Every Last Word Read Online Free PDF Page A

sitting on
the edge again. She leans forward and checks the room. “I want to help you, Sam.”
    Wait. What? She wants to help
me
? “What do you mean?”
    “Can you keep a secret?”
    I’m great at secrets. My friends tell me all their dirt, knowing I’ll never breathe a word of it to anyone. They have no idea I’ve been keeping a mental disorder from
them
for the last five years.
    “Of course I can,” I say.
    “Good. I want to show you something. But if I do, you can’t tell anyone. And I mean
anyone
. Not even your shrink.”
    “But I tell her everything.”
    “Not this.”
    Caroline waves me over to her. “See that spot over there?” She points at the piano in the corner of the stage. “Come back here on Thursday, right after the lunch bell rings,
and wait for me. Don’t say a word to anyone. Hide on this side of the curtain and don’t come out until I come get you.”
    “Why?”
    “Because.” She grabs me by the shoulders. “I’m going to show you something that will change your whole life.”
    I roll my eyes. “Oh, please.”
    “It might not.” Caroline moves her hands to my cheeks. “But if I’m right about you, it will.”

T he elevator is already waiting. I press 7 and then, because I can’t help it, I press 7 two more times. As soon as I open the office
door and step inside, Colleen’s head pops up from behind the counter and her whole face brightens. “Ah, it must be Wednesday!”
    At first, I found her regular greeting mortifying, but then I realized there are never any other patients here, and even if there were, there’s no reason to hide. We’re all
regulars.
    “She’s running about five minutes late. Water?” she asks, and I nod.
    I fish my phone out of my purse, pop in my earbuds, and put on my typical waiting room playlist,
In the Deep
, named for lyrics in a Florence + the Machine song. I think of my naming
strategy as a hobby, even though my psychiatrist doesn’t see it that way. I don’t simply listen to music, I study the lyrics, and when I’m done making a playlist, I pick three
words from one of the songs—three words that perfectly encapsulate the collection—and that becomes its title.
    I let my head fall back against the wall and close my eyes, ignoring all the motivational posters hanging above me. I mentally transport myself back to the pool two weeks ago, to that moment
when Brandon kissed me but didn’t, and I feel my face relax as I relive the fantasy again. His mouth was so warm. And he smelled good, like Sprite and coconut sunscreen.
    “She’s ready for you,” Colleen says.
    Sue’s office hasn’t changed in five years. The same books line the same shelves, and the same certificates hang from the walls covered in the same beige paint. The same photographs
of the same children stand propped up on her desk, suspended in time like the office itself.
    “Hey, Sam!” Sue crosses the room to greet me. She’s this tiny Japanese woman with thick black hair that hangs to her shoulders, and she’s always impeccably dressed. She
looks like she’d be refined and soft-spoken until she opens her mouth.
    I’d only been seeing her for a few months when I came up with the nickname “Shrink-Sue.” I never actually thought I’d call her that to her face, but one day, it slipped
out. She asked me how I came up with it, and I told her it sounded like something badass you’d call out while throwing a judo chop.
    Until that point, I hadn’t really stopped to question whether or not psychiatrists appreciated being called shrinks. I was only eleven years old. And I didn’t want to offend her, but
once I’d said it, I couldn’t take it back.
    But Sue said she liked the name. And she told me I could call her anything. I could even call her a bitch, to her face or behind her back, because there would certainly be times I’d want
to. I liked her even more after that.
    She sits in the chair across from me and hands me my “thinking putty.” It’s