After

by Amy Efaw

  Devon clears her throat, first scanning the words so she won’t stumble over them.

  His hand drops down to her waist, and he pulls her closer, his thumb through her belt loop as together they study the poem in a brief silence.

  “Defiance,” he whispers, his lips soft against her ear. “I get it. As in ‘Point Defiance’—where we’re at right now. Cool play on words.”

  A shiver runs through her because to her, they are more than just a “cool play on words.” But . . . how could she tell him this? That in this fragment of time, those words are so absolutely true and totally hers? She, standing here with the water and the moonlight and the warmth from his fingers pulsing through her. She, embraced by the shore, treasuring this moment. She, consciously throwing them away—all those little rules she’d carefully constructed to protect herself—just for this moment. She, walking in Defiance. In defiance of herself.

  “Are you cold?” he asks. “Because you’re trembling.”

  His hand is no longer around her waist; he is holding each of her hands in his, pulling her toward him.

  She shakes her head and looks away, down to the pavement, her heart beating fast. The next poem is there, waiting. Like a fortune, pulled from a fortune cookie in a Chinese takeout, it says:

  She looks up at him. She is so afraid. But . . . his eyes, so beautiful and wanting her. He is leaning closer now, gently touching her chin, his fingertips tilting her face toward his. Then, he kisses her—sweet and soft and urgent.

  She closes her eyes, shutting out the stars and moon and water lapping against the earth.

  She lets the moment take over.

  She obeys the poem.

  And kisses him back.

  “Can I be first to read mine?” The thumb sucker with the Rasta knots, Destiny, asks.

  Devon shakes her head, tossing the memory away, far and away where it needs to stay. She wraps her arms around herself; the room is suddenly too chilly.

  “Those who want to share, can,” Ms. Coughran says. “I’m not going to force you. And yes, Destiny, you can go ahead.”

  But the ghost of the memory lingers in Devon’s mind. His eyes. The way he watched her when she moved. His eyes, and the warm and happy way they made her feel inside. They started everything. But that night at Point Defiance, it hadn’t been the very end of everything. Not yet.

  Destiny stands, lifts the paper to hide her face, and reads in a fast monotone. “My mind/A twist of clutter. As I lie in bed—”

  “Whoa!” Ms. Coughran says. “Sorry, but my hearing aid can’t keep up with that. Can you please slow down and start again?”

  Destiny nods and reads again, slower this time. “My mind/A twist of clutter/As I lie in bed imagining my life/I watch the shadows on the ceiling./Memories sail across my eyes./I need courage to see them./I fight with myself/But then I close my eyes to the twilight/And release myself to sleep.”

  Silence for a moment, and then the girls in the room actually clap. The sound makes Devon jump.

  Devon glances across the table to Destiny, astonished. She actually wrote that? But Destiny is sitting again, looking down to where her paper now lays on the table. Her thumb is back in her mouth.

  “Take that as a compliment, Destiny,” Ms. Coughran says. “What do we say when we get a compliment?”

  “Thank you,” Destiny mumbles around her thumb.

  “That was very nice,” Ms. Coughran says. “I counted eight of the ten words. Am I wrong?” She looks around the room, but nobody responds. “I especially liked ‘My mind a twist of clutter. ’ Isn’t that so true? Particularly when you’re lying in bed and things are weighing heavily on your mind? I’m sure all of us feel that way at times.”

  Devon can hear whispers popping here and there, but nobody says what they’re thinking loud enough for the entire room to hear.

  “Anyone else want to take a risk today and read theirs?”

  “Me.” The girl who counted pencils, the one with the shaved head, stands up.

  “Okay, Jenevra,” Ms. Coughran says. “Good. Read on.”

  Devon wonders at these girls. Why would they volunteer to read their poems aloud? It was a bearing of the soul, a letting down of the guard. Something Devon would never, could never, do again.

  “I want diamonds, but they don’t shine,” the girl Jenevra starts. “I want to touch a star, but it’s not mine./I want to find some courage, but I got lost./I want to sail in a boat, but it got froze with frost./I—”

  Giggles erupt around the room.

