At the End of Everything, page 3
“If you’d followed the rules, you wouldn’t have been in there waiting for the warden in the first place.”
“Right, so I should let you all misgender the new kid and not say anything?” I mean to think it and not say it, but that’s kind of always been my problem. Tone down one comment and the other slips out.
Rock grabs me by the arm and pushes me to the wall, forcefully, face first. For a brief moment, I’m convinced he’ll zip-tie me up and march me back to solitary, and pure terror courses through me. Good in here doesn’t mean the same as it does in the outside world. It simply means it takes longer for the guards to snap.
He leans in close. His breath is hot on my cheek, and it smells of stale coffee and gum. It reminds me of too much. I force myself not to flinch. Not to think. Not to struggle.
“I’m complying, okay? I’m complying,” I mutter, almost out of habit.
“You better be.” He leans in until it hurts, and I cringe. “You are responsible for the choices you make, Grace, and for the consequences of those choices. You could’ve followed the rules, and none of this would’ve happened. None of this would happen.”
It sounds like he’s talking about something other than my throwaway comment, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what. His words run through my mind and turn and twist.
If Ian would’ve kept his hands to himself, none of this would’ve happened either. If our school had listened to the girl he was assaulting or to me instead of their golden boy. The star of the swimming team. The kid without a history of lying. If the police had listened to us. If justice were justice.
But I learned early on how rare that is.
So I let my shoulders go slack and release the tension from my body. After a while, when my neck starts to ache and I’m certain my hips will be bruised from the collision with the rough stone, Rock registers that I’m not putting up a fight, and he lets me go.
I expect him to push me forward to Warden Davis’s office, make another angry comment about how, if I don’t learn, I’ll be stuck here all the way until my twenty-first birthday, despite the fact that no one’s ever been here that long.
Instead, he takes a step back and brushes his hands. He jerks his head in Scissors’s direction. “You take her to Davis. I’m done with this mess.”
Scissors steps in to hold me, his movements automatic and trained into him, even though I have no escape. His voice holds a warning when he turns to Rock, and his hands tighten around my arms. “Henry…”
Right. I keep forgetting they have normal names too.
Rock must shake his head or something, because Scissors’s grip slackens. “Yeah, okay. Stay safe.”
And before I can react or ask what the fuck is going on, Rock turns and walks back through the hallway, leaving Scissors and me staring at each other in awkward silence.
Then he pushes me in the right direction, and his voice is softer. Tired. “Not a word, Grace. For once. Not a word.”
I know. I need to find a way to not say everything that pops into my brain. But here’s the thing I’ve learned about Hope: we’re not taught to moderate ourselves; we’re taught to be silent. Don’t speak up. Don’t talk back. Don’t question too much, too loudly, too often.
At some point, we’ll stop using our voice altogether. Because what’s the point if no one listens? What’s the point if we’re only punished?
Maybe that’s when they’ll call me rehabilitated. Maybe then they’ll care. Not when I’m better, but when I’m the Grace they want me to be and I’ve lost myself completely.
The worst thing is: it’s effective. I’m a coward. Maybe I am a bad person. Once we get to Warden Davis’s office, I simply stand there, arms to my sides, and prepare to let his words wash over me.
Normally, Warden Davis sits behind his desk to lecture us. He’ll stare at me with his cold, blue eyes until I’m uncomfortable, and he’ll tap his fancy pen against the wooden desktop. Tap-tap-tap. Today, he is in the midst of packing files into a briefcase, and he doesn’t so much as look at me. One of the filing cabinets along the wall is open, and several folders are sticking out.
I stare at his short-cropped, gray hair and try not to fidget.
“Miss Richardson, we’ve had this conversation too many times now. You are here at Hope because you were given a second chance in life, in spite of your flagrant disregard of both law and your fellow student’s personhood. You are here because Arkansas and Better Futures believed we could rehabilitate you and turn you into a productive member of society. But this has always required work from your side, and I’m afraid to say I do not see the progress we hoped for. Despite our help and continuous efforts, you let your emotions get the better of you on an all-too-regular basis. Sometimes, I wonder if you want to make life worse for yourself.”
His words are like ice through my veins. My throat is so dry, I wouldn’t know how to speak if I wanted to. Worse? Worse how?
Solitary is only meant to be for a couple of hours, according to the guidelines—a day or two at most. But Hope has other ways to punish us. We’ve all heard the stories of teens being taken from here to be sent back to a closed facility. Sometimes for a couple of weeks or so, as a time-out, to scare them. Sometimes they don’t come back at all.
The mere thought of it makes me want to vomit. I hate it here, but everywhere else is hell. And I didn’t do anything. I only told the guards to stop misgendering the new kid. I only struggled when they cuffed me. I can be good. I know I keep messing up, but—
“Of course, Better Futures was built on the belief that even delinquent teens deserve understanding and care. We would never simply wash our hands of you. But everything that happens from this point on will be on your own head. These are the consequences of your own actions.”
His words eerily mirror Rock’s outburst. Warden Davis looks up from sorting the documents, expecting some kind of acknowledgment—even if I don’t know exactly what I’m acknowledging.
