She studies my face, like she’s searching for cracks.
After a few seconds, I nod once more, slower this time, feeling the truth settle heavily into my chest.
“Yes,” I repeat quietly. “I finally think I am.”
CHAPTER 1
Silas
Four walls.
The same four walls.
Peeling wallpaper curls at the seams like it’s trying to escape. The paint beneath it is the color of old bones. The beds creak if you so much as breathe wrong, thin mattresses sagging in the middle like they’ve given up holding anyone properly. The pillows are lumpy, stuffed with more than cotton half the time. Contraband shifts from room to room like currency. A lighter. A blade. A folded note with a phone number that leads nowhere good.
There’s a barred window near my head. It lets in just enough light to remind me what I’m missing. St. Augustine doesn’t waste money on replacing burned bulbs or fixing broken fixtures. If something works halfway, that’s good enough. Half-lit rooms for half-saved kids.
Four walls.
The same four walls I’ve stared at for the last four years.
Same bed. Same cracked tile under my shoes. Same desk with initials carved into the wood by hands that don’t live here anymore. I’ve memorized the pattern in the wallpaper. I knowwhich board in the floor groans first when someone shifts their weight.
The only thing that changes are the roommates.
They come in angry...hollow. They leave quieter... maybe even softer. Or sometimes they leave in handcuffs. Very few stay as long as I have. Most of them get turned around with a little structure and the promise of something else.
It’s almost funny, how easy it is to reshape the damaged when you give them a roof and the illusion of a fresh start. They all act hard at first. Arms crossed. Eyes sharp. Pretending they don’t care. Then a couple walks through those front doors, smiling too wide, dressed too neat, looking like they stepped out of a catalog.
Suddenly everyone sits up straighter.
Everyone hopes.
The happy couple tours the halls. They nod sympathetically at the Warden. They ask about grades and hobbies and progress. They peer into rooms like they’re browsing shelves.
I’ve heard what it feels like when they choose you. How they look at you like you’re already theirs. Like you’re not just a file. Like you’re something worth taking home.
No one ever looked at me like that.
The minute they read my file, the shift happens. The polite smile tightens. The questions change. The Warden calls it an accident, every single time, like repetition makes it softer.
An accident, he says, referring to my father’s death.
One internet search proves otherwise.
Fourteen-year-old boy. Brutal attack. Multiple stab wounds. Domestic incident.
Those are the words they see.
They don’t see the nights before it. They don’t see the police reports buried under stacks of ignored CPS calls. They don’t see what it takes to push a kid that far.
They just see what I did.
And what I did was not small.
Hedeservedit.
Hedeservedevery fucking hit.
