I hear Ivan shifting in his bed across the narrow space between us, the old springs creaking as he tries to get comfortable. The mattresses in this place are ancient, the springs poke through the thin fabric, dig into your back and ribs no matter how you position yourself. You get used to it eventually. Everything hurts a little less when you get used to it.
"Jay?" The timid sound comes out of the darkness, so quiet I almost miss it over the sound of the TV still going in the living room.
"Yeah?"
"Thanks," he says softly. "For being nice to me tonight. For helping me."
My throat gets tight, swelling up with emotion I don't want to feel. "Go to sleep, Ivan," I manage to say.
"Okay," he whispers. "Goodnight, Jay."
"Goodnight," I whisper back into the darkness.
I keep staring at the ceiling, watching the shadows move across the yellowed paint. The moonlight comes through the window with no curtains, makes strange shapes on the wall that shift and change as clouds pass overhead. I can hear Mr. Henderson moving around in the livingroom, the heavy footsteps, the clink of bottles as he opens another beer. He's still up, still awake, still drinking. The later he stays up, the worse tomorrow morning will be. He'll be hungover and mean and looking for someone to take it out on.
I think about the social worker, Mrs. Patterson. The way she smiled at Ivan like everything was fine, like she was leaving him somewhere safe. The way she drove away without looking back, probably already thinking about the next kid on her list, the next placement.
She's probably home now, safe in her own house. Eating dinner with her family, maybe. Watching TV, reading a book, living her normal life. Not thinking about the kid she left in this house with these people, not wondering if he's okay, not caring what happens to him now that the paperwork is signed.
I hate her. I hate all of them. All the social workers who do this, who drop kids off and drive away and never look back.
But hating doesn't fix anything, doesn't change anything, doesn't make anything better. I learned that a long time ago, learned it the hard way. You can hate the whole world with every fiber of your being and it doesn't change a single thing.
All you can do is survive. Keep your head down. Protect what you can.
Ivan shifts in his bed again, and I hear him sigh softly, a sound full of exhaustion and sadness and resignation. And then his breathing starts to even out, becoming slower and deeper, the rhythm of someone falling asleep.
Let him sleep. Let him have a few hours of peace before tomorrow comes and we have to face whatever fresh hell this place has in store for us. Tomorrow's going to be hard. There's work to do, chores that Henderson will pile on us, new rules for Ivan to learn.
I stay awake a long time after that, listening to the sounds of the house settling around us, listening to Ivan breathe, waiting for footsteps in the hall that might mean trouble. Waiting for Henderson to get drunk enough to come looking for someone to hurt.
They don't come tonight. Not tonight.
Eventually, when the house has been quiet for an hour and my eyes are burning with exhaustion, I close them and let myself drift.
I dream about a kid with a garbage bag, standing in a doorway, looking at me with those terrified eyes like I'm the only thing left in the world that might not hurt him.
In the dream, I don't let him down. In the dream, I keep him safe.
I wish it were more than just a dream.
Chapter 3: Ivan
Three weeks. That's how long I've been here at the Henderson farm, living in this house that smells like cigarette smoke and stale beer.
I know the exact number because I've been counting the days, scratching little marks on the inside of my dresser drawer where no one will see them. Twenty-one marks now, carved into the cheap wood with the edge of a paperclip I found under my bed. Twenty-one days of walking on eggshells, of eating fast and keeping my head down, of watching Mr. Henderson's hands and trying to guess what they're going to do next.
He hasn't hit me yet.
He's hit Jay twice, though, and both times I had to stand there and watch it happen, had to see it and know I couldn't do anything to stop it. Once across the face for talking back. Except Jay didn't actually talk back, he just didn't answer fast enough when Henderson asked him a question, and apparently hesitation is the same as disobedience in this house. And once with the belt across the shoulders for breaking a glass in the kitchen, even though it wasn't Jay's fault at all because the glass was wet and slippery and it just slipped right out of his hands when he was washing dishes.
I was there for the belt one, standing in the corner where Mrs. Henderson had ordered me to stay. She made me stand there and watch the whole thing, told me to stay put and keep my eyes open so I'd "learn what happens to boys who don't take care of things properly." I couldn't look away even though I wanted to. I couldn't close my eyes even though every part of me was screaming to.
Jay didn't make a sound the whole time, not one single sound. His face went completely blank, expressionless, like he went somewhere else inside his head, like his body was there but his mind had fled to some distant place. And he just took it, stood there and absorbed each blow without flinching. Four times the belt came down across his shoulders with that terrible crack of leather on skin, and four times he didn't flinch, didn't cry out, didn't beg for it to stop.
After, when we were finally alone in our room with the door closed and locked, I couldn't stop shaking. My whole body was trembling like I was the one who'd been hit, like I'd taken those blows myself.
"It's okay," Jay said. He acted like nothing had happened at all, like we'd just finished doing homework instead of witnessing violence. Like his back wasn't bleeding through his shirt, dark spots spreading across the fabric. "It looks worse than it is."
