Every Last Word (27 page)

I wish I’d been the one to call her out, but I’m too stunned to say anything. Still, I have to speak. It’s my job to defend him. I can’t just sit here and let her mock
him. “I-I…” I choke on my words.

“See? It’s contagious.” Kaitlyn starts cracking up again but stops when she realizes everyone’s staring at her and none of them are joining in. “Oh, lighten up.
That was funny.”

After a deep breath, I press my palms into the table and lean forward, closing in on her. My voice is shaking. “We were horrible to him, Kaitlyn. We teased him so much, he switched
schools.”

“Oh, so you’re pity-dating him?”

I look at her soda. I consider throwing it at her.

“I am not pity-dating him,” I say, picturing AJ on stage in Poet’s Corner, guitar swung over his shoulder, singing some line that makes my heart race and my whole body melt. I
think about what happened last night, the way he looked at me before, during, and after. “I’m in love with him.”

I just blurted it out. I can’t believe I did. I look around the table, watching for reactions, but they don’t come, not right away at least. The four of them are dumbstruck.

“You’re in
love
with him? Do you even
know
him?” Alexis finally asks.

Olivia jumps in before I can answer. “Wait, does he have anything to do with where you go during lunch?”

Everything gets quiet again, and I watch my friends process Olivia’s words, seeing their expressions change before my eyes as they clue into the fact that this thing with AJ tonight
isn’t simply a
hot date
or even a
first date
. It’s probably one of many. And that I might have been serious when I said that thing I just said.

“We’ve been hanging out together for a few months now. First as friends and more recently as, well, more than that.”

They all look at each other, but none of them will look at me.

“Well, this explains a lot,” Alexis finally says. “We’ve all been talking about how you seem so different lately. Right?” She looks around the table, addressing
them individually. Kaitlyn nods in agreement. Olivia, too. Hailey stares at her food. “You’ve been acting like a totally different person.”

Hmm. Or maybe it’s that I’m not acting.

Alexis reaches across the table and rests her hand on mine. “You’ve changed, Samantha. And I think I speak for all of us when I say that it’s not for the better,
sweetie.”

Not for the
better
? How could they not see that I’m a
better
person? I told Shrink-Sue I felt healthier, more in control of my emotions than I ever have. I’m no longer
a slave to their words and actions, and that means there’s something
wrong
with me.

“We don’t feel like we even
know
you anymore,” Olivia adds.

“You’re right,” I say quietly. “You guys did know me, but I don’t think you do anymore. Not really.” I look around the table as I talk, realizing, maybe for
the first time, that I don’t know much about them either.

The words are right on the tip of my tongue, and I start to tell them the truth: I need to get some distance from them. But then I take one look at Hailey’s face and think about what she
said in the bathroom that day, about how she needed me and she didn’t know what she’d do if I left like Sarah did. I can’t say it. Not today.

I look right at Kaitlyn. “You owe AJ an apology.”

“For what? Something I said when I was in
fourth grade
?

“No,” I say as I stand. “For something you said five minutes ago.”

That cafeteria door seems like it’s miles away, but I throw my shoulders back and march toward it, holding my head a little higher than it was when I walked in here.

I
walk quickly to my locker, glad to be alone in the corridors and back in the fresh air. I’m not sure what made me head this
direction, I was sort of on autopilot, but it turns out to be the right call.

As I turn the corner, I let out a relieved sigh when I see Caroline working her combination lock with one hand and holding her backpack strap in the other.

“There you are! I’ve been looking for you all day.” I rest my shoulder against a neighboring locker and come in close, keeping my voice low. “I have so much to tell
you.”

She continues loading books into her backpack, and I keep talking.

“I told the Eights about AJ, and Kaitlyn made an insanely cruel comment I can’t even repeat, but I totally stood up for him.” I shake my hands out by my sides. I’m all
jittery.

Caroline zips her backpack and hoists it over her shoulder, and when she turns in my direction, I can see her T-shirt:
YES
,
IT REALLY IS ALL ABOUT
ME
.

“I know,” she says. “I was there. You were brilliant.”

“What do you mean, you were there?” She couldn’t have been. I didn’t see her anywhere. I looked. “Where were you?”

She rests her hand on one side of my face. “Close enough to hear everything.” Then she steps away and tugs on her flannel shirtsleeve, looking at her beat-up watch. “I have to
go now.”

“Go where? The bell doesn’t ring for another twenty minutes.” She stares at me with the strangest expression on her face. “Wait, are you angry because I didn’t tell
them about you? I meant to. I will. I promise.”

“No, I’m not mad. And please, don’t tell them about me. Ever.” She leans in closer. “But you should tell AJ.”

What?

My phone chirps and I pull it out of my back pocket and read the message.

“Go ahead,” she says. “Answer him.” Caroline gestures with her chin to the phone. How did she know it was AJ? I give her a funny look and type back:

I press
SEND.
And when I look up, Caroline’s gone.

“Caroline?” I call out, but there’s no response.

I run to the edge of the locker bank and look down the corridor. Lunch is far from over, but it’s starting to get a little more crowded out here. I walk down the path that leads to the
student parking lot, and then double back to the one that leads to the front entrance. I don’t see her anywhere.

My phone chirps again.

It looks like he’s typing another message, so I don’t reply right away.

I smile at the screen and type:

I take another spin around campus, still looking for Caroline, and then start heading back toward my locker, typing as I go. I think about what I said to my friends today. What I blurted.