  Jenevra stops reading, looks up. “Yeah, that line really sucked—I mean stank.” She smiles. “But I couldn’t think of another word that rhymed with lost.”

  “Read on,” Ms. Coughran says.

  “I try to clean my clutter, but I make a bigger mess./I want to—”

  “Hey!” Karma’s whisper is in Devon’s ear again, distracting her attention from Jenevra’s poetry recitation. “You want to read mine, Devil? Even though I only used one of the words, I think it kicks ass.” She thrusts her paper under Devon’s face.

  Devon looks down, can’t help but read what’s written there:

  She can paint a lovely picture.

  BUT . . .

  This story has a twist.

  Her paintbrush is a razor,

  and her canvas is her wrist.

  “So, what do you think?” Karma leans in closer. “Love it?”

  Devon turns away, says nothing. What a freak.

  Karma pulls her paper back, smirks. She whispers again, “Yeah, you are a devil. Deep down inside.” She laughs softly. “So am I. So are all of us.” She kicks Devon’s chair. “Get over it.”

  chapter ten

  The next day after breakfast, Ms. Coughran rolls the audiovisual cart out of her classroom and into the common area, where all the girls are waiting.

  Devon raises her head. She’s sitting on the floor, the book cart beside her; this has become her spot. It’s where she eats her meals and spends her free time, little that there is, when she doesn’t choose to retreat to her cell. This is her spot because it’s the only place in the room that nobody else seeks out. She can remain invisible here, or at least out of the way, hiding behind the cover of a book.

  “We’re starting with P.E. today,” Ms. Coughran says, ducking behind her AV cart. She grabs the plug to the DVD player, then pushes it into a socket on the wall behind her. She stands, sweeps a fallen strand from her face.

  A few girls groan out their oppositions: “I hate P.E.” and “Can’t we do it tomorrow?” and “I got bad cramps, Ms. Coughran. Can I sit out?” A few express slightly more positive opinions. Like Jenevra, who yells, “Bring it on, baby!” But most say nothing, including Devon in her corner by the book cart.

  “Hey!” Ms. Coughran says. “I don’t want to hear your griping. It’s already Thursday and only the first time we’ve done P.E. all week. If it were up to me, we’d be doing this every single day. So, zip it.”

  “Let me pick!” Jenevra rushes up to Ms. Coughran.

  “No! She picked last time!” someone yells. “It’s not fair!”

  Devon watches as two more girls run up to the cart, start rifling through the box of DVDs.

  “Nope,” Ms. Coughran says, “I’m picking.” She wades through the girls and pulls the box up and away from them, balancing it on her hip. “Bye-bye now.”

  The girls slump away, mumbling. “You always make us do that boring yoga stuff,” one of them says.

  “Yeah, Yoga for Dummies. It’s so dumb!”

  “Okay, ladies,” Ms. Coughran addresses the room. “Get into three rows, facing me. Come on, hustle up!” She selects a DVD and returns the box to the cart. “We’ve got other things on the horizon today.”

  The girls drag into the middle of the room, form three sloppy lines. Devon scans the group. Karma isn’t there; she’s nowhere in the room. Again. Devon hasn’t seen her since they did poetry in class, yesterday morning. Right before lunch, Devon remembers, Karma had bee
n called out of class. In the afternoon, she hadn’t come back. And at dinner last night, Devon had overhead Jenevra telling some other girl that Karma was on Lockdown. Which, Devon’s learned from the unit pamphlet, means solitary confinement in her cell for a staff-determined amount of time. Devon herself is locked down every night at eight, but that’s only because of her current status—Regular—and the rules. Jenevra is on Privilege, so her bedtime is nine. And when Devon makes it up to Honor, she’ll be allowed to stay up until ten. But last night, Jenevra made it sound like Karma was on Lockdown because of something she did.

  “Let’s move it, ladies!”

  Devon pushes herself up off the floor, but first she dog-ears the page she’s on and returns the book—some sci-fi about a kid who can access the Internet through a chip in his brain—to the cart. She takes a spot in the back row, on the end. Wonders if Karma is watching them all through her cell door’s window.

