APRIL RAIN SINKS IN SHEETS,
Forces me to squint against the chaos in the sky,
Makes the WALK signal blurry, almost invisible.
Umbrellas shield others,
But not me.
I don’t deserve to be dry,
To be under that cocoon of safety,
To be protected.
You’re a great friend, El,
Whispers the wind,
Replaying what Honesty’s mom said.
A verbal punishment I’ll never escape.
I’d been standing in the produce section,
Staring at mangoes,
Staring at arugula,
Staring at the lint on her shoulder.
I’d nodded,
Trying to decide if I should speak or not.
Eenie, meenie, miney, mo, catch a tiger by the toe…
I stayed silent.
There wasn’t anything to say anyway.
I’m not a great friend,
Or even a good one.
Doesn’t matter, I tell myself.
Honesty and I aren’t friends anymore.
MY STOMACH CLENCHES,
My fingers tremble,
My legs feel weak,
As the traffic light turns green.
The bagged salad with pea pods
Drips rainwater
Onto my ballet flats.
I don’t care.
I feel like weeping too,
Adding my tears to the water
Crying from the sky.
MY SHOULDERS COLLECT RAIN
As I dash down the street,
As it drips from my hair,
As I duck under the awning in front of our building.
Harold, the doorman, bustles outside,
Wields an open umbrella,
Scolds me for going out “in this weather,”
Though he knows Mom sent me to the grocer.
“Wipe your feet, El,” he says.
“You get your salad?”
I hold it up,
Smile,
But it feels wrong on my face,
Like maybe it’s pulling too tight,
Or not stretching enough.
Harold notices,
Knows,
Returns the gesture.
But his smile is sad,
Filled with pity.
I HATE THAT.
I don’t want to be pitied.
Not by him,
Not by Mom.
Not because of Honesty.
And kindness?
I certainly don’t want it
From Honesty’s mother.
Some people deserve to be pitied,
Like Honesty for getting hit by that car.
Like my dad for going to war.
But me?
No pity
Or kindness
Necessary.
SIXTEEN FLOORS
Is a long way
Not long enough to avoid my thoughts.
I avoid a lot of things now.
Like elevators,
Like speaking.
THE ELEVATOR IN MY BUILDING
Hasn’t seen me since New Year’s,
Five months ago,
When I decided climbing stairs
Wasn’t punishment.
Just necessary.
I MOVE AWAY FROM THE LOBBY,
Down the hall,
To the stairs.
“The stairwell is closed. Maintenance.”
The overhead lights blink,
Swirl,
Darken,
Come back on.
I blink back at the bulbs,
Panic about what to do.
Footsteps patter down the stairs,
Coming closer.
My hand rests on the rail,
My heart pumps through the anxiety,
But my feet don’t move.
A handyman pokes his head around the corner.
“Sorry, but we’re replacing all the torn up linoleum.
You can’t get past the second floor.”
When I still don’t move,
He tries again, this time in Spanish,
Though it’s plain by my light hair,
Fair skin,
That I don’t speak the language.
I swallow hard,
Breathe,
Turn around.
Down the hall, the lobby is too bright,
The pea pod salad feels like barbells tied to my fingertips.
The elevator doors are shiny,
Silver,
Metallic,
Cold,
Stretching up to meet the ceiling.
The steel chills me from ten feet away.
BUBBLE GUM, BUBBLE GUM
Runs through my head
Even though I have no other choice.
I move across the hall,
Press the UP button.
A GUTTURAL RUMBLE
Shakes the closed doors,
Vibrates through the soles of my feet,
As the car begins a slow descent from above.
I close my eyes,
Inhale deep,
Deep,
Deep.
The promise of laundry detergent,
Brown sugar,
Oranges,
Teases my nose.
His scent.
It hides in every crevice on the elevator,
A permanent passenger.
THE OVERHEAD LIGHTS FLICKER AGAIN
While Harold talks in the lobby,
While I wait for the doors to open,
While I brace myself.
The flood comes.
