Every Last Word

Mom’s buttering toast for Paige, drinking her coffee, and replying to a message on her cell phone, when she says, “Do you want to talk about what happened yesterday?”

“Nah. I’m good.” I down my orange juice. “I talked to my friend Caroline last night.”

Mom’s typing again. “Who’s Caroline?” she asks without looking up.

“Just someone I met at school. She’s nice. She came over after I got home from the spa.”

Now I have her attention.

“Really?” Her eyes grow wide.

I try to act nonchalant about the whole thing, like this happens all the time, but then I picture Caroline sitting on the floor in my room, helping me with my poetry, and I feel a little bit giddy. “Yeah, I would have introduced you, but she had to leave before you guys got home.”

“Have you told Sue about her?”

“Yep.” I grab the toast with one hand and punch Paige lightly on the arm with the other. “I’m going to the pool.”

The next day, Olivia and I are walking to Trigonometry when I see AJ heading right for us. I almost didn’t notice him—I probably wouldn’t have if the dark ski hat hadn’t caught my eye—because he’s looking down at the ground and keeping pace with everyone else. He walks right by me.

Caroline’s words have haunted me since Saturday night: “He doesn’t hate you, but you hurt him.” I can’t figure out what I did, and somewhere around two thirty this morning, I decided I was going to find out the first chance I got.

“I left my trig book in my locker,” I say to Olivia. “I’ll meet you at class.”

She waves me off and I do a 180 and start following the ski cap heading in the opposite direction. AJ turns the corner and stops at a locker. Keeping my distance, I watch as he rests his backpack on one knee and swaps out his books.

When he sees me, he tilts his chin in my direction. “Hey.” No smile. No wave. Just the chin tilt. He swings his locker door closed.

“Hi.” I gesture toward the main corridor. “I saw you in the hall, but…I guess you didn’t see me.”

He shakes his head.

“I wanted to say hello.” I dig my fingernails into the back of my neck. One, two, three. One, two, three. One, two, three. “And, you know, say thank you…for letting me join you guys last week.”

AJ checks the area around us and steps in closer. He’s a full head taller than me, and when he tucks his chin to his chest and stares down at me, I feel guilty, even though I haven’t done anything wrong. His eyebrows lift accusingly. “You haven’t told anyone, have you?”

“Of course not. I wouldn’t do that.”

He’s still close. He’s still staring at me like he’s trying to decide if I’m telling the truth. I square my shoulders and straighten my spine. “I told you I wouldn’t, and I haven’t.”

“Good,” he says. Another long pause. “Don’t.”

“I won’t.”

He steps out of my personal space and I have a chance to look at him. Really look at him. His dark blond hair is poking out from under the cap, and his eyes are this interesting brownish-green that’s almost the same color as the T-shirt he’s wearing. He’s not clean-cut, like most of my guy friends. He’s scruffier, but in a sexy way. I try to read the expression on his face, but I can’t, and it bothers me because there’s something about the way he’s looking at me right now that makes me feel sorry for him. He looks sweet, maybe even shy, and nothing like the confident guy I watched perform on that stage last week.

The questions are spinning in my head, and I want to spit them out and get it over with. How do I know you? How did I hurt you? How do I tell you I’m sorry if I have no idea what I did? But I push the words down, searching for new, safer ones.

“I really loved your song. It’s kind of been stuck in my head.”

He takes another step back. “Thanks,” he says.

“I’ve been trying to remember all the lyrics, but…”

Invite me back. Please.

I look around again to be sure there’s no one within earshot. “That day downstairs, I guess it kind of inspired me. My poems aren’t very good or anything.” I pause for a moment, waiting for him to say something, but he doesn’t, so I keep blabbering.

“I barely slept last weekend.” Now he looks at me sideways like he’s trying to figure out why this is his problem. “I haven’t been…” I stop short, realizing I was about to admit that I haven’t been taking the prescription sleep meds I’ve popped every night for the last five years. I keep forgetting. Or maybe I don’t forget. Maybe I make a choice to keep writing despite how exhausted I’ll be the next day. “I haven’t been sleeping. Once I start writing, I kind of need to keep going.” I let a nervous laugh escape.

The corners of his mouth turn up slightly. Not much, but enough to expose that dimple and catch me off guard.

“You’re writing?”

I nod.

“You?” AJ crosses his arms like he doesn’t believe me, but at least now I can read the look on his face. He’s surprised. Maybe even intrigued. “You’re writing poetry, and not because you have to for a class?”

I shrug. I think he expects me to be offended, but I’m not. I get it. The whole poetry thing shocks me, too.

“Of course, it’s total crap,” I say, hoping more self-criticism will elicit some kind of reaction, like an invitation to come downstairs and say those words on stage so they can pelt me with paper and, later, glue sticks.

AJ uncrosses his arms and transfers his backpack from one shoulder to the other. “I bet your poems are better than you think they are.”

It’s not true, but it’s a nice thing to say and he looks like he means it. I start to reply, but then I look past him, over his right shoulder, and see Kaitlyn walking in our direction, taking measured steps, hanging back like she’s timing her arrival so she doesn’t interrupt the two of us.

