Authors: Carolee Dean
Forget Me Not
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The Second Floor of Humanities
I Look Across the Courtyard at the Fab
The Ghosts of Raven Valley High
Part Three: A Br
ef H
story of my L
FE
I Inherited My Love of The Stage
It Was the Week my Mother Left
One of the Special Ed Teachers
Part Four: The View Fr
m the R
f
The Nine Circles of Raven Valley High
Part Five: “No
xit” a Trag
dy in on
Rash Act
Part Six: Life (or is it Deat
?) in T
e
allway
Part Seven: A
Other Sleepless
ight
Part Nine: B
ckin the Re
l World
Part Twelve: Obs
rvations of th
not Quit
D
ad
“Dead Rapper Rap” by Ally Cassell
For Kurt, wherever you may be.
I hope they have stories there.
T
H
E
H
A
W
A
Y
Ally
I CAME TO THE HALLWAY
because
I wanted to live.
Deliberately.
No, wait.
That was Thoreau.
I came to the hallway
alone,
while the dew
was still on the roses.
Forget that.
I never liked old hymns.
Besides, it’s almost winter
and the roses are
gone
like Thoreau.
I came in peace.
Then I came
to pieces.
Don’t bullshit yourself, Ally.
You came to the hallway
because you didn’t
have anywhere
else to go.
I sit
on the tiled bench seat
that extends
almost the entire length
of the wall,
looking like
two steps
to nowhere.
They built it
that way because
they were afraid
of what would happen
to real furniture.
Too easy
to abuse
and destroy.
Things that are
breakable
(like me)
don’t belong
in high school.
I can see all the way
across the quad,
where a dozen or more kids
sit on a similar tiled bench
waiting for the first bell and
texting like mad,
sending photos
to the dozen or so kids
sitting on a similar tiled bench
in Sci-Tech
waiting for the first bell and
texting like mad,
sending photos (of me?)
to the dozen or so kids
sitting on a similar tiled bench
in the gym
waiting for the first bell and
texting like mad,
sending photos—
they must be of me—
to the thousands
of kids scattered all across
Raven Valley High School.
Texting like mad,
sending photos of ME
EVERYWHERE.
Except to the second floor
of Humanities . . .
because it’s a
dead zone.
Another reason
I came to the hallway.
who took the picture,
Davis’s sister Brianna,
my former best friend.
She didn’t send it out at first.
Didn’t send it for nearly two months.
I thought she’d forgotten about it.
Guess I was wrong.
Brianna was standing
in the bathroom
that connects
her room to her brother’s.
“Sorry, guys,” she said, as the
flash from her cell phone cam
burned the sleep from my eyes.
“I had to document this
moment, because tomorrow
I’m gonna think it was
a friggin’ hallucination.”
Her face was full of betrayal and
accusation. I had to look away.
I hadn’t meant to stay
with him all night. Never meant
for her to know. Intended to go
before first light, but couldn’t bring myself
to push his arm away. To slip out
from under the warmth of his embrace.
“Wait, Brianna!” I said as
she turned to leave. “I can explain.”
But she just walked away,
and it was a good thing,
because I didn’t really have
a single thing to say
in my defense.
It was our first time.
I had come to spend the night
with her and ended up
spending it with him.
I hadn’t
planned it
that way.
Bri was asleep and
I’d been staring at the
foreign movie posters on her wall,
thinking about the huge scene Darla
had made when she broke up with Davis
the night before, calling him a liar and cheat
just because he’d loaned some girl in precalc
his math book.
I was thinking about how
he was in the very next room,
alone and available.
I went to the bathroom for a drink of water,
and when I finished filling the glass,
I felt him behind me,
his hot breath on my neck,
his hand on my back.
His fingertips trailing my spine.
In the mirror I saw
him turn and walk
back into his room and
I followed.
At that moment,
Davis Connor
was all
I wanted.
Davis ran to her door. She