Every Last Word (4 page)

And then I walk away as slowly as possible, ignoring the fact that every muscle in my body wants to run.

When I feel the first sign of a panic attack, I’m supposed to go to a quiet place with dim lighting, where I can be alone and get my thoughts under control. My psychiatrist has burned
these instructions into my brain in a way that makes them second nature, but instead I duck around the corner out of sight and stand there, my back against the science building, my face pressed
into my hands, like I can achieve the same effect if I can only block out the glare of the sun. Eventually, I start walking through campus and let the path take me wherever it leads.

It leads me to the theater.

I’ve been here before for the annual talent show, the band recital, school plays—basically, the slew of events we’re forced to attend because they take place in lieu of class.
The five of us always ditch our assigned row and sit together in the back, snickering to ourselves and poking fun at the people on stage, until one of the teachers gets tired of shushing us and
sends us all outside, as if that’s punishment. We sit on the grass, talking and laughing, until everyone who had to stay and watch the entire performance finally files out.

I hunker down in a seat in the center of the first row, because it’s actually darkest here, and I’m already feeling calmer, despite the fact that Alexis just force-ranked her best
friends and put me on the bottom. On the bright side, I no longer have to waste so much time wondering where I fit.

The bell rings and I’m about to get up and head for class, when I hear voices. I crouch down lower, watching a group of people walk across the stage, talking to each other in hushed tones.
A guy’s voice says, “See you Thursday.”

The last person emerges from behind the curtain. She’s about to disappear on the opposite side when she stops and takes a few deliberate steps backward. Resting her hands on her hips, she
scans the theater and sees me in the front row.

“Hey.” She walks over and sits with her legs dangling over the edge of the stage.

I narrow my eyes to get a better look at her in the dark. “Caroline?” I ask.

“Wow. You remembered my name,” she says as she jumps down and collapses into the seat on my right. “I’m kind of surprised by that.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I guess I assumed you were the type of person I’d have to introduce myself to more than once before it would actually stick.”

“Caroline Madsen,” I say, proving that I even remembered her last name.

She looks a little impressed. “So did you see the rest of us?” she asks, pointing at the empty stage.

“I guess. I saw a bunch of people go by. Why?”

Her mouth turns down at the corners. “No reason. Just wondering.”

But now she has me curious. And besides, this is a great distraction. “Who were they? Where were you coming from?”

“Nowhere. We were just…looking around.” I start to press her for more details, but before I can say anything, she leans over, stopping a few inches short of my face.
“Have you been crying?”

I sink down farther in my chair.

“Guy trouble?” she asks.

“No.”

“Girl trouble?” She looks at me out of the corner of her eye.

“No. Not like that. But, well…actually yeah, sort of.”

“Let me guess.” She taps her finger against her temple. “Your locker-wrapping best friends are actually manipulative bitches?”

I look up at her from under my eyelashes. “Sometimes. Is it that obvious?”

“You can take in a lot of information from a few lockers away.” She scoots back into her chair and slides down, kicking her legs out in front of her and crossing them at the ankles,
mirroring my posture exactly. “You know what you need?” I don’t answer her, and after a long pause she says, “Nicer friends.”

“Funny. My psychiatrist has been saying that for years.”

As soon as the words leave my mouth, I suck in a breath. No one outside my family knows about my psychiatrist. She’s not my biggest secret, but she’s right up there with the rest of
them. I look over at Caroline for a reaction, expecting a biting comment or a condescending stare.

“Why do you see a psychiatrist?” she asks, like it’s no big deal.

Apparently I’m not keeping secrets from her, because words start spilling out on their own. “OCD. I’m more obsessive than compulsive, so most of the ‘disorder’ part
takes place in my own head. That makes it pretty easy to hide. No one knows.”

I can’t believe I’m saying this out loud.

She’s looking at me like she’s actually interested, so I keep talking. “But I obsess about a lot of things, like guys and my friends and totally random stuff.…I sort of
latch on to a thought and I can’t let it go. Sometimes the thoughts come rapid-fire and cause an anxiety attack. Oh, and I have this weird thing with the number three. I count a lot. I sort
of have to do things in threes.”

“Why threes?”

I slowly shake my head. “I have no idea.”

“That sounds pretty horrible, Sam.”

Sam.

Caroline’s looking at me as if this whole thing is completely fascinating. She leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees, exactly the way my psychiatrist does when she wants me to
keep talking. So I do.

“I can’t turn my thoughts off, so I barely sleep. Without meds, I don’t get much more than three or four hours a night. It’s been that way since I was ten.” Now
there’s a hint of sympathy in her eyes. I don’t want her to feel sorry for me. “It’s okay. I’m on antianxiety meds. And I know how to control the panic attacks.”
At least, I think I do. It’s been a little harder since the bizarre impulse to slash the Valentine’s Day roses.

“I started seeing a psychiatrist when I was thirteen,” Caroline says matter-of-factly. After a long pause she adds, “Depression.”

“Really?” I ask, resting my elbow on the armrest between us.

“We’ve tried different antidepressants over the years, but…I don’t know…sometimes it feels like it’s getting worse, not better.”

“I was on antidepressants for a while, too.” It sounds so strange to hear myself admit all this. I’ve never talked with anyone my age about this stuff.

Caroline reclines into the chair and smiles. She looks pretty when she does. She’d be even prettier if she would just wear a little makeup.

I bet I could help her.

I no longer have plans to be at a fancy spa with my four best friends this weekend. I don’t have any plans at all. “Hey, what are you doing on Saturday night?”

She crinkles her nose. “I don’t know. Nothing. Why?”

“Want to come to my house? We can watch a movie or something.”