Memories of him I want to erase,
Snatches of conversation I’m not ready for,
Dreams of a family that will never be.
The lamps burn steadily when I step toward the lobby,
When the elevator dings,
When the doors begin to slide open,
Gaping and wide,
Wide and gaping.
Waiting,
Willing,
To swallow me whole.
I could call Dr. Tickson.
He’d know what to say to stop the tremors in my hands,
The thrumming pulse in my neck,
The fear pimpling my skin.
I fumble in my pocket for my cell as the elevator doors reveal a huge,
Empty
Car that used to
Transport hospital patients.
The elevator is large enough to house two elephants,
With room to spare for a gurney in the middle.
But it’ll never be big enough for me.
I HOLD MY BREATH
As I step into the car,
Lean against the unyielding metal,
Punch the button for my floor,
Close my eyes.
Honesty loved to play in this elevator,
Riding from the sixteenth floor,
To the second,
The third,
The ninth.
Never to the lobby.
Harold doesn’t like “horseplay.”
Sometimes we’d race,
Her on the stairs,
Me in the car.
If she won,
She got to ride and I had to run.
Age eleven found us with
Worries about Harold catching us,
About winning the race,
About which teacher we’d get for history,
And if our moms would finally buy us training bras for our twelfth birthdays.
Now,
I worry about breathing for one more day,
One more minute,
One more second.
Now,
There is no more us.
THE HYDRAULICS OF THE ELEVATOR WHEEZE
br />
As I release my breath,
As I accept this too easy ride to the sixteenth floor,
As the doors shut,
As the car lurches,
As the doors hiss open
Again.
I open my eyes,
Look up,
See Travis Carpenter with his olive skin,
Hazel eyes more green than brown,
Dark hair the color of my mom’s new mahogany floor.
Silence stretches into long,
Thin strands,
Shattered by Travis clearing his throat,
By my pea pod salad swooshing to the floor.
“GETTING OFF OR GOING UP?”
His words make my heart
Beat against my ribs like they’re prison bars.
“Going up,” he answers for us both,
Knowing I’ll never make a decision that fast.
He steps into the car,
Stoops for my pea pods,
Infuses the air with his delicious mix of laundry detergent,
Brown sugar,
Oranges.
I HAVE TO GET OFF THIS ELEVATOR.
I can’t ride with him,
Can’t look at him,
Can’t be this close to him.
Can’t,
Can’t,
Can’t.
FIVE MONTHS OF SILENCE
And I—just—can’t
Be here,
Do this,
Talk to him.
“I—I—have—”
The doors slide shut,
Seal off any escape,
Any excuse,
Drown my voice in silence.
Travis stands at the back of the elevator now,
Pinches the bag of salad between two fingers,
Wears a black hoodie over his lean body.
Under that he’ll have on a T-shirt.
Gray,
Blue,
Maybe even pink.
I used to have them all memorized,
Back when we were all friends.
I YANK ON A LOCK OF MY HAIR,
Twirl it around my pinky finger.
My mom hates it when I do this,
Says I shouldn’t show my nerves so easily.
Maybe she’s right,
But I would never say that out loud.
“Fourteen,” Travis says,
His voice heavy with frustration,
As if I don’t know,
Like I could’ve forgotten.
I turn away from him,
Feel the same frustration as him,
Jam my thumb against his 14,
Imagining it’s his eyeball,
Before lightly tapping the button for my floor again.
“Elly—”
“Don’t,” I choke out.
Because I know he’s really saying,
I’m sorry,
I miss you,
I love you,
Please, please listen.
While I want to hear those words in his voice,
Only his voice,
They hurt so much,
Make unseen wounds crack,
Bleed.
Those words
In his voice
Make the impossible seem possible.
I CAN’T MAKE A DECISION ABOUT ANYTHING,
But it doesn’t matter.
I’ve chosen this,
Our silence,
Our separation.
I crave it the way I crave solitude,
The way a fish craves water.
I press my forehead to the cool metal wall,
Wondering how long it’ll take to get to the fourteenth floor,
Wondering if I can make it before I puke.
