“No. I’m exactly what I look like. I’m a girl who’s been pushed under so often and so deep I had to make a choice—swim or drown.”
“This is your version of swimming?”
A grin curls across my face, the sting of an unnoticed cut alerting me it’s been stretched open. “I’ve always been an overachiever. This is my version of flying.”
Chapter 83
Jansen
Walker and RJ are late to visit on Monday, my nerves pinging with every click of the old clock above the front desk. When they finally come in, their energy is jittery enough that I have trouble focusing on what they’re telling me, especially with the haphazard code words we’re coming up with on the fly, so no one realizes we’re talking about the stuff of movies, not middle-class America.
What I understand from the conversation is that Clara was in a fight and that she’s okay. Which does absolutely nothing to help the electricity sparking in my veins, my energy having surged back full force yesterday.
I feel like me again, more or less, but the doctors say this isn’t normal either.
Which I get, but also, maybe my normal is just a little zingier than other people’s?
Either way, I’m feeling well enough that I don’t have any desire to stay.
I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours doing harmless lifts on staff, ending up with some spare change, a lighter that should have been left in a locker, and a phone that also isn’t supposed to be here with us.
Nothing too fun, but still, it’s been keeping me on my toes. After the guys leave and we’re given dinner, I can’t even focus on my fun. The image of Clara bruised and beaten, purply black thighs and stomach, the regret in her gaze, plays on repeat in my mind.
I don’t want that image of her stuck in my brain. But I can’t shake it. Her smile bright with shared mischief, the way her eyelashes flutter before she tugs my braid, dragging me to her for a kiss, the velvet of her skin under my palms, none of the memories feel as real as the way I last saw her.
And she’s been in yet another physical altercation. She probably wasn’t even healed from the first one.
My mind’s a wreck by the time I’m invited to join a game of Apples to Apples, and while I try, I’m just too scattered to keep up with everyone else. I’m not surprised when the attendant recommends I go to either the gym or the meditation space.
The gym would be the better choice, but I beeline for the meditation space. And once I’m there, the window that shouldn’t open, but does, occupies all of my attention.
The guys said she’s okay.
But what if she’s not?
She’s good at acting, at pretending she’s one thing when she’s not. She spent all last winter break secretly starving herself while simultaneously laughing and begging for sex like it was her drug of choice.
Which it was, but still. I could tell something was off. We all could. But I didn’t really get how bad it was until it becameimpossible to ignore. Until she focused on getting better and I could see the person she was supposed to be instead of the shell she’d been.
So, what if that’s what’s going on now? What if this fight was terrible, but she didn’t want Walker and RJ to worry, so she didn’t tell them everything?
Or maybe she did, and they can’t tell me because I’m too loopy to be allowed out in public.
Dimming the lights and turning on one of the preloaded soothing soundtracks should help, but every gong strike and tree rustle has me worried that my time is running out. That something bad is coming for us, and I won’t be there to stop it.
I’m stuck curled up on the floor in front of the speaker, trying to figure out which side of me to listen to—the side that believes Walker and RJ when they say she’s fine or the side of me that knows I can just go check for myself.
I haven’t seen her since the first day of school. Weeks. And the last time I saw her, she could barely walk.
I could just sneak out, steal a car, check, and come right back.
An hour and a half, tops.
Another gong sounds, and it jolts me to my feet, my body sliding the window open like it’s controlled by somebody else.
But when I spin to sit on the edge, I’m with it enough to go back and pry a bit of laminate off a cabinet to use as a shim, adding it to my other prizes stashed in my pockets. Not a full toolkit, not by any measure. But with the way the wind’s blowing, I’m sure I’ll find what I need in the gutter on my way toward the interstate.
My shitty tools collected, I slide out the window, chucking my socks back into the room. No shoes are allowed here, just slippers that will make me look more like an escapee than anything else, so barefoot will have to be good enough. My braid makes me look like a hippie stuck in the wrong decade, sowalking barefoot won’t be memorable should I not get back in time. I hope.
