The Words We Keep
: Chapter 33

The rumors spread like an ever-evolving virus through the student body. Sam basically ignores me for two days, and Micah doesn’t resurface at school.

They’re both sick of your crap.

In the lobby, the word wall is still growing, people adding their words, their stories every day. But in the 100-acre-wood, silence.

I reread our last message thread. I don’t type anything new. The last thing he wants is to hear from me.

You’ll just end up hurting him more.

He’ll be better off without you.

I fall asleep each night (thank you, magical little blue sleeping pills) replaying the way Micah looked at me in the closet, trying to understand me. But he can’t. I don’t even understand me.

And each morning, I wake to Alice going nonstop between her YouTube and redecoration projects. I mentally add up all the money she’s spending.

“Good morning, sleepyhead!” Alice says one day, crouched by the baseboards of our room, armed with a spray bottle of disinfectant and a roll of paper towels.

“What’s with the cleaning blitz?” I ask as she attacks a baseboard with a towel.

“I was going to start painting, or at least do the primer, but then I saw how nasty these baseboards were. Like, so gross. And I can’t redecorate until this place is clean, like really, really clean.”

“What time did you go to bed last night?” I ask.

She pauses, like she’s doing a quadratic equation in her head. “I think I lay down for a little bit. But I honestly don’t know if I ever actually slept.”

She launches into a description of her latest video for her YouTube channel—interviews and retrospectives and maybe even a tour of Fairview.

“If they’ll let me. I bet they’ll let me. Don’t you think?” Her words spill out so fast and furious that I can’t keep up. Partly because she’s jumping from idea to idea, but partly because my own brain is elsewhere.

“Have you heard from Micah lately?” I ask, changing the subject and trying to sound like I didn’t stay up half the night imagining worst-case scenarios involving cliffs.

Like he’d do that over you.

Alice shakes her head. “No, why?”

“He hasn’t been at school.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much. He does this sometimes.”

“Does what?”

“Disappears. At Fairview, we called it his depression cave. Just give him time.” She looks at me like she’s waiting for something else. “So what do you think?”

“About…”

“Are you even listening? My video ideas!” She points to a series of Post-it notes on the wall. “I had to start writing them down just to keep track.”

The bright pink of the Post-it notes, lined on the wall like they used to be before the Night of the Bathroom Floor, makes all my other thoughts stop cold.

When did this start again?

“Are you feeling okay?” I ask, eyeing her cautiously.

“Never better.”

Is she wearing the same clothes as last night?

How long has it been since she slept?

“Oh! That reminds me!” She jumps up to get something from her desk. “I found this under your bed.”

She carries a box over to me and flips open the lid, revealing all the razors and pencil sharpeners and various don’t-let-Alice-hurt-herself paraphernalia I hid away. She stares at me, waiting for an explanation.

“I—I was—”

Terrified.

She hands me the box as I stammer for words. “Keep ’em if it makes you feel better. But I mean it, Lil, you don’t have to worry about me anymore.”

She scuttles out of the room, leaving a whirlwind of energy and disinfectant in her wake. I want to believe her. She’s better. I’m better. We’re better. Right?

Isn’t this what you wanted?

For Alice to be Alice again?

It’s never enough for you, is it?

Still, the symptoms of bipolar mania tick through my head.

Decreased need for sleep.

She darts back into the room and grabs the blue painter’s tape from the pile, jumps onto her desk, and yanks out a long strip where the ceiling meets the wall. Seeing her up there, her eyes wild with ideas, her words coming in a long, rambling string, makes my stomach tighten.

Increased activity and agitation.

My fingers start picking at a scab on my stomach.

No!

I’m not doing that anymore.

Normally I’d write something, but my brain can’t focus on anything but the buzz of energy vibrating from Alice’s direction. Or I’d message Micah, tell him how Alice is acting.

But he loathes you now.

I need something to stop my mind and fingers from turning on me.

“Can I help?” I ask.

She chucks a roll of tape at me and I tape around a light socket, but it ends up wonky. So I rip it off and start again.

And again.

And again.

“Doesn’t have to be exact, you know.” Alice laughs. It’s too high, too shrill.

Unusually elevated mood.

I tell myself she’s fine. She has to be. I just got her back. I can’t lose her to the pills again.

I ignore the uneasy feeling in my gut, rip the tape off, and try it again.

Once, twice, six times.

Until it’s perfect.