If We Survive the Night

Chapter 1

I can hear footsteps slapping the linoleum a few feet outside my open doorway. The morning shift is here.

I roll myself out of bed before Ms. Michelle can tell me to wake up.

It’s a small and probably futile act of rebellion, but I hate the look on her face when she tells me what to do.

I won’t give her the satisfaction today.

By the time she gets to my door I’ll be in my bathroom brushing my teeth.

She might even give me a compliance point for it.

I already hear January screaming from the door closest to the staff’s workstation. I’m pretty sure they put her there on purpose so they don’t need to walk so far when they have to deal with her tantrums, which is just lazy, if you ask me.

“Shut the fuck up, Jan!” Tracy yells groggily from her room across the hall. It’s times like these I wish they let us have doors.

“Two demerits for swearing, Tracy. Please try to have a little more compassion for January today,” Ms. Michelle chirps. I imagine her pausing to make note of Tracy’s two demerits on her clipboard and roll my eyes. Her footsteps continue.

When Ms. Michelle gets to my doorway, she peers in and smiles with a twinkle of pride in her eye. She actually thinks she’s responsible for my “marked decrease of defiant episodes.”

“Wow! Up already and getting an early start on personal hygiene without prompting! If you keep this up all day, you’ll earn a compliance point,” Ms. Michelle chirps.

Ms. Michelle is always chirping. I force a smile, and toothpaste drips down my chin.

Her smile falters. Her eyes shift to the left uncomfortably, and she keeps walking.

Goddammit. I make a mental note not to show so many of my teeth next time.

Down the hall, January is still screaming her head off about being too tired to go to school.

She’s just making it worse for herself, but she’s only been here for three months, so you can’t really blame her.

She doesn’t know that if you just play along, they leave you alone.

Or maybe she’s too stupid to figure it out.

I haven’t read her chart yet, so I’m not sure.

Ginger adds to the chaos, demanding loudly to use the phone to call home. It’s not even her phone day today, and I don’t know why she bothers. Her mom barely tolerates those calls anyway.

I spit in the sink, wipe my face, and then peer across the hall toward Keisha’s room to see if she’s awake.

She is. I can tell she’s been waiting for me.

She stands in her doorway, casually examining the ends of her braids, and doesn’t say a word.

She just locks her gaze on me, lifts her eyebrows, and then glances over to the staff’s workstation.

That’s all the communication I need. I look down the hall and see Mr. Josh making notes in an electronic chart.

I look back at Keisha and make just enough eye contact so she knows that I know. Today is the day.

I dress quickly and make sure to put on my white running sneakers with the red laces. Those laces are a prize that took me six months to earn. I can be trusted in my room alone with shoelaces. It’s a status symbol.

As I walk into the hall, Keisha casually leaves her room a couple of beats behind me and we head toward the meds line.

Octavia, Diamond, and Tracy wait in the line in front of us.

They stand there looking like those dolls that stack up and fit inside each other.

Hollow, identical copies of each other in various sizes.

Their charts are just as boring as they are.

Tracy looks me and Keisha up and down, and the other two follow suit, but neither of us acknowledges their dumb attempt at intimidation.

Ginger joins behind us, crestfallen, having finally accepted that her phone call isn’t happening.

Tall and lanky with Coke-bottle glasses, she confidently sports a frizzy hairdo complete with puffy bangs like an eighties mom headed to a Jazzercise class.

Tracy eyes her and whispers something to Diamond.

Ginger’s hair is exceptionally messy today, and I silently hope that Tracy doesn’t taunt her about it.

I don’t think I can handle two tantrums at once.

Across the hall, January lets out a gurgling scream, a little louder than before, and we all turn to stare into her room.

She’s flopping on the floor, red-faced in her too-small pajamas.

Sweat and tears glue chunks of auburn hair to her round cheeks.

Ms. Michelle speaks calmly, trying to reason with her, as if that has ever worked in the history of January’s tantrums. Nurse Patrick is close by though, armed with a syringe full of diazepam.

I guess January isn’t going to be of much help today. That’s okay. We don’t need her.

Mr. Josh keeps an eye on the tray of undelivered meds while he writes in January’s chart. Documentation is important here. God forbid these people aren’t aware of every single moment of our existence.

