The Words We Keep

After school on Monday, the art room is hopping. And loud.

Way too many decibels for my pounding head. Alice snuck out around two a.m., meaning I was up on Alice-watch until she crept back in at five this morning. And while I waited, I picked my stomach raw.

The hallway’s more or less empty, but I worry Damon will walk by any second armed with more psycho jokes, or that Sam will see me and offer more stress-busting sex tips. Just standing here, watching from the door, I have to shove my hands into the pockets of my jeans so my fingers don’t scrape at the scabs on my waist. Little imperfections screaming to be picked.

A speaker on a bar stool fills the room with a heavy bass beat. Using his paintbrush like a slingshot, Mr. Friedman flicks hot-pink paint onto a massive canvas hanging from the ceiling. In the back corner, Micah sits on a long, black-topped table, laughing with a group of fellow artists.

You do not belong here.

I’m sure everyone else is thinking the same thing about me. A girl wearing cutoff shorts over ripped tights whispers something to the guy with the dreadlocks next to her. The girl is pretty, like model pretty. Micah probably likes her. Which is fine, because who cares who Micah is into? Not me, that’s who.

Friedman spots me standing awkwardly by the door.

“Come in, come in! All artists welcome.” He waves me in. When I say, “Oh, no, I’m just watching,” he practically pushes me into the room. “You don’t watch art,” he says. “You do art. Now come. Do.”

Micah nods at me and hops off the table, sticking a paintbrush behind his ear. He plunks a roll of tape and scissors down in front of me, along with a huge stack of magazines.

“So I was thinking about that blackout poem, and I thought you could find more words in these.” He pats the stack.

Around us, other students are deep in their work, painting, drawing, sculpting a butt out of clay with a putty knife. This place is weird.

You shouldn’t be here

wasting time you don’t have.

“I don’t think arts and crafts is the answer here,” I say, my skin itching. “It’s been two weeks, and my muse is nowhere to be found. What exactly are we doing? What’s the plan?”

“You know my philosophy on plans.”

“I mean it, Micah. We should have thought of a project by now. I don’t think this whole muse thing is working.”

You knew Micah wasn’t taking it seriously.

He shakes his paintbrush at me. “No quitting until it’s done, remember?”

Friedman flips off the music. A few students moan in protest.

“Sorry, ladies and gentleartists. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here. Let the muse rest.”

Micah and I walk into the hall, and he hands me the magazine stack.

“Give it a little more time,” he says, and our fingers touch again like they did in his kitchen, and I leave them longer than I should because Micah’s giving me that smile of which I’m becoming problematically fond, the one that makes me forget my best-laid plans. And as hard as I’m telling my skin not to buzz where he touches me, I can’t stop it. And maybe I don’t want to.

But just as I’m thinking that, Damon turns the corner, and he stops, a sinister smile on his face. I jump away from Micah, pulling my hand from his like he’s a leper.

“Told you. Freaks flock together,” Damon says. He leans in closer as he passes me. “Don’t worry, Lil. I won’t tell.”

“Nothing to tell,” I spit back, looking at the ground instead of Micah.

When Damon’s gone and I finally look up, Micah says nothing, just stares at me, his face soured. He starts to say something, but then just shakes his head, shoves the stack of magazines at me, and walks back into the art room, leaving me in the hallway, wishing the floor would swallow me whole.

—

Sam is already stretching on the track by the time I get there. When I start lunging next to her, she turns and offers me her hand.

“Oh, hello,” she says. “Have we met?”

After the awkward moment with Micah just now, I’m not in the mood for whatever this is, but I take her hand and play along.

“Yes. My name is Lily. You may know me from such roles as your best friend.”

She shakes her head. “No, that can’t be right. From what I understand, best friends spend time together. Or at least return each other’s texts.”

I give her shoulder a shove.

“You know I’ve been busy.”

She plucks my phone from my track bag and turns it toward me, showing a series of texts from her over the last few days. Nothing monumental, mostly just checking in, lamenting about this project, memes making fun of Coach Johnson’s red face. I didn’t realize I hadn’t replied to any of them.

“For real, Lil, what’s going on?”

I don’t have a project

and I was just a total jerk to Micah

and Alice isn’t Alice anymore

and maybe I’m not me

because there are holes in my skin

and holes in my brain

that I can’t fix.

“It’s just, this poetry contest has me running in circles,” I say.

Kali chimes in from where she’s stretching and not-so-covertly eavesdropping on the grass with the tennis team.

“Tell me about it. And so much is riding on it.” She stands up and pulls her leg behind her in a quad stretch. “Lucky for me, my partner is basically a genius. Speaking of partners, how’s it going with your handful, Lil?”

A lump lodges in my throat when I think about the way I just jumped away from Micah in the hall. Luckily, Sam responds for me.

“Kali, you have as much chance of beating Lily as you do of removing that pole up your ass without surgical intervention.”

I can tell by the fire in Sam’s voice that we’re going to be okay, even if I have been a craptacular best friend lately.

A craptacular everything.

Kali scoffs and sprints off, purposefully swinging her ponytail extra hard in our direction. Sam links her arm through mine.

