by Logan Fox
“Of course, slugger. Go right ahead.” Brian waves a hand.
I’m already up, following his gesture from the room. Why do I always need a goddamn shower when I’m done talking to him? Our first therapy session was the fucking worst. He kept asking me why I was so angry at my father. And then I’d tell him, and he’d rephrase the question like I’d given him the wrong answer.
There’s a small room just off the main hallway. I grab the handle and turn, almost breaking my shoulder when it thumps into the closed door. I step back, clenching my jaw so hard I have no doubt Brian can see my irritation when he walks up behind me.
“Sorry, man,” he says through a laugh. “We’ve been keeping it locked after what happened with Sylvester.”
I duck my head and can only hope he takes it as a gesture of humility and not me trying to keep my temper. As soon as that keycard goes back in his pocket, I shove open the door, whirl around, and shut it in his face.
There’s a computer here, but it’s one of those old school ones with the massive CRT monitors. Everything is beige. It still has a floppy drive. We’re supposed to use it if we have to write papers, but everyone makes sure to get that shit done in the school building, where they have up to date PC’s that are actually capable of connecting to the fucking Internet.
I wait a few minutes, hands on my knees, to make sure Brian isn’t still listening at the door. For all I know, they bug this room, but I have to believe that doing that would contravene some kind of human rights.
I’m still laughing silently at the thought when I pick up the receiver and dial the aftercare Emma goes to when she’s done with school.
“Yes?” comes an elderly woman’s voice.
“Hey, Sara, it’s Josiah.”
“Oh, Mr. Bale. Didn’t think we’d hear from you again so soon.”
I smile despite myself. Sara’s one of Emma’s caregivers. “Would you like to speak with Emma?”
“Thanks.”
“I think she’s coloring. Let me go check,” Sara says. There’s some background noise, muted voices, and then Sara comes back onto the line. “Here she is,” she says.
There’s more noise—fabric rustling, more muted voices—and then a hesitant, warbling, “‘Ello?”
“Hey, sis,” I say through a smile. I pause, waiting for her to answer.
We all took it hard when Emma was diagnosed with intellectual disability and hypertonia. As a baby, that shit isn’t as readily apparent as it is with a toddler. Emma just took longer than most kids her age to sit up, crawl, walk. Speaking, especially, she found hard to do. The doctors say she’ll reach a plateau one day—kind of like a mental peak—and that day isn’t far off. I can’t imagine being trapped in the mind of a ten-year-old the rest of my life but, luckily, Emma wouldn’t know any better.
“Jo?” She’s the only one that calls me that. Candy tried, once, and I’m sure she still regrets it to this day. “That you?”
“Who the fuck else would be calling your sorry ass?”
There’s a breathy sigh before Emma replies. “You’ve been gone long.”
“Too long. And I’m sorry about that.” I pause, but this time it’s not for her reply. And she senses that, little Emma, because she says nothing until I speak again. “You sounded unhappy the other day.”
“Yeah?”
“Like you’d been crying. Are you crying about something?”
Silence. A faint rustle, as if she’s moving around her room. Then, “Sometimes.”
“Why?”
“I miss you.”
“That all?”
Emma doesn’t reply.
“Sis, is that all? How’s Dad?”
“I can’t swim.”
I sit back in the office-style chair—beside the laminated desk, the only other piece of furniture in this cubbyhole of a room. “What do you mean?”
Emma’s not the kind of person to state the obvious. I mean, what she does when she’s splashing around in the pool can’t be considered an Olympic sport, but it’s about having fun, right?
“We tried to send you for lessons, do you remember?”
She breathes heavily for a second, and I can imagine her kind eyes drifting to the ceiling. “Not allowed.”
Now I get it. “Did you ask Dad to watch?”
More breathing. Rustling. “Yes.”
“So, what’s the problem, Em?”
“He’s busy.”