But I know how long it takes:
Three minutes,
Twelve seconds.
I timed it once after—
I can’t let myself think like that,
Can’t breathe properly,
Can’t get his smell out of my memory,
Can’t hide from his gaze settling on the back of my head.
The elevator jerks upward,
Groaning as if I were one elephant,
And the words we won’t say
The other.
LAST YEAR,
Honesty and I still talked,
Laughed,
Planned weekend activities together.
Last year,
I used to have friends,
Speak,
Live.
Last year,
Honesty lived,
Loved,
Laughed.
But now—
Now I live with the knowledge that
Some things
Kill others.
Last year,
I said, “Gina’s as easy as second-grade math,”
Stopped at Honesty’s locker.
“I mean, anyone who can get two baseball—”
Last year,
Honesty spun around,
Flashed fire with her blue eyes,
Cracked her makeup as she scowled.
“She has a date to prom. And we do not.”
“Travis’ll ask you.”
Jealousy surged behind my words because they’d been dating since Valentine’s Day,
But she didn’t hear it.
“He hasn’t yet.”
Honesty applied another layer of lip gloss.
“Peaches & Cream?”
She knew which shade went with my lime green sweater,
With the coral in the jacket my dad sent from Afghanistan,
With Señor Hansen’s mood.
She knew lip gloss,
But she didn’t know me
Last year.
“MAYBE GINA’S RIGHT.”
I scoffed,
Waved away her lip gloss.
“She just wants you to think Travis notices her.”
“They do have health class together.”
“So what? So do thirty other kids. He doesn’t notice her.”
“How do you know? Don’t you think she’s pretty?”
Chestnut hair,
Falling in waves like a liquid wood waterfall.
Silky skin.
Perfectly kissable lips—all the boys said so.
Yes, Gina is pretty.
“He’ll ask you,” I said.
She swished her way into Spanish,
Leaving me in the hall,
Leaving me wishing my words weren’t true,
Leaving me knowing that they were.
I couldn’t compete with Honesty,
With her dark blonde hair streaked with auburn,
With her captivating blue eyes,
With her legs that stretched into forever.
She had the brains,
The body,
The perfect resume for girlfriend.
And me?
I had the perfect resume for
Best friend.
All the boys said so.
I BREATHE THROUGH MY MOUTH,
Seconds ticking loudly in my ears,
Questions clogging my throat.
Will he drop my salad on his way out?
Should I say something?
How am I going to survive the next two minutes and forty-seven seconds?
The car coasts past the third floor,
The industrial lights overhead flash,
I glance up.
The lights disappear,
The elevator shudders,
Stalls,
Quits.
All in the same nanosecond.
All that exists is darkness so thick I can’t think,
And Travis so close I can’t breathe.
I REACH FOR THE WALL
Find it next to me.
The bumps in the metal,
The solid steel,
Bring no comfort.
“What—?”
The hum of the emergency lights interrupt Travis.
His voice carries as muc
h fear as I feel.
Only two of the six overhead lights
Push back against the darkness.
The rings around the 14 and 16 are black.
Without movement,
Without light,
Without a proper lungful of air,
I feel like the next moment will consume me whole.
“Must be the storm,” he murmurs.
I thought three minutes and twelve seconds would undo me.
Now I’m trapped.
I cannot survive in this elevator.
Not with him,
Not for much longer
Another second.
I PUNCH THE BUTTONS ON MY CELL,
Find the right speed dial,
Feel the vibrations rumble through my fingers,
Breathe to calm the storm inside my chest.
My mom picks up after the fourth ring.
“El? Where are you?”
“In the elevator,” I say,
Trying to keep the panic out of my voice,
Trying not to sob in front of Travis.
I wish,
Wish,
Wish
The anxiety was borne from being stuck in an unmoving metal box the size of Rhode Island,
But that’s not it.
In the pause still lingering,
I say, “Mom—I can’t—”
“The power’s out. I’ll call Harold. Where are you?”