Fifteen 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.
I was expecting him to be surprised, but not quite so pissed. My hands start shaking and my legs feel like they’re going to give out, but I force myself to stand tall and look right into his eyes like Caroline told me to.
“I have something I’d really like to read to you. To all of you.” I pull the poem from the pocket of my jeans and open it wide so he can see the proof.
He walks toward me, laughing. “It doesn’t work that way, Samantha.”
“How does it work?”
He brings his hands to his hips. “It works like this: Members read. Members listen. Non-members do not read or listen, because they aren’t allowed inside. Look, I made an exception, but I told you, one time.”
“Can’t I just—”
He cuts me off. “You need to go.”
“Why?”
“Because,” he says, “you don’t belong here.”
My heart sinks. I fold my poem along the creases and stuff it back into my pocket. “Why not?”
His gaze travels around the room, like he’s searching for words, but he won’t find any on these walls. There’s nothing but cleaning supplies in here.
Finally he locks his eyes on mine, and he doesn’t say a thing, but I understand completely. He told me the first time I was down here. We’re not friends.
I reach into my pocket, removing the folded piece of paper again. I press it into his palm and close his fingers around it. “I didn’t remember at first. It was years ago.…I don’t know, maybe I blocked it out or something. But anyway, I know what I did now, and I am so sorry. I’ll never be able to tell you how much I regret it. But I’m truly, genuinely sorry. And mortified.” Some weird sound escapes, and I cover my mouth. “But I deserve to be, right?”
I turn to leave, hoping he’ll stop me. He doesn’t.
As I’m about to step into the hallway, I glance over my shoulder. AJ is already back inside Poet’s Corner. When I hear the bolt click into place, I return to the door and rest my ear against it.
I can hear their voices on the other side. I feel tears pricking my eyes when I think about Sydney standing on stage, making everyone laugh, and AJ singing, giving everyone chills. I’m curious about Caroline. She said it would be easy to get me inside, as long as we found the right words. She was wrong. Maybe she’s up there right now, pleading my case since I can’t do it myself. I picture that room. Its tactile walls. All those colorful slips of paper and incredible words I’ll never see again.
I climb the stairs, cross the stage, and step out into the sunshine, taking deep deliberate breaths like Shrink-Sue taught me to. By the time I arrive at our tree, I’m under control again.
“Where’s your library book?” Hailey asks as I sit down, rejoining the circle.
“It was already checked out,” I tell her.
I pluck at the blades of grass—one, two, three—and look around at Alexis, Kaitlyn, Olivia, and Hailey, thinking about Sue’s advice to make new friends, and realizing that after all those years of saying I couldn’t do it, I just tried to. And failed.
