The asphalt is getting hotter as the early October afternoon wears on, and I’ve had nothing to do out here in the parking lot but curse the California sun and count the bells.
One: lunch ended. Two: fifth period began. Three: fifth ended. Four: sixth began. That’s my cue. I brush the parking lot dust off my butt and head back toward campus, praying I don’t see anybody.
I head through the gate and across the grass until I can pick up the cement path that leads to my locker. Maybe Caroline fed a note through one of the vents, telling me where to find my backpack. As soon as I have it, I’ll go straight to the office, say I’m sick, and ask if I can call my mom so I can drive home.
The corridors are empty and I reach my locker without running into anyone. I dial the combination and lift the latch. No note.
To center myself, I look at the inside of my locker door, staring at the three pictures Shrink-Sue told me to tape there, and trying to reconnect with the stronger person I see in the images. I run my finger across the photo of me on the diving block, wearing that willful, determined expression. Confidence. That was the word I said that day.
She wouldn’t have run away.
I immediately realize my mistake, and it hits me with absolute certainty: I have to go back. Even if it was all a joke, even if they meant to embarrass me, I have to go back down there and prove I can do it, if not to them, at least to myself. If I can stand on diving blocks and win a medal, I can stand on a stage and read a poem.
I belong in that room.
“Hey.” I hear a voice behind me and I turn around. AJ is sitting at one of the round metal tables on the grass between the walking paths. There are two backpacks at his feet. As he stands, he reaches for mine. He crosses the lawn and hands it to me. “Here, Sam.”
Sam.
“You should have left it in the office or something,” I say, taking it from him. “You’re going to get in trouble for missing class.”
“And you’re not?” he asks, raking his fingers through his hair.
“I thought I’d go home for the day.” The brief moment of confidence is gone now that he’s standing here. I think about that stage and that stool, how AJ worked the lock to let me out of that room, and my face heats.
He’s watching me, not saying a word. My gaze settles on a crack in the cement while I muster up the courage to tell him the truth.
“I panicked,” I say. “I thought you guys would laugh at my poem.”
“We wouldn’t have.”
“And then I thought maybe it was all a joke. That you were trying to get me back for what I did to you when we were kids.” I force myself to meet his eyes.
“I’d never do that.”
I hear Shrink-Sue’s voice in my head, talking about mistakes. Reminding me that they serve a purpose.
“I blew it, didn’t I?”
“No. We did.” His expression is different now. It’s softer, almost apologetic. “Look, Sam, we went about that wrong. There’s this whole initiation process we sort of…skipped over.”
I can’t tell if he’s joking. I hear the words “initiation process” and immediately think of blindfolds and candles and the possibility of water torture.
“Great.” I cover my head with both hands and find that crack in the cement again.
“Don’t worry,” he says. I can hear the laugh in his voice, and something about it makes me feel more at ease. If he’s laughing, maybe he’s smiling too. I’ve seen him smile, that one time he was performing on stage, but I’ve never seen him smile at me. I look up. Sure enough, he is.
“Instead of skipping sixth and going home, can I convince you to skip sixth and come with me?”
“Where?”
“Downstairs.”
“Why? Is everyone else there?”
“No. That’s kind of the point. You’re supposed to get the room all to yourself. I’ll show you what I mean.” He gestures toward the theater with his chin and takes two steps backward, moving toward the path.
After that first time, all I wanted to do was hang out in Poet’s Corner for the rest of the afternoon, reading the walls. I wanted to be alone. I wanted to read every single poem without interruption.
I want to follow him.
I take a tentative step in AJ’s direction.
I want to trust him.
He turns around and starts walking, stopping briefly at the table to grab his backpack, and we continue across the grass, straight to the theater. I follow him up to the stage, down the stairs, past the mops and brooms, and into Poet’s Corner. He keeps the door open to let light in, and points at the closest lamp. “Hit the light?” he asks.
He bolts the door behind us, and together, the two of us round the room, turning on lamps as we go. He’s faster than I am, but we still meet each other near the front.
“Sit down.” He sits on the edge of the short, makeshift stage and I settle in next to him, trying to forget how I made a complete ass of myself in this very spot less than three hours ago.
“So here’s how this works.” He clears his throat. “The current members have discussed it, and we would like to consider you, Samantha—Sam—McAllister, for membership in Poet’s Corner.”
“Why?”
His brow furrows. “Why what?”
“Why do you want me to join? You guys don’t even know me.”
“Well, it’s not that simple. You’ll need to read first. Then we vote.”
“So if my poem sucks, I don’t get to stay?”
“No. We all write stuff that sucks. We’re not judging your poetry.”
“What are you judging?”
“I don’t know. Your…sincerity, I guess.”
He slaps his palms on his legs, stands quickly, and then holds his hand out to help me up. I take it. I think he’s going to let it drop, but he doesn’t. He pulls me over to the center of the stage, right next to the stool.
“You should see things from this vantage point first, so you can get used to being up here.” He grabs my arms and pivots me around so I’m facing the rows of empty chairs and couches.
“How often?”
“No rules around that.” I hear his voice from behind my right shoulder. “You can come up here as often or as little as you like. You have to read once, to put yourself on even ground with the rest of us, but after that, it’s up to you.”