  Ms. Coughran slides her chosen DVD into the player and turns on the TV. Loud music bangs from the speakers. A large black guy with his hands wrapped like a boxer appears on the screen, shouting out enthusiasm. The girls start moving to his instructions. Some of them languidly wave their limbs around, going through the motions. Others are totally into it, especially Jenevra. She’s connecting with the air in front of her like someone she wants dead is right there.

  “That boxer guy is so hot!” some girl squeals.

  “You’re sick. The dude’s, like, thirty or something.”

  Devon is bouncing on her toes, squinting toward the screen, trying to pick up the rhythm of the movements. Working her body feels good; when she sweats and her heart rate picks up, it’ll be even better. She feels a gush between her legs then; it’s warmed the pad lining her underwear. The blood still comes at times; this little bit, brought on by the bouncing, is nothing to worry about.

  “Uh-uh, girl.” Ms. Coughran appears at Devon’s side, startling her. “Not you.”

  Devon stops bouncing and frowns at her.

  “Two reasons. Number one: the doc hasn’t cleared you for exercising yet. And number two”—she points across the room toward the closed door of the conference room—“your attorney is here. She wants to talk to you.”

  Devon looks across the room to the closed door, and suddenly the pit of her gut drops. Dom wants that list. That list Devon has yet to write. That list that Devon hasn’t even thought about. She’d been locked down in her cell for two full evenings with nothing to occupy her mind but staring at the gray walls around her and the back of the door. Obscenities and tags other girls had scratched there: JAC, KARTOON, BK-4-LIFE, CRIP. All that time and no list. Dom will be unhappy. No, Dom will be livid.

  The music from the speakers blares. The girls have dropped to the ground for push-ups. No one is doing them correctly, Devon notes. Head bobs aren’t push-ups.

  “Devon?” Ms. Coughran says. “Did you hear me?”

  Devon turns back to Ms. Coughran, says, “Okay.” Because what are her options? She has none. She gives Ms. Coughran a little unsteady smile and walks across the common area toward the closed conference room door. Pausing there, she takes a breath, then turns the knob and enters.

  Dom is sitting at the table again. This time her hair is down; it’s stick straight and much longer than Devon would have guessed when Dom had worn her updo the other day. She wonders if Dom uses a hair straightener, or if her hair is like that naturally, like hers. Dom looks up when she hears the door—Clank!—behind Devon. Dom isn’t wearing her tiny glasses, either.

  “Hey, Devon,” Dom says, pulling a hairband off her right wrist and drawing her hair back into a loose ponytail. “How did yesterday go? This is day four for you, right?”

  Devon hovers near the door. This change in Dom’s appearance is disconcerting. She liked the other Dom better, the tight and in-control Dom wearing a suit and glasses and the neat little beehive bun. Seeing her sitting there now in a sweatshirt two sizes too big and jeans with a loose ponytail makes her seem . . . erratic and unreliable, somehow. Why is everything so unpredictable here?

  Devon walks over to the table and sits on one of the bolted-down stools across from Dom. She clears her throat. “Okay, I guess.”

  “No,” Dom says. “You are not ‘okay.’ What’s bothering you?”

  Devon looks down at her hands. “I don’t know . . . your hair?”

  “You don’t like my hair.” It’s a statement.

  Devon looks up at Dom. She shouldn’t have said anything. She should’ve just left it at “okay” and thrown her a convincing smile.

  “What, you don’t like the color? The style?” Dom squints at Devon, amused. “Or maybe it’s not my hair at all that you dislike. Maybe it’s just my ambience. Maybe it’s that I’ve lost the glasses. Or the fact that I’m dressed like a total slob today. Am I getting warm?”

  Devon says nothing. She doesn’t like that Dom can glean these things about her so easily.

  Dom shrugs. “Just a ploy to keep you on your toes. I wouldn’t want you getting too comfortable.”

  Devon feels her body stiffen, her lips curling slightly.

  Dom notices Devon’s reaction. “Hey, I’m kidding! The days I don’t go to court—and today’s one of those days—I wear what I want. And in my opinion, comfort is key. When we met on Tuesday, I’d just had a court appearance. The glasses, the hair, the suit—all part of the act. You have to look like a winner to be a winner. You must know a little about that, being the serious soccer player that you are.”

