The doors are held open by security guards and we rush in, the relative silence of the building swallowing us whole. I suck air into my lungs, realizing I’ve been holding my breath, but I don’t stop. Natalie hasn’t stopped, she’s still leading us ahead, so we all trot down a hallway, and then another, and then finally there’s a bench, and she stops, turning back to us.
“Okay!” she says brightly. “That was the hard part.” She gives us all a warm smile, but I guess we don’t look like we believe her, because she adds, “Really. Everything is going to be fine from here on out. We’ll have to see them again when it’s all over, of course, but you don’t have to talk to them. In fact, I really recommend that you don’t. We’ll meet tomorrow to talk about media interaction, but they’ll lose interest pretty quickly, don’t worry. This time next month, no one will remember your names.”
“Excellent,” my dad says.
My mom puts a hand on my shoulder, so lightly I almost can’t feel it. “That will be nice,” she murmurs. I nod. It will be nice. For them. I, on the other hand, still have to go back to school.
“And now we wait,” Natalie says. “My new intern should be here in a minute, and she can get us some coffee, if you’d like. But just have a seat. Sara, you all set? Is that your statement there?”
I nod again, trying to loosen my fingers from the page. It’s a crumpled mess at this point.
“I have another copy if you need it,” Natalie says, her voice a little lower, sympathetic. “Do you want to go over anything again?”
Dad heaves a big sigh, like he’s sick of talking about all of this, and sits down heavily on the bench. Mom wavers. I know she’s dying to see my statement, which I haven’t let her read. I know why she’s pausing now, that she wants to be here if I tell Natalie, Yes, let’s talk about this stupid piece of paper I’m holding, even though we just went over it yesterday, but I stay silent, so finally she sits down on the bench too.
Now that Mom’s hand is gone from my shoulder, Natalie moves to my side and puts her whole arm around me. “You’ve done really great,” she says, her head close to mine, speaking even more softly, just to me. “I’m proud of you. I know this hasn’t been easy or fun or—or what you thought it would be. But you really toughed it out. You wrote an excellent letter, too. Things are going to start getting better now, I promise.”
I look down at the paper in my hands. It’s still folded, blank side up, but the shadows of the typed words are just visible through the white. The dark truth, just on the other side of the thin—paper-thin—wall.
I nod yet again, but only because Natalie wants me to. I think about saying Thank you or I appreciate all your help or something. I would mean it. But I just can’t make myself talk at all. I stare at the faint outline of all those words I have to say—now, any minute now—and think about how I’ll never be able to unsay them. And I think about all the things I’ve already said, and written, that can never be unsaid, unwritten.
So for now, I just want to be quiet. Natalie lets me go and I step over to the bench, lowering myself down next to my mom. My parents. The paper sits on my lap and I wait.
We all just . . . wait.
“You may be seated.”
The sound of chairs scraping against the floor fills the room. This part reminds me of the times I used to go to mass with Brielle, way back in junior high when her parents still made her go. Stand up, sit down, stand up again. Pay attention when the guy in the robe walks in. Or in this case, the woman.
She’s younger than I expected, and prettier. Her hair is long and blond and down on her shoulders, kind of casual. And she smiles at everyone, like she wants us to sit down and relax, not worry, enjoy this. Like that’s even possible.
I wish I’d asked Natalie what this was going to be like, look like. She asked a million times if I had any questions about today, but I just couldn’t focus. Now everything is catching me off guard—the pretty judge, the pretty room. Unlike the first place we went, for the allegations or whatever, this is a real movie-style courtroom. It’s old, wooden. Half the room is pews (again, like church), and then there’s a low wooden gate, and we’re on the other side of that, at a big mahogany table. Well, I assume it’s mahogany, I don’t know.
There are high windows on either side of the room, and the judge sits up in a booth, just like you’d think. There’s a witness stand next to her. But we don’t have to use that. There’s a podium set up between the tables—the one thing that looks like it doesn’t belong here, with wires running across the floor—where everyone’s going to talk.