Invite me back. I want to hear more poetry, more of your songs.

“I’ve got to get to class,” he says. “I’ll see ya later, okay?”

And with that, he takes off, leaving Kaitlyn the opening she was waiting for. She lengthens her stride and as soon as she’s close enough, she grabs me by the arm with both hands. “Holy shit, was that Andrew Olsen?” she asks.

“Who?”

She lets go of me so she can point at him, and together, we watch AJ open a classroom door and disappear from sight. “That was him! God, we were so brutal to that kid, weren’t we?” She shakes her head as I turn his name over in my mind. Andrew Olsen. Andrew Olsen.

“Who?” I ask again, and she slaps my arm with the back of her hand.

“Andrew Olsen. Remember? Fourth grade. Mrs. Collins’s class?” Kaitlyn must be able to tell by the look on my face that I’m not connecting the dots, because she breaks into this huge grin. She shakes her hips and sings, “A-A-A-Andrew…” to the tune of the Chia Pet jingle, and then she starts cracking up.

“How can you not remember Andrew? That kid stuttered so badly he couldn’t even say his name. We used to follow him around singing that song.…You have to remember this!”

Oh, God. I do. It’s all starting to come back to me, and when she sings that horrible song again, I can see Kaitlyn and me in our skirts and ponytails, trailing behind him on the playground while he covered his ears, tears streaming down his face, trying to run away from us. We never let him get far.

“Andrew?” That’s all I can get out. I want to throw up. Andrew. That’s what Caroline meant.

“Remember? We even made him cry on that field trip to the museum? His mom had to come all the way into the city to pick him up.”

I don’t want to remember, but I do. I remember everything. How it all started. How it finally ended.

Kaitlyn singled him out early on. Eventually, I joined in. We teased him at every recess, during lunch, after school when he was waiting for the bus. We looked for him—looked forward to finding him. I can even picture his face when he saw us coming, and I remember how it made me feel guilty, but not guilty enough to stop, because it also made me feel powerful in a weird way. And there was always a look of approval on Kaitlyn’s face.

When school started the following year, we found out he’d transferred, and Kaitlyn and I were actually disappointed, as if our favorite toy had been permanently taken away from us. I never thought I’d see him again. I’m sure he hoped he’d never see Kaitlyn and me again, but I assume he didn’t have a choice since this is the only public high school in the area.

Caroline was wrong. He hates me.

Kaitlyn stops talking, but I guess the horrified look on my face doesn’t register with her, because she’s still lit up as if this whole thing is hilarious.

“So why were you talking to him?” She pops her hip and plays with her necklace while she waits for me to answer.

It takes me a second to pull it together. When I finally do speak, my voice is shaking and the words come out in fragmented whispers. “We have a class together.” Does Poet’s Corner count as a class? Probably not.

“He was in my P.E. class last year,” she says, “but we didn’t have to talk much, so I never got to hear him. Does he still stutter?”

I picture the way he stepped on stage and perched himself on that stool. How he threw his guitar over his shoulder and stated that his song sucked, beaming as he gestured toward his chest, confidently inviting his friends to throw things at him. He sang and his words were beautiful and clear, not broken in any way. Nothing about him was broken.

“No, he doesn’t.”

He’s long gone, but Kaitlyn points in his direction. “See, we fixed him,” she says proudly. My cheeks feel hot, and when she elbows me, laughing, my hands ball into fists by my side. “You know what they say, ‘That which does not kill us makes us stronger.’”

I’m unable to speak or breathe or move. I can’t believe she just said that, and I know I should defend him, but I’m frozen in place, totally stunned. Saying nothing, as usual.

“Besides,” she continues, “that was a million years ago. We were little kids. I bet he doesn’t even remember us.” I feel a huge, uncomfortable lump in my throat. How could I do that do him? To anyone?

“He remembers,” I say under my breath as I walk away.

Caroline’s at her locker after last bell, and I stall, waiting for everyone to clear out. When the coast is finally clear, I race over to her.

“I know what I did to AJ.” My stomach turns over as I say it. “No wonder he doesn’t want me downstairs. Caroline, what do I do?”

“You can start by apologizing,” she says.

He’ll never forgive me. How could he?

“He must think I’m a horrible person.”

Maybe he’s right. Maybe I am.

“Do you want my help?”

I nod. Caroline turns on her heel and gestures for me to follow her. “Come on,” she says. “I know what to do.”

She leads me to the first row of the theater and we spend the next three hours working on a single poem. I write. Caroline listens. When I get stuck, she feeds me word after word until we find the perfect one that sums up what I want him to know. When I’m done, we have a poem that doesn’t say “I’m sorry” in so many words, but it talks about regret and second chances, a fear of not belonging that runs so deep it changes you into someone you don’t want to be. It’s about seeing what you’ve become and wanting—craving—to be someone different. Someone better.

It’s me, asking him to let me in. Asking all of them to give me a chance to show them that, deep down, I’m not who they think I am. Or, maybe I’m exactly who they think I am, but I no longer want to be.