Belzhar (21 page)

“I want to say how proud I am of all of you,” she says. “I’m so sorry that you’re leaving here with a certain sadness. What happened to Sierra is my sadness too. But you’re leaving stronger than you were. And somehow, I think you know things you didn’t know before.”

What exactly do I know now? In my head I try to make a list, the way Marc would probably do.

I know the truth about Reeve; that’s one huge thing. I mean, I always knew it, but I couldn’t take it.

And I also know that pain can seem like an endless ribbon. You pull it and you pull it. You keep gathering it toward you, and as it collects, you really can’t believe that there’s something else at the end of it. Something that isn’t just more pain.

But there’s always something else at the end; something at least a little different. You never know what that thing will be, but it’s there.

I learned all of this in Special Topics in English. Mrs. Q taught it to me.

“And I also want you to know,” she says, “that despite what it says in that awful brochure the school hands out for reasons I cannot
fathom
, I don’t view any of you as ‘fragile.’ Highly intelligent, yes. Emotionally fragile, no. I think there are better words to describe you.

“You’re all equipped for the world, for adulthood, in a way that most people aren’t,” she continues. “So many people don’t even know what
hits
them when they grow up. They feel clobbered over the head the minute the first thing goes wrong, and they spend the rest of their lives trying to avoid pain at all costs. But you all know that avoiding pain is impossible. And I think having that knowledge, plus the experiences you’ve lived through, make you definitely
not
fragile. They make you brave.”

I wish I could go over and cry against her silk shoulder, thanking her and reassuring her. I wish I could tell her everything I’ve lived through this semester, and everything I’ve lived through over the past year. She’s read my file, but it’s hardly the whole picture. I want to tell her about Reeve. And about what I know now that I didn’t know then. But she’s an old woman who’s been teaching high school English for a very long time, and she’s tired, and proud of us, and so concerned about Sierra. She deserves a calm and dignified send-off.

So all I say is “Thank you, Mrs. Q.” And everyone else thanks her too.

“I want you all to have a marvelous vacation,” she adds as she slips on her gray wool coat, “and a marvelous rest of the school year. You’re all terrific young people. I look forward to seeing what you do with your lives.”

Then she clicks shut the brass fastener on her briefcase that now contains our journals, and stands up. She nods to us one final time, this gracious woman with the perfect white bun and the tiny gold wristwatch, and then she slowly walks out of the classroom. It’s the only time she’s ever walked out ahead of us, but somehow that’s the right move today.

We sit stunned for a few minutes, and then Marc says, “So I guess that’s that.”

“No, it’s not
that,
” I say. “What about Sierra? We’re just going to leave her there?” I know I sound kind of pathetic and repetitive. Nobody has any fresh ideas. Nobody knows what to say. Casey does that thing that girls do to each other to be supportive: She squeezes my hand. It’s like she wants to tell me,
I’m here for you, Jam
. And I appreciate it, but the only way she could really be here for me is if she helps get Sierra back. And neither of us knows how to do that.

Finally we all leave the classroom too. Casey reaches up from her wheelchair and swipes a hand over the light switch. Though we’re all going to be at The Wooden Barn for another semester, Special Topics in English will be over. The whole experience will close up like a fault line in the earth, and it will be as if this huge thing had never even really happened.

We’ll just be four kids who were in the same class first semester. Maybe we’ll get together once in a while, or we’ll pass one another and say things like “Hey, how’s it going?” “How’s history class?” “How are the Barntones?” “Are you trying out for the play?” But it won’t be the same.

Even Griffin and me—there’s no way to know what will happen to us. Everything is very new and tentative, and so much hasn’t been revealed yet. Are we good for each other? Are we compatible? Who knows? We just love being together, though; that’s indisputable right now.

On the path outside the classroom building, after everyone else is gone, he and I stand together a little longer, and I put my head on his shoulder. “You go on ahead,” I finally tell him. “I just want to walk a little.”

He doesn’t question this, but kisses me, then nods and heads off down the path. He still lopes when he walks, as if he might be about to break into a run. I could watch him for a long time. But there are things I have to think about right now.

Other than the list I’ve made in my head so far, what else did I get out of Special Topics in English? People are always saying these things about how there’s no need to read literature anymore—that it won’t help the world. Everyone should apparently learn to speak Mandarin, and learn how to write code for computers. More young people should go into STEM fields: science, technology, engineering, and math.

And that all sounds true and reasonable. But you can’t say that what you learn in English class doesn’t matter. That great writing doesn’t make a difference.

I’m different. It’s hard to put it into words, but it’s true.

Words matter. This is what Mrs. Q has basically been saying from the start. Words
matter.
All semester, we were looking for the words to say what we needed to say. We were all looking for our voice.

I stop on the cold path to squint up at the trees, which are thin and still against the bright sky. Uncovered, hanging out until their big budding moment, which won’t happen for months. It’s like they’re hibernating now, waiting for spring. Off in some kind of waiting place, just like Sierra.

