“What do you mean?”
Taylor stops at a light and taps his fingers lightly on the steering wheel. He still has the dance music on, but it’s so low, I can barely make out the beat. “I heard he got caught stealing from his foster parents.”
“Stealing money?”
“I don’t know. But he got busted. He dropped out of school sometime after that.”
“When?”
He shrugs. “Last school year I think.”
I sit back in my seat and roll down my window farther. It’s freezing out now, but I’m afraid if I close it, I’ll throw up.
“Don’t worry,” Taylor says. “If he did it, they’ll bust him.”
I nod, but I’m not so sure it’s that easy.
Taylor pulls the car into the hotel round-about. “Feels weird dropping a girl off at a hotel,” he says.
“Feels weird getting dropped off at a hotel.”
“Will your parents get another house?”
“Probably,” I say. “Depends on when the insurance comes through. If Jay pleads guilty, it might be faster.”
He nods. “I guess you got a bad welcome to Sherbrook.”
I try not to laugh, but it comes out anyway. “Yeah, I guess we did.”
“Well, I hope you stay anyway.”
I smile. “Me too.” I should kiss him now, and I think I would, if my stomach wasn’t already turning.
“You want me to walk you in?” he asks.
“No, I’m okay. Thanks for the ride.” I slide out of the car and wave goodbye, waiting until he turns out of the parking lot before I puke in the flowerpot.
Chapter Eight
Tears sound different in a hotel room. Maybe it’s the acoustics, or just the closeness, but when I wake up sometime in the night to my mom crying in the bathroom, it chills me. She turns on the tap to try to drown herself out, but it doesn’t help. I roll over and my stomach reels. Please don’t throw up. I repeat it over and over until my mom leaves the bathroom and slips back in bed. Ten minutes later when I think she might be sleeping, I tiptoe into the bathroom and hurl what’s left of my stomach into the toilet.
We go down for the Saturday breakfast brunch in the morning. My mom’s eyes are puffy, and I can barely eat a thing. I shovel a bite of pancakes in anyway and chew slowly, promising myself I will never drink again. I look back and forth between my parents. Neither of them is talking.
“So did you find a house?” I ask lightly, setting down my fork.
“We did,” my dad says. “A rental three blocks from the old house.”
“That’s good,” I say. “Isn’t it?”
“It is. For now anyway. Depending on how long it takes to get the insurance money and get everything settled. We won’t be able to afford both rent and the mortgage if the case goes to trial.”
My mom shoots my dad a look across the table, as if to warn him not to tell me too much, but he knows enough not to meet her eyes.
“You mean, if he doesn’t plead guilty?” I ask.
“Yes,” my dad says. “If he pleads guilty we should get the insurance money right away. But if not, the insurance company has to make sure we’re not committing insurance fraud, so then they’ll have to investigate whether we started the fire, and that could take a while. We’ll need lawyers and everything.”
He finally meets my mom’s eyes and pauses. “But that’s worst case scenario. With any luck, the insurance will come through, we’ll build a new house, or sell the property, and life will go on.”
“But if it doesn’t?”
My dad sighs. “I don’t know. We consider our options. Go back to Tulsa for a little while if we have to. Live with your grandparents.”
“But what about school?” I ask. I know I’m being selfish, but I can’t go back there. I won’t make it.
“Like I said, it’s a worst case scenario. We’ll just hope for the best, honey.”
I look at my mom, but she’s chewing silently on a croissant, and I can’t read her expression. I don’t say it, but I know from experience worst case scenarios can actually happen.
“What will happen to him if he pleads guilty?”
My dad swirls his spoon around in his cereal. “Probably not as much as he deserves. He’s a minor so the maximum he’ll probably get is commitment to juvenile detention until he’s eighteen. But if he pleads guilty, he’ll get a lesser sentence – house arrest and community service likely. As if that will do any good for a teenaged boy.”
