The Words We Keep: Chapters 7–11

So much for the hours Dad spent in here with a can of Clorox and a 100-percent-blood-removal mission. I guess even industrial-strength solvents can’t get rid of everything.

My whole body aches. A vise squeezes my head.

There’s no way Staci’s moving that sucker alone, so I help her reposition the behemoth into the far corner, which is apparently the perfect location because it’s equidistant from both walls and facing the entry door, aka the primary energy portal.

Dad rubs his fingers down the beard he’s let grow since Staci said facial hair is distinguished.

Sleepless nights and incessant thoughts.

“What if—” I stop, unable to articulate the scenario in my head.

To start today’s Writers and Artists Unite! session, Friedman delivers an impassioned diatribe on the power of art to transform.

Normally, my poems kind of pour out, fully formed, as if they already existed in some ethereal space and I’m just the conduit—the hand that holds the pen.

Normally, my poems kind of pour out, fully formed, as if they already existed in some ethereal space and I’m just the conduit—the hand that holds the pen.

But my wellspring of creativity seems to be having a dry spell since Alice left.

“Just feeling sorry for that pencil.” He points to my mouth, where I’ve inadvertently chomped my pencil almost to bits.

I lean back, stifling all the questions I want to ask about Alice as I return to my blank page, trying to ignore the pang of guilt—or maybe jealousy—that strikes me right in the breastbone.

As long as I keep moving, whatever got Alice can’t get me, too. And Margot won’t lose another sister to the monsters in her head, and Dad won’t have to send another daughter off for cerebral repairs.

The way he says it makes my heart speed up, but I feign annoyance rather than panic.

Will you please, all-knowing and wise art guru, help me rediscover my muse?

From her drab clothes to her short hair to her lackluster smile, she’s just—less.

She always picks out the marshmallows straight from the box, eating only the brightly colored pieces and leaving the dregs for the rest of us.

At dinner, she said about two words, despite Dad’s best efforts to get her laughing and Margot’s litany of questions about Fairview.

Luckily, Staci and Dad filled the silence with chitchat while we chomped on some tofu concoction, trying way too hard to pretend tonight was just like any other night.

She nods and heads to the bathroom, but stops at the threshold, staring at the tile floor.

For all his dad jokes, all his unrelenting efforts to make everything okay, he’s worried.

Okay, so I embellish a little, but it’s worth it because Dad fist-pumps into the air, his wrinkles morphing from worry to smile lines, and I breathe a little easier.

Before I can stop him, he breaks out into a rousing, but whispered, rendition of the school’s fight song, and even though I don’t need all this fanfare, I’m glad I’ve made him happy—for a moment.

Before I can stop him, he breaks out into a rousing, but whispered, rendition of the school’s fight song, and even though I don’t need all this fanfare, I’m glad I’ve made him happy—for a moment.

LogoLily’s Word of the Day
locuration (n) The process of slowly losing your mind, like a frog in a boiling pot of water who doesn’t notice the heat until it’s too late, so you’re left watching yourself boil because it all happens so slowly, so imperceptibly little by little, unwanted thought by unwanted thought, until BAM!
You’re cooked.

I search for the words to describe Micah. His weird mix of know-it-all bravado and indifference, plus the flash of passion when he talked about coloring books, and another flash of humanity when he offered to help me.

I search for the words to describe Micah. His weird mix of know-it-all bravado and indifference, plus the flash of passion when he talked about coloring books, and another flash of humanity when he offered to help me.

We haven’t had another collaboration, so he hasn’t elaborated on how exactly he’s going to help me find my muse, and I haven’t had time to go searching for the enigmatic 100-acre-wood to ask.

I see him in the halls, though, mostly alone, a new pair of whimsical socks every day, and a smile on his face.

But it’s like I can’t quite figure him out. The rumors about him don’t seem to jibe with the guy who draws cartoons on people’s hands...

She pulls up a wall of photos. Little squares of charcoal drawings, interspersed with quotes and vibrantly colored sketches of the Winnie-the-Pooh gang.

His page is a strange juxtaposition of the brightness of the Winnie cartoons and the darkness of his charcoal—the same perplexing mix as the artist himself.

She hasn’t seen Alice since Fairview, although I’ve told Sam how Alice is a ghost, moving around us like an echo. As if to prove my point, Alice is wearing a gray sweatshirt and sweatpants, a drab shadow of the bright dresses and vintage finds she used to wear.

I’m here despite the cacophony of monsters in my head shouting that putting my future into the hands of a boy I hardly know with a questionable past is probably not my hottest idea.

And we are up against a lifetime of coloring-in-the-lines indoctrination. But wasn’t there ever a time, maybe just once, in a moment of sheer, reckless abandon, that you wanted to draw what you wanted to draw?

He waits for me to open up—divulge my secret wild side.

“First of all, ew. Second, I do not get you.” I stand back, studying him, trying yet again to figure out the enigma that is Micah Mendez.

“Handsome? Witty? Pick a word, any word.”
“Well, we can eliminate humble.”

The beach spreads below us, shades of light and dark, wet and dry, creating a swirling, sprawling design. It’s complete chaos, all the lines and curves and circles intersecting at random, but somehow it makes sense.

The sand sinks as the tide reaches higher, like some sort of cosmic balancing act. One thing waning, one growing stronger.