by Ally Derby
“Why are they all here?” My voice shakes.
She looks up from my ankles and smiles. “Who?”
“All those people, the news cameras, the—”
“You, me, and Mr. Keller. The three of us. Do not let them shake you. Do you hear me?” I nod. “Good. Now, do you remember what Seanna said right before you left?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Play that over and over in your head when we walk inside. Head up, focused forward, no smiling, no—”
“Mrs. Keller,” Mr. Keller warns.
“Isaiah, I’ve got this,” she snaps at him.
“Netta,” he snaps back, “keep your professionalism in place.”
She looks at me and rolls her eyes.
“Aren’t you his boss?”
She nods, “But he’s my husband.” She throws the ankle restraints on the floor. “Me, you, and him.”
As soon as I am out of the van, I hear the chants.
“Justice for Lana! Justice for Lana!” and “No more bullies! No more bullies!”
I try to focus ahead, try to let Seanna’s words calm me, but when I look right, I see my classmates, their parents, some teachers, and then I look left and meet the eyes that once calmed me.
My breaths become ragged and harder to catch. “Come on, Hadley, not much farther,” Keller says, as he gently takes my elbow. “Let’s go.”
I nod and try my best to ignore it all, but it consumes me. Before I realize it, we are inside, and I am sitting on a wooden bench, trying to catch my breath.
“Sweetheart.” I hear my mom’s voice, then feel her arms surround me. “We’re here. Dad and I are here.”
“Dad,” I gasp.
“Hey, Hads.” He squats down in front of me. “I’m here, ready to take you home. I have a surprise for you.”
I nod just as Mr. Preston walks in, “We’re up.”
“What does that mean?” I ask, as my dad takes my elbow and helps me up.
“It means we get some questions answered. Come on, Hads,” he says, as we walk toward the open door.
I sit behind a wooden table with my lawyer next to me and my parents behind us. The table to my right has the District Attorney, Ms. Vangowers.
When the judge enters, we stand.
“You may be seated,” he says as he sits. “Miss Asher, I am Judge Hessian. This is a much different case than any I have ever resided over. You are being charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death of Lana Jamison. In this case, you are a minor being charged as an adult. We could have a trial by jury, but because you’re a minor, we have decided I will preside over the case and make my judgment. Do you understand?”
I look to my lawyer.
“With all due respect, Your Honor, Miss Asher did not kill or cause the death of Miss Jamison. We would like to—”
“I have looked over the case, along with my peers. She isn’t being charged with murder, Mr. Preston, but her actions caused Lana Jamison to take her own life—”
“Your Honor, with all due respect, that’s just not true.”
“With all due respect, Mr. Preston, it is. We have plenty of evidence, and I am prepared to hand down my sentencing today. If you feel the need to drag a grieving family and community through a trial, by all means, do it. The girl took her life, overdosed on prescription pills”—I see the judge look past me and toward my parents—“that she did not have access to at her home—”
“Her father is a doctor, Your Honor. I don’t like this implied assumption—”
“Ms. Vangowers, what does the District Attorney’s office have to offer?”
“We ask that you charge Miss Asher with manslaughter and that she remain in Tryon detention center until her eighteenth birthday, at which time, she is released and remains on probation until she is twenty years old.”
“That’s insane,” Mr. Preston gasps. “She is a fifteen-year-old girl.”
“Who has no remorse and doesn’t accept responsibility for her actions,” Ms. Vangowers interrupts.
“My client hasn’t even been given a chance to speak, be heard, or tell her side of the story.”
“I’ve read everything that has transpired in school reports, police reports, institutional reports—” the judge begins.
“She is a child, a very scared child thrown into a situation she didn’t ask for.”
“Whose actions will not be overlooked. Two years in Tryon detention center, without incident. When she gets out, she speaks at schools about bullying and the inconceivable and irreversible price of words or actions.”
“This is a witch hunt. You are making her pay the price for something she had nothing to do with. Years and years of—”
“This deal is on the table for a week. After that, I will lean more toward what the District Attorney has to offer.” He smashes his gavel on the bench before him. “One week.”
“Your Honor,” Mr. Preston raises his voice, but the judge leaves through the door behind his bench. Preston looks over at Ms. Vangowers. “This is preposterous.”
“He just gave you a gift,” she says, looking past him to me, “A jury will tear you apart for what you—”
“You do not speak to my daughter like that!” my father’s voice booms.
“You better hope she takes the deal, or you’ll be on the stand, and you do not want that for her”—she points at him—“or for you.” She shoves her papers in her bag. “Five days and I’m on vacation. I’ll have papers sent over. Sign them or don’t, but a trial will take a year or more, and I am sure they can’t afford for you to drag this out. Tell your client to accept the sentencing, Preston.”
He sits down next to me, looking straight ahead.
“Mr. Preston, we have to go to trial. She cannot be in there any longer,” my mom cries. “She can’t.”
He turns his chair, “I will file the paperwork tomorrow morning.”
