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We’re surrounded by words. Nothing about this moment could be more perfect, because I’m absolutely in love with this room and the people in it, on the wall and otherwise. And with this one boy in particular.
“You’re serious?” Kaitlyn looks at me. She’s still laughing. “You’re going out with Andrew Olsen? You’re k-k-k-kidding.” She slaps her hand on the table, cracking up at her own joke. “No w-w-w-way.” She looks around the table, but I keep my eyes fixed on her. My hands ball up into fists by my sides.
“I’m in love with him.”
“You’ve been acting like a totally different person.” Hmm. Or maybe it’s that I’m not acting.
“You’ve changed, Samantha. And I think I speak for all of us when I say that it’s not for the better, sweetie.”
“You’re right,” I say quietly. “You guys did know me, but I don’t think you do anymore. Not really.” I look around the table as I talk, realizing, maybe for the first time, that I don’t know much about them either.
literally they never even really knew sam
He’s wearing a ski cap pushed back on his head, and his hair is poking out underneath. He looks adorable.
“Sam?” “Yeah?” “Who’s Caroline?” “Caroline.” I say it with a laugh, but he doesn’t join me. “Caroline. Caroline…” It takes me a second to find her last
name. I haven’t thought about it since the first day of school. “Caroline Madsen.”
She’s my friend. She might be my best friend.
“Caroline Madsen committed suicide…in 2007.”
and he’s gone before I have a chance to tell him he’s wrong. He has to be. She was just here ten minutes ago. Wasn’t she? I was standing here talking to her. Wasn’t I?
“Technology is a trap,” Caroline had said, and I believed her.
TEEN’S DEATH RULED A SUICIDE; BULLYING TO BLAME FOR LOCAL TEEN’S SUICIDE?; LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL DEVASTATED BY SUICIDE.
i’m shocked
“Oh, my God,” I whisper. I remember reading this article, not last summer, but the summer before.
But Caroline never read on stage. She came to my house, but she always left before anyone got home. We wrote together in the theater, just the two of us, alone in the dark. She never minded being my secret. She never led me to Poet’s Corner.
“She’s not real.” The words squeak out.
I throw open the door, walk to the edge of the cliff,
Oh Sam
Caroline lived there. She died there.
I rock back and forth, scratching harder, crying and muttering “Caroline” under my breath, over and over again. Like the crazy person I now know I am.
“I made up a whole fucking person, Sue!” I yell through tears. “What kind of twisted mind makes up a whole person?”
“She’s not coming back, is she?” I ask.
Caroline Madsen started Poet’s Corner.
It’s called “Every Last Word.” I read to myself this time.
These walls heard me when no one else could.
They gave my words a home, kept them safe.
Cheered, cried, listened. Changed my life ...
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It wasn’t enough. But they heard eve...
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This was her last poem.
He laughs. “I made you feel normal? You do realize I’m pretty far from normal, right?”
“I like you too much, too,” he says. “Still?” I ask. “Still,” he says with a huge smile on his face. “Way, way too much.” After that, we stop talking.
“Love you,” I whisper
“Actually,” I whisper, “I think I’ve got this one.” When I open my eyes again, Caroline is gone. And I start filling the page with words.
Awww