Maybe I could talk her into letting me give her a mini-makeover, too. A few highlights to give her hair a little dimension. Some concealer to hide the pockmarks and blemishes. Nothing dramatic,
just a touch of color on her cheeks, eyes, lips.

Caroline pulls a pen out of the front pocket of her baggy jeans.

“I’ll text it to you,” I say, reaching for my phone.

She shakes her head. “Technology is a trap,” she says, waving her pen in the air. “Go.” I give her my house number and street, and she scribbles it on her palm and
pockets the pen again. Then she bounces up from her chair so quickly, I jump in my seat. She backs toward the stage, places her hands on the surface, and with a little hop, she’s sitting on
the edge again. She leans forward and checks the room. “I want to help you, Sam.”

Wait. What? She wants to help
me
? “What do you mean?”

“Can you keep a secret?”

I’m great at secrets. My friends tell me all their dirt, knowing I’ll never breathe a word of it to anyone. They have no idea I’ve been keeping a mental disorder from
them
for the last five years.

“Of course I can,” I say.

“Good. I want to show you something. But if I do, you can’t tell anyone. And I mean
anyone
. Not even your shrink.”

“But I tell her everything.”

“Not this.”

Caroline waves me over to her. “See that spot over there?” She points at the piano in the corner of the stage. “Come back here on Thursday, right after the lunch bell rings,
and wait for me. Don’t say a word to anyone. Hide on this side of the curtain and don’t come out until I come get you.”

“Why?”

“Because.” She grabs me by the shoulders. “I’m going to show you something that will change your whole life.”

I roll my eyes. “Oh, please.”

“It might not.” Caroline moves her hands to my cheeks. “But if I’m right about you, it will.”

T
he elevator is already waiting. I press 7 and then, because I can’t help it, I press 7 two more times. As soon as I open the office
door and step inside, Colleen’s head pops up from behind the counter and her whole face brightens. “Ah, it must be Wednesday!”

At first, I found her regular greeting mortifying, but then I realized there are never any other patients here, and even if there were, there’s no reason to hide. We’re all
regulars.

“She’s running about five minutes late. Water?” she asks, and I nod.

I fish my phone out of my purse, pop in my earbuds, and put on my typical waiting room playlist,
In the Deep
, named for lyrics in a Florence + the Machine song. I think of my naming
strategy as a hobby, even though my psychiatrist doesn’t see it that way. I don’t simply listen to music, I study the lyrics, and when I’m done making a playlist, I pick three
words from one of the songs—three words that perfectly encapsulate the collection—and that becomes its title.

I let my head fall back against the wall and close my eyes, ignoring all the motivational posters hanging above me. I mentally transport myself back to the pool two weeks ago, to that moment
when Brandon kissed me but didn’t, and I feel my face relax as I relive the fantasy again. His mouth was so warm. And he smelled good, like Sprite and coconut sunscreen.

“She’s ready for you,” Colleen says.

Sue’s office hasn’t changed in five years. The same books line the same shelves, and the same certificates hang from the walls covered in the same beige paint. The same photographs
of the same children stand propped up on her desk, suspended in time like the office itself.

“Hey, Sam!” Sue crosses the room to greet me. She’s this tiny Japanese woman with thick black hair that hangs to her shoulders, and she’s always impeccably dressed. She
looks like she’d be refined and soft-spoken until she opens her mouth.

I’d only been seeing her for a few months when I came up with the nickname “Shrink-Sue.” I never actually thought I’d call her that to her face, but one day, it slipped
out. She asked me how I came up with it, and I told her it sounded like something badass you’d call out while throwing a judo chop.

Until that point, I hadn’t really stopped to question whether or not psychiatrists appreciated being called shrinks. I was only eleven years old. And I didn’t want to offend her, but
once I’d said it, I couldn’t take it back.

But Sue said she liked the name. And she told me I could call her anything. I could even call her a bitch, to her face or behind her back, because there would certainly be times I’d want
to. I liked her even more after that.

She sits in the chair across from me and hands me my “thinking putty.” It’s supposed to take my mind off the words I’m saying and give me something to do with my hands so
I don’t spend the entire fifty-minute session scratching the back of my neck in threes.

“So,” she begins, opening the brown leather folio across her lap like she always does. “Where do you want to start today?”

Not with the Eights. Not with the spa.

“I don’t know.” I wish I could tell her about my secret meeting with Caroline tomorrow, because that’s pretty much all I’ve thought about over the last two days,
but I can’t break my promise. Then I think about the rest of the conversation, the two of us bonding over medication and therapy sessions.

“Actually, I sort of…made a new friend this week.” The words sound so dorky coming out of my mouth, but apparently Shrink-Sue doesn’t hear them that way, because her
eyes light up like this is the best news she’s heard in ages.

“Really? What’s she like?” she asks, and I feel myself mimicking her smile. I can’t help it. I think about the way Caroline put her hands on my face like an old friend.
That look in her eyes when she said she wanted to help me. The whole thing caught me completely off guard.

“Well, she’s
not
like any of the Crazy Eights,” I say, picturing her long stringy hair and lack of makeup and those chunky hiking boots. “She’s kind of
awkward, but she’s nice. I barely know her, but I already think she sort of…
gets
me.”

Sue opens her mouth, but I hold my finger up in the air between us before she can speak. “Please. Don’t say it.”

Her mouth snaps shut.

“This doesn’t mean I’m leaving the Eights. You always make it sound easy, Sue, but I can’t just ‘find new friends.’” I put air quotes on the last words.
“They
are
my friends. These are the people that every girl in my class
aspires
to be friends with. Besides, it would kill them if I left. Especially Hailey.”