Her face fell. “I’m sorry about that. I mean, maybe it’s just too much time separated. We can’t really expect the people in our life to wait for us.”
No, we really couldn’t. Even if I would have waited for them. I wasn’t going to fit in their life anymore. Not like this. Just the idea of my walking back into Pullman was a joke unto itself. With my hair like this? Even Bethany who had been kind and cared that I’d nearly been raped by my aunt’s boyfriend wouldn’t touch me with a ten-foot pole now, and I wasn’t sure I would have anything to say to anyone anymore.
“Done, I think.” I stepped back.
“Watch it.” She smiled. “It’s wet.”
We both stared at the kitchen together. It was clean. She nudged me. “There you are. Don’t do that again, what you did. We can’t save each other. All we can do is each learn how to shut the fuck up and put our heads down so we don’t get extra dosed or beaten. That’s all we can do. Don’t try to save anyone else, Altheia. It’s pointless, and I hate having you put in solitary.”
I hated it too. I’d spent about a quarter of my time here in solitary. Everyone was put in solitary when we first arrived. Like it was an initial lesson or something. I’d cried the whole time. I didn’t have tears anymore. For the first time in my life, I wasn’teven holding them back and privately doing it. I absolutely had no more tears. It was a bit of a relief, actually.
Then there were the rules I’d broken. The ones no one had bothered to explain. That was when I first met Betsy. She was being sent to solitary too, for messing up her chores. And now this, my punishment for standing up for the child.
I would probably do that again. I wasn’t sure I could ever be the type of person who wouldn’t. I hoped I couldn’t be. But this place broke us. That was what it was meant to do. They didn’t reform us, they destroyed us and then sent us back out into the world at eighteen. Here on this Caribbean island where the whole world got to forget I existed.
My bunk wasthe third in a line of twenty. The room that we slept in was poorly ventilated and at one time must have been a large storage unit. Now it was used to store us. I rolled over, feeling my top bunk mate, Sally, roll over too. She was also not asleep. But we wouldn’t talk. None of us would say a word. If they caught us speaking, it meant dosage and solitary. My hands started to shake, which must have meant that my extra dosage was wearing off. There was what they gave us every day and then there was the additional “you’re in trouble dose.” Neither was great, but this one made me feel like I was going to go into withdrawal when it stopped.
Maybe I actually was. Maybe this was how Phoenix Lent felt all the time. In constant need, like he was always at risk to go into withdrawal.
I hadn’t really understood it. I’d never done drugs or really seen them until I watched him take it up his nose at the lastparty. The last one I would ever attend. Even when I got out of here I absolutely wasn’t going to go to parties ever again.
I sighed as the memory came back in pieces. That night, Maggie had drugged me. She was obsessed with Jeremy Lent because he’d slept with her once—long before he’d ever known me—and she’d slipped ecstasy into my drink. Boy, had that hit me hard. I’d admit, the high felt good for a while, but the crash was brutal. Never again.
In that haze, not thinking straight and loving Phoenix Lent as much as I did, I made a choice. I took the large bag of ketamine out of his possession and let the police think it was mine so he wouldn’t get in trouble.
I rolled over to put my head face down in the pillow. Why didn’t I just throw the thing on the floor?
My family had taken every part of my life and used it against me. They’d made me out to be a criminal. And here I was. With a judge’s permission.
Alone. And powerless. The way I had been since my mom had died when I was eleven.
“Hey.” Sally jumped down on quiet feet. “Mrs. Hollister is snoring in her chair. I think she helped herself to some whiskey again tonight. Let’s get out of here for a bit.”
I loved how dangerous Sally could be. Betsy must have been on the same page because she swung her legs out of her bed. Well, if they were going, I was going. Sally. Betsy. Dora. Casey. And me. Maybe everyone else was asleep, or maybe they were smarter than we were.
On silent feet, I followed them from the room into the hallways. There were cameras, but we knew no one watched them at night. Why bother? There was a chaperone in the room with us meant to notice if we got up at all. Why pay staff they didn’t need to do that job?
I really didn’t know where Sally meant to go, but I was game. Last time it had been helping ourselves to cheese. There was no dessert here, but cheese was heaven.
We only got it on special occasions. There had been cheese on Christmas, before our special Christmas beating. I rubbed my hands. I was covered in scars from rulers and horse crops. I might never be able to go to the beach should I actually be able to tolerate one again.
But I almost turned around when I saw where she was headed. It was Mrs. Oates’ office.
“You can’t be serious?” I was glad Dora asked Sally so I didn’t have to.
Sally turned around. Both girls were beautiful. Sally with her dark hair and dark eyes, Dora with her light brown hair and green eyes. Sally came from Wisconsin and Dora from Arizona. They’d never have known each other, probably, if they hadn’t done something to earn their family’s disdain.
“I am. They’re letting twelve-year-olds in here now. Alatheia spent a week in solitary. I want to see what’s happening in the world. I want to know what Oates is doing, what she is planning. I think that is important for all of us.” She stared at me. “Don’t you, Alatheia?”
Well… I certainly didn’t want to discuss it in the hallway. We were out here. We might as well go in. I nodded, and she continued on her way, all of us following her. It meant a beating if you were called into Mrs. Oates’ office. I had never seen or heard Mr. Oates, so I didn’t know what his deal was. Maybe he didn’t exist. Maybe she thought it made her seem more official to be a Mrs.
The headmistress was forty-something years old and very severe. Had she always been perfect for this job or fit herself to it after she got on this path? I really didn’t know.
“What are you worried about?” I asked Sally once we were inside.
“I’m worried this is like a growing business or something. And don’t you think it’s weird that no one ever comes here to investigate? Like, people leave. They must tell their families how bad it is here. No one comes to look? I mean… I can’t believe my family actually knows what is happening. They think I’m being fixed.” She tapped her foot. Sally had a legitimate drug issue before she was sent here. Out of all of us, she had actually done some pretty messed up things. Like breaking and entering in a dentist’s office. The dentist was her mother, but that didn’t really matter in the long run. I had committed burglary too. In my aunt’s house, to get a folder about myself. What would Kit do with all of that information now? It didn’t really matter, I guessed.
I looked around the office. That was ultimately the issue. She didn’t believe her family would do this to her if they knew. I thought mine might have done it earlier if they had. Maybe they did know. Actually, no maybe about it. My family was one hundred percent on board with this. I was sure of it.