I shake my head. Why is she being so goddamn mysterious? Or is my agitation just making me less patient than usual? I cradle the phone between my shoulder and ear, and work my hands. Open, closed. Open, closed. I watch my knuckles whiten, flood with color, whiten.
“All the time? With what?”
She lets out a long sigh, like I’ve finally asked the right question.
“Fighting.”
I sit forward, taking the phone in one hand and placing the other flat on the table. “What?” My lips are curling up, but I’m not smiling. I’m fucking confused as all hell. “What do you mean?”
“With her.”
Her could only mean Diana. But why the fuck is Dad yelling at my stepmom? Has her drinking finally gotten past the point where my father can’t just pretend it’s not an issue? I can’t imagine what that must be like for Emma, witnessing my father losing his shit around her new mommy…although I’m not even sure if Emma even considers Diana her real mom’s maternal replacement. But instead of answering me on that, Emma changes the subject.
“I miss you, Jo.” Emma’s voice is muffled, barely audible.
“Me too. But sis, why is Dad fighting with her? What is he fighting about? Can you tell me, huh? Em. Emma?”
But she’s not on the call anymore. The receiver could be lying on the floor by her feet, she could be holding it absently in her hand as she makes her way to the kitchen for a snack.
I slam the receiver back into the cradle and pick it up instantly. I press redial. The aftercare’s phone rings.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Sara. Is Emma there?”
The woman sounds surprised. “You get disconnected? Hold on.”
Muted voices. A thump.
“Josiah, your time is up.”
When I swing to face Brian, the fucker actually pales. But a second later, his shoulders straighten, and he juts out his chin. “Time’s up,” he repeats coldly. He cocks his head. “It’s lights out in fifteen minutes anyway.”
“One minute,” I say, forcing the words through.
“Not tonight, buddy.”
Buddy is Brian’s way of calling us cunts when we’re being difficult.
Christ, but it’s almost impossible for me to put the receiver down, especially because I’d rather smash it against Brian’s jawbone, and then use it to break his nose. I stand, and when I get closer to him, he reaches out as if to lay his hand on my shoulder. I’m taller than him by an inch, and nearly twice as wide in my shoulders. But I guess he sees a lot of troubled jocks pass this way, because for once he doesn’t back down.
“Long day, I know,” he says, sounding as if he’s just run a marathon. “But don’t mess it up now, slugger. You’ve only got another two weeks, then you’re home free.”
I duck my shoulder before he can touch me, say nothing, and head for my room as his eyes drill into the back of my skull. Thank God he can’t read minds—I’d be thrown in solo for a week if he knew how much I wanted to smash in his head.
Keep it together, fucker. You’re in here because of your temper.
Oh no, not just my temper. There’s a list as long as my arm, compliments of one Wayne fucking Bale.
Insubordination.
Disrespect.
Truancy.
And last but not least, the most shocking of all.
I’m a sexual deviant.
In general, guys at Happy Mountain aren’t encouraged to socialize with the opposite sex. Distractions,
and all that shit. But me? I can’t as much as look at one of these girls…especially Candy.
I told them it wasn’t true, but they never believe the kid, do they? After all, what possible reason could someone as upstanding a citizen as Mr. Wayne Bale have for sending his two eldest kids to a ranch for troubled teens?
Two of my three roommates are already in bed. A faucet’s on in our en-suite bathroom, and I assume Sylvester is in there. Since the door is halfway open, I head in to take a piss before bed.
He’s at the basin, brushing his teeth. I do a double-take. He’s not in boxers like I’d expected, but jeans and a shirt. I push the door closed behind me and lower my voice. “Where you off to?”
He pauses with the toothbrush in his mouth, and grins at me around the handle. “Bed,” he says.
I was never truant a day in my life…until I came to this place. Serves them right—our handlers sleep like the fucking dead. It’s piss easy to climb out the window and wander around getting up to mischief.
Waving off his lie, I head for the toilet and take a leak.
