After I Wake (14 page)

I can feel my heart rate speeding up again, and my breathing hitches. I am suddenly aware of every dust mote in the room and the prickle of every fiber of my dress rubbing against my skin. The fragile hairs on my arms stand up and the rest of my skin forms into goose bumps. The lights brighten and block out my vision, and the silence of the hallway rings in my ears and becomes deafening. My eyes fill with tears, and I stop moving before spinning in a wild circle in search of a bathroom while bile shoves its way up my throat.

The bathroom is all shades of white, and as I crouch over the porcelain bowl in the first stall, my mom arrives in time to lay a supportive hand on my back.

I let the panic overwhelm me because I feel that I cannot do anything else, and I lean against the wall while my mom flushes the toilet because I cannot move. My hand is pressed over my eyes and keeping the tears in, while I frantically search out the pockets in my dress to shove my wrist in. Out of sight, out of mind, or so I desperately hope.

“Now,” my mom says, pulling a small prescription bottle out of her purse and opening it, and handing me a small pill.

“What is this?” I ask, looking up at her.

“It's my apology for being such a bad mom. Well, actually, it's propranolol. It's a performance anxiety medicine, it's supposed to stop stage fright. It's completely safe, Jordan, your therapist, prescribed it just in case, after I told him how nervous you've been about this. I didn't give it to you before because I thought you were alright. You seemed fine. Maybe you should be an actress, Carter. But in all seriousness, take this and enjoy yourself. I promise you'll be fine.” She winks at me when she mentions acting. I deposit the pill on my tongue and swallow it dry, grimacing a little when it scratches at my throat, closing my eyes in reaction. Belatedly, my mom hands me her bottle of sparkling water, and I chase the pill down.

I open my eyes and look at my mom, but she is rifling through her fancy dinner clutch and not looking at me. She pulls out a pack of gum, spearmint, and snaps a piece out of its foil cage before handing the small rectangle to me.

“Chew it,” she commands, and I obey, taking the gum and putting it in my mouth to get rid of the taste and the smell.

“You've earned this award, Carter Alice. Don't get stuck in your own head because that is not a place I can help you out from. I need you to breathe because you're going to do this.” I nod slowly and breathe while chewing the gum.

She helps me fix my hair, spiking it up a little, while I look at the mirror, in the unkind lighting. My skin is pale and my eyes look sunken and my lips look red, incredibly red. My hair is sticking up in every direction, and my mom is helping me muss it to some semblance of normal. It hasn't gotten long. I kept trimming it back to keep it easy to manage because there are little things in life that should be easier, and I've been trying to keep them that way.

Emmett is pacing the hallway when I step out, and he stops, stepping back while eyeing me over.

“Do I hug you? You don't look like you want people near you.” I close my eyes and wearily shake my head in his general direction. I don't want to be around people, and I'm sick of this night, and it hasn't even started. I hope the pro-whatever Mom said kicks in soon, because I'm convinced that I will throw up again if I have to talk in front of people.

I turn around and trudge forward as a big and fancy-looking pair of doors loom in front of me. We go through them, and I stop breathing for a moment while an impeccably dressed waiter guides us to our seats.

The room is not a room. It's far too large. It's a banquet hall, with gold wall panel things and a small stage against the wall panel things, lined with chairs and a large podium. The hall is filled with tables that are slowly filling with people, and their chatter fills the air.

We find our table and sit, my mom on my right and Emmett on my left. There are glasses of water in front of us and baskets full of bread and the adorable little butter packets you only eat during banquets.

I content myself with looking around at the people flooding in, but I don't recognize many poets from other award ceremonies. This is the biggest ceremony of ceremonies, at least for modern poets. This is the elite. I'm practically at the Oscars. Except this is for poetry instead, which is even cooler.

And they want me to speak in front of them. They like my poems. They think I'm good.

Fucking hell.

I close my eyes and start holding my breath, because then I can't hyperventilate. It works for a moment, and then I begin breathing again, only slightly less panicked than a moment ago.

