How to Save a Life(10)

Ms. P had me pull up a chair to her desk at the front of the class, my poems fanned out before her. Some pages were wrinkled and stained with age and tears. Some were newer. “The Guillotine”—an ode to my scar—was front and center.

“Jo,” she said in a quiet voice, “I’ve read your poems and I’m impressed. Very impressed. Survivors are worthy of tremendous admiration and you have mine.”

I started to sit back, to sigh, to roll my eyes, but she held up a hand.

“You have my admiration because your poems are exquisite windows into the incidents of your past. The ferocity of them, the…” She fought for the right words. “The tenacity of your spirit. It’s all here. I felt everything you sought to make a reader feel with your words, and that is the hallmark—in my estimation—of great poetry.”

I tucked my hair behind my right ear. “Uh, okay. Thanks. Does this mean I can graduate?”

I needed a diploma more than I needed compliments. But I had to admit, it was kind of nice to hear my poems didn’t suck.

Ms. P sat back and folded her hands on the desk. “It means I think I’ve come up with a project that will satisfy the academic holes in your file. Earlier this year we studied romantic poetry. Keats, Browning.”

“Yeah, you told me that already,” I said, probably bitchier than I was aiming for.

Ms. P only smiled. “I’m going to assign you some reading, but your primary assignment is to write your own take on a love letter or poem.”

“A love letter? To whom?”

“Anyone you choose.” Ms. P leaned over the desk. “You have revealed a very personal pain here, Josephine. These poems are raw, honest, and frankly, hard to read. But they are also very similar in theme. I can see your facility with this subject matter, difficult though it is. What I’d like to see is something different.”

“Different,” I stated.

“Yes, I think it would be good for you to stretch your abilities. Venture into new territory.”

“I don’t love anyone, Ms. P,” I said flatly. “Not anymore. What I need is to graduate. So if you want a love letter, I’ll write one. I’ll write a hundred if that’s what it takes. I can fake it. Because if you’re trying to steer me toward better times or sunnier days in my life, forget it.”

A short silence passed.

“Am I right to assume you’ve seen your share of counselors over this material?” She tapped “The Guillotine” with her fingers.

“You could say that.”

“And was anyone able to offer you some relief?”

“A little,” I admitted. “But I always move before anything earth-shattering happens.”

“And you aren’t seeing anyone now?”

“I called before we moved here. I was told the guidance counselor was up to her neck in college application assistance.”

I strained to sound casual. God, why did I tell her I’d investigated a counselor here? Why was I leaning forward in the chair across from Ms. P as if I were freezing to death and she was a roaring fire?

“Perhaps,” she said, “as part of your poetry assignment, we could have you come to my office once a week or so.”

“What for?”

“We could discuss your poems. Analyze them, maybe. From a literary standpoint, only.”

I wasn’t stupid. I could hear the words behind the words and the old defensive part of me wanted to tell her to mind her own business. Stick to being an English teacher, not some armchair psychologist.

But the broken pieces in me that faintly cried to be put back together were reaching for whatever it was she was offering. I was like Charlie Brown running to kick that football, each time thinking This is it! Finally! And that bitch, Lucy, always pulled it away. You’d think after so many times Charlie Brown would wise up, but no. I’m like him. I see the ball. I see help held out in front of me and I want to run at it full speed, my heart in my throat and hope choking my breath, because deep down I need it so badly.

But Gerry moved us too often, too quickly. He pulls the balls away and I’m left lying flat on my back, the wind knocked out of me and having to pick myself back up and start all over again.

It was too late in the year to be cozying up with Ms. P. Too late by half.

“If you want to help me, then let me graduate. I’ll write the love poem, okay? But that’s all I can do right now. I’m just…tapped out.”

The bell ending recess clanged. I rose and shouldered my bag. Ms. P gathered my poems in a folder and handed the folder to me, her eyes soft with disappointment. And concern.

“I look forward to seeing what you come up with.”

“Me too.”

I was curious myself. Writing a love letter or poem was like climbing up into a dusty, dark attic; cobweb-strewn and dust-choked. A cramped space where nothing had been touched in years. Gray and disconnected.

At lunch, I sat with the staff of Mo Vay Goo, but I didn’t eat or participate in the conversation around me. My one-eyed gaze roved and landed on Evan Salinger. He was at his customary spot, on a bench against the exposed brick wall of the cafeteria. A window above him streamed light over his blond hair, more than enough to read by. He was nose-buried in a book, as usual, absently eating a sandwich from a sack lunch.

He was beautiful, sitting under that beam of light. His hair fell in his face as he bent over his knees, and I watched him absently brush it out of his eyes. Not for the first time, it struck me how seriously miscast he looked for the role of School Freak.