Emily pats the spot next to her and I sit down. I steal a quick glimpse over my shoulder at the couch Caroline and I sat on during the P.M. last Thursday night, but I don’t expect her to be there. Cameron’s got the whole thing to himself today.
“We missed you on Monday,” she says. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah.” I see AJ taking his usual seat on the orange couch. He catches me looking at him. “It wasn’t, but it is now.” I reach down for my yellow notebook and set it on the cushion next to me. Emily’s holding a napkin in her hand, presumably for today’s reading.
“How’s your mom?” I ask.
She doesn’t look at me. “She came home last weekend.”
“That’s great,” I say enthusiastically. But Emily shakes her head as she twists the napkin around one finger.
“Hospice,” she says, and I feel a pit form deep in my stomach.
“Oh, Emily. I’m so sorry.”
“My dad made it sound like a big event, as if her coming home was a good thing, but, come on…Like I don’t know what fucking hospice is?” She tucks one leg under the other and turns toward me. “The entire living room has been transformed and now it looks nothing like the one she decorated, and there are machines everywhere, and that horrible bed is smack in the middle of the window, like she’s on display for the whole neighborhood or something. But ‘it’s a good thing,’ right?” she says sarcastically. “Because now she can see our front yard during the day.”
Emily rests her elbow on the back of the couch, props her head in her hand, and keeps talking. “I pretended to be happy because I knew it meant a lot to my dad, but now coming home from school every day is absolute torture.” As soon as she says it, her eyes grow wide and her whole face turns bright red. She covers her mouth. “That sounded so horrible. I shouldn’t have said that.”
I picture that cute house she lives in with the cheery paint and the rope swing, knowing that’s what her mom is staring at all day, and I can’t imagine how excruciating it must be for Emily to walk through that blue door and see her mom lying there, slowly dying.
Emily turns away from me, shaking her head in disgust. “Jesus. What kind of person says that about her own mother?”
I’ve said those same what-kind-of-person words myself. They’re especially damaging, the kind of thing that can make a thought-spiral tornado unexpectedly change course, shifting into an entirely new and even more destructive direction. My mom and Sue always have words that help, so I say them to Emily.
“A good person,” I tell her. She catches my eye and gives me a trace of a smile. “Someone who loves her mom and doesn’t want to see her in so much pain.”
She blows out a big breath like she’s air-drying her face. “Thank you,” she whispers toward the ceiling.
The idea comes out of nowhere, and before I give it a second thought, I start blurting. “Come over to my house after school today. We can talk. Or write. Or listen to music, and not talk, and not write, and not think about anything bad at all.”
“I don’t know,” she says, looking down at the floor, picking at her fingernails. “My dad likes me to come straight home after school.”
I point at the phone next to her hip, screen facing up like it always is. “He’ll call if he needs you. I can have you there in ten minutes.” Emily looks like she’s considering it. “You can even stay for dinner if you want to. My mom’s a horrible cook, so you’ll have to pretend to like the food, but my dad is, like, the king of small talk, and my little sister can be kind of funny.”
I force myself to shut up because I can’t tell if all this family talk is making Emily feel better or worse. But then she looks over at me and says, “That sounds nice and…” She pauses for a moment, as if she’s searching for the right word. “Normal.”
Normal.
She’s right. It does sound normal. My life might not be perfect and my brain might play tricks on me and I might be overwhelmed by my own thoughts, but now that I think about it, I’m lucky to have as much normal as I do.
I look at Emily, wondering if I could do for her what Caroline did for me. Wondering if I could pay it forward.
I’ll gauge it, but if she comes over today and it seems like she wants to talk, I’ll ask her questions and listen—really listen, like Caroline listened to me—and keep her talking until she has nothing left to say. If she wants to, I’ll help her write a happy poem about her mom. Something positive. Something she can read to her. And if the moment feels right and she wants a change of subject, I’ll tell her my secrets. I’ll let her in on my OCD and Shrink-Sue and Caroline and the number three, and I’ll talk until she knows everything.
Does she see it in my eyes right now, how much I want to be her friend? Because something shifts in her expression and her whole face lights up, more than I’ve ever seen it do before. “Actually, I’d love that,” she says.
“Okay, who’s up first?” AJ asks from his spot in the front of the room.
I look around. Sydney’s got a wrapper in her hands, but aside from doing a little dance in her seat, she doesn’t move. Emily is still holding her napkin, but she doesn’t look ready to go yet. Jessica and Cameron are holding papers in their hands too, but they don’t stand up and head for the stage either.
“I’ll go,” I say, and before I can think too much about it, I’m standing up, walking to the stage, sitting on the stool. I open my notebook to the right page. “I wrote this on Tuesday in—”
As soon as I speak, my mouth goes dry. I take a deep breath, close my notebook on my lap, and look out into the group, letting my gaze settle on each one of them. I remember the first time I sat up here, staring at these total strangers, feeling terrified about how much of myself I was about to expose.
Things are different now.
“I went through something last weekend,” I say. “And it made me realize it was no mistake that I wandered down here one day and found all of you. So before I read this poem, I just want to say thank you for letting me stay, even though I probably didn’t deserve it and some of you didn’t think I belonged.”
My notebook is still closed on my lap. I don’t open it. I don’t need to. I know these words by heart.
“I wrote this in Poet’s Corner.”
I bring my left hand to my shoulder, exactly where Caroline’s was the first time I sat on this stool and read aloud. My eyes fall shut.
You’re still here
stitched into me, like threads in a sweater.
Feeding me words
that break me down and piece me back together, all at once.
Tightening your grip,
reminding me that I’m not alone.
I never was.
None of us ever are.
You are still here
stitched into the words on these walls.
Every last one.
The room is completely silent. Then everyone starts clapping and whistling, and I open my eyes to find AJ standing up, glue stick ready to launch. I give him one of his trademark chin tilts and he sends it flying. I catch it in midair.
It feels good to rip this poem out of the notebook, and even better to cover the paper with glue. I march to the back of the room, and I find a sliver of empty space on the wall near the hidden door. “Thank you, Caroline,” I whisper as I bring the page to my lips. Then I press it against the wall, running my hand over the words, securing them in place.
Back on stage, Sydney clears her throat dramatically. “Most of you have already heard this tasty treat, but since some of you missed it because you were dealing with ‘car trouble,’” she says with air quotes, locking eyes with AJ, then with me. “I thought I’d read it again.”
I sit next to AJ this time, and he wraps his arms around my waist. I recline against his chest and he rests his chin on my shoulder.
Sydney unfolds a paper In-N-Out hat and positions it on her head. Then she launches into a dramatic reading about the secret menu. She praises the Flying Dutchman and the 2×4, makes us hungry with her descriptions of special sauces and spices and grilled onions, and leaves us mystified about the people who order “cold cheese.” When she finishes her poem, she passes out paper In-N-Out hats to all of us.
We’re all still wearing them as we file out the door. Everyone heads into the hallway, but AJ hangs back.
“What’s the matter?” I ask him.
“Your call, but I’m wondering if that poem of yours is in the right home.” He hands me a glue stick.
He has a point.
I step back inside, remove the page from the wall, and apply a fresh coat of glue to the back. Then I walk over to Caroline’s Corner and find a new spot, right next to her collection.
“Much better,” he says as he anchors my hat on my head.
AJ grabs my hand and leads me up the stairs, back into the real world.