I keep staring ahead at the judge. She’s just going through some papers, talking to the court officer, but I can’t look to either side. On my left, Jacob sits with his lawyer and someone else, maybe another lawyer. On my right is Natalie, and then Brielle with her lawyer. And then on the other side of the podium, Emma’s parents and their lawyers. Behind us I hear the snap of cameras and the murmurs of all our parents, the reporters, who knows who else. I picture my mom and dad, sitting together a row behind me, holding my coat and purse. Like I’ve just run to the bathroom and I didn’t want to carry them.
The judge looks up at the Putnams’ table. “Counselor?” she says.
And it starts.
They go through all the charges, and then the charges we’ve agreed to accept so they’ll drop the other ones. It takes a while since there’s three of us, and despite my nerves I kind of zone out here and there. But then they call Brielle up to the podium for her individual allocution and everything snaps back into focus.
She gets up with her lawyer, and finally I look over. But I immediately wish I hadn’t. Brielle looks like she’s the lawyer—her hair is smooth and swept back, and she’s wearing a dark navy suit with a pencil skirt and heels. She looks about twenty-five years old, and her lawyer is this older guy who’s obviously won a million cases. He has a leather binder he opens on the podium, and when he says hello to the judge you can tell he’s met her a bunch of times. Like they’re always playing tennis and having scotch at the lawyer-and-judge club, or whatever.
He speaks, and then the judge reads Brielle’s charges and Brielle says “Yes” a bunch of times. And then the judge goes, “If you’ve prepared a statement, you may read that now.”
Everyone holds their breath. Brielle turns to the back of her lawyer’s binder, to a different page, and gently clears her throat. When she starts to speak, I immediately recognize her special for-adults voice. It feels like I haven’t heard it in years, and it makes me more nervous than ever. I know it’s not a competition, but this isn’t debate class—Brielle and I aren’t on the same team. If it’s a contest, she’ll win. She’s winning.
But I guess it’s too late for that, actually. We’re both here to admit that we’ve lost. We give up.
“Thank you, Your Honor,” Brielle says. Like she does this every day. “Mr. and Mrs. Putnam, I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I didn’t know Emma that well, but she was a beautiful girl, and I can’t imagine what this loss must mean to you. I will always regret anything I did to make her feel less than welcome at Elmwood High, and I will always hold your family in my heart and in my prayers. Thank you.”
There’s a moment of stunned silence as Brielle’s lawyer reaches over and shuts the leather binder, takes it off the podium, and guides Brielle back to our table. She said all the right things, but—but what? Why does it feel wrong?
Then I hear Emma’s mom take a big, gasping breath. A sob. She quiets down again almost instantly, but I figure, okay, if Brielle made her cry . . . I guess she definitely said the right thing.
But, I don’t know, maybe it’s me—she just didn’t sound that sorry.
Is that what I’m going to sound like?
My heart is beating in my throat and I wonder how I’m going to manage to vomit and pass out in this fancy room full of formal people when the judge calls Jacob’s name next. I look at Natalie, panicked, but she just pats my hands, which are knotted together in my lap
.
“Don’t worry,” she mouths. “You’re fine.”
Jacob goes through all the same things, though as we already know, he only has to accept a couple of charges, fewer than Brielle and I do. And Tyler—God, I’ve forgotten all about him. His case is separate, but I know he’s doing a plea too. I close my eyes while Jacob’s lawyer talks to the judge and try to imagine this being over. Not, like, later today, but next year. What will next year look like? Will things be normal? What’s normal anymore?
Jacob’s statement is even shorter than Brielle’s, and his voice wavers like he’s going to cry. You can tell he wrote it himself. He just says, “I’m really sorry about all of—all of this. Emma was such a sweet girl. I really miss her. I’m really sorry. I’m—I’m just really sorry.”
