Janna opens the wooden box and extracts a thin stack of note cards. She hands them to Patrick who hands them to Matt who hands them to me. I’m still not over the fact that Matt Rincorn knows my name. My shoulder is warm where he touched me.
I look at the cards. The top one is typed, like the one I found in my locker.
1. Tell no one else about us.
2. We never talk about IT.
3. Ever.
4. Ever.
The rest are handwritten. Six cards, total. I flip past the blank one.
MY DAD DIED IN A SAILING ACCIDENT. THEY NEVER EVEN FOUND HIS BODY.
PATRICK O’HALLORAN
My twin sister had leukemia since we were seven . Last year, I gave her my bone marrow. She still died.
Celia Berman
My grandpa was like my dad. He was old, but he was my only family. He had a stroke, and now he’s gone.
Simon Rogers
My mom wanted me to learn how to drive in a snowstorm. I slid off the road and wrecked the car. She died in the accident.
Janna Collins
MY MOTHER DIED OF PANCREATIC CANCER.
MATTHEW I. RINCORN
The final card is blank. From the box, Janna pulls a blue ballpoint and slides it across the table to me. Patrick pushes it the rest of the way until I can reach it.
“Are you in?” he says.
My fingers fumble around the pen like I’ve never held one before. I’m five years old again, and writing is new. Everything is new. The first words I ever wrote were with crayons on tracing paper, set on big fat letters my sister wrote for me to copy. There’s nothing to trace now. The footsteps I’ve always tried to walk in are fading in front of my eyes.
I squeak out the words, one by one. It’s the first time I’ve had to do anything but think them:
My sister was killed by a drunk driver.
Kermit Sanders
“Okay,” Matt says. He takes the card out of my hands, and I dry them against my pant legs. My card goes into the pile with the other cards, and back into the box. Patrick whisks them away and they disappear into the outside pouch of his backpack.
“This meeting is hereby in session.” Janna pounds her fist on the table. “What happens in the room stays in the room.”
“I swear,” the others intone in unison.
What’s going to happen?
“Kermit,” Janna scolds. “You have to swear.”
“I swear.”