I swallow hard and manage a barely audible, “Yes, sir.”
He softens a bit at that. “You’re a good girl, Grace. I truly wish we could’ve done better by you.”
I don’t know how to respond to that. I don’t know what he’s saying. And it isn’t until the broad hand of Scissors rests on my shoulder that I realize this is it. I’ve been dismissed.
The guard steers me toward the door and gives me a gentle nudge. “Go on, clean yourself up.”
I’m trembling all over, but my hand is surprisingly steady when I push open the door. I walk out and part of me expects to find Rock there, to escort me back to solitary, but the hallway is empty.
I’m alone.
So I keep on walking. One foot in front of the other. And Warden Davis’s words bounce through my head. Teasing me. Haunting me.
Why wasn’t I punished for what happened in the cafeteria? And why did Warden Davis’s dismissal sound like a goodbye?
It’s all I can do to make it to my room. Where the walls are empty but for mold stains and a hint of faded graffiti. Where the bed is uncomfortable, but at least it has no restraints. And where I make it to my tiny bathroom to throw up.
After I’ve rinsed my mouth and cleaned my teeth, I sit down on my bed with its itchy woolen blanket and think.
Something strange is going on here, and I want to know what it is. Because if this place doesn’t make sense anymore either, I don’t know what will. I hate it here, but at least I know what’s expected of me.
I don’t want to make life worse for myself.
It takes me all too long to realize that this trembling inside me is fear, pure and breathtaking. I haven’t felt this afraid in a long time. Not since that first night after I got arrested. And the last night before my court hearing. I’m far more comfortable with anger than I am with fear.
I kick my shoes off and send them flying across the room.
I don’t go see Casey. I sleepwalk through dinner. I don’t reply when people talk to me, only in single syllables when the guards say something. I can’t even taste what I’m eating. All I can do is observe and consider.
One of the guards shouts at Sofia when she accidentally drops a spoon—and he kicks it out of her reach. Another guard purposefully looks the other way when Joshua steals an extra cup of pudding. Halfway through dinner, Warden Davis passes by the cafeteria on his way out. He has a long coat over his suit and a briefcase in his hand. He shakes hands with the guards on duty. In the doorway, he turns back to look at all of us.
When our eyes meet, his mouth thins, and he shakes his head. Then he leaves.
During recreation, several guards do the same thing: they come in, shake hands with those on duty, and leave. With every one of them who passes by, the discomfort inside of me grows—and so does the annoyance at being kept in the dark.
Once I’m back in my room after lights-out, the solitude is too oppressing and the questions in my mind are too many. I want to know what’s going on here. I need to know what’s going on here. We have a right to it, don’t we?
Without any care for consequences anymore, I get dressed. I pull my hair into a messy braid. And I walk out of my room.
Four
Emerson
The irony is, for most of my life, I was a good Catholic girl. I never broke rules. I loved going to Mass every Sunday. I would dutifully go to Confession too. Sometimes I miss it. I miss the Emerson I thought I was. Maybe things would be easier if I could have gone on pretending to be that girl. In another life, maybe. A parallel universe.
But in this universe, I’m sneaking through the darkened hallways of a juvenile jail to meet the residential bully, because apparently, I have no sense of self-preservation whatsoever, and I don’t have anyone to pray to.
But I guess this is a rule too, isn’t it? And if this is the only way to fit in, if this is the only way to find a glimmer of belonging here, I’ll do it. Hunter is waiting for me. So I go.
Since my room is at the very end of the east wing, it’s terrifying to sneak toward the common areas. My footsteps on the stained linoleum floor are never entirely silent and neither is the hallway around me. In one of the rooms to my right, someone is talking in their sleep. A little ways farther down, I can hear someone crying.
The only thing missing is the pounding of the guards’ boots and the loud middle-of-the-night conversations.
My steps echo, almost like someone is following me. If I’m caught outside of my room at this time of night, I’ll be in so much trouble.
I follow the hallway until it gets to the cross section with the three other wings. The light is brighter here, the shadows darker. I duck down—like that makes me less visible—and am crossing the large open space toward the common areas and the administrative wing when it happens.
“Weird.”
I nearly jump out of my skin. The soft voice comes from close by, but it rings like a bell. I can’t figure out who spoke. I can jump back and push myself against the wall. My heart hammers up a storm, and my knees shake.
Someone laughs coldly. “Chill, new kid. I’m not here to turn you in.”
A girl steps out of the shadows on the other side of the room. It’s the same girl who corrected the guards when they misgendered me. She’s wearing a faded shirt and pajama bottoms and somehow still looks more at ease than I do in my dark shirt and uniform pants. She has her mousy hair pulled back in a braid, but despite her confident words, her eyes look haunted.
“Who are you?” What do you want? almost slips out too. My voice only shakes a little.
“Grace. South wing.” She takes a step toward me, offering me a wry smile. “Nice to officially meet you, I guess.”
We probably shouldn’t be having this conversation here, in the middle of an open area, but I’m not sure what’ll happen if I walk away.
“Are you part of the welcome committee?”