I push away my plate, my head swirling. “He can’t get house arrest,” I say. “He doesn’t have a house.”
“Right,” my dad says, dropping his spoon. “Well, neither do we at the moment.”
***
This time I get to the detention center just in time for visitors’ hours. I need more than five minutes with Jay if I’m going to convince him to plead guilty. He just needs to understand. Maybe he did it, or maybe he didn’t. Either way, he’ll probably get charged. Pleading guilty will be better for all of us.
“Kelsey Masterson to see Jay Miller,” I say, when I get up to the desk. Jay won’t fall for the sister thing twice. There’s a lady sitting there instead of the security guard from Friday. She has a hint of a smile on her face. I hold my breath.
“Are you family?” she asks.
I nod.
“I’ll need to see some photo ID.” Her mouth is smiling, but her eyes are definitely not. It’s like she’s wearing Vaseline on her teeth to keep herself smiling like they used to make us do for dance competitions. I’m not sure if it actually worked – I always felt like I was grimacing, terrified I’d actually swallow the stuff.
I take a breath and hand her my driver’s license.
She barely glances at it. “No visitors under eighteen are allowed unless they’re on the approved visitors’ list.”
“Okay,” I say, looking down the hall. I wonder if the guard from yesterday can get me in. “How do I get on the approved visitors’ list?”
“You have to be authorized by the case manager and the inmate.”
“Uh, okay. Can I do that?”
The lady sighs, as if she was hoping I would just leave. “One moment.” She picks up the phone, and I pace around the waiting area. A couple walks in the front door and the lady waves them in. She’s still smiling when she hangs up the phone. “The case manager will be down shortly to meet with you.”
She motions to a chair, and I sit. I pick up a magazine and flip through the whole thing before I realize it’s all about fishing. I’m reading about the five best places to go ice fishing when a pair of feet appears in front of me. A petite woman with a short, blonde bob, whose face is way too cheery to be working in a place like this, smiles down at me.
She holds out her hand. “I’m Cheryl, the case manager.”
I wonder how long she’s been standing there, watching me analyze fishing poles. She motions me with her pen and leads me into a small room down the hall, which I think is her office. There’s no window and it’s almost like a cell itself, but with a desk in the middle, and a lonely orchid on the table. The walls are made out of concrete and aren’t even painted.
“So,” she says, opening up a file. “You’re here to see Jason Miller?”
“Yes,” I say, sitting up straighter in my chair. “I’m Kelsey Masterson.”
“And you’re family?”
“Yes. I’m uh, his cousin.”
“And Jay knows you’re visiting?”
“Well, uh, I think so.” I want to say I was here yesterday, but I don’t want to get the guard in trouble for letting me in.
Cheryl flips though a few files. “Well, we don’t normally make exceptions for non-immediate family members. Especially under-age ones.”
“I just want to talk to him. Please. Just this once?”
Cheryl smiles, not just with her teeth, but with her eyes. “I was about to say I’ll make an exception in Jay’s case because of his situation.”
“You mean because of what
happened to his parents?”
“Kind of. I think he could use a visitor every once in a while.”
I swallow and nod. She doesn’t know I hope this will be my last time here. Once he pleads guilty I’ll probably never see him again.
“Jay’s a good kid,” she says. “He’s just been through a lot. I think he’s one of the few who can get back on track with the right tools.”
I nod like I know what she means, like I’ve known Jay for years. As if Jay is just a broken down car that can be fixed with a few new parts. I wipe my hands on my pants.
“I’ll bring you to the visitors’ room,” she says. “Then I’ll go check with Jay.” She points me in the direction of a larger room where there are already a bunch of teenagers visiting with relatives. They’re all sitting around tables at various sides of the room, and I take one in the middle and wait. I wonder if he’ll show up. He has no reason to want to. I probably wouldn’t if I were him. But I’m not him. I didn’t burn down someone’s house. I don’t owe him like he owes me.
