The Words We Keep

The café is packed.

Sam has brought the whole track team, and Micah recruited every last one of the Artists. The room buzzes with conversations and laughter and life.

Dad, Staci, and Margot are sitting front and center. Sam’s tuning up her violin to play a piece she wrote, and Alice is pacing in the back, freaking out about doing her set in front of Dad for the first time.

Gifford is here, too. She introduces me to the lady by her side.

“Lily, dear, this is a friend of mine from the English Department at UC Berkeley,” she says, her eyes wide, sending me a message. This lady’s important. Listen up! I shake the woman’s hand.

“This is exactly the kind of thing we’re always pushing in the department,” she says, holding up our poetry-night flyer. She hands me her business card. “I’d love to talk more. Stop by my office if you’re ever on campus.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” I say.

Gifford winks at me as they take their seats.

Before the man in the afghan kicks off the evening, Micah signals me over to him. He’s wearing the bright orange vest from his roadside trash pickup hours that he’s still finishing since his expulsion.

“I’ve always liked a man in uniform,” I say, pulling him closer by both sides of his vest.

“Court-mandated community service does it for you, huh?”

He leans down and kisses me softly.

“You nervous?” he asks, nodding toward the poem in my hand.

“Petrified,” I say. “But it’s gonna be okay.”

He steps back, aghast. “Lily Larkin, don’t tell me you’ve lost the will to worry?”

“I’m afraid no amount of therapy will change that.”

“Which is exactly why”—Micah smiles and produces a book from behind his back—“I wanted to officially welcome you to the Hundred Acre Wood.”

I take the thin, golden-spined version of Winnie-the-Pooh, with its bright drawings.

“I thought you didn’t believe in the power of the wood anymore.”

“I was wrong.”

“I’m sorry. Could you speak directly into the mic, for the official record?”

He leans forward to the fake microphone I’ve put in front of his face. “I, Micah Mendez, was wrong.” He laughs. “Was that good for you?”

“Better than I ever imagined.”

“But seriously, I don’t need to change the whole world. Maybe a few friends who get it—who get me—is enough. And who knows? Maybe, someday, the world will catch up.” He surveys the room of people who have showed up to share their stories, their pain. “Tonight sure feels like a step in the right direction.”

He kisses me again, and whispers, “I know you, Lily Larkin. Don’t you ever forget it.”

I take a deep breath. This moment feels so pure, so sure, but the future is anything but certain.

What if Micah gets sick of you?

What if you don’t get into Berkeley?

Or therapy doesn’t work?

And Alice relapses?

I stop the monsters in their tracks—baby steps, Lily—and I kiss him back.

When it’s time to start, I look out at my friends and family from the stage. The sight of them, the people who stayed no matter what, fills the spaces in my chest where I used to hide all the things I couldn’t say. With the light shining in my face, I open to my own page, my own words, and begin to read my latest poem.

“I am…”

My voice hangs in the air after I’ve finished the final word. I lean into the microphone one more time.

“Tonight is terrifying for me, as I’m sure it is for many of you. So thank you. For being here. For listening. For speaking up.”

The crowd claps as I hand the mic to Alice. “Knock ’em dead.”

She takes the stage, wearing a T-shirt that shows off the scars on her arms. But with the light on her face, it’s hard to notice anything but her smile.

Dad wraps his arm around me in the front row as Alice starts her set.

“Proud of you, kiddo.” My head settles into my spot. His chest shakes as he laughs while Alice comes alive on the stage. On my left, Micah holds my hand, and he’s laughing and I’m laughing and the sound of it fills me.

I don’t know what tomorrow will hold, but I’m here, existing in the in-between.

Screaming into the void.

And for now, that’s enough.

And so am I.