She needs to be able to burst out too, to shoot out all green again, and have a life. She needs that as much as the rest of us. But how can I give it to her? How can I find the words?

I’d so much wanted it to work when I asked the nurse at the local hospital to go shout to Sierra to come out of Belzhar, just the way it had worked when Griffin called to
me
to come out of Belzhar, and then I’d tumbled out of that crazy, goaty version of the place and returned to him. But of course it hadn’t worked with Sierra.

I found what I needed to say at The Wooden Barn. But maybe it isn’t just the words that matter. It’s that other thing, which Mrs. Q was talking about today. The voice. It doesn’t just matter
what
you say. It matters
who
does the saying.

It matters whose voice it is.

Quickly, I pivot on the path and head back to the dorm as fast as I can go, my breath visible in the air, my feet thudding loudly. Luckily, no one is on the pay phone now. That same miserable phone I spoke into long ago, begging my mom to let me come home. I hadn’t known anything then. I hadn’t known that if you hold on, if you force yourself as hard as you can to find some kind of patience in the middle of all your impatience, things can change. It’s big, and it’s always incredibly messy. But there’s no way around the mess.

I have Sierra’s home number, which she’d written on a scrap of paper before Thanksgiving break. I press the numbers, and the phone rings for a long time before someone answers. A man. Tired, guarded. No doubt the Stokes family has been getting phone calls from reporters and crazy people constantly since André was found.

“Is this Mr. Stokes?” I ask in a rush. And then I plunge ahead. “I’m Sierra’s friend Jam up at The Wooden Barn in Vermont. Maybe she’s told you about me?”

I hear a sigh. “Yes,” he says. “I know who you are. She liked you.”

“Mr. Stokes,” I say. “I am so incredibly happy for you about André; I mean, that is the best news in the world. But I know it’s like Sierra is gone now too. And maybe you think she’ll be gone forever. But I had a thought. I can’t explain it, it’d be too complicated, but I wondered if there’s something I could try. Something to say to Sierra, to see if it reaches her. Well, it wouldn’t be
me
saying it.”

“What are you talking about?” says Mr. Stokes.

“Can you put André on the phone?”

He pauses for a very long time, and I hear a murmured discussion in the background. Finally Mr. Stokes gets back on and tells me he knows Sierra thinks so much of me, so, okay, hold on.

And then the phone is put down, and a long time passes, and then it’s picked up again, and a flat teenaged male voice says, “Hello.”

“André, this is Sierra’s friend Jam, up at her school? I’m so unbelievably glad you’re home.” I’m speaking quickly, making sure I get a chance to say everything. “Listen, you don’t know me,” I go on, “but I have a very weird favor to ask you. It’s important. I know it’s going to sound crazy. But I need you to know I’m
not
crazy.”

“Wait,” he says, “don’t you go to the school they sent her to in Vermont? The crazy school?”

“Yes, I go to The Wooden Barn. But it’s just that most of us at the school have
issues,
that’s all. I had to call you because I know something. Something big that can maybe help.” There’s silence from him, and I keep talking over it. “You have to go to her, André,” I say, “and let her know some things. Please. She thinks that it’s best to just stay where she is. But it isn’t. It can’t be best just to . . . you know . . . stagnate. I mean, even if you hadn’t ever been found—and oh my God, thank God you were—she still could have come back and faced the world. It’s better that way. I know this for myself. If she comes back here, yes, I know it’s all uncertain and sometimes terrifying, but it’s other things too. And she has you. You have each other. And whatever else is there for her in the future.”

I pause. He doesn’t say a thing. I’m sure he has no idea what I’m talking about. “André, do you have a pad and pencil handy?” I ask. “Because you have to get the pronunciation right. She needs to really
hear
every word clearly. Just go stand over her hospital bed when you’re alone with her—do it soon, okay? Like, right away if you can. Like,
really
soon?—and say these words: ‘Sierra, it’s me, André. I’m here. Come out of Belzhar.’”

His terrible silence continues. “You got that, André? Do you want to repeat it back to me so we can make sure you have it right?”

There’s silence again, and it goes on for so long that I finally have to say, “Hello? Are you still there? André?”

But there’s no reply. He’s gone, and I don’t know when he hung up, or if he heard what I said.

IT HAPPENS FAST. THE VERY NEXT MORNING, ON
the day we’re all supposed to leave for winter break, someone bangs on my door at 6:00 a.m. When I open it Jane Ann stands before me in her pink shortie robe, crying.

All I can think is, What now? What can possibly have happened now?

“I wanted you to be the first to hear,” she says. “Sierra woke up very late last night.” Jane Ann is definitely crying, but she’s also laughing.

André did it. He did it.

I’m allowed to make the announcement about Sierra at breakfast. There’s shrieking and applause all around. I’m desperate to talk to her, of course, but I don’t want to push. I imagine she’ll be in touch with me soon, though I don’t know how soon. I picture the Stokes family huddled together in their home in DC, not wanting to be apart at all, ever.