I sit and listen to them talk, but I only hear their voices. I know my parents cannot afford to pay the attorney fees, and I know they will lose everything trying to get me out.
“I want to accept the plea,” I say louder than I intended.
“Absolutely not,” my father and mother say at the same time.
“Yes.” I look over at the District Attorney. “I want to accept the plea.”
“That’s a very wise move, young—”
“No! No, she isn’t thinking. She—”
“I will sign whatever it is-—”
The District Attorney places paperwork in front of me, but my attorney pulls it away.
“We do not accept.”
“They can’t lose everything because of me,” I snap at him. “I won’t let that happen.”
“We won’t, Hadley. We will be fine.”
“Mom, you already remortgaged the house,” I say sharply.
“Then we sell the damn thing, Hadley Asher,” she snaps at me. “It means nothing without you. Do you understand me? It means—”
“I will work pro bono. There is no way in hell I am going to allow this miscarriage of justice to take place. You don’t deserve this, Hadley. You have no prior record, no—”
“Did you hear him? Do you see her?” I point to the District Attorney. “They don’t care.”
“We simply want justice done,” she says, with a scowl on her face.
“You’re trying to make an example out of a child who is far from a bully. She is—”
“Then go to trial,” she says smugly, then walks toward the door. “See you in a year.”
“You bitch,” my father hisses.
She stops and turns around. “You better hope this doesn’t go to trial. Your entire family will be right up there with her. You may just end up—”
“No! No, that’s not fair. Please, just let me take the deal. Mom, just let me!” I cry.
“We stand together, wherever we are. If it ends up in trial, we take the stand together, too,” my father says with conviction.
We all stand and walk toward the do
or, tears still running down my face.
“I can’t do this again,” I say as my mother and father embrace me.
“You won’t do it alone. We won’t let you.”
We walk out of the courthouse as Ms. Vangowers is addressing the press.
“It saddens me to say nothing has been resolved today, but we will continue to fight to get justice for Lana. Miss Asher’s family and attorney have advised her to not accept the plea offered to her today.”
As soon as they see us, all attention turns to me. Mr. and Mrs. Keller are beside me, my attorney in front of me, and my parents behind me, all acting as a wall of protection. I assume they all feel this is comforting to me. It isn’t.
“Justice for Lana!” the chant begins again. “Pay for your sins! We hope you rot! Justice for Lana!”
I am hurried into the van.
“See you in two days, Hadley,” my mom says.
“Mom, just wait until next week, okay? I’ll be fine,” I tell her, as the door closes behind me.
I look out the window and see the signs and angry faces. Then I see the Jamison family. Pax has his sunglasses on, hiding his eyes, but I know he is looking at me. I can feel it.
“I’m sorry,” I mouth to them all, “I’m so sorry.”
chapter thirteen
Six months later …
I am now in Honors Unit. We have a kitchen amongst other privileges that only the well behaved criminals get. Seanna and I are still very close.
Her family doesn’t visit. I have learned her father is incarcerated, and at thirty years old, he is serving life without parole. Her mother is a junkie.
She has been sentenced to a year and a half and is going to give her child up for adoption. She didn’t make the decision lightly; she prayed about it. The family adopting her child visits her here. They offered an open adoption, but Seanna declined, saying she wanted the child—whom we now know is a boy—to have nothing holding him back, her included.
She reads every day, and we have our own little book club. In a way, she reminds me of Bee.
I still receive letters from Bee, though not Skylar. Bee says that neither have lost hope that I will find my way, but Skylar took my not replying back harshly.
Pax has not written again.
“Ladies,” YDA Cunningham announces, “’it’s group time.”
Yes, on Honors Unit, we are referred to as ladies and not residents. I suppose it’s another perk to conforming. We are also ladies with names instead of residents and numbers.
Seanna and I sit next to each other, now able to choose where we sit.
“Today’s group will be self-led. I want you to discuss your fears about re-entering the community. Now, before you all act like it’s no big deal and talk about getting a Big Mac as being the first thing on your agenda”—she laughs—“I want to let you in on something. I sat right where you are today about ten years ago.” She pauses, waiting for a response.
I say nothing; neither do many of us. ’We have all heard stories about Monica Cunningham, who is said to have been one of Tryon’s residents many years ago.
“I was arrested at age thirteen for armed robbery. I did my time—seven months—and was released. Three months later, I was arrested again for being involved in gang-related activity, released seven months later, early for good behavior. Six months later, I was back in for the same thing. In fact, I was in and out of here until I turned eighteen.
“The problem I faced was that my living situation didn’t change. My mother was a junkie, my father a lifetime member at Sing-Sing Correctional, and the family who supported me when my mom was out prostituting or getting high were members of a gang. It was never a choice to be in or out of the gang; I was born into it. I didn’t know a single soul outside of that community who had ever once tried to help.
“When my mother didn’t come home for days, I was forced to steal food so my sister and I didn’t starve to death like our baby brother had. At sixteen, my younger sister and I were arrested together. Looking back, I promise you, I hated this place and all it stood for. My good behavior here was so I could get out and take care of my sister.