The idea of reading makes me feel sick again, so I reach for a new topic. “Where did all this furniture come from?” I can’t imagine how they got all this stuff in here. It looks impossible, especially when you consider that steep, narrow staircase.
When I turn around again, AJ is perched on the stool with one leg resting on the rung and the other on the floor. His arms are crossed over his chest. From this vantage point, they look kind of muscular. Up until this moment, I thought he was tall and kind of lanky, in a cute way. He’s not lanky.
“Prop room,” he says.
“What do you mean?”
“When you come down the stairs, you turn to the right to get in here. But if you take a left instead, you wind up in the prop room.”
I raise an eyebrow. “The prop room?”
“It’s the room directly beneath the stage,” he explains. “There’s this huge freight elevator they use to bring the furniture up and down for performances. Once the play is done and they no longer need the stage set, those items live in the prop room until they need them again. Or, until they’re relocated.”
“Relocated?”
He uncrosses his arms and points to the orange couch he sat in the first time I was here. “That’s our newest acquisition. Cameron and I had to take the legs off to get it around that tight corner at the bottom of the stairs. It was wedged in the doorframe for a good ten minutes before we were finally able to jiggle it through.” He stands up quickly, takes a bow, and sits down again. “But we pulled it off.”
I grin at him. “You got that couch through that door?”
“Barely.”
As I scan the room, it dawns on me why everything is mismatched and looks like it came from completely different time periods. An antique bookcase with a modern lamp. A retro ’70s chair with a sleek metal end table. “Everything in here came from the prop room?”
“Yep.”
“Don’t they miss this stuff?”
“Eh. Pieces have been disappearing little by little over the last decade, ever since Poet’s Corner began. I’m sure they miss things occasionally, especially the big stuff.”
“Like, for instance, a bright orange couch.”
“Exactly.”
“And even if they did miss it,” I say, suppressing a smile, “they’d have no idea where to look.”
“Secret room.” His mouth curves up on one side. “I should probably feel a little bit guilty, shouldn’t I?”
“Maybe a little bit,” I say, holding up my hand, thumb and finger nearly touching.
“It’s not like they were stolen.”
“Of course not. They were simply relocated.”
“That couch is really comfortable.” He steps past me and jumps down onto the ground with a thud. He falls back into the orange sofa, running his hands back and forth across the cushions. “And inspirational. You know, if you’re looking for something to write about, this couch would make a great topic.”
I laugh. “Why would I want to write about a piece of furniture?” I have a mental illness and four superficial friends. Surely I have more fodder for a poetic career than to need an ugly orange couch.
When he grins, that dimple on the left side of his mouth catches my eye. “I have no idea.” Then he lets his head fall backward and he stares up at the ceiling. “This is good. Keep ’em coming.” He motions toward himself with one hand. “What other questions do you have for me, Sam?”
Sam. Again. That makes two.
I walk around the stage, getting a feel for it under my feet. I run my fingertips across the stool, remembering how terrified I was up here. It feels like it’s daring me to sit on it again, so I hop up and take a look around. The room looks different now that it’s emptier. Safer. At least now I feel like a poet wannabe and not a stripper.
AJ’s still reclining into the couch, watching me.
“Tell me more about the rules. You can’t criticize anyone’s poetry, especially your own, right?”
“True,” he says. “And the last time I broke that one, you saw the ramifications firsthand.”
I remember how AJ stood up here with his guitar dangling from the strap, inviting his friends to throw paper at him. “Yes, I did.” Thinking back on that day reminds me of something else I’ve been wondering about.
“Why do you always start by saying where you wrote your poem? Why does that matter?”
“Is there a place you like to go when you write? Is there one particular place that inspires you?”
I picture my room, huddled down in my sheets far past my bedtime, writing until my hand hurts. It’s fine, but I wouldn’t call it inspirational. Then I think about the pool.
“Yeah.”
AJ looks right at me. “We think those places matter. We think they’re worth sharing, you know? Because when you share them, they become part of the poem.”
Goose bumps travel up my arms. “Hmm. I like that.”
“Yeah, me too. Which reminds me of another.” He hops back onto the stage and stands right in front of me. “The first poem you read in Poet’s Corner has to be written here.”
“What?”
“Yep.”
Crap. Back in history class, Sydney wasn’t telling me I had to get up on stage. How could I have been so stupid? “Why did you guys let me start reading today?”
He laughs. “You were going for it. I don’t think any of us knew how to stop you.”
I hide my face. “Until I stopped myself.”
“And I think I speak for all of us when I say we were sorry you did.”
“Really?”
They wanted me here.
“Of course. You would’ve been pummeled with paper when you finished, and I, for one, was especially looking forward to that part.”
I roll my eyes at him. “Now, that would have been an interesting initiation.”
“Maybe,” he says, “but this one’s better.” He pulls his phone from his pocket. “We meet on Mondays and Thursdays at lunch. Sometimes we call additional meetings for no apparent reason. Is that going to be a problem?”
“No.” Actually, maybe.
