The Bottom Club

18 | eloquence

GRACE WAS RUNNING late. It was an occurrence that would've deserved commemoration if Wyatt had not been too preoccupied with going over the final stanza of his poem to notice.

On Claire's recommendation he'd checked out a website that allowed users to input certain keywords, and within moments poems related to the topics put in were displayed. It was how he'd stumbled on a poem he staunchly believed had been custom-made for him.

It felt like a prayer, and he could've sworn that it was actually one from how the words dug into his brain till he found himself reciting them in the shower, or while he was doing his biology assignment. Memorizing it had come naturally. Dispatches from a Doomed Fire Island Romance.

Hell, even its title sounded righteous.

He'd ordered a paperback of the collection it was from off Amazon, before moving to devour what scraps of poetry he could find off Tumblr by the same writer, and while Wyatt had never paid any serious attention to the genre. Beyond his run-in a couple of years ago with an ex's journal, he hadn't read much poetry―but that was changing now.

In the seats beside him, two of his classmates gushed about an album by an indie pop band they followed. He couldn't hear much of what was said, but got the gist that they'd started off dancing and ended it crying which, good for them, honestly.

The atmosphere held a kind of restless energy he had never associated with this particular class, but then this was the longest they had ever been without their teacher, and perhaps if she continued on taking her sweet time there would be a live reenactment of Lord of the Flies. (Murder and anarchy over public speaking, any day.)

Wyatt would not have described himself as shy, and it wasn't like the people around him were strangers, in a literal sense since in all his years at Mayfield he must have interacted with most of them at least once―which made perfect sense until he added hadn't spoken to a large percent of them more than once.

There was Noya and her girlfriend, Winona, who he shared pleasantries with whenever they met in Spanish. And Malcolm Kwame, who he could always rely on to have two sharpies during tests if he ever ran out, but other than these three and Tobi he could count on both hands the number of people in his grade that he spoke to on a regular basis.

God, he sounded miserable.

The sound of the door opening brought him out of his thoughts, and Wyatt watched Grace step into the room, her self assured smile firmly fixed. Today her locs were tied into a ponytail with a red bandana. She wore a red long sleeve, tucked into a pair of faded red jeans with the helms folded and red flats―a human stop sign.

All thoughts of poetry evaporated as he took in the travesty. Please unsee. Jesus, her fashion sense alone could have qualified her for a spot on the domestic terrorist watchlist, and from the ghastly expressions he saw ripple through his classmates faces, they probably agreed.

"Hi everyone," she began obliviously, "I apologize for the lateness."

The entire class silently watched as she moved briskly to the table at the front and arranged some of the books she had brought in with her.

"I met up with the teachers of every period you have after this one to ask if they would allow my time to extend into theirs so we could have more time for the poetry today."

The room erupted in groans, Wyatt included, and it struck him that he was more annoyed with the thought of having to sit through two periods of English than of publicly speaking. The nerves must not have hit yet.

"I'm sorry," Grace called out. "I noticed that we were falling behind on our workload and that can't happen. We have a lot to cover this year and if we can't go through them you'll have to go to summer school." She paused. "Plus, it would reflect poorly on me as your teacher, and so it's a big lose-lose situation for all of us. I'm truly sorry guys."