I rifle through my purse. The folded up dance flyer is there between my lip balm and a pack of gum. I take it out and toss it in the garbage, then take my time applying the lip balm even though my lips aren’t dry. Would Wes have ended up in a place like this if I’d told somebody? I pull out a compact and study myself in the mirror. The makeup I used to draw in my eyebrows is smudged. I try to rub at it, but I only make it worse. I give up and shove the compact back in my bag. What do I care anyway? I’m not trying to impress him.
The guy behind me is arguing with a woman I assume is his mother. I want to turn around and look but I’m scared he’ll start yelling at me too. His voice gets louder until a guard shows up and drags him out of the room. When he’s gone, I look behind me and see the mother – a small-framed woman with sunken eyes.
She walks out the door, and Jay appears in her place. He slides into the seat across from me before I’m ready.
The chair is too small for him – like the chairs you’d find in a first grade classroom. Maybe it’s a psychological thing – to scare the inmates into realizing they will soon be too big for this place and the next place to go is jail.
“You’re not my cousin either,” Jay says finally.
He’s staring out the window, so I watch him. I think I see a hint of a smile on his face, like he’s amused I managed to get in again.
“I didn’t do it,” he says, staring somewhere over my shoulder, still not meeting my eyes.
I swallow and straighten my shoulders. “Who else would do it?”
“Beats me. Why would I do it?” He pushes his chair back a bit and examines a thread on his pants. I catch a glimpse of the pink and green bracelet again. It looks funny with the uniform. I wonder if he had to argue with them to let him keep it on.
“Because you used to live there,” I say. “Because they took your house away.”
He pulls out the thread and lets it fall to the ground. “How did you know I lived there?”
“The markings on the wall in my closet.”
He stares at me and my breath catches in my throat. “That’s your room?” he asks.
I nod and try to keep his gaze. It’s the longest conversation I’ve managed to get out of him, and I need to keep it going. His eyes are puffy. Tired. They can’t focus on one spot. They dart around the room from me, to the window, to the floor, and back again. I try to imagine him being friends with Taylor, who always seems so confident and easy going. I guess a lot has happened between then and now.
“What happened to your family?” I ask.
He looks away. “It’s none of your business.”
“Sorry.” I sit up straighter in my chair. I will not let him turn this around on me. “You have to plead guilty,” I say. “Please. My family just wants this to be resolved as soon as possible. We want our lives back.”
“I’d like mine back too, but we can’t always get what we want.”
I lean closer. I can feel the blood rushing up to my face. “Maybe you can’t get yours back, but you could give mine back to me. You could make things right.”
He blinks and something changes in his face. Like he’s remembering something – like maybe I finally got through to him.
“Listen,” I say. “I don’t know what happened to you and your family but it looks like you got dealt a bad hand. You didn’t deserve to have that happen to you – no one does. And I’m sorry for whatever you’ve been through. But you have a chance to turn things around. Plead guilty. Do your time. Get your life back on track.”
A loud buzz vibrates through the room – like the buzzer that goes off when someone gets a question wrong during a game show. Chairs scrape across the floor, and Jay slides his chair out too, walking out in the crowd without looking back.
****
On the morning of the court date for entering the plea, I don’t even try to concentrate in my classes. All I can think about is Jay in the courtroom and whether or not he’ll plead guilty. I go back and forth between thinking he will and being sure he won’t. I start to forget which one I’m even hoping for.
By the time I meet Taylor and Melody in the cafeteria for lunch, I’ve convinced myself he won’t. Victoria and Ryan already saved our table, and I can’t help but think how strange it feels to actually have a table again. A place where I belong – or at least, I hope I do.
I sit down and try to eat, but I just end up moving some of the fries around on my plate. “Did you know Jay Miller?” I ask, turning to Victoria.
“So it’s true?” Victoria says. “He actually burned your house down?”
“Did you know him?”
She shrugs. “Kind of.”