As I exhale, my mom swivels her neck at lightning speed to look at me, and I look away to Emmett. He's staring at his phone, tight-lipped. He scrolls through his messages, and his breath hitches. I raise one eyebrow, and he looks at me. Noticing that I'm staring, Emmett grins and wipes the emotion off his face. I'll have to ask later if he's okay. Our eye contact becomes prolonged and extraordinarily awkward but breaking it feels wrong.

The chairs across the table from us scrape around, and we look away from each other, breaking the uncomfortable eye contact as another trio fill the remaining seats at the table. It's a couple who look a little on the older side. They've both got fairly gray hair and wise-looking wrinkles. They look like college professors, very dignified and formal. They have a teenaged boy with them, and he sits next to Emmett. The woman slips in next to my mom, and I am sitting across from the man. I smile awkwardly and look down for a moment before the woman starts speaking and wildly gesticulating, introducing herself as Dottie and the man as Roger and the boy as Johnathon.

We learn from the very chatty Dottie that she had published a few poems in modern anthologies, and all her poems are about birds and that she felt the poems strongly resembled the fluttery creatures. I nod occasionally while my mom keeps the conversation going. Our salad eventually arrives, and I pick at it. The salad has dressing on it, and I despise salad dressing. I nibble on bread, literally nibble, like a mouse, because I'm not hungry, but I feel better than I did, so the medicine must be kicking in. I zone out for a minute, trying to enjoy everything and take it all in, and once I focus again, the conversation has drifted into realms of things I do not understand.

While the adults eagerly discuss politics, I pull my phone out of the magical dress pocket and find seven messages from Emmett. Apparently, Emmett is so drawn to Johnathon sitting next to him that he has to tell me but he needs to be discreet. I roll my eyes, but nobody sees it, which is annoying because I'm really good at eye rolling. It's an art I've perfected, like my mom has perfected her swooping-in skills.

As I look at the phone, three more messages beep in as Emmett relays the conversation he's been having with Johnathon about nineties music and how he's enjoying the conversation, but he thinks the constant texting may be interrupting their bandying of ideas, so I look at him and tell him to stop, and Emmett's face grows very red, but at the same time our food arrives, and a hot plate of fancy eggplant-something is put in front of me, and I can distract myself.

As the waiters bring out the food, a man steps onto the small stage with the large podium and taps on the microphone, seemingly enjoying the unanimous turning of heads when the microphone provides a painful feedback that everyone cringes when they hear. It's grating and awful, and you can't help but feel like someone is using a paperclip to delicately tickle at the inside of your skull. It's annoying as all hell.

He speaks and it's Alexander Brown, and I try to listen as he thanks everyone for coming and explains the award ceremony process. We all get to eat our food, and then as our desserts get brought out, the members of the National Poetry Accolade Foundation give out the awards, first explaining what the award is and then giving them out to those worthy enough to receive them. I am vaguely reminded of Thor while he speaks. The recipients go to the stage to receive their award and have a moment to read the poem that got them the award and then thank whoever they want to thank. It seems to be a simple process, and I really don't think there's anything I can fuck up, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this goes well. I'm sure I'll trip on something and fall on my face anyways.

I turn back to my steaming food and prod it with my fork. It almost disintegrates in front of me, making for an easy time of scooping food into my mouth as I shove it down my throat, nearly burning it in the process, trying to keep calm and enjoy myself.

I finish quickly and quietly, choosing to next look down at my phone, when my mom gently slaps my arm and whispers in my ear that the phone can go away. We're in a nice place, and I shouldn't let my phone get in the way. I comply and put to use, once again, the pockets in my dress, which aren't really magical but feel like it because it's hard to find a good dress with pockets. She quickly asks me if I'm feeling better, and I nod because I really do. I tell her she has magical powers, and my mother smiles.