“I just miss you, that’s all.”

“I know. As soon as I figure out this project, I’m all yours. Burgers and shakes on me and we’ll catch up.”

“How dare you ply me with strawberry shakes! My one weakness!” Sam shakes her first toward the sky. “And you’re still coming to my concert, right?”

Sam takes my phone again and creates a new event in my calendar in about three weeks: 7 p.m.—SAM SLAYS HER SOLO!

“Now you have no excuse, even if you are too busy to reply to me.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I say, and the guilt eases slightly in my chest.

See how easy it is?

To be normal?

To be nice?

Keep it up.

“Now, since the she-witch brought it up, how is your mysterious partner?” Sam says, her usual mischievous smile resurfacing. “Any news on the brooding-artist front?”

I roll my eyes. “Did you not just hear Kali? She’s basically waiting for me to fail. And between this poetry thing and the state finals and Alice walking around our house like a disgruntled zombie, I have absolutely zero space in my life for anything else.” Tears fill my eyes, and I don’t even really know why, except all I can see is Micah’s face in the hallway when I yanked my hand away, terrified someone might know that the Boy on the Verge is more than just my partner. He’s someone I can talk to, someone who gets it—gets me. “And the worst part is, she’s totally right. Micah and I don’t have anything that even resembles a project yet, which means no summer program, which means maybe no Berkeley ever, and—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Calm down.” Sam holds my shoulders. “You’re really spiraling, huh?”

I nod.

“First of all, Kali is like the most basic bee-yatch at this school. And second, you’re going to win. It’s what you do. It’s who you are.”

Sam hugs me before joining her relay team, and I jump up and down on the rubbery track, swinging my arms across my chest. I try to shake Micah and the summer program and Alice out of my head. Coach says races come down to focus. One-millionth of a second of distraction, and you’ve already lost.

But while I wait for my heat, my fingers find a small, fresh scab on my stomach. It’s a tiny one, but right now it’s can’t-think-about-anything-else huge.

It shouldn’t be there.

Get rid of it.

And just like that, I’m gone. Trapped behind the glass, watching me dig into my skin.

I dig, and dig.

Until I pick off the bump.

All the way to the root.

And I can breathe again.

“Lily!” Coach yells. “Care to join us?”

I slam back into my body in time to hear Coach ask me where my head’s at today, and I tell him it’s here, and I’m ready.

Oh, and there was this weird bump on my stomach, and you know how sometimes you get a bump and it’s ALL you can think about until you scrape it out and the world makes sense again? No? Just me? Cool.

I take my spot on the starting blocks, head down, butt up, feet pushing back. The track, warmed by the spring sun, radiates heat up at me. I close my eyes and picture myself kicking off, rounding each turn, sprinting across the finish line. When the buzzer sounds, I rocket forward, muscles flexing, eyes ahead, body moving down the track.

Coach clicks his stopwatch and tells me I’ve added .3 seconds to my time.

“Do you want state or not?”

“I’m having an off day.”

An off year.

An off life.

But he doesn’t want to hear that.

So I tell him I’ll fix it.

I’ll be better.

I’ll win.

Because if I don’t—who am I?

—

My brain and heart are still sprinting even though my race is done.

The familiar tingling starts down my arms. If only I were alone, I could pick more of the scabs on my stomach. I could stop the tsunami rolling through me.

It’s happening again.

I can’t breathe.

I grab my bags and sprint off the track, into the school, where I end up on the floor of a bathroom stall. Again.

Is this my life now? A revolving panic attack carousel? My fingers have crept under my shirt, searching for skin.

“No!” I yell, pushing my hand away.

I need a distraction.

Something, anything.

I read the words on the stall walls. Permanent-marker declarations that apparently Mr. Bronson has done unspeakable things to Señora Garcia. And Tom Day loves Sharon Goodman. FOREVER. And this gem: There are three things I hate. 1. Vandalism. 2. Irony. 3. Lists.

But there are also smaller ones, written in pencil, so faint that I have to lean in close to read them.

I’m pregnant

I have no friends

my dad has cancer

And in thin, almost imperceptible strokes in the grout above the trash can:

when will I be fine?

I picture the people who wrote these confessions. Were they like me? Alone? Panicking? Etching out their truth anonymously on a bathroom stall.

Hidden people.

Hidden words.

The thought burns a sadness inside me, just behind my rib cage, where I keep all the words I don’t say, either.

Get it out or it festers. That’s what Micah says.

Get the words out.

And before I even know what I’m looking for, I’m pulling out his magazines from my backpack and flipping through them, frantically. Anything to keep my mind, my fingers, off my skin. I cut out headlines and sentences and words from articles telling me how to look great in skinny jeans and climax your way to better skin!

I cut and cut and cut and then lay out all the words in rows on the tiled floor.

One by one, I tape them onto the back of the stall door.

be brave

be smart

beUtiful

be

the

best

do it right

do it now

do it better

just

do

it

stay sweet

stay out of trouble

stay focused

stay

on

track

I stand back and read the words.

Not mine.

Not exactly.

But they’re a start.