The first bell rings and the halls become more crowded. At my locker, I dial my combination and lift the latch, and then I peek at the far end of the row, hoping to see Caroline.

I’m gathering my books for class when I feel hands sliding over my hips. “Hey,” AJ says. My first instinct is to check our surroundings to be sure we’re alone, but then I
realize I don’t have to do that anymore. I recline into his chest, pull his arms even tighter around my waist, and kiss him, knowing that people might be walking by and watching us, but not
caring at all.

“I take it you told your friends about us?” he asks when we finally pull away. He’s wearing a ski cap pushed back on his head, and his hair is poking out underneath. He looks
adorable.

“The Eights know. And everyone else…” I crane my neck to see what’s happening behind us. People are slowing their steps as they pass, and whispering to each other.
“I’m guessing they’ll know by the time the final bell rings.”

“Wow. That’s an amazing picture of you,” he says, bringing my attention back to my locker.

“Thanks.” I settle into his shoulder, watching his expression change as he scans over everything. He smiles when he reads the little pink Post-it. His eyes shine when he sees the
picture of Cassidy and me, taken the day I broke her butterfly record. He’s more straight-faced when he looks over photos of me and the rest of the Eights.

“Wow, you’ve been to a lot of concerts,” he says.

After today, I’m pretty sure my collection won’t be expanding.

“Is that one of my guitar picks?” he asks.

“Maybe.” I smile.

“Robber.”

I turn to face him and hook my fingers in the front belt loops of his jeans. “Hey, you didn’t happen to see Caroline on your way over here, did you?” I gesture toward her
locker. “I just had the strangest conversation with her.”

“Caroline?”

“Yeah. It was weird. First she said she heard my discussion with my friends, but that’s impossible. She was nowhere in sight. And then she said she had to go. And now I can’t
find her anywhere. Did she seem upset last night?” I ask.

AJ’s expression morphs from confusion to concern. “What?”

“She was the only one who didn’t read, but she never does. She didn’t seem bothered by it or anything.”

The bell rings. AJ doesn’t move away from me. There’s no one around, but I lower my voice anyway. “I came clean to the Eights. I thought that’s what she wanted.
She’s the one who said I needed ‘new friends’ and introduced me to all of you. She’s the one who brought me down to Poet’s Corner in the first place.”

I think about all the times Caroline listened to me read my poems and gave me words that she thought might help AJ see me in a different light, like my own personal Cyrano de Bergerac.

“Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“Who’s Caroline?”

“Caroline.” I say it with a laugh, but he doesn’t join me. “
Caroline
. Caroline…” It takes me a second to find her last name. I haven’t thought
about it since the first day of school. “Caroline Madsen.”

His eyes grow wider and I watch the color totally drain from his face. “What did you say?” I feel the tug on my fingers as he starts to step away from me, and I release his belt
loops, letting my hands fall to my sides.

“I said, ‘Caroline Madsen.’ As in, our friend Caroline. AJ, what’s wrong?”

“Wait. Did you just say that
Caroline
brought you downstairs?” He doesn’t stutter, but his voice shakes and it scares me.

“Of course,” I say, trying to understand why he’s asking. “She was with me that first day, remember?” I’ve thought about it a million times. I can picture it
like it was yesterday. “You weren’t going to let me stay, but then Caroline grabbed my arm and you changed your mind.”

He stares at me for the longest time.

“She’s the reason you let me stay,” I repeat. But I can tell by the look on his face that maybe I’m wrong, so I add, “Wasn’t she?”

“No.” His voice is so faint. He takes a real step backward this time.

Now I’m frightened, and I don’t know why, but I know I’m right to be. My heart starts racing and I want to get out of here, bound for a dark, quiet room where I can catch my
breath and think, but I can’t leave without hearing whatever it is AJ’s trying to tell me.

He takes his cap off and combs his fingers through his hair. “Sam, she wasn’t the reason I let you into Poet’s Corner that first day.”

Yes she was.

“The first time you came downstairs, you were alone. I let you stay that day because you said you thought it might change your life, and I liked that.”

I start to tell him that I didn’t choose those words, Caroline did. But I keep my mouth shut because I have a feeling that isn’t the right thing to say. I squeeze my eyes closed and
cover my face.

“No,” I say, shaking my head hard. “She brought me there.” I open my eyes again and lock them on his. “How else would I have found that room?”

His lips are pressed into a tight line. Then he says, “I have no idea.”

“I do. I found it because she brought me there.” I say it with more force than I intended to.

He stares at the ground for a long time, and finally, he looks at me again. “Do you know who Caroline Madsen is?”

“Of course I do.”

She’s my friend. She might be my
best
friend
.

“Sam.” I hear a strange hitch in his voice when he says my name. “Caroline Madsen committed suicide…in 2007.”

I laugh. “Shut up,” I say, but he’s doesn’t look like he’s joking. “So, what? You’re saying I’ve been talking to a ghost?” But as soon as
the words leave my mouth, I know deep in my gut that’s not right.

Now he’s taking even larger steps, backing away even faster, and his fingers are impossible to miss, flicking against the stitching on his jeans. “I should…I have
to…get to class,” he says, and he’s gone before I have a chance to tell him he’s wrong. He has to be.

She was just here ten minutes ago.

Wasn’t she?

I was standing here talking to her.

Wasn’t I?

I slam my locker door and take off running for the parking lot. It takes two hands to start the car, one to bring the key to the ignition, and the other to hold it steady. The engine roars to
life and I peel into the street, bound for the only place it occurs to me to go.