  Devon shrugs.

  “You know the deal, right? Clean, sharp uniform, jersey tucked in. Socks pulled up, wrapped with color-coordinated electrical tape to keep those shin guards from sliding around. Clean cleats. Me in a suit? Same thing.”

  How does Dom know so much about soccer all of a sudden? Devon shifts on her seat, fiddles with her plastic security band, the one that the frizzy-haired woman had snapped on her wrist during Intake. Last name, first name, birth date. And then another number, her ID number. Eight digits. Like she’s become that number, a breathing debit card.

  The room is quiet for a moment.

  “So, shall we move on?” Dom says. “How about that list. Got it for me?”

  Still examining her wristband, Devon says, “I didn’t . . . I don’t have it with me.”

  “Not a problem.” Dom pulls out her yellow legal pad and clicks open a pen. “I take great notes.”

  “Um, I didn’t exactly . . . I mean I couldn’t think of . . . I’ve been really tired. . . .” Devon’s voice trails off.

  “Okay.” Dom lays the pen on the pad, centers it. “That is a problem, Devon. I thought we had an agreement. Remember? You were going to work with me.”

  Dom is tapping her fingers on the tabletop. Devon notices that her nails are clear today, no color.

  “We have to be in court on Tuesday, Devon. That only gives me”—Dom counts on her fingers—“four full days, and that’s over a weekend, plus what’s left of today, to prepare. Do I need to go over the importance of this hearing with you again? That its outcome will determine whether your case will be tried in adult or juvenile court?” She waits a moment, giving Devon the opportunity to say something. When she doesn’t, Dom continues. “This is huge, Devon. It has nothing to do with your guilt or your innocence. At this hearing, nobody’s dealing with that. But it has everything to do with your future.”

  “Yeah, I know. You already told me. I understand all that.”

  “Well, that’s just great. But you see, Devon, without people who are willing to speak positively about you, to vouch for your character, to show that they care about you and your future, we’ll lose this hearing. Plain and simple. And off you’ll go to slug it out in the adult criminal system where you’ll be looking at a maximum life sentence.” Dom pauses. “Versus if you cooperate with me, follow my guidance, the max you’ll see is five years. Where would you like to be five years from now, Devon?”

  Devon looks down at her hands in her lap. Her t
hroat aches. Dom doesn’t get it. No one will speak positively about her. Nobody will care what happens to her, not now. Nobody, nobody, nobody.

  Dom sighs loudly. “You are part of this process, Devon. A huge, gigantic part. I can only go with what I know about you, and most of that must come from you. Once I get this info, I can run with it. But I have to get it first. And, unfortunately, I’m not a mind reader.”

  Devon continues to watch her hands.

  “Come on, Devon. Give me one name. Just one, and I can go from there.” The silence stretches out between them. “You know,” she finally says, “I should just walk out of this room. I really should.”

  Devon glances up at Dom. She’s got her arms crossed. But her face is more thoughtful than angry, and this unnerves Devon. Some plan is forming behind those eyes.

  “Okay—” Dom shakes her head. “I’ll work this out, with or without your help. But I’ll tell you this much, Devon: I’m not getting you. Why are you fighting this?”

  Devon says nothing.

  “I know this isn’t easy. But, as they say, God helps those who help themselves, and right now you’re not helping yourself. In fact, you’re your biggest handicap. It’s like you’ve decided that during one game—no, wait, in a championship game—you’re going to go stand in the goal wearing a blindfold and think that you’ll actually be able to stop all those balls from flying into your net. And I’m the coach, watching all this from the sidelines, and I just have to deal with it because you’re the only keeper I have.” Dom hesitates. “I can’t bench you, Devon. You’re it. You go into this blind, and you choose to lose.”

  Devon looks down at the floor. She kicks at one of the legs of the bolted-down table. “I don’t want to fight this. I’m not really meaning to. I just . . . can’t . . . I . . .” She looks up at Dom again. Should she tell her? That she can’t remember? No, Dom won’t believe it anyway.

  Dom looks back at Devon. Finally, Dom shakes her head again. “Look, I don’t have all day, so let’s move on. The articles I gave you and the photos. Did you look at them, read them, at least?”