Every Last Word (28 page)

I
n the lobby, I press the button for the elevator three times, and when nothing happens, I press it again, three more times. I slam my hand
against the door, and the bell dings as the doors slide open. I press 7 three times.

I burst through the door and Colleen jumps out of her chair. “Sam?”

“I need to see Sue.” My voice doesn’t even sound like mine, and my legs feel wobbly underneath me. I walk straight for her office and open the door. Colleen is right behind me.
“Where is she?” I yell with my fingertips pressed into my temples.

Colleen grabs my arms, pushes me into the chair, and crouches down in front of me. She’s trying to pull my hands away from my face, but I won’t let her. I’m crying hard and
only half listening to what she’s saying, but I hear “hospital” and “won’t be back today” and “call her.” Then “wait” and
“water” and “don’t move.”

When Colleen’s gone, I slide my hands down to my cheeks and look around the room. Two days ago, I sat here and told Sue I was better. I was
better
. I know I was. But then I remember
Alexis’s words, “You’ve changed…and it’s not for the better, sweetie.”

What’s happening to me?

I stand up fast and hurry for the door, into the elevator, back into my car. There’s this spot on the top of the hill that looks down on the valley; it’s where everyone goes to park
and make out, and at this time of day, it’ll be deserted.

My hands are tight on the wheel as I wind around the sharp twists and turns, climbing until the road dead-ends. I park next to the big oak tree and cut the engine.

AJ is wrong; he has to be. Caroline
was
there, at every reading, during every lunch hour. She sat next to me. She met me in the theater. She read my earliest poems, told me I was good.
She taught me how to let go and write what I felt, and gave me words when I couldn’t find them myself. She helped me take the stage. She was one of the—how did I jokingly refer to it
the other day—the Poetic Nine?

Wasn’t she?

I pull my phone from the cup holder and find the most recent group text, the one AJ sent last night to call the Poet’s Corner meeting. His name is right at the top. Next to it:
To Sam
and six more
…

I know her number won’t be here, but I tap the word “more” to help me take inventory. Everyone is a jumble of unidentified phone numbers, and I assign each one a name as I
count them. AJ. Cameron. Chelsea. Emily. Jessica. Abigail. Sydney.

Seven total.

“Technology is a trap,”
Caroline had said, and I believed her.

She never called me. She never texted me. I thought it was odd, but I never questioned it.

My stomach rolls over, and my fingers are shaking so violently, I’m having a hard time holding the phone in my hands.

I open the browser and type in “Caroline Madsen 2007” and within seconds, the tiny screen is filled with links that lead to her story. Headline after headline reading,
TEEN
’
S DEATH RULED A SUICIDE
;
BULLYING TO BLAME FOR LOCAL TEEN
’
S SUICIDE
?;
LOCAL
HIGH SCHOOL DEVASTATED BY SUICIDE
. The last one contains a picture, so I click through to the full story.

“Oh, my God,” I whisper. I remember reading this article, not last summer, but the summer before.

Cassidy had just come back from Southern California to spend the break with her dad. He bought a new house, and she was thrilled to finally have her own room when she came to visit. She’d
heard a rumor that a girl had killed herself in the house years ago, and she asked me if I’d heard about it. I hadn’t.

Later that week, I went home with her after swim practice and she gave me a tour. We sat in Cassidy’s new room, did a quick Internet search for local teen suicides, and didn’t find
much beyond this one case. We pulled up a bunch of articles, including this one.

Now, I’m looking at the story again, over a year later, this time on my phone. I scan it quickly for the salient points and latch on to words and phrases like “suicide” and
“target of bullying” and “history of depression,” but the tears are welling up in my eyes.

Her parents were at a Christmas party, only a few houses away. While they were gone, Caroline Madsen threw back a bottle of sleeping pills and never woke up. Her mom and dad didn’t realize
what happened until the following morning. By the time I get to the quote from her mom, talking about her daughter’s witty sense of humor and how she loved to write poetry, the words are so
blurry, I can’t read any more.

Scrolling down to the photo, I find a girl who looks exactly like the Caroline I know. Hair slightly disheveled. No makeup. She’s wearing a flannel, unbuttoned, over a T-shirt.

I zoom in so I can read it:
IF YOU COULD READ MY MIND
,
YOU WOULDN
’
T BE SMILING
.

I run my finger across the screen, laughing at the shirt and fighting back tears at the same time. I remember sitting in Cassidy’s room, looking at this photo, skimming this article. We
closed the browser, sad for this girl we never knew, and I don’t remember giving it another thought.

Now, everything starts to fall into place.

Caroline and I sat together in the theater one day, me complaining about my friends, her telling me I needed new ones. I confided in her about my OCD and she told me about her struggles with
depression.

But Caroline never read on stage. She came to my house, but she always left before anyone got home. We wrote together in the theater, just the two of us, alone in the dark. She never minded
being my secret.

She never led me to Poet’s Corner.

“She’s not real.” The words squeak out.

The tears are falling freely now, and I toss my phone hard on the passenger seat and it bounces onto the floor. I throw open the door, walk to the edge of the cliff, and stand there, looking out
over the town. It’s overcast and chilly, but the bite in the early December air feels good in my lungs.

