Chapter 1 #2
“Of course I don’t think you’re an idiot. If you say we’re good, we’re good.” But truthfully, I’m not one hundred percent sure. Keisha’s one of the smartest people I’ve met, but I’ve been doing things like this long enough to know you can’t predict everything.
I sigh and let my eyes wander across the room to where the boys sit.
I do a quick headcount, just to be sure I know who’s in the room with us.
An old nervous habit from my last group home.
All twelve are here. Same as us girls. We only see the boys at mealtimes and during school, but even then we barely interact.
Half of them are too high on their meds to even bother trying to talk to us.
I already read their charts, but even if I didn’t know their histories, symptoms, meds, and the reasons they’re in this place, I wouldn’t interact with these boys on purpose.
Sometimes you can just look at someone and know.
I let my attention come back to Keisha. “So, obviously, January isn’t going to be any good to us tonight. Those meds will have her knocked out until breakfast tomorrow. I can probably get Ginger to go off the rails and give us a good distraction, though.”
“What did you have in mind?” Keisha asks, a smile playing on her lips.
“At dinner I’ll tell Tracy I heard that Ginger’s mom called this morning.
Tracy won’t be able to resist a good rumor, and it’ll get back to Ginger within the hour for sure.
Ginger will lose her mind in twenty minutes or less trying to get phone privileges.
Boom. Instant distraction. They won’t even bother to trace the rumor back to me. ”
“And if that doesn’t work?” Keisha asks skeptically. She always demands a plan B.
“It will. But if all else fails, I’ll just tell Ginger I heard Ms. Michelle call her a brat behind her back. She’ll spend all night crying about it.” Again, it’s simple. Ms. Michelle won’t even give me demerits for lying, because it’s the truth and she knows it.
“Jeez, Quinn. That’s kinda messed up,” Keisha says, but I catch her smiling.
I shrug. “People are predictable.”
Keisha knows just about everything about me by now, but she doesn’t know I read everyone’s charts, and she definitely doesn’t know I’ve read some of hers.
Her chart is very long. Like a lot of our parents, her mom and stepdad were addicts.
She was placed in foster care when she was eight years old.
She spent the next eight years failing out of every foster placement and group home until she ended up here a year ago, barely escaping a juvenile detention sentence.
It’s not like her history is special. We’re all walking around with some version of the same old story.
Bad childhoods and parents who were terrible, dead, or both.
Keisha’s only different in that she turns eighteen in a month and will be moving into transitional living