Authors: Carolee Dean
“Sit up!” I yell at her.
But she won’t budge.
I try to grab her and force her up,
but that, of course, is pointless.
“You wanna know
something, Ally? I was always
a little jealous of you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“People genuinely like you.
Nobody genuinely likes me.
I used to think it didn’t matter,
as long as they respected me,
or feared me.”
“Maybe if you gave them a chance,” I say, but
she doesn’t respond, and I see that her
whole body has gone limp.
“Somebody help her,” I scream.
But the night is as silent as death.
Because nobody can hear me.
Nobody is coming,
and Darla
has stopped breathing.
I feel myself being pulled
back to the hallway again
as everything starts to dissolve.
First my hands,
then my arms,
then my feet.
No, I try to scream,
but my throat
has disappeared.
I fight against the feeling of desolation,
but it’s too strong.
Despair keeps pulling
me
down.
Even if it isn’t mine,
it still keeps pulling
me
down.
I wake up to find the sun streaming through the plate-glass window of the hallway. They all stand in front of me—Rotceo and Julie Ann, the girl in black, and the Hangman. He points to the wall, where he’s written the words:
W
E
L
O
M
E
B
A
K
ALLY
You can’t make me stay here.
HANGMAN
If you hate it so much, then why did you bring a friend?
He points to the far corner of the room and I see Darla sitting on the tiled bench, staring blankly out the window at the gate, where an ambulance is parked, and two men are placing a gurney inside.
ALLY
No!
I run over to her and try to shake her, but she’s unmoved.
ALLY
Darla, why did you do it?
JULIE ANN
It’ll be a day or two before she can hear you.
She’s still assimilating.
ALLY
Come on, Darla. We have to get out of here.
SISTER
(touching my arm)
It’s too late for her.
I sit down next to Darla, unable to bear the senselessness of it all.
ALLY
She wasn’t trying to kill herself. She just took too many pills.
The Hangman comes and stands in front of me.
HANGMAN
Maybe, but she’s still dead. As for you, your time is up.
I jump to my feet. It may be too late for Darla, but it’s not too late for me. I’m not afraid of the pain anymore. The only thing I fear is the nothingness of this terrible hallway.
ALLY
You can’t make me stay here.
He laughs and his voice echoes off the tile.
HANGMAN
Oh, and how are you going to leave?
I look at the steel door next to the bench where Darla is sitting.
ALLY
Someone will open it.
Rotceo gets up and stands in front of the door.
ALLY
Fine, I’ll take the elevator.
HANGMAN
(blocking my path)
Everybody at this school hates you. You’re a joke to everyone.
ALLY
Not the people who matter.
HANGMAN
Smith and Wesson and the nut job, are you kidding me?
I take a quick step around him, but he pops up in front of me, just as quickly.
HANGMAN
Do you want a life like Oscar’s?
ALLY
He’s better off than you are.
I dart around him and go two more steps before he’s in front of me again. I look at the elevator. This is going to be a tedious and painful journey, but I try to remember what Elijah told me. “The only way out is through.”
HANGMAN
How is it going to feel when you see Davis making out with other girls?
ALLY
At least I’ll feel something.
I make it halfway down the hall before he’s in front of me again.
HANGMAN
And how is it going to feel when you look up at the hallway and know we’re watching you? We’ll always be watching you, Ally, for the rest of your life.
His words send a shiver down my spine, but I know I can’t get stuck on this hallway for eternity with them, with their hopelessness and their despair and their watching. Always watching.
ALLY
Get out of my way.
I push past him, but he follows behind me, his voice just inches from my ear.
HANGMAN
You’re a slut, Ally, and everyone knows it. You wanted popularity and you were willing to pay any price to get it. You’re a cheater and a liar. Do you really think Elijah is going to forget that? Do you think Brianna and Megan will forget that? Nobody’s going to forget that, Ally.
Just ten more feet to the elevator, but his words are like daggers, cutting away pieces of me. I try to remember the letters the kids wrote to me in creative writing class.
ALLY
This too shall pass.
HANGMAN
No, Ally. It won’t. Because I know the truth about your mother, about the real reason she left.
I feel like a knife is driving through my heart.
ALLY
She left because she wanted to be on Broadway.
HANGMAN
That’s what she told you so you wouldn’t feel bad, but the truth is that you drove her away.
ALLY
No.
HANGMAN
You know it’s true. You had to be better than everybody, and that included her.
ALLY
She wanted me to be an actress.
HANGMAN
Yes, and she’s the one who told you that only one could be the fairest. What do you think happens to the other one, Ally?
