A List of Cages

by Robin Roe

  “Adam…” Her eyes fill with hurt. “Don’t be mad at me.”

  “I’m not mad at you.” I’m really not. Anger is such a waste of time. “I just don’t know what to do.”

  We sit without talking, without touching, till she says, “It’s late….Are you tired?”

  “Yeah.”

  She picks up my hand again, and we walk to her room. For a minute we stand in her doorway watching Julian sleep, the ice pack still resting against his face.

  Suddenly he cries out like he’s in pain or he’s scared.

  I cross the room and touch his shoulder. He goes quiet. Once his breathing is nice and even again, Emerald and I crawl under the covers, on opposite sides of Julian.

  SPRING BREAK STARTS in—I glance at the clock—guh, forty more minutes. All day the teachers have been totally checked out. As soon as we got to seventh period, Ms. Fry let Charlie stick in a DVD he brought from home—one about this guy with a vendetta who keeps stabbing people with his machete. I’m pretty sure it’s not school-appropriate, but I guess it doesn’t matter since Ms. Fry hasn’t looked up from her computer.

  “This is boring!” I finally have to shout.

  “Shut up.” Charlie wants to punch me, I can tell. “It’s good.”

  The killer—I still don’t know if he’s supposed to be a hero or villain—pulls his blade out of some guy’s stomach and wipes it across his sleeve. “Why do they always do that in movies?” I ask.

  “Do what?”

  “After they stab someone, they take their knife and wipe it on their shirt. Why? So the next person they stab doesn’t get an infection?”

  “Adam,” Charlie moans, “stop talking.”

  This sucks. I tap my foot, watching the clock till finally the bell rings. I leap into the hall, get yelled at for running, then burst outside, where Julian’s waiting by the van holding a Hamlet script. Even though I just saw him this morning and even though it’s been nearly two months since his uncle hit him, I still spend a few seconds just looking at him.

  When he got back to school a few days after it happened, his lip was swollen and his cheekbone was bruised. “Dr. Whitlock’s gonna wonder about your face,” I told him. He didn’t have real appointments with her anymore—most of the period we just walked around—but he’d check in with her for the last five minutes or so.

  “So I won’t go to Dr. Whitlock’s,” he said.

  “Maybe I should tell her.”

  Desperation filled his face, making him look half-crazy. “If you do…” He was clearly struggling to come up with a threat. “If you do, I won’t be your friend anymore.” That was something I hadn’t heard since elementary school, back when it was common to withdraw or offer your friendship as some sort of bargaining chip.

  Julian’s threat might have been childish, but it didn’t shock me to hear him say it. He’s only four years younger than me, but I feel so much older, or maybe he feels so much younger. I used to think struggle was what aged you, but if that were the case, Julian should’ve been a hundred years old. Now I wonder if the opposite is true. Maybe instead of accelerating your age, pain won’t let you grow.

  Eventually, I promised Julian I wouldn’t say anything, and we haven’t talked about it since, but I’ve thought about it. A lot. I’ve debated telling Dr. Whitlock even though I said I wouldn’t. I’ve thought about telling my mom. I’ve considered confronting Russell, pictured charging into that huge house and telling him to keep his fucking hands off Julian.

  But in the end I didn’t do a thing.

  I tilt my head toward the script in Julian’s hand. “Wow. The play’s coming up soon, huh?” He nods, climbing into the backseat. “Have they assigned the parts yet?”

  “Yes. I’m the Gentleman. He’s the one who tells Hamlet’s mom Ophelia’s going crazy.”

  “You got a speaking part?”

  He nods.

  “That’s awesome!”

  “It’s only a few lines.”

  “Yeah, but out of like four hundred kids you got a speaking part. That’s amazing!” He makes that face, the one that’s embarrassed and happy at the same time.