“If we invite you to join us, I’ll need your number.” He lifts his phone in the air. I’m not an official member, but he seems to be asking, so I tell him. He types it in, then slips his phone back into his pocket. “Any more questions?” he asks me.
I step off the stage and start walking the perimeter, past hundreds of slips of paper filled with thousands and thousands of words. All these people. Each one so exposed in the most frightening way. I have no idea how I’ll ever do anything close to this.
“I think all of you have a gift I don’t possess,” I say without looking at him.
“What’s that?”
I take a few steps forward, watching the walls and the words as I go. “You seem to know how to articulate your feelings and share them with other human beings. I’m afraid my gift is the exact opposite; I’m skilled at holding everything in.” My chin starts trembling like it does when I tell Sue something I never intended to admit, but my chest feels a bit lighter now. I doubt this is what AJ meant when he asked if I had any questions, but I have to hear his answer to this one. “How do I learn to do this?”
He gets up from the couch. “I guess you start in a safe place, with safe people, like in this room, with us.” He’s speaking as he walks toward me. “We trust each other and we don’t judge. You’re totally free to blurt here.”
I laugh too loudly. “Me? Yeah, I don’t blurt. Ever. My friend Kaitlyn prides herself on having lots of opinions and always saying exactly what she thinks. She blurts. Sometimes it hurts the people around her.”
“That’s different,” he says.
I feel myself staring at him. “Do you always say exactly what you’re thinking?”
He shrugs. “I try to. I like to know where I stand with people, and I figure I owe them the same courtesy. I mean, I’m never rude or hurtful about it, but I don’t see any reason to be fake. That’s a lot of work.”
It is. I would know.
AJ lifts the cord from around his neck and drops it over my head. His fingers graze my shoulders and the key makes a little sound as it bounces against a button on my blouse.
“Is this allowed?” I lift it in my hands, running my finger over the sharp points and grooves.
“Of course. The key belongs to the group. I’m just the one in charge of the door.”
I’m feeling a little nervous about being down here alone. What if the power goes out? What if the ventilation fails? Could anyone get to me? “Does anyone else have a key?”
“Mr. Bartlett. He comes in a few times a month to empty the trash, vacuum the joint, that type of thing.”
“The janitor? He knows about this place?”
“He’s worked here for twenty years. Mr. B knows everyone and everything. But he keeps our secret to himself.”
I run my finger along the key again. I don’t really want AJ to go, but at the same time, I’m eager to be alone with all these poems. I’m dying to finally find his lyrics.
“I’m going to leave, okay?” he says. I expect him to step away, but he surprises me by stepping toward me. I’m reminded of how tall he is, and I have to tip my chin up to see his eyes. I’ve thought about him so much over the last month, but now I finally have a chance to really study him.
He’s not gorgeous or anything, not like Brandon and the rest of my recent crushes. But none of them ever made me feel the way I do right now.
Everything about AJ is pulling me in. The way he’s standing, so confident and in control. The way he’s been so relaxed in this room with me today, making me feel like I do belong here. The way I remember him playing that one song, how it practically floated out of his body.
“Stay down here as long as you like. Read the walls; they’re covered with a decade’s worth of words written by more than a hundred people. Meet everyone. Then write something of your own.”
“Okay,” I whisper. His expression is soft and kind, and his eyes shine when he talks about the room and me becoming part of it.
“Lock the door and turn off all the lamps when you’re done. I’ll be waiting for you at that table by your locker.”
“Okay,” I say again.
He starts to step away from me, but he stops. “Oh, and if you want to, practice reading aloud. The stage doesn’t feel quite as scary when the room is empty.”
He squeezes past me and I press my back against the wall to give him room.
“AJ?” He turns around. I don’t want to say it, but I feel like I need to, because I don’t want to be uncomfortable down here and I certainly don’t want him to be. And if they’re all gearing up to judge my sincerity, he should understand how much it means for him to forgive me.
“You don’t have to do this. If you don’t want us to be friends, I get it. It was a long time ago, but the things I said and did when we were kids…” I trail off, thinking about the day Kaitlyn and I crank-called his house over and over again, until his mom finally picked up and screamed in our ears, begging us to stop. Or that time we sat behind him on the bus and cleaned out our backpacks, dropping all our gum wrappers, paper scraps, and pieces of lint down the back of his shirt. I shake my head and bite my lower lip hard. “You’ll never know how sorry I am.”
He doesn’t speak right away. “Why are you telling me this?” he finally asks.
“I guess…I sort of…” I stammer, searching for the perfect words. “I wanted to be sure you knew. Just in case you thought I didn’t mean it the first time.”
He gives me another smile. That makes three today. This one looks even more genuine than the others. “If I didn’t think you meant it the first time, you wouldn’t be down here.”
I have no idea what to say to that, so I just stand with my thumbs hooked in my front pockets and rock back on my heels.
“But since we’re blurting here,” he says, “I’ll be honest. It wasn’t easy for me to let you come down here today. I’ve accepted your apology, because I think it’s genuine and I’m not one to hold a grudge, but let’s not push the ‘friends’ thing, okay?”
As he walks to the door, he raises his finger in the air and circles it above his head. “Read the walls, Sam.”