Later today I’ll be with my own family. I try to eat breakfast after I make the announcement, but I’m so overcome by the news about Sierra, not to mention the accumulation of everything else that’s happened to me and to all of us in our class, that I can barely eat. I’ve made Jane Ann swear she will make sure that Mrs. Quenell learns about Sierra waking up before she drives away from her house for good.

I sit in the dining hall feeling very much the way I did the first day I arrived at The Wooden Barn. All around me now come the clinks and clanks of dish, glass, and spoon, and the
sproing
sound I’ve heard at dozens of breakfasts, as the industrial toaster pops out another six slices of bread. The room smells seriously of egg and butter and coffee. It’s too much for me right now, too much stimulation and brightness, requiring too much thought, and I sit with Griffin’s hoodie on, clutching a mug of strong tea.

I realize that I’m anxious about my parents coming. They’ll be here to pick me up soon, I know, and Griffin is planning to swing by my room to meet my mom and dad and Leo. “I just think they ought to know who I am,” he’s explained, and I agree with him, though I have a legitimate reason to be nervous.

What if they think I’ve
exaggerated
his interest in me? What if they don’t believe that we’re even involved?

No, I’m different now. All they have to do is spend five minutes with Griffin and me, and they’ll see the oversize hoodie that I like to wear, and the way Griffin and I give each other looks that have nothing to do with anyone else in the room. They will see.

On the phone the night before, my mom had told me that if I wanted to come back to Crampton for spring semester, maybe it would be worth a try. But no, I told her, I really want to stay on at The Wooden Barn, at least until the school year is through. My friends are here; my life is here. I’ve already gotten my skedge for next semester, and a couple of my classes look pretty good, including a music theory class with a new, young teacher. And, of course, Griffin will be here.

Maybe I’ll come home for senior year, though; that’s possible. The Wooden Barn can feel pretty airless. Since I’ve been living here, I haven’t thought much about what’s going on in the world.

I miss roaming around on the Internet late at night too, and I miss the texts that used to fly back and forth between me and my friends. I even miss those friends. I never did find out why Hannah and Ryan broke up. I hope she’s doing okay, and I feel sorry that I wasn’t there for her when that was happening in her life. I don’t know that she’ll ever really get over the way I distorted everything so badly. I don’t blame her if she never gets over what I did. But maybe, somehow, we can work our way back to being friendly again, if not actually friends.

It wouldn’t be easy going back to Crampton for senior year. Dana Sapol will still be there, and Danny Geller, and all those kids except for Reeve, of course, who’s back in England. No one will ever forget how I fell to pieces so publicly over a boy I hardly knew. And I will never be able to explain it to them.

But maybe, if I do go back eventually, and if anyone comes up and asks me about what happened, I might cut the conversation short by calmly saying, “People change.”

Yes, I’m definitely finishing out the rest of the school year at The Wooden Barn, but as for next year, I’ll just have to see.

DJ will be flying home to Florida later in the afternoon. Now, in the middle of the day, she and I are sprawled on our beds, nervously trying to kill time. My suitcase is all packed and zipped, and I’m waiting for my parents’ car to pull up outside the dorm. I’m listening like a dog for the crunch of tires over snow.

“So what are you going to do over break?” DJ asks.

“Sleep late, for one thing,” I say.

“Oh, me too,” she says.

“And buy clothes that aren’t made of flannel,” I add. “Hang out with my little brother.” Leo, fellow other-world traveler. “Talk to Griffin and Sierra. Eat pizza. That kind of thing.”

“Sounds nice,” says DJ. “Speaking of pizza, I’m starving.”

“Is that code for ‘I’m about to have a binge emergency’?”

“No, it’s code for ‘I’m starving.’ I barely ate breakfast,” she says.

“Me either.”

“I’m kind of jangled,” DJ tells me. “Rebecca and I had an emotional farewell. I just know her parents are going to try to brainwash her when she’s back home. They’re going to tell her being queer is only a phase. I just hope she stays strong. Strong and queer.”

“She will.”

“Anyway, my stomach was all clenched during breakfast, which is why I hardly ate.”

“Don’t you have some crackers hidden somewhere, DJ?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

“So go get them.”

She extracts a box of crackers from deep under her desk, and I go to my dresser drawer and root around, and then I pull out the jar of Tiptree Little Scarlet Strawberry jam that I decided I was never going to open as long as I lived.

I study the label now, and feel the jar’s cool, smooth glass surface.

“This stuff is supposed to be pretty good,” I say, and then, trying to look casual, I grasp the lid of the jar and give it a turn. It makes a surprisingly sharp
pop,
as if it were releasing not just air, but something else that’s been dying to get out for a long time.

Then I sit cross-legged on my bed, leaning against the study buddy, facing DJ, and with a slightly bent knife stolen from the dining hall, I spread some of the dark red jam on a couple of crackers—one for her, and one for me. When I put mine in my mouth, the sweet taste startles me. I let it linger.