January starts screaming even harder as Nurse Patrick enters her room with the syringe, and I lean in closer to get a better look.

No turning back now. Nurse Patrick whispers something in January’s ear, then sticks her with the needle.

The meds go in; the lights go out. Jan’s body deflates, and the cacophony shrinks to a whimper. Finally. Jesus.

Once Jan ensures we’ll all be late to breakfast, Nurse Patrick comes back to the meds line to distribute the goods.

When it’s my turn, I take my paper cup. Just one pill now, one beige oval.

They’re not sedating me anymore, and thank god they gave up on the one that gave me headaches and made me sleep twenty hours a day.

It took me weeks to bounce back from that little experiment.

My chart says my diagnosis is difficult to medicate, and I’m pretty sure they just quit trying.

I’m told the beige pill is to help me focus in school.

Whatever. I take it, swallow, and open my mouth for Nurse Patrick to check.

He gives me a warm smile, and his blue eyes crinkle.

“Thanks, kid! Have fun at school!” he singsongs. Nurse Patrick is corny as hell, but he’s not a bad guy.

At six foot two, his size and solid build should make him intimidating, but his dopey smile instantly gives him away. He’s a marshmallow. He holds out his elbow, and I raise my own to give his elbow a tap. A sanitary high five. He really does try.

Keisha is next, and I watch her palm her meds and slip them into her hoodie’s front pocket. She’s really gotten good at that. Nurse Patrick seems none the wiser, gives her an elbow tap, and calls Cat forward with a smile.

Keisha and I leave the meds line together and join the rest of the girls.

We lean against the wall in the north hall, waiting to be escorted downstairs to breakfast. We’re all quiet, tired from another long night of hearing Diamond screaming in her sleep.

As we wait, I can smell Mr. Josh approaching, and my gut twists.

His cologne smells like arrogance and asshole, and it takes everything I have to calm the muscles in my face, release my fists, and conjure a look of indifference as he walks up behind me, just a little too close.

His shirt sleeve brushes my bare arm. Goose bumps.

“All right, ladies, we’re heading downstairs,” he says, strutting in front of us.

“I want an orderly line. Absolutely no talking until we reach the cafeteria, and I hope I don’t need to remind you—you are not allowed to talk to the boys.

Sit only at your designated table. Any deviation from these rules will result in a demerit and a demotion in your level.

Have I made myself clear?” he asks, smiling falsely.

“Yes, Mr. Josh,” we say in chorus.

He leads us down the stairs, single file, toward the cafeteria. When we come to the locked door standing between us and our breakfast, he tells us to turn around. We do. I hear him punch in a six-digit code followed by a soft click.

Mr. Josh steps into the doorway and holds the door open, blocking half of the entrance. I hate this part.

“Let’s go, ladies!” He leans his back against the doorjamb and waits. Everyone cringes. One by one, we move through the doorway, each of us trying to make ourselves impossibly small. Inevitably, we brush up against Mr. Josh. He smirks. My skin crawls. I keep walking.

Mr. Josh is more than a jerk on a power trip.

I’ve kept my eye on him since I got here, and it wasn’t hard to figure out his game.

I’ve met dozens of men just like him. The creep hiding in plain sight.

Places like this are full of them. Nobody questions a do-gooder who helps troubled kids. But we all know better.

When we enter the cafeteria, the boys all look up. Of course, they beat us here and took all the good cereal. One more reason to hate January and her useless tantrums. I grab a box of plain Cheerios and sit across from Keisha. Now we can finally talk.

“So today, then?” I say casually, glancing toward Mr. Josh to make sure he’s not paying attention to us.

“Today. Right after lights out. Mr. Josh is working a double, so he’ll be exhausted. He’ll be working on evening charts, so he won’t even notice if we do it right at shift change at nine,” Keisha says, carefully controlling the excitement I know she’s feeling.

“You realize if this goes sideways, we lose everything, right? We’ll be in our rooms without privileges for weeks.”

“We’re not going to get caught,” she promises.

“Are you sure you have the right code?” I press.

“Jesus, Quinn, for the thousandth time, I have the right code. I watched Mr. Josh use it again yesterday, and I’m not an idiot. Do you think I’m an idiot?” Keisha says, challenging me with an arched eyebrow and wry smile. I roll my eyes but crack a smile of my own to answer hers.