Page 17 of Our Last Resort
Between us was Edwina. Edwina: fourteen, strong, devout. A flame in her, the unflinching focus of a true believer. A wall of seriousness between me and this boy.
Émile stood at a lectern at the front of the room, talking about the importance of self-reflection. There were no robes or anything like that; Émile favored khakis and V-neck sweaters. The only sign that he was part of a better world was the braided bracelet on his left wrist. We all had one, the colors brighter and the band wider as our minds progressed. His was the brightest of all, sunflower yellow, broader than a watchband. Mine, like all the kids’, was thin and a grimy white.
“You have to face the truth of what’s inside you and act in consequence. It might not be comfortable,” Émile said, peering over the top of his reading glasses, “but it is necessary. Otherwise, you’re like a…”
I perked up. A what?
“A…”
Émile cleared his throat. He looked at his hands, probably wishing they were holding cue cards.
This was new. Émile’s sentences never trailed off. He always knew what to say and how to say it.
Something moved to my right. The boy was fidgeting.
Behind the lectern, Émile was still hesitating. It felt wrongto stare at him in this situation, lost in the middle of a sentence. I lowered my head and slowly turned it to the side.
The boy sat, gaze down, lips pinched.
Just as I understood he was holding in a laugh, Émile spoke at last.
“If you don’t look inward, you’re like a chicken,” he said, “running around without a head.”
A chicken! Running around without a head!
It lit up something in our young minds.
The boy pressed a hand to his mouth. He let out a laugh—brief but full-throated, echoing across the room.
Émile, who had been in the middle of a new sentence (“So be intentional. Look at a person and ask yourself wheth—”), stopped. His head snapped up like he’d been slapped.
Laughing at Émile—what an obscene thought.
But the boy could not be tamed. He rested his hands on the back of the chair in front of him, shoulders quaking.
His laugh traveled to me. It started deep in my belly, worked its way up my throat. My brain sent out warnings:Do not laugh do not laugh do not laugh, whatever you do, just please do not—
I started with a giggle, close-mouthed, almost discreet. Then, a bright cackle. The seal was broken. My laugh freed itself and cascaded through the air.
To my right, the boy relinquished any pretense of fighting for his composure. For a few absurd moments, we encouraged each other.
It was hubris. It was bliss.
It was self-destruction.
The boy knew the risks as well as I did. My memories of this time in our lives are all superimposed with a layer of bruises, cuts, injuries at various stages of healing. Wounds that were so routine I stopped noticing them.
A hand clasped my arm and tugged me from my chair. There was a pop. A bright pain surged in my right shoulder. Somewhere off to the side, the boy was wrenched from his spot, too.
Émile stood behind his lectern. The sun caught in his blond curls. I swear there was a halo around him.
The hands dragged us across the schoolyard, past the dorms and the communal showers, to the cafeteria. We staggered to the back of the service area. A door opened. We tumbled into darkness.
Later, with adult eyes, I would see the Secret Place for what it was: a fucking broom closet. But to a child, it was a cave. We were pushed inside, and it sealed around us like a coffin.
We stood, backs to a wall. There was no light. No air.
Just us.