  A minute later Charlie, Jesse, and Allison get in the backseat while Emerald slides into the passenger seat. She’s beautiful, hair up to expose her pale neck, wearing a short dress to expose her long legs. I smile my broken-face-smile, and kiss her while Charlie pretends to vomit. Jesse shoves his iPod into the auxiliary, filling the van with a song we actually know and like, so we have no choice but to sing at the top of our lungs.

  Once I’ve dropped everyone off, I look at Emerald and she looks at me and gives me this secretive smile I have to kiss. I feel giddy, like I’ve been injected with caffeine and pixie sticks. She laughs like she feels it too, like we’re both thinking about our duffel bags hidden in my trunk.

  I told my mom I was going on a hiking trip with Charlie. I don’t think she’d care that I’m really going with Emerald, but she’d ask a lot of nosy questions and offer embarrassing advice and no one needs that. Not that anything’s going to happen that would require advice. If I even think about sex, Emerald calls me out on it with psychic-level accuracy.

  “So what cover story did you give your mom?” I ask.

  “She won’t notice.” She says it in the flat, almost-professional way she says most things. She’s fiddling with the ring on her index finger—the one her grandmother gave her for her birthday. As far as I know, it’s the only present she got from anyone in her family.

  Maybe Emerald will never be the type of person to just come out and tell me her deepest, darkest secrets—she seems to think it’s more dignified to hatch an elaborate scheme that forces you to figure her out all on your own. But now that we’re spending every free minute together, I’ve picked up on things, and one thing I know is that the cold voice pretending not to care is a lie. Maybe she really does believe parents just make mistakes, but it still hurts her that her mom doesn’t seem to know she exists.

  “Emerald?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I see everything you do.”

  She looks over at me. Blue eyes watery, she squeezes my hand.

  We drive. Out of town to a higher elevation, to wider roads and a bigger sky. It’s sunset by the time we reach the cabin. I’m excited to see that it’s even nicer than it looked online, small but secluded among the most massive trees I’ve ever seen.

  We spend the first day hiking, never crossing paths with anyone. It’s like we’re alone on our own planet where everything is giant. That makes us miniature, but since it’s all ours, we’re also larger-than-life.

  We spend Day Two running through woods till we come across a lake enclosed by mountain-tall rocks. We jump in the green water in our underwear. We kiss underwater, which isn’t nearly as hot as I’d always thought it’d be, since I choke on the water and can’t even really feel her lips. We swim behind a waterfall and find a cave that smells like moss and something ancient. Kissing here is much better.

  On Day Three we’re miles into the forest when I stumble over a tree branch. Luckily I don’t break anything, because it would suck if Emerald had to carry me out of here. While I’m recovering on a fallen log, she tells me formally that she’s ready to have sex whenever I am.

  I nod and suggest we return to the cabin immediately.

  Emerald is lying on her back, her hair fanned out on the pillow like a mermaid. I’ve been obsessed with her hair since I can remember. It’s always done up in complicated ropes and knots like she has a team of people preparing her for the ball. But down and loose like this, in a way that no one ever sees, is how I like it best.

  It’s more than a little surreal that she’s stretched out naked in front of me, and that I’m not only allowed to look but looking is expected. She’s not making any attempt to hide her body, but she’s lying there rigidly as red blotches stain her cheeks, neck, and chest.

  “You’re embarrassed,” I say, the second I realize this.

  “Of course I
am.” She pulls the thin sheet up to her chin. I try to tug it back down, but she’s stronger than she looks.

  “I’m naked, and I’m not embarrassed.”

  “Well, you don’t feel things like normal people.” Now she pulls the sheet up over her face, muffling her words. “You don’t get nervous or shy or jealous. Nothing affects you like that.”

  “I feel things.” Maybe I don’t get worked up the way some people do, but I can feel.

  She lowers the sheet just below her eyes. “That’s not what I mean. I’m not saying it right.”

  I crawl into the bed, propping up my head up on one hand, waiting for her to say more.

  “It’s just…you’re sort of unbreakable.”

  I laugh. “Unbreakable?”