ALLY
I don’t know.
Big, fat tears are rolling down my cheeks now and I can’t stop them.
HANGMAN
She has to go away.
I cover my face with my hands. Is it true? Am I the reason my mother left? It’s too awful to consider.
ALLY
Leave me alone.
HANGMAN
Just say you’ll stay, and I’ll stop.
I put my fingers in my ears.
ALLY
I don’t have to listen to this.
HANGMAN
Oh, but I’m afraid you do.
And then a cold terror seizes me, because I can hear his voice in my head.
Everybody hates you. It’s all your fault. There’s no way out.
HANGMAN
Yes, that’s right, Ally. I’m the voice in your head. And even if you leave here, you’ll never escape it.
It is his voice I’ve been hearing. It’s the same voice that told me I was beautiful when Davis noticed me. The same voice that told me I was nothing when Davis dumped me. The voice that told me I was a slut and irrelevant and I had no friends.
It was the voice that told me I’d be better off dead.
HANGMAN
Ah, yes. Now you’re beginning to understand.
ALLY
No!
But there are other voices, too. There’s my father’s voice telling me to wake up, the messages from my classmates telling me to hang on. There’s Elijah’s voice telling me to push through the pain. Even Bri, saying she misses me. I straighten up and look the Hangman in the eyes.
HANGMAN
So what are you going to do, Ally, when you’re back out there and the voice in your head starts telling you what a terrible person you are? You can’t argue with the voice. That just makes it louder.
ALLY
I’m going to tell it the same thing I’m going to tell you right now.
HANGMAN
Oh, and what is that?
ALLY
Shut the hell up!
He tries to open his mouth, but it’s as if his lips are sewn together. He looks at me strangely then. Like he knows I’ve beaten him, but he’s not altogether disappointed. There’s even a hint of a smile on his face as he nods, then steps aside to let me pass. The other three join him, and Little Sister gives me a thumbs-up. I walk through them toward the exit. A thousand feelings bombard me . . . loss and loneliness. Disappointment and despair. My head is throbbing and my legs are aching, but I just keep walking. And when I get to the other side, I realize the journey wasn’t that long.
The elevator door opens, and there stands Oscar’s special education teacher, with Oscar beside her and Elijah next to him. She looks into the hallway, then turns to Elijah.
TEACHER
I don’t understand. You said someone was in trouble.
I smile at Oscar and Elijah and they smile back at me. Then I step onto the elevator and stand between them.
ELIJAH
Not anymore.
I’ve never quite felt like I fit into it.
When I suddenly sprouted breasts
and grew two inches over the span
of one summer, I felt like an alien
had invaded my body. When Darla
and her friends made me up into a
Ravenette, I knew it really wasn’t me.
When I had sex with Davis and Will,
and they told me I was beautiful,
I kept thinking they were talking
to somebody else.
I was like a hermit crab carrying
a borrowed shell.
When I saw my picture on my cell phone
screen, it was the face of a stranger.
When I was a shapeless phantom following
Elijah around the school, I think that’s the closest
I’ve ever gotten to finding out who I really am.
So when I look in the mirror at this broken,
shattered image of myself,
I just try to remember
this isn’t me either.
And for my entire life
I’ve been an outsider in my own skin.
The real job will be
finding out who I am inside,
because that’s all I’ve got left.
And for the first time
in my life,
that’s enough.
I won’t say it’s easy
going from class to class
in a wheelchair while people
in the halls whisper
behind my back, saying,
That’s the girl
who jumped off the roof.
I won’t say I don’t feel
sick to my stomach
every time I see Davis
with another girl.
I won’t say it isn’t awkward
when Megan gives me a look
that says she wants to ask me
a hundred questions, but never will
talk to me long enough to ask a single one.
I won’t say it doesn’t hurt knowing
Brianna and I will never have
late-night brownie binges or
I may never dance again.
Or that my mother isn’t
coming back for me.
But I will say
the sun is brighter,
the smell of fresh earth is sweeter,
and the smile of a true friend
is absolute heaven.
Elijah pushes me to class,
places his hand on mine,
and God, I’m so happy I can feel
it, because it’s warm and solid and real.
He bends down to whisper in my ear
and tell me, “It’s going to be okay,”
and I love the way his curls tickle my face.
One day I will rewrite the story of my life,
and when I do, I’ll start it with that night
with Elijah under the stars and that
first kiss.
Davis will get a chapter.
But Elijah will get
the rest of the story.
You were wrong.
Love isn’t
something
you lose.
It’s something