“Wanna come?” he asks and then spits into the basin.
I’m already on thin ice with Brian, but fuck it. I know sleep is hours away while I try and ponder out Emma’s mysterious message…May as well get some fresh air.
“Sure.”
Sylvester wipes his hand across the back of his mouth, his grin deepening. “Awesome.” His grin hitches up a bit, and then he heads back into our room.
Strange to think that he was sent here because of anger management issues. From what I heard, he broke a kid’s back during a football match during a particularly violent takedown. We’re about the same size, but he’s got thighs like tree trunks from all the squats he does. I haven’t spent much time training in this place—it’s too painful, that reminder of times gone.
My chest tightens. I thump my fist into it as I grimace at my reflection in the mirror on my way back to the bedroom.
Candy’s the reason I’m in here. My life was perfect before she came along. I had a loving father who always showed up at my football games. We’d talk strategies and plays at the dinner table, and then go watch a match on cable. Emma would always be there, and Dad would be patient with her. He’d let her eat with her hands if she wanted, and never tried to wrestle her into a conversation when she didn’t feel like talking.
For years, that had been our routine. Our life. My family.
Then that bitch Diana came along, stole his heart, and inserted her and her scheming daughter in our lives like a knife through a rib cage.
And now look where I am. Climbing through a window after curfew with a guy who has a manslaughter charge on his record, about to get up to shit that’ll probably dig me even deeper into this hole.
I’ll be thanking you later, darling.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Candy
“Are you crazy? I’m not getting in there,” I whisper, tugging away my hands before Haley can grab hold of me again.
“Why’re you being such a little bitch?” And she doesn’t bother lowering her voice. I know we’re not exactly in earshot of the lodges, but this place could have like security guards and shit, I don’t know. What if someone’s on patrol and they see us?
Happy Mountain Youth Center is nestled in a tiny valley in the middle of red-neck hick-county nowhere. The scenery’s pretty enough, if you like the wilderness. Only a few acres around the buildings and lodges have been cleared, a field or two for the cows and horses. The rest?
Spiders.
Poison ivy.
And squirrels.
I’m pretty sure I still have a spider in my hair from the walk through the bit of tangled woods we took to get here.
There’s a loud splash and then a giggle. Like a ripple, all the girls in the dam start giggling.
“I’m trying to get out early for good behavior!” I snap at Haley when she makes another grab for me. “I don’t want to end up staying here until I graduate!”
“No one’s gonna tell,” she says, teeth flashing in a wicked smile. “Come on!”
It’s too dark to make out much more than their silhouettes, but there must be girls from three or more lodges in the water.
“I’m not wearing a bathing suit.”
Haley pauses in the act of tugging down her pants. Her pale underwear glows neon in the dark. “Yeah…no one here does.” With a flip of her blond hair and a roll of her eyes, she tucks her clothes over a low branch and climbs over the moss-and-lichen infested wall of the dam.
I jerk at the splash she makes when she falls into the water. A moment later, her head appears, and she slaps her arms onto the edge of the dam.
“You know what?” I wave around in the dark. “I’ll stand guard.”
Haley shakes her head. The constant light of mischief that’s usually twinkling in her eyes disappears. She beckons me with a finger before swiping wet hair away from her face. I come closer hesitantly, despite knowing she can’t exactly leap out before I can get away if she’s planning on dragging me in or something.
“What?” My eyes flicker away from her as a pair of nearby girls start splashing each other and squealing. “Someone’s going to hear us.”
Haley holds out her hand. I reach up and take it. “How long have you been here?”
“Two months, give or take.” I shrug. “Why?”
She points at herself with her thumb, and her grip tightens a little. “Eleven.”
“I know.”
Her head tilts a little. “Know when I’m getting out?”
I shake my head.
“Next week.”