  “I mean, nothing ever bothers you. I guess that’s why everyone loves you. You’re so comfortable with yourself, you make everyone else feel comfortable too. And you’re strong, like what hurts most people can’t hurt you. But sometimes it seems like you don’t need people. Like if this—us—works, you’ll be fine with that, but if it doesn’t, you’ll still be okay. You won’t break. Not the way I would.”

  It’s like we’re back in the center of the labyrinth—that magic place where she doesn’t stand like a soldier and she’s compelled to tell me the truth about everything.

  “Emerald.” I touch her cheek, poking at her scattered moles like a game of connect-the-dots. “However you’re seeing me, it’s not true. I need you as much as you need me.”

  She doesn’t believe me—I can tell—but she wants to. Her hand moves to my neck, squeezes. My hand moves down to her sheet. This time she lets me pull it away.

  EMERALD AND I walk hand in hand across the parking lot after school. We stayed in the cabin a total of five days—not nearly long enough. She keeps looking at me with soft-shoulder contentment. I kiss her, then unlock the van, and we wait for it to fill up.

  Jesse’s first to hop inside, and immediately he grabs the auxiliary cord to plug in his iPod.

  “Hey, man,” I say to Charlie a couple minutes later when he joins Jesse in the back. “Why didn’t you drive today?” He finally saved up enough to buy his own car—a black Jeep.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he growls just as Camila slides into the van, forcing him to the middle.

  Emerald and I exchange confused looks. Normally this would be when Allison would give his back a comforting pat, but unfortunately, she and Charlie are currently off.

  “I just figured you’d be pumped to drive. You’ve been complaining about my car for two years,” I joke.

  He glares at his phone. “Text your mom. When you don’t answer her, she texts me. She did that the whole spring break, and lying for you got really fucking annoying.” He scowls through the window at Julian, who’s headed our way. “You’re seriously giving him a ride? Again?”

  I see Julian’s worried face, and I get pissed off. “You know what, Charlie? If you have a problem with Julian, you don’t have to ride with us.”

  The van goes quiet, and Charlie looks at me with high-level betrayal, like I just slept with Allison or something.

  “Whatever.” He grabs his backpack, but he’s too freakin tall to make a smooth exit, so there’s a lot of angry unfolding and shuffling. He shoves past a scared-confused Julian.

  “What the hell?” I ask.

  Emerald pats my back.

  “Anything interesting happen today?” Adam asks on Tuesday as we’re walking down the hall.

  “Not really.” But I am relieved school has started again. Spring break was the longest, loneliest week of my life.

  “How’s the play going?”

  “Miss Cross is unhappy that no one memorized their lines.”

  Adam laughs. “Did she really expect people to study over spring break?”

  “Yes.”

  He laughs again. “Well, how are yours coming?”

  “I almost know them.” The first sentence isn’t so hard, but after Hamlet’s mother responds, I have ten uninterrupted lines, ones that don’t make any sense. When I studied over the break, I thought I could at least read them. Then I got to English, opened my mouth, and watched the words on the page slide together. After stuttering and stuttering, Miss Cross told me to just practice when I got home.

  “Adam?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Have you ever heard of Alma, Colorado?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “What about Village of the Taos Ski Valley, New Mexico?”

  “Nope. Why?”

  One of the pages in my mother’s notebook is a list of cities. She never mentioned them, not that I can remember, but they have to mean something. Why would she write them down unless they meant something? Maybe they were places she’d been, but I don’t know all the places she’d been.

  “Planning a road trip or something?” he asks.

  “No. I don’t have a car. And I don’t know how to drive.”

  Adam chuckles. “I know.”

  “But I would go there. I think they must be nice places.”

  We turn a corner, and there is Miss West. I flinch away so fast that I step onto one of Adam’s red high-tops, making him stumble. By the time he’s righting himself, she’s gone.

  The very next day after Miss West and I’d talked about her son and missions, she was the same as she’d always been: volatile and unhappy with a hatred that spewed out of her like missiles. I thought I understood why. She must have hated us for being alive when her son was dead.

