’m no longer trying to figure out how to apply eye shadow to open them up. They’re pretty the way they are. Her hair doesn’t seem so stringy either, and I’m not dying to cover up her blemishes. I’m just happy she’s here.

“You’re not overreacting,” she says.

“Are you sure? Because you can tell me if I am. I have a tendency to overthink things, especially when it comes to my friends, and I don’t know…I take things too personally. I mean, it isn’t always them. Sometimes it’s me. I just don’t always know when it’s them and when it’s me, you know?”

I’m not sure if that made sense, but Caroline’s looking at me like she understood it perfectly. It’s like I can read her mind right now. She doesn’t like that my friends hurt my feelings, intentionally or not. Whether it’s them or me, she doesn’t understand why I’d choose to hang around with people I’m constantly questioning. And she’s sad for me, because my closest friends don’t feel all that close anymore, not like they did when we were those kids on that poster hanging on my wall.

I picture the people I saw in Poet’s Corner that day. “You don’t ever wonder what your friends think about you, do you?”

Caroline doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t have to. I can tell I’m right by the look on her face.

“You’re lucky,” I say.

I stare down at my feet, thinking about how I spent last night tucked down in my bed with a flashlight, writing horrible poetry into the early morning hours, waking up feeling drained but euphoric at the same time. I’ve been thinking about those poems all day. I couldn’t wait to get home to write again.

When I look up, I find Caroline staring at me.

“What?” I ask.

A cautious smile spreads across her lips. “Let me hear one.”

I look at her like I have no idea what she’s talking about, but I’m pretty sure I do. “One what?” I can hear the anxiety in my own voice.

“A poem.”

How does she know I’ve been writing poetry?

“Read me something from the blue notebook.”

My head snaps up and my jaw drops.

How does she know about the colors?

She points over at my nightstand, and I twist in place, my eyes following the invisible line that leads from her fingertip to the stack of three notebooks—red, yellow, and blue—piled underneath the lamp.

“You’re writing, aren’t you?” she asks.

I don’t answer her directly, but I don’t have to. She can probably tell she’s right by the panicked look on my face. I can’t read my poetry to her. I can’t read it to anyone. Shrink-Sue told me I didn’t have to share anything I wrote in those books. I wouldn’t have written it if I thought otherwise.

“Is it really dark?” she continues. “It’s okay if it is. My stuff can get pretty dark, too.”

“No, it’s not dark; it’s…stupid.”

“My stuff can get pretty stupid, too. I won’t make fun of you, I promise.”

“I can’t.”

“Read me your favorite. Don’t think about it, just go. Read.”

I laugh. “You’re telling me to not think. All I do is think. All the time. I think so much, I’m on medication and I see a shrink every Wednesday. I can’t not think, Caroline.”

“Sam.”

“What?”

“Go.”

I have the perfect one in mind. It’s short. I can read it without throwing up. Besides, I kind of like it. And I don’t even need my blue notebook because these words have been stuck in my head all day, during my ridiculous facial and in the car after we left the spa and during lunch. They joined the mantras. They kept the destructive thoughts from invading.

I sit up again. My hands are shaking, so I tuck them under my legs as I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and say, “It’s called ‘The Drop.’”

Standing on the platform.

Sun sinking into my skin.

This water will cover me like a blanket.

And I’ll be safe again.

She doesn’t laugh, but the room is completely silent. I open my eyes and look at her, waiting for a reaction.

She hated it.

“We have to get you back downstairs,” Caroline finally says, and I can hear the sincerity in her voice, can see it in her face.

She liked it.

I stare at her, wondering if she’s too good to be true. Where did she come from? Why is she being so nice to me?

“That’ll never happen,” I tell her plainly. “That ‘keymaster’ guy hates me. He won’t even look at me.”

I picture him on that stool and his song starts playing in my head. I think about the words and where they live on that wall. If I could get back downstairs, I could find his lyrics. I’ll commit them to memory next time.

“That’s just AJ,” she says, giving a dismissive shake of her head. “And he doesn’t hate you. But you hurt him, and he doesn’t know how to handle that.”

“What?” My thoughts stop cold. “Hurt him? What are you talking about?”

She looks right at me but doesn’t say a word.

“Caroline. How did I hurt him? I don’t even know him.”

“Yes, you do.”

I remember how he stood in front of me, blocking my way into Poet’s Corner the other day. He looked familiar, but I’ve never known anyone named AJ, and he’s cute enough, especially with that dimple and that adorable guitar-playing thing of his, that I would have remembered him if we’d met before.

“Are you going to tell me?”

She shakes her head. “You’ll figure it out.”

I stare at her in disbelief. “I don’t want to figure it out, Caroline. I want you to tell me.” That might have sounded bitchy. I didn’t mean it to, but I can’t believe she’s holding out on me.

She checks her watch. “I have to go.” She hops off the bed and starts walking toward the door.

“What about the movie?”

“Maybe another time,” she says as she reaches for the doorknob.

My mind is leaping around from thought to thought, like it can’t settle on one.

I hurt him. And Caroline’s leaving. But she likes my poem. I like talking to her. I don’t want her to leave.

“It’s okay,” I say. “You don’t have to tell me. Please…stay.”

It’s killing me not to know what I did, but there are plenty of other things I want to talk to her about. I want to ask her about all the poets. I want to know about that room and how it got there and how it works, and I want her to read me some of her poems. I want to be her friend.

She turns around and looks at me. I hurry over to my nightstand, grab the blue notebook from the pile, and hold it up in the air. “I want to get back to Poet’s Corner, but I don’t know how to. Will you help me?”