“The day she and I were arrested together, I was honestly ecstatic. I knew she would be all right. Three hots and a cot was much more than we got in our community. My sister ended up getting released into a step-down program that had just begun. She became a foster child to a family. When I was released, I tried to get her to run away with me. I hated the family she was living with because she didn’t need me anymore.
“When I broke into their home and tried to take her, they caught me, but they didn’t call the cops. They fed me, gave me a place to stay for the night, and offered to take me in, too. I refused because, like many of you, I was bad-ass enough to take care of my damn self.
“A year later, I was broke and homeless, still stealing to survive, and had just shot up for the first time in my life. One of my brothers told me it would help keep me warm on a brutally cold winter’s night. The next day, I saw a car rolling up and down the street while I sat in a ball, shaking and in such physical pain from coming down that I was pleading with God to just take me. When the car stopped, and my sister’s foster dad got out, he scooped me up, put me in the car, and my little sister proceeded to pound the piss out of me. You should have seen their faces.” She laughs. “I am a hundred and ten percent sure they had never seen their little angel go all ghetto before.
“Long story short, that day I was taken to their place, she told me she was being adopted, and as soon as that family went to sleep, I snuck out. That night, I got arrested again. My sister and I corresponded through the mail. I finally really opened up to my YDAs and YDCs, and three months later, I walked out of here, promising myself I would never be back.”
“Broke that promise,” Tasha, one of the residents who is being released in a week, laughs.
“Shattered it. If I can get through to one out of a hundred of you, every ounce of pain I suffered, every loss, every arrest was worth it. So, as you sit and lead this group today, don’t think about the damn golden arches; think about what obstacles you really have to overcome so we don’t have you back here in three months.”
During group, I sit back, listening to all their concerns. They are so much worse off than me. They worry about being hungry, shot, raped, never attending college, and making it out of their communities, while my worries are that people won’t like me.
No way was I disclosing that. No way in hell.
~*~
I wait inside Mrs. Keller's office for my parents and my lawyer. Today, they are all coming, and I have no idea why. It is either good news or bad. Either way, I am still going to be all right. I have decided so.
I stand up when the office door opens, and my mom slides in and shuts the door behind her. She hugs me immediately.
“You look good, sweet girl.” She hugs me tighter.
I tell her the same back, even though she doesn’t. She has aged a decade since this all began.
“Is Dad here?” I look past her.
“He actually has an interview, a maintenance position at a factory in Ithaca. Health benefits, forty hours a week, and this is his second interview, so fingers crossed and prayers up.”
“Mr. Preston?”
“Yes.” She steps back from our hug. “And Paxton Jamison is here, too.”
“Why!”
“He is trying to help us. He turned eighteen a week ago, and he—”
“No, Mom, he can’t. He doesn’t’ believe me. I don’t trust—”
I stop when the door opens, and Pax walks in, running his hands nervously through his hair.
“Hadley,” he says, then swallows hard.
“I don’t want you here,” I say, with tears immediately flooding my eyes.
He looks behind him to Mr. Preston and starts to chew on his thumbnail.
“Hadley, have a seat.” Mr. Preston uses a firm tone with me.
I sit, then pull my knees up to my che
st, rest my feet on the edge of the chair, and bury my head in my knees.
“Paxton called me three months ago with some information he thought may help you. We have been trying to check facts and—”
“Hads, she was sick. Lana was sick.” His voice waivers, and I pull my head up from my knees. “I think so, anyway. She had mood swings and stuff. I mean, not that all teenage girls don’t, but…” He stops when I scowl. “God, this is all coming out wrong, all of it. I am so sorry. I—”
“Paxton,” Mr. Preston stops him, “is here to try to help. His parents don’t know—”
“No.” I slap away the tears. “No. I just want this to go away. I wanted to sign the plea deal six months ago—”
“You can’t! Dammit, Hadley.” Pax kneels in front of me. “Even if you posted that, it doesn’t mean—”
“I didn’t, and I don’t need you here, okay? I just want to get through this—”
He grabs my hands firmly, stopping me.
“You didn’t make Lana take the damn pills, and she didn’t get them from your house.”
“What?!”
“I heard them talking to the District Attorney. She mentioned using your father’s … um … prescription addiction—”
“He was in an accident.” I look away from him and at my mother. “Mom, I am telling you, I want to take the plea. I want to know that I am not sitting here, rotting, just to go to trial and have—” I stop when I feel Pax squeeze my hands.
“Please don’t do that. Please. You have no idea what it means for the next kid who posts something online—”
I pull my hands away, “No.” I will not allow my family to be dragged through any more. I will not let Pax do this, either.
“It’s precedent setting, Hads. Please, for God’s sake, you can win this. You can help so many—”
“I just want everyone to leave me alone. I just want to—”
“Just breathe, Hadley Asher. Regardless of what is to come, you have people who know you would never—”
“You don’t know me! Just go. Please, just leave me alone.” God, I can’t handle him being here. I can’t handle it.
His blue eyes glass over and tears form. “I knew you once.”