  Lately the class has been turning against her. They’re openly hostile, and they whisper plots for revenge. It seems unfair, the way unhappiness flows out of a person, just to ricochet.

  “Adam…do you think we have missions?”

  He looks at me with a confused expression. “What kind of missions?”

  “Things we’re meant to do.”

  “I don’t know. Do you think you have a mission?”

  I shrug, disappointed. If Adam doesn’t know, then I guess no one does.

  A girl turns onto our hall, eyes red and sad, and as she passes, Adam sends her a smile. Her whole face brightens and she sends him a smile back.

  Hate ricochets, but kindness does too.

  KIDS ARE CIRCLING beneath the black iron ladder that leads to my hidden room. I’m afraid that any moment one of them will get the idea to climb it, then someone will shove around the furniture and discover the crooked boards. Someone will pull them back, and then a hundred more kids will jump inside and my room won’t be mine anymore.

  It’s Monday, less than a week until the play. Everyone with a speaking part has to stay after school to rehearse in the auditorium. At this point even the kids with substantial parts know their lines. But not me. I’m still struggling just to read them.

  “Speak up,” Miss Cross and the other English teachers keep telling me, but then it’s just louder stuttering. I want to disappear or teleport, but instead I’m on a stage, more visible than I’ve ever been.

  Finally, at six o’clock, the teachers tell us we can leave. Instead of following the crowd, I look both ways and dart up the ladder into my room.

  I wait here long enough for everyone below to be gone before I climb back down. I’m alone backstage with all the props and the piano, and I’m tempted to sit down and play it. Only I never really learned, even though Mom tried to teach me, because reading music was too hard and I gave up.

  I’m stepping toward the curtain when I’m startled by a voice. “He’s going to ruin the entire production!”

  I peek around the large wooden castle and see a flash of orange hair. Kristin is standing across from Alex, who’s playing Hamlet. “I mean, really, in three weeks you can’t memorize thirteen lines?” She whispers something, then leans in close to him, touching his arm. He pulls back a little, then her fish eyes dart over to find me watching them. “Yes, Julian,” she says, “we’re talking about you.”

  It’s raining cold, wet bullets and my hair
is plastered to my head when a black Jeep squeals to a stop right beside me.

  “Need a ride?” Charlie calls through the window.

  I hesitate before opening the passenger door.

  “You’re getting water all over my new seats,” he says as soon as I sit down. Charlie’s never friendly, but tonight his expression is different, scarier.

  “I’m sorry. I can get out.”

  “It’s fine,” he snaps, pulling into the street. “So? You didn’t ride with Adam today?”

  “No, I had rehearsal. You didn’t either?”

  “Adam’s an asshole.”

  “No he’s not.”

  Charlie clenches the steering wheel like he might tear it off, then he takes a sudden angry turn. For a second we’re airborne, then we skid though a deep puddle in the shoulder. My heart is tripping in my ears, and I’m afraid I’m going to be sick. “Um…it’s all right, Charlie. You can let me off here.”

  “I said I’d give you a ride, so shut up and let me give you a ride.”

  He slaps a lever, turning the windshield wipers to a higher speed, and swerves back onto the road. I grip my stomach, willing the nausea to pass.

  “I’m sorry,” I say after a few blocks in silence. “I know I annoy people.” I’m not sure why I’m talking. I can tell he doesn’t want me to speak. “That’s why I don’t ride the bus.”

  He gives me a sharp look. “Some people are bothering you?”

  “Just one boy. Since I started school.”

  “He’s been bothering you all year?”

  “No, since I started school. In kindergarten.”

  “What’s he been doing?” For some reason Charlie sounds even angrier now than he did before, and he folds his lips into his mouth.

  “He hits me sometimes. But it’s okay. I know—”

  “How’s it okay for someone to hit you?”

  “He’s just unhappy.”

  “Unhappy?” Charlie is so scornful that I start to stutter.

  “N-no one wants to hurt anyone. They d-do it because they’re unhappy.”