She raises her hands, as if I’m some kind of skittish animal. “Not my thing. I happened to pass by.” A totally normal thing to do in the middle of the night.
“So what’s weird?” I ask.
Grace turns away from me and points toward the blinking red light from a security cam. “You passed at least two different cameras, but no one has come to check on you. Last time I was that naive, I was in solitary before I even made it out of the hallway.”
Oh.
Fear squeezes my throat. Someone could have—should have noticed me. I didn’t even take the cameras into consideration. “I’m not really used to this yet,” I squeak.
She snorts. “I can tell.” There’s an edge to her voice, like she’s tired or has been crying. “But this is not normal.”
“What do you mean?” Maybe the guards are preoccupied. Maybe we should turn around and go back to our rooms before they notice us.
“Long day. Long story.” Grace throws a glance in the direction of the north wing, but then she shakes her head. “Come on, I’ll show you the best way to get to the recreation room unseen. Unless you want to turn around?”
The absurdity of what I’m doing has crept up on me, but I can’t simply turn away. “I think I should get this over with.”
“If it makes you feel any better,” Grace says, “you’ll live.”
“Good?” I probably don’t sound very convinced, but Grace doesn’t say anything, and the best option I have is to follow her. She moves with purpose and abandon.
It takes me roughly five minutes to realize that we’re not going straight for the recreation room but taking a long way around. A very long way around. We’re not walking toward the common areas but toward the main guard station.
Unease and fear settle heavy in my stomach.
“Wait. What are you doing?” I hiss.
She gestures for me to be quiet. “Checking on something.”
“Grace…”
“Trust me.”
Before I can do anything else, like stop her, or run away, or tell her I don’t trust her, or try to let the floor swallow me, she pounds on the heavy-duty door.
The loud bangs vibrate through the air around us. I grab Grace by the shoulders, and I yank her back from the door. “What is wrong with you? Are you completely out of your mind? Do you know the trouble we’re in—”
Anger sparks in her eyes, and she slaps my hands away. “Shut up. Listen!”
I close my mouth.
Nothing.
Absolute silence settles around us again, and no one responds to Grace’s racket. Grace’s hands tremble, and her breath is shallow. Her mouth works, but no sound comes out. The door doesn’t open. No response.
I love silence. Silence is what makes music. But this silence is uncomfortable and threatening. “We shouldn’t be—”
“Hush.” Grace does the next unthinkable thing and reaches forward to open the door to the guard station. Usually, it’s one of the doors inside of the Hope Center that is permanently locked. Medium security only goes so far. Not tonight. It creaks when it opens, and the darkness inside practically spills out.
No guards. No lights. None of the surveillance monitors are on.
Grace’s shoulders drop, and she clenches her fists. “I knew it.”
“What?”
“I knew something was up.”
I shake my head. “So what—”
“We’re alone.”
I blink. “What do you mean? We’re not supposed to be alone.” The words spill out of me uncontrollably.
Grace narrows her eyes, and I can feel the distance and the ignorance between us. “Something happened outside, I think. The whole staff has been acting all weird. Distracted or something. I don’t know.”
I nearly laugh, because what else can I do? “I didn’t even notice.”
Come to think of it, didn’t I? I remember Jemma staring at the computer screen, like she didn’t hear a word of what I was telling her. The guard who didn’t see the twin sneaking around in the hallway.
“Told you this wasn’t normal,” Grace says.
“What isn’t? Tattling to the guards? That won’t get you anywhere.”
Another voice from the shadows. Again, I jump. I’m not meant for this sneaking around, even when, apparently, there are no guards here to stop me. When Reid saunters into our line of sight, his movements casually predatorial, my unease doesn’t falter. Especially not when I see the other boys behind him, down the hallway. All of Hunter’s crew, with their leader in the middle. They’re far enough away that I can’t make out their expressions, but they seem to be purposefully blocking our exit.
Reid grins at me. “We were waiting for you.”
I can still feel his hands on me. I can still feel the ghosts of his punches. I force myself to remain upright so I don’t crumble.
Grace turns around, and the set line of her mouth betrays her annoyance. She’s not the type of person to be intimidated easily. “What is this, a midnight picnic? Go away.”
Reid shrugs. He jerks his head backward in the direction of the others. “Hunter wants to see the new kid, and when they didn’t show, well… You know how it is.”
With those few words, the tension of the night grabs me. I was going to this initiation willingly, but I foolishly forgot about it for a moment, and now I’m trapped.
One of the other boys walks up to me.
“It’s bullshit, is how it is,” Grace mutters. She takes a deep breath and steps into the guard station.
Reid gasps—and the sound echoes throughout the hallway. “Whoa, Grace, what are you doing?”
She doesn’t answer, and he turns to me. “What is happening here?”
“The guards are gone,” I say, once I’ve finally found my voice. “They’re not patrolling either. They’re…gone.”
His shock is palpable—and it’s mirrored on the faces of the people behind him. Some of them have been here for years. Guards are part of daily life. Being observed constantly is part of being here. And with no reasonable explanation, we’re left with an emptiness that has the gravitational pull of a black hole.
