Clay, a constant presence. Just being there. So much meaning in that action. Not telling me I’m here. Showing me instead.
And Janie. She’s in a foster home now, a good one, get that. Her eyes are starting to look outward. And she’s seeing a counselor, just like me. Although she thinks it’s actually helping her. “Talk to them, Jason,” she says. “Talk to them.”
Maybe they tell her to say that.
So much of healing is belief in the cure.
But I don’t. So I have nothing to say.
And if I wake up sweating, his face hovering above me, fingers squeezing my throat, or if Michael stands in the corner, watching me, blood and brain oozing from his mangled face . . .
It’s just a moment.
It’s just a dream.
It doesn’t mean anything.
And nothing will change it.
Some things get to me, though. Stab through the cushioning waters. Make it hard to breathe. Like Cyndra’s phone calls.
They started about a week after I got to the group home. I was handed the phone. I listened and could only hear her breath. She doesn’t talk, and neither do I. She keeps calling. Sometimes I can hear her crying. I have nothing, so I always hang up. But not before listening for a little and thinking of her.
Not thinking. Remembering. This sudden image, vivid, the feel of her body against me and how maybe she really did care for me. And how it wasn’t enough.
Could never be enough. Because Michael was right about her. Not that she was a user, not that she wanted power. But how she wanted saving. Maybe that’s what she saw in me. How I wanted to save her. And never could.
Maybe she thinks she loves me. I loved her. But none of it matters anymore.
Just like me. Useless. Empty. And with no future. No dream revenge for another day.
And not strong enough to reject it. Or accept anything else.
That catches my breath, because I think of Celia in eighth grade, Cyndra, and before them, Janie, and something the counselor said. How I wanted to save them—and hide from myself. How I take responsibility to feel it as power. When what I need to do is realize what I can and cannot do.
That I can’t just get better. That I have to “work” on myself.
Sometimes feeling moments come, thinking about Cyndra or Janie or all the mistakes that led me here—to this group home. It isn’t a juvenile detention center, but it’s only one step off. A halfway house. And that’s right, isn’t it? That’s right. Halfway there, wherever there is, struggling to keep from either sinking or surfacing.
Halfway under.
After a while, Clay stopped letting me pretend that everything was okay. Started calling BS on all the ways it wasn’t. Trying to draw me out, to make something better. Shining his light into all the dark places.
Calling me a robot.
I told him I was on his page now. A pacifist. Calm.
“That’s not pacifism, that’s self-annihilation,” he said. “That’s not who you are.”
I shrugged and saw the hope slowly die in his eyes. The hope that he’d found the right combination to make the locker spring open.
I kept it shut tight. Locked down.
So time went, and I went with it. After another month they said everything was over. After Christmas, with a sorry little tree strewn with loose-tossed tinsel and paper ornaments. And after Danny, the special-needs kid who’s only here, let’s face it, because he’s so damn special no one will have him, sang “Jingle Bells” a million times. And we all opened our cheap-wrapped presents, and Danny laughed and laughed, hugging himself and rocking when he saw the stupid robot dog he wanted.
After the turkey dinner and dressing on plastic plates, nicer and better than any Christmas meal I’d ever had. After me and Danny got picked up by Janie and her foster mom and went to their church for the music and candle service. All of us in this row, trying to look like we knew what to do. Danny next to me, whispering about the windows, the organ, the handbell choir, the candles with their little paper collars, and When do we light the candles, Jason? When?
After all that. And after Mr. Lance and Ms. Jay—the group home “mother” and “father”—asked if Danny could swap into my room because he was having “personality conflicts” with Alex. Which was a bunch of bull because Danny wouldn’t conflict with a flea, but whatever.
And after the New Year’s party—soda out of plastic cups and Chex Mix—where nothing much happened except Alex kept hassling Danny about wanting to watch the crystal ball drop, changing the channels just to see him get upset.
And after the homebound teacher came and collected the schoolwork, and after the judge met with me and my advocate again.
It was finally official.
All of it was over, cleared—done with. Even though people were dead. And the bartender was out on disability, and Beast’s dad was still talking about a civil suit. It was over.
Over.
And they said I should go back to regular school.
So I went back. Climbed onto the bus in front of the house. Told myself to ignore the stares. Figured if people avoided me before, they’ll sure as hell avoid me now. Now that I’ve . . . now that he’s dead.
Him. What they knew of him. King of the school. Mr. Popular Super Jock.
What they know of me. Iceman. Psycho.
Killer.
His supposed friend.
But it was all right. It was all right. All morning, eyes followed me like crap magnets—and I didn’t even wonder, much, what everyone knew. Or thought they knew. What everyone had heard about it all. About how it happened.
I avoided them. Head on desk, empty gaze out the window. It hadn’t even been half a day. But I was already looking at it as time. Doing time. Waiting it out. Thinking the rest of the semester would be like this. Empty eyes to hostile faces.
Letting time pass, and me insulated from it all.
Clay stayed with me, through the day, through the stares and murmurs. Meeting me at break, between classes.
Then Beast found us. Fell into step beside me as we walked into the lunchroom. Slapped hands like we were friends. Followed me through the line, then to a table. The other kids got up and left.