You Know Me Well(50)

“So not necessary,” Katie grumbles, and I love her for it.

“Get a room zoom bloom for your skanky hanky-panky!” Quinn shouts out. Taylor actually looks embarrassed now and settles down in his chair, leaving Ryan’s mouth alone. His friends lean in to congratulate him. Ryan looks anywhere but at me.

Quinn continues. “The time has come for my own contribution. Some of you may have heard it before—I guess it’s what I’m most compelled to share. Each time I come back to it, a few words change. Maybe one day I’ll get it to say everything I’m trying to tell. It’s called ‘The Beat.’”

What happens next is hard to describe. Quinn opens his mouth and it’s a different voice that comes out. Raw. Defiant. He’s not playing now. He’s testifying.

No son of mine, Lord.

No son of mine!

Beat beat beat

You try to beat it out of me

Belt it out of me

Heartless heart

Beat beating

You think you can bruise me

Out of being

Bruise it out of me

When you belt it beat it

Try to break it—

Break the thing you cannot break

Because I carry it so deep inside

No beat of yours no belt of yours

Will ever come close.

You try to beat it out of me

Belt it out of me

Belt me into buckling

Beat me into heartstopping

Stophurting

Trying so hard

You say you’ll kill me to save me

Kill the me inside of me

Beat it belt it but it

Just won’t budge.

Not for you.

I know

You can’t stay in this room forever

I know

We can’t stay in this room forever

You beat me belt me to get to me

But you’ll never get to me

Not the me me heartbeat me.

I am saving it.

I am saving it for tonight

I am saving it for you right there

And you over there.

I am saving it for

Every you with a me deep inside.

Now that I’ve left that room

Out into the world as big

As a billion rooms

I have saved me

Yes, I have saved me

Constructed of words and hurt

And the glass self I’ve protected

All this time

To get to this one of a billion rooms

This room tonight.

Beat beat beat

I have found my own beat

My own pitter-patter

My own sis-boom-bah!

Beat beat beat

I belt it out

Song sung strong

Stung song

Tongue song

Back from being

Bitten back

Some songs sung

Beg to be carried home.

This song sings

To be carried far and wide.

Beat beat beat—

The sound it brings

Is the sound of wings.

When he’s done, there is the briefest of silences. Then: noise. Hands beating together. Voices meeting together. Someone gets to their feet. We all get to our feet. Katie is crying next to me. Quinn in front of us is not crying. He is not smiling, either. He is taking a deep breath, letting it out.

I don’t even know how to ask the question I want to ask. “Where did that come from?” is what I say to Katie, and it sounds stupid, inadequate.

“It was awful,” Katie tells me. “Freshman year. He had to go to his mom and tell her she either had to kick his father out or he would leave himself. His mother chose Quinn. But it was really touch-and-go.”

“I had no idea,” I say.

“He wanted school to be normal. It was the only normal he had.”

I look over to Ryan—did he know? But I can tell from his expression that he didn’t, either. He catches my eye, and we don’t need to say a word to have the whole conversation. About how oblivious we were. About how there was so much more to Quinn than we ever gave him credit for.

“Okay, people, enough,” Quinn says now. “You’re only making it harder for our next poet—Ryan Ignatius.”

Ryan looks like he wants to pass. Or pass out. Or both. But his whole table is cheering, and Taylor is giving him an encouraging squeeze. There’s no going back now, I can imagine him thinking. As he picks up some pages from his table and heads to the mic, my secondhand nervousness is about as strong as a firsthand dose. I cheer loudly for him, hoping he can hear my voice, and that it will help.

“Hi,” he says when he gets to the mic. “I’m Ryan, and this is my first time.”

“You’re doing great!” someone from Greer’s table shouts.

Ryan’s hands are shaking as he unfolds his poem. And they remain shaking as he starts to read. I can’t tell whether the first line he reads is the title or the real first line.

I’m not ready.

I’m not ready

to walk three steps ahead of where I am.

I’m not ready

to be paired,

declared,

bared

to be certain

of what lies behind the curtain.

I’m not ready

to call it by its name

because then it won’t be the same

as everything I used to be.