Every Last Word (9 page)

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.

F
ifteen minutes into lunch, I start stuffing empty wrappers back into my lunch bag, collecting my trash, and brushing the grass off my
pants. “I have to go to the library and get this book for English,” I announce. “Anyone want to come?” I already know they’ll pass.

“I’m not allowed in there,” Olivia says proudly.

Kaitlyn laughs. “How the hell do you get banned from the school library?”

Olivia rolls her eyes. “Mrs. Rasmussen caught Travis and me making out in the biography section. It’s around that corner, you know?” she says, drawing an imaginary curve in the
air with her hand. “It’s completely out of view. What else are you supposed to do over there?” She giggles.

“Look for biographies,” Hailey suggests.

“Nah. Boring.” Olivia sits up a little straighter, eyes darting around the circle, enjoying the attention. “Trust me, it was worth getting kicked out. Travis may not be the
sharpest tool in the shed, but that boy can
kiss
.”

We all laugh.

“I wonder what he’s doing this weekend?” Olivia adds as she reaches for her phone.

“I thought you broke up because you two didn’t have anything to talk about,” Alexis says.

“We don’t.” She crinkles her nose. “I’m not planning to talk to him,” she says, cocking her head to the side and continuing to search for his number.

Kaitlyn pulls a piece of bread from her sandwich and chucks it at Olivia’s head.

I mutter a quick “See ya,” and head off for the path that leads to the theater. I know exactly where to go—I’ve pictured those stairs and that narrow hallway in my mind a
hundred times now—and soon I’m inside the janitor’s closet, pulling the mops and brooms to the side to reveal the concealed seam and the black bolt. Their voices are muffled, like
they’re far away, and I knock lightly, three times. The sound stops immediately.

I hear the key slip into the lock and the dead bolt click. AJ cracks the door open, just wide enough to see me. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

Ignoring his comment, I come up on my tiptoes, looking over his shoulder, searching for Caroline. She’s part of today’s plan. I come downstairs and she tries to convince him to let
me in so I can read the poem we wrote.

“I’m looking for—” I start to say her name, but AJ opens the door and steps forward, and I have no choice but to step back inside the janitor’s closet. That stupid
Chia Pet jingle pops into my head.

What the hell’s wrong with me?

He closes the door and uses that key around his neck to lock it behind him. “What, are you on some kind of twisted quest or something? Did your friends put you up to this?” He walks
over to the door that connects the janitor’s closet to the hallway and peers out, looking for my accomplices.