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“That’s the point,” Kait says in a singsong voice, nudging the arm of my sweater with hers. “Laugh at ourselves. Blow off some steam.” She lifts an eyebrow. “And maybe it’ll help you get out of your head with what you’re working on.”
My shut laptop and that single paragraph aren’t exactly beckoning me to continue.
“Count me in,” I say, looping Neil’s scarf around my neck and following her out of the library.
* * *
This time of night, Boston Common isn’t empty, but it’s pretty close. A handful of nighttime joggers, college kids probably on their way to parties. Tegan’s text, which after checking my phone I realized I’d received too—I’d put it on do not disturb in an attempt to focus—instructed everyone to meet at the gazebo.
Seattle has some great parks, but the Common and Public Garden are on another level. Sweeping patches of green, autumn foliage out in full force, a symphony of brick red and tangerine and goldenrod. During the day, sometimes I have to pause and remind myself to properly take it all in. There’s something special about being surrounded by these buildings and this history. That obscure thing you learned about in APUSH? Here’s where it happened.
The gazebo is unlit, both of us using our phone screens and a few lighters to illuminate the path. It’s a white domed structure, quaint during the day if not slightly creepy at ten o’clock at night. The kind of place where I could imagine someone proposing.
My romance-writer brain stutters over that thought. Is it corny or sweet? Romantic or cliché?
God, maybe I really am broken.
“Kait! Rowan!” Tegan whisper-shouts, beckoning us forward, and I’m shocked they can tell it’s us in the dark. We hurry up the gazebo steps.
There are eight of us total, most of the class. This late at night, in the nearly deserted park, it feels like we’re about to have a séance, not read the contents of our middle-school diaries. The fact that we’re sitting in a circle only adds to it.
Sierra passes me a bottle of wine. “It’s not very good, but it’ll do the job,” she says. Her writing is some of the most literary in class, to the point where I’m not sure I fully understand what it means. Like, I’m pretty sure it’s beautiful, but I also never know what’s going on.
“Can’t say no to a little liquid courage.” I pour some into a plastic cup and then hand the bottle to Kait, who does the same with a bit more generous of a pour.
She lifts the cup to the group. “Cheers.”
Some of my old writing is stuffed in notebooks under my bed back home, but I have plenty of it on my computer, single chapters of books I abandoned when I got bored, lovesick poetry, lists of names I like.
Most of it, no one’s ever read before.
That changes tonight. If I’m brave enough.
“Fellow Emersonians,” Tegan says in a serious voice, and all the chattering stops. They’re wearing a dark trench coat, the light from their phone illuminating both their nose ring and the determined gleam in their eyes. “We are gathered here tonight to indulge in a time-honored tradition, one perhaps just as storied as the Boston Tea Party or the midnight ride of Paul Revere: mocking our preteen ideas of literary genius.”
We all bow our heads solemnly.
“It should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway—this is a safe space. What happens in the gazebo stays in the gazebo. Don’t read something you wouldn’t want someone else to laugh at, but also don’t be an asshole, okay? We were all gentle souls with big dreams at one point,” Tegan says. “Quiet applause after each piece only, please. We don’t want to disturb anyone.” They demonstrate this with a silent clapping of their hands. A devious grin. “Now. Who’s our first victim?”
Kait’s hand shoots up. “I feel God in this gazebo tonight,” she says. “I’ll go. And I’m going to preface this by saying that I was a very weird kid.” Another sip of wine. “This is a poem called ‘Toil and Trouble.’ ”
A few hoots. Kait swipes around on her phone and makes a dramatic show of clearing her throat.
“Double, double, toil and trouble
Yet I’m the one who’s troubled
Every time you look my way
So I’ll steal a lock of your hair
And one of your toenails
And your shirt from yesterday
I know the spell
Will make you fall