My chin darts back as I gape up at her. “Then why the hell are you doing this? They could make you stay—”
She laughs, but it’s a dry, bitter sound. She looks away, lets go of my hand, and tips back her head into the water, so when she straightens, her hair lies smooth against her scalp. She faces me with her mouth in a straight line. “I haven’t put a foot wrong the entire fucking time I’ve been here,” she says quietly. She starts counting on her fingers. “I’ve done all my chores, all the time, no complaints. No drugs. No boys. I did every fucking thing they asked, and more. I was a model fucking student.”
I swallow hard, and wish desperately that I could look away. Suddenly, I’m not staring up at Haley—the girl who took me under her wing and coached me through my first torturous week in this place. The one who acts like this is all some big joke that she was more than happy laughing along to, until her time was up.
“What…?” I don’t even know how to ask. But I don’t have to, because Haley hauls in a deep breath, and her smile pops back.
“Would’ve been one more week.” She purses her lips. “But apparently, I still have some unresolved issues.”
I let out a disbelieving huff of a laugh. “What? That’s ridiculous. You’re—”
“Oh, haven’t you heard?” Haley shakes her head and pushes away from the dam wall, yelling out, “Addicts can’t be cured!”
She’s met with a gale of laughs and another furious barrage of splashes.
That’s…that’s bullshit. One week?
She must have done something wrong. Maybe one of her therapy sessions didn’t turn out how it should have. Those things are damn brutal—I never know what to say, and silence is construed as some kind of rebellion, so that’s off the table too.
I slip my thumbs behind the elastic of my sweat pants.
I’m not a bad girl. There’s not a smidgen of rebellion in my bones. My life’s never been great, but I’ve never felt the urge to set things on fire, or do drugs, or even disobey my mom. Even when I thought she was wrong. Even when I knew she was wrong.
But what good was that? I’m still here, trapped in a place where everyone thinks I’m a delinquent just like them.
No one believes otherwise, not even when I beg them to.
Why be good, when being bad is so much more fun…and I end up in the same place anyway?
I yank off my sweat pants and climb the wall. We’d all been pretending to sleep when Winona came to check on us, so I wore my usual PJs. The pale pink Minnie Mouse sleeping shirt comes halfway down my thighs.
Not the best thing to try and swim in, of course. The moment I jump into the freezing water, the shirt balloons up around my head.
I break the surface with a gasped, “Shit!” Laughter washes over me as I fight down my shirt and try not to die from cardiac arrest. “Holy shit, it’s freezing!” I yell, not giving a damn if anyone hears me or not.
Floundering, breathless and rigid from cold, I battle with my shirt until I can get it all submerged.
My teeth are already chattering. How the hell are the rest of the girls splashing and playing like it’s a summer’s day out here?
I fight my way to the side, grab the concrete lip of the dam, and try to haul myself up.
Arms wrap around my waist. I squeal out a desperate, “Haley! Let me go!” I yell, squirming furiously. “It’s too damn cold!”
But when the person holding me lets out a deep laugh, a whole heap of observations pile into my mind all at once.
It’s not Haley holding onto me.
From the size, and strength, it has to be a guy.
And this big, super-strong guy…? He reeks of alcohol.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Josiah
My eyes are gonna roll out of their fucking sockets. Skinny dipping at night? Can you be more juvenile?
“I’m going for a walk,” I say, waving away Sylvester when he beckons for me to join them by the side of the dam where they’re all stripping to their boxers.
“Suit yourself,” he says, his voice muffled as his shirt goes over his head. He turns, grabs something from the ground, and starts hunting around in the backpack he’s holding up.
Thank God I haven’t lost my reflexes. A dark bottle comes flying at me, and I barely have time to snatch it from the air before it shatters in my face.
“The fuck, man?” I lift it by the neck, glaring first at the anonymous bottle of alcohol and then turning that scowl to Sylvester.
He shrugs, takes two long steps closer, and snatches the bottle out of my hand. “That’s only for the cool kids, the ones going swimming,” he says through a chuckle.
