Chapter 1 #2
He knows Jude’s been testing me for weeks now, all because he overheard that not only am I getting out—as if it’s my fault he’s got a few months left to go—but that I’ll be moving in with my caseworker.
One who just so happens to be his caseworker as well, along with five other lucky ingrates currently glaring at me from various spots around the room.
Sucks to suck, boys.
As if summoned, a loud female voice rings out from the doorway just ahead of me, silencing the room in a heartbeat. “That’s enough, Judas.”
Someone oohs at the use of Jude’s full name.
Matilda Jennings.
My sweet, little ol’ Tillie.
Standing at five-foot-nothing, with bright red hair chopped short around her ears, her command of an entire room of baby lunatics and would-be criminals is half the reason why I adore her endlessly.
The other half being that I’m her favorite, something that’s widely known around here.
Heck, it’s only thanks to this woman that I have a place to go now that I’m eighteen.
If not for Tillie and her stuffy husband—who I’ve yet to meet—I’d be left to fend for myself on the streets, until I ended up either face-first in a fly-infested gutter—nameless, faceless, and forgotten; a no one to anyone and everyone…
Or back here at Ashwood, where I’d be thrown into gen pop and sentenced to spend the rest of my days getting my brain zapped and pumped full of so many meds that I’m nothing more than a lifeless, slack-faced husk staring blankly at a wall.
And that’s only if I was lucky enough not to wind up in prison instead. Which, given my track record with all things luck…well, I’m about as bankrupt there as I am in funds and fucks to give.
Maybe if the other patients stopped acting like uncivilized shitheads once in a while, they would’ve realized this could’ve been them too.
But nooo, they just had to go and keep making things harder for themselves. Getting into fights, sneaking contraband, flipping their lid when the cafeteria ran out of pudding cups…
Didn’t anyone tell them that no one likes a lost cause?
When Tillie’s attention finally zeroes in on me, I don’t miss how her gaze flits to my shoulder, hardening.
As if realizing he’s still touching me—not only that, but caressing my neck with his thumb—Bruce retracts his hand like I burned him.
I smirk. Busted.
Tillie’s fiery gaze meets mine, but I know her ire isn’t toward me.
Not really. After all, it’s not my fault I'm so irresistible. It’s the orderlies who should be ashamed for being so weak-willed.
From the second I turned sixteen, they’ve been on me like bees to honey.
Content to delude themselves that things like age of consent still apply in a place like this…
Anything to justify that what they’re doing isn’t wrong.
I wanted it after all.
Begged for it.
Seduced them with my feminine wiles.
And even if I didn’t…
Who am I to claim the R word?
Who are any of us to think our voices actually matter?
We’re crazy. Degenerates. Black stains on society.
Dirt to be brushed under the rug.
A secret to be hidden away.
“That’ll be all, Bruce,” Tillie says shortly, dismissing him.
Okay, so to Tillie, they matter. We matter. But she doesn’t have a penis. And waving that around is about the only way to get anything done around here. Trust me on that.
As I spare one last cursory sweep of the room, I don’t miss Jude glaring my way. I lift my fingers into a V and waggle my tongue between them.
Laters, babe.
He lurches forward, face reddening with his snarl.
So vicious!
I almost regret never tapping that.
Not waiting around to see what happens, I quickly skip off after Tillie, hoping my new little friend tucked safely against my wrist can wait just a little bit longer.
A wardrobe change, an exit interview, and a whole bunch of tedious paperwork later, I burst out the double doors of Ashwood free as a dove.
Cue the heavenly lights. The trumpets. The choir of angels.
I’m back, bitches.
Thumbs hooked through the straps of my ratty, faded red JanSport that I’ve had since I was a kid, I descend the stone steps in my brand spankin’ new high-tops. Tillie takes the wheelchair ramp, a rolling black suitcase in tow.
My suitcase, apparently. My very first one.
Not that I needed it. I don’t think she realized how very little I actually owned in my rather cluttered room. I could have easily split my belongings between my backpack and a grocery bag or two.
Parked along the curb, a baby blue Volkswagen Beetle waits for us, one that up until now I’ve only seen through barred windows.
“Why does your car have eyelashes?”
It was the first thing I ever said to her.
She just shrugged and said, “Why not? It’s fun.”
That was two years ago. I was sixteen, and she was as green to the job as the sparkly nail polish she wore, not scared of me in the slightest. We’ve been inseparable ever since.
And by inseparable, I mean she’s the only caseworker who hasn’t run crying to the powers-that-be, begging for reassignment the second things got a little…dicey.
You bite a guy one time…
You’d think I committed murder or something.
While Tillie loads my suitcase into the trunk, I get settled in the passenger seat, reacquainting myself with things like seatbelts and glove compartments and vent switches.
I also take the opportunity to double check that my newest little buddy is safe and sound in the front pocket of my backpack.
It’s not ideal, but it’ll have to do until I’m alone again and can put him with the others.
“This is it,” I tell him in a whisper. “We’re free.”
The trunk slams shut, and I quickly zip my bag back up, hugging it tightly against my chest with a deep inhale. Taking stock of the new, yet strangely familiar smells washing over me.
Pine air freshener.
Stale coffee.
Motor oil.
Like crisp early winter mornings, blowing through yellow lights to make it to work on time, exhaust fumes blowing clouds into the frost-bitten air. A crackling radio playing “Manic Monday” as a new work week begins.
I picture Tillie behind the wheel, flipping down the sun visor to inspect her makeup in the mirror in between looking at the road, rolling her lips together to even out the pink gloss she’d brushed on hastily before rushing us out of the house.
She’d be a good mom…
“Ready?” Tillie says brightly, joining me, and popping my little daydream like a balloon.
The door slams shut, and I meet her crinkly-eyed grin, mirroring it with one of my own. “Born ready.”
The radio kicks on with the sputtering start of the engine, and I perk up when the song just coming on is one I recognize. “Heaven Is a Place on Earth” by Belinda Carlisle.
Tillie whoops and cranks the volume up to full-blast, gesturing for me to roll down my window before she does the same.
And just like that, with a popping shift of gears and a squeal of tires—exhaust smoke clouding the hazy, late summer air—I bid goodbye to the last six years with a middle finger salute waving on the wind, and a vicious smirk stamped across my face.
Sayo-fucking-nara, losers.