I swear, if the whole room could get up and give him a hug, they would. I would, and I remember what a jerk he always was. I can hear Emma’s mom really crying now as I watch him walk back to our table, head down, his gray suit looking a little too big for him, like he’s a kid at his cousin’s wedding. Jacob’s lawyer has his hand on his shoulder. I don’t know if he’s trying to say, “Hey, look, this guy is just a kid,” but that’s what I think of.
Suddenly I wonder if the lawyer told Jacob to wear that suit, because he knew it would make him look younger. If he wrote that speech for him, like Brielle’s lawyer obviously wrote her speech for her.
God, I’m an idiot. This whole thing is rigged. We’re not even on trial anymore, but everyone is still playing the game. Playing the system. Or maybe I’m just paranoid. I don’t even know.
But the little glimmer of anger quiets my stomach, so when the judge says, “Sara Wharton and counsel, please come to the stand,” I don’t throw up all over the table. I follow Natalie to the podium, and my legs are shaking, but I’m still standing on them.
Because it hits me, right then, all of a sudden. I’m the only one who’s actually sorry about all this. Not just about being in trouble, not just about Emma ruining my life. I’m sorry about that, too—I still wish to God she’d just held on another day, switched schools, tried to just get along like the rest of us have to get along. Tried to get up and make the best of it, like we all have to do, even when things are horrible and painful and pointless.
But while Natalie talks to the judge and they call on me to accept harassment charges, one minor assault charge, and one count of stalking, I keep my head up. I say I understand, I say I accept. And when the judge asks if I have a prepared statement, Natalie steps aside and I smooth my stupid, unprofessional piece of printer paper on the podium, lay it flat, hope the sweat from my palms hasn’t smudged the ink. I stop for a minute. I take a breath.
“Emma and I weren’t friends. For a long time, I thought we were enemies. I thought she’d done things to hurt me—and I did things to hurt her back.”
I take another breath. Natalie doesn’t touch me, but she has her hand on the podium, and I look at it for a second. It’s like she’s holding it down, holding me in place. My hands are shaking and so is my voice, but Natalie’s hand is still. I look back at my notes.
“But I see now . . . I know now that she was in a lot of pain. More pain than I’ll ever really understand, though I definitely understand better now.”
I look up at the judge as I say, “I don’t think that pain is anyone’s fault, exactly.” And then I look over at the Putnams’ table, finally. Mrs. Putnam’s eyes are red, and to my surprise, so are Mr. Putnam’s. They look small and sad. I keep looking at them and say, “But I made that pain worse. For no good reason. I was thoughtless and cruel and I never meant for any of this to happen, but it did, and I’ll be sorry for the rest of my life. I’m so, so sorry—” I stop, afraid I’m going to start sobbing, and I don’t want to sob. They deserve to hear this. I want to say this, I want them to know. I’m not even looking at my notes anymore, because I know what I want to say.
“I’m so sorry that I made that pain worse, that I made Emma’s life harder. I know I did. I know I hurt her. And I hurt you. I can’t forget that, I won’t ever forget that. I promise you I won’t ever forget. I wish I could—I wish I could do more. But I swear, I’ll always remember.”
We stare at each other for a moment, the Putnams and I. I’m shaking but I stay standing, gripping the podium, hoping they believe me, hoping they understand. I think about what my mom said, about if she’d lost me. I think about my dad, how I can’t imagine him crying about me ever—but he probably would. Of course he would.
My heart is pounding and my last words come out as barely a whisper, because I want to say them just to Emma’s parents.
“I’m so sorry for what you’ve lost,” I say softly. “I wish I could take it all back.”
I swallow. There’s nothing else on my piece of paper, I don’t have to look at it to know that, but this doesn’t feel like enough. There should be more.
The room is still silent, but I can hear people starting to shift in their seats, like they think I’m done. I turn back to the podium and blink at my written statement, my hands, Natalie’s hand. The judge leans forward, about to say something, but right before she does I look up and say, “Just one—just one more thing.”