Melody shoves her. “What do you mean, kind of? You dated him in eighth grade.”
“Only for a week! And only because he bought me M&M’s every day.”
Ryan laughs. “Yeah, everyone knows chocolate is the way into Victoria’s pants.”
Victoria chucks her napkin at Ryan but it doesn’t quite make it. “He did not get into my pants. It was eighth grade. I don’t think he would have known what to do with it.”
“Kidding,” Ryan says, smiling.
I try to shake the visual of Victoria and Jay out of my head. “So do you think he would burn down a house?” I ask.
“Who knows?” Victoria says. “But I wouldn’t put it past him. He seemed a little off.”
“You’re only saying that because he dumped you after a week,” Ryan says, stealing a fry from my plate.
“Not true! I dumped him. Not my type.”
“He told me he didn’t do it,” I say.
“You talked to him?” Melody says. “You didn’t tell me.”
“I asked him to plead guilty.”
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Taylor says. “He could have hurt you.”
“There were security guards all around. I’m sure he wouldn’t hurt me.”
“He’ll plead guilty,” Melody says. “I’m sure everything will work out.”
I push the rest of my fries toward Ryan. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I’m worrying for nothing. I let them change the subject to something else and try to listen. If this had happened to my house in Tulsa last year, would Julie have felt sorry for me? Would she have sat with me at lunch again and told me not to worry about anything? Somehow, I know she wouldn’t have, and that makes it worse.
The day after I broke up with Wes, I told my parents I was sick and stayed home from school. I lay in bed all day and by the time the next day came, I thought I was ready to get my life back. To not be afraid anymore. Except when I got to school, everyone was whispering. I thought they were just surprised I’d actually broken up with one of the most popular guys at school. I hadn’t told anybody what happened – I hadn’t even had time to process it myself yet. I just kept dragging myself from class to class in a daze, sure I was only imagining the whispers. But when I met Julie for lunch and she was quieter than normal, I finally asked her what was going on.<
br />
She answered me without meeting my eyes. “Everyone’s talking about how Wes dumped you.”
I looked at her, confused. “Actually, I dumped him.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
I wanted to tell her more – tell her everything. But when I opened my mouth, the words got caught in my throat. “Whatever,” I said instead, taking a sip of my soup. “If he wants people to believe he dumped me, let him. We’re over anyway.”
Julie kept looking down at her lunch tray. My heart sunk.
“What else are people talking about?” I asked.
“Well,” she said. “Wes has been telling people he broke up with you because you wouldn’t even kiss him.”
Suddenly I felt his hands on my wrists again and dropped my spoon. I pulled my sleeves down farther.
“There’s more,” Julie said.
I looked down at my bowl. “What?”
“He’s telling everyone you’re not attracted to any guys. He said you told him you’re a lesbian.”
I tried to force a laugh, but it got caught in my throat. “That’s what people are whispering about? They don’t actually believe him, do they?”
“Well, yeah,” she said. “Wes is popular. He’s hot. People believe anything he says.”
I rolled my eyes and pretended not to care. “Everyone will forget about it by tomorrow.”
But they didn’t.
The rumors just spread farther. People started saying Julie and I were a couple. They’d make remarks as we’d walk down the hall together. Eventually, she couldn’t take it. She slowly stopped hanging out with me, along with everyone else, until one day I realized I had no friends left. It didn’t matter that I tried to deny it. No one wanted to hear my side of the story when Wes’s was so much more interesting. Not that I could tell the real story anyway. If this was what Wes did when I didn’t tell anybody, I didn’t want to find out what he’d do if I did.
I had nothing against people who were gay. In fact, I felt even more for them after what I went through. But being labeled something I wasn’t was almost worse, because I couldn’t fit in anywhere. No guys were interested in me, and no girls wanted to be friends with me. I stopped wearing makeup and doing my hair because there was no point anymore. No one was looking at me unless they were laughing.
Follow Me Home Page 8