I lean toward Emmett and chat with him and Johnathon about nonsensical things, and I feel myself becoming nervous, not overly nervous, but, like, I'm anticipating the award and instead of feeling nauseated and light-headed, my feet are tingling. I look at my feet in confusion and uncross my legs, letting blood flow return to my ankles and the rest of my feet. The tingling recedes, and I feel completely fine. I forget everything I say to Emmett immediately after I say it because that just happens in exciting times. It happens to everyone I talk to in excitement. I'm sure we're talking about books or he's complaining about school that I'll be going back to soon.

I focus on my stomach that should be churning and my head that does not feel strange in a way I cannot describe, and I know I'm okay again, which is weird because I really should be panicking, though I didn't use to before I lost my hand, and it is hitting me now how different of a person I have become. I have changed, and developed and at this time last year I was not the same. Obviously.

Last year, I had two hands. But more than that, I had a personality of me. I was spoiled. I was the only person I cared about and the only family I had was my mom. There was nobody else to distract her from me. There was only me. I sailed through school, floating from group of friends to group of friends and never really sticking to one because I always felt I was a loner at heart. And now I have Emmett, and he's more than a friend; he's like a brother, and somehow I wonder what would have happened if he had not become my friend last year. I wouldn't have held on as long as I did if Emmett hadn't visited so
constantly. Constantly. Nearly every day. He made himself an
unending presence.

He was like me, the liked by all, loved by none type. Except, I'm not sure if anyone really liked me. And everyone loves Emmett. He's got such a personality that it's impossible not to love him, so he's not totally like me. Emmett was and still is so sociable, and I was contented when we became friends to hang back a little and let him party, because it was in his nature, but he was there for me, and it took until a stupid party that he wasn't at for me to realize that I am not alone.

That was the first time I realized I was not alone. Looking back, seeing myself as alone is horrifying. I held myself in such a way that I did not allow anyone else to get near me. I held myself above everyone else, as something untouchable, as a prize, as a person who should make others feel honored she knew their name. I was a stupid, stupid monster and one life-changing night sent me crashing to the ground hard.

Alone. It took me until right now to understand the wrong in alone. Even after I lost my hand, I kept to myself. Nobody knew what I was going through. Or, it felt like that. There are people out there who
bounce back from life-changing accidents, and I didn't think I
possessed that drive.

I remember, I saw a movie with my mom, this true story about a surfer whose arm was eaten by a shark, and she was surfing again in less than a month. You see those things and you get so inspired, and then life happens, and it gets in the way, and you want to inspire but you can't and it's super weird. Well, I don't want to be inspiring, I mean, except for young poets. That would be the coolest thing.

The microphone squeals agonizingly, and I glance to the stage where Alexander Brown is speaking again. While he is making his long introduction, I pull my phone out of the magical dress pocket again and quickly open a blank page in the e-notebook thing and summarize all the thoughts I just had. It may have been a mini breakthrough, but for now I'm happy to feel myself forming a poem around the ideas, lines, and snatches floating through my brain, and I can't help but grin because this means that I am coming back. I know I'm not the same person I was, but there were parts of me that I missed, and the poems were the biggest part. I missed having random words floating around, waiting for me to need them. I missed the art in my life, and it's coming back.

I'm settling back into myself and feeling comfortable. It's good to be home.

 

 

T
HE
CEREMONY
goes on and on with seemingly no end as poet after poet is honored and recognized, which is pretty cool as I see poets I've read and some I've never heard of get acknowledged. Chatty Dottie gets her Emily Dickinson Award and reads her bird poem—it is fluttery like the winged beasts—thanks her family, and we all clap enthusiastically for her, and the event continues. My mom glances through a program that's seemingly materialized out of nowhere and shows me as last, and I'm confused because the best is always last, and I am far from the best.

Finally, a woman I've never heard of, Elizabeth Sherman, gets her award for her rhyming poems, and I suppress a gag when I hear rhyming poems mentioned, but am pleasantly surprised because her rhymes are soft, and her sonnet flows really well and is incredibly developed. Then I worry, because I criticized rhyming poems really heavily in my interview, and she might see it, but Alexander Brown is introducing the last award and my mom has her phone ready to record, so I listen to what he's saying.