From up here, I can see my house. AJ’s is on the other side of town and harder to find, but I spot the dense cluster of trees that distinguish his neighborhood. Alexis’s house is on
a hill on the opposite side of the canyon, massive and easy to see. The swim club is easy to find too, and from there, I trace the route I’ve driven and walked plenty of times—up the
hill, round the hairpin turn, straight to the top, until I see Cassidy’s dad’s house.

Caroline lived there. She died there.

“Depression,”
she’d told me the first time we sat together in the dark theater.
“Sometimes it feels like it’s getting worse, not better.”

I walk over to the big oak tree and throw up in the dirt. And then I sit on the edge of the cliff, my knees to my chest, digging my nails into the back of my neck and scratching hard. I feel the
sting on my skin, but I keep going, not bothering to wipe the tears as they stream down my cheeks, feeling empty and cold, mourning the loss of my best friend like it’s recent and raw, as if
she killed herself this afternoon and not eight years ago. I rock back and forth, scratching harder, crying and muttering “Caroline” under my breath, over and over again.

Like the crazy person I now know I am.

O
nce the sun went down, the temperature started dropping fast. I’m not sure how long I’ve been out here, but my chest feels
numb, my eyes are puffy, my face is sore, and there’s dirt caked under my fingernails.

I pull myself up off the ground and collapse in the driver’s seat. The car door has been open for hours, the dome light on the entire time, so I give the ignition a quick turn to be sure I
didn’t kill the battery. The engine starts right up. I crank the heat.

My phone is on the floor next to the console. Texts and missed-call messages fill the screen, and I scroll down, past countless pleas from my mom to call her right away. There are three missed
calls from Shrink-Sue, the last one only twenty minutes ago.

I hit the call-back button and Sue picks up on the first ring. The tears start falling again when I hear her voice, and I squeak out a faint, “It’s me.”

“Where are you?” she asks, panic in her voice like I’ve never heard. I tell her about the hill and give her the cross streets, and she tells me not to move, that she’s on
her way.

I hang up the phone and stare at the clock on the dashboard. It’s 7:12.

Open mic.

I’m supposed to be on my way to the city right now. I’m supposed to be watching my boyfriend play guitar on a real stage, and Caroline’s supposed to be next to me, cheering him
on. Instead, I’m here in the dark, all cried out, waiting to be rescued. I hope AJ won’t tell the Poets; I’ll never be able to face them again.

I’ll never be able to face
him
again
.

I picture the look on his face when he told me about Caroline. What a sharp contrast it was from the expression he wore just minutes earlier, as he stood there, admiring that photo of me on the
diving block. The
me
he thought he knew, next to the
real me
he was forced to see for the first time. Once he saw who I really am, he couldn’t get away fast enough.

I never wanted him to find out. And now he’s gone.

Headlights shine into the back window, and minutes later, Shrink-Sue’s guiding me into her shiny black Benz and buckling the seat belt around me. “Your parents are on their way to
get your car,” I hear her say.

As Sue winds her way down the hill, I stare out the window, wondering where we’re going and deciding I don’t care. I feel heat on my face. My butt is getting hot from the seat
warmer. I rest my forehead against the glass, close my eyes, and don’t open them again until we’re stopped in a driveway, waiting for a garage door to open.

Sue pulls in and cuts the engine. She comes around to my side of the car and unbuckles the belt, helping me out as if I’m elderly and infirm, and leads me inside the same way.

We arrive in a kitchen, and two girls stop what they’re doing. They’re a few years younger than me and a lot smaller; like Sue, tiny in every way. Same straight hair. Same delicate
features. They’ve grown up since they took those photographs that sit on Sue’s desk, but I recognize them immediately.

“Sam,” she says gently, “these are my daughters, Beth and Julia.”

Their expressions are full of concern, but I guess I shouldn’t expect anything else; I’ve been crying in the dirt for the last five hours. And they’re just staring, like they
aren’t sure what to make of me, but that doesn’t surprise me either. Knowing Sue and her commitment to “professional distance,” I’m pretty sure she’s never
brought a patient into her house.

“Julia, would you get us some tea, please?”

Sue leads me out of the kitchen, past the living room, and through a set of double doors. This must be Sue’s home office. It overlooks a perfectly manicured garden, set in a circle with a
fountain at the center. It’s softly lit. Peaceful. I walk to the glass door. “This sure beats the view of the parking lot.”

“It’s my favorite place.” She’s standing right behind me. “I sit right there,” she says, pointing over my shoulder to an oversize metal chair with deep
cushions and lots of throw pillows. “That’s where I think, or meditate, or work on patient files. Unless it’s raining, that’s where you’ll find me.”

We’re both quiet for a long time. I can hear the sound of the fountain through the glass. It’s soothing.

“Are you still cold?” she asks.

I shake my head.

“Do you want to sit outside?” she asks.

I nod.

“Good.” She steps forward and twists the lever on the French door, and it swings open. “Let’s talk out there until we can’t take it.” She grabs two blankets
from a basket on the floor and wraps one around my shoulders. She tells me to sit in her favorite chair.

Julia arrives holding a cast-iron teapot and two mugs. Sue thanks her and arranges everything on the table in front of us, pouring out a mug of steaming tea and handing it to me. Sue settles
into a spot on the couch, and Julia leaves, closing the double doors behind her.