She stops. Everyone stops. For that minute, I realize I’m not nervous anymore, my mouth isn’t dry. I’m not scared of talking right now—because this is important. I want people to hear me. I want Emma to hear me. So I say one more thing.
“Emma, if you’re out there . . . I just want you to know I’m sorry. I wish there was something more I could say. But I really mean it. I’m really, really sorry.”
And then I fold my paper, and Natalie’s hand is on my shoulder, and we sit back down. Tears roll down my face, one after the other, fast, falling, falling. And I let them.
November
“OH MY GOD, this one is about this guy who volunteered with sick kids in Sudan. I did not do that. I mean, I could do that . . . I think . . .”
“You have to stop.”
“But I just want to see what’s—here! Look at this one! She overcame an eating disorder and . . . crap, and then she saved her friend from drowning.”
“Maybe she could write your college essay for you too.”
I look up at Carmichael, my eyes wide. “That’s not funny. I am so dead. I mean—I didn’t mean that. I just don’t know how I’m going to compete with this!”
“You have to stop,” he says again. He reaches across the kitchen table and tries to pull the laptop away from me, but I hang on to it.
“This is crazy!” I insist. “I just wanted some examples, but it’s all, like—these people shouldn’t be applying to college, they should be, I dunno, running for president! Or at least going away to be in the Peace Corps or something.”
“I’m sure that’s where they’ll all go next. But I just don’t think everyone at UNL has gone on humanitarian trips and rescue missions, okay?”
I frown at him, but he frowns right back.
“And anyway,” he adds, “you’re freaking me out too. Now close the computer!”
Slowly, reluctantly, I lower the screen.
“What’s freaking you guys out?”
We both look up and see Tommy coming in, making a beeline for the bowl of chips beside us on the table. He pulls out a chair and plops down casually, but as always, his eyes are fixed on Carmichael. Now we’ll never get anything done, but that’s okay.
“College essays,” Carmichael tells him. “You’re supposed to write something really meaningful, something that tells them what an amazing person you are and what you’ve been doing your whole life. Your sister here keeps looking up these crazy, extreme examples online.”
Tommy chomps loudly on another chip and glances at the closed laptop in front of me. “Yeah? Like what?”
“Like there was this guy who BASE jumped into the Grand Canyon and got stranded and made a movie about it,” I say, but at the same time, Carmichael goes, “Like we need to think about our own essays!” and gla
res at me.
“So it’s like a test? Before you even go to school?” Tommy asks.
“Exactly,” I say.
“That doesn’t seem fair,” Tommy says.
“Exactly,” I repeat.
“But it’s not really that big a deal,” Carmichael insists. “And see, they give you a couple of different topics and you can choose one . . .” He pushes the application form he printed out across the table and Tommy studies it.
“It’s a pretty big deal when you haven’t done anything,” I say. “I mean, I just went to school. I wasn’t even captain of the basketball team or something.”
Both of them give me this weird look. “Basketball?” Tommy says, and they crack up, like this is the funniest thing they’ve ever heard.
“What? You know what I mean!” I lay my head down on the closed computer and moan.
“Here’s the one you should do,” Tommy says, pointing at the paper. “‘Write a letter to someone you can’t talk to about how he or she has changed your life.’”
I lean over to see where he’s pointing. “Why that one?” I ask.
“I don’t know, it sounds cool. You could do, like, Kurt Cobain or Darth Vader.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Those are your examples? What have you been reading?” I turn to Carmichael and say, “Is this your influence?”
He lifts his hands defensively and goes, “I don’t know what either of you are talking about.”
“I’m in seventh grade,” Tommy huffs. “I know who Kurt Cobain is, jeez.”
Carmichael lifts himself out of his seat, leaning over the table to read the question. “It says the person had to be alive at some point, though, so I think Darth Vader is out.”
“That’s too bad,” I say. “He had such an impact on my love of light sabers.”
Tommy shrugs, unoffended. “That’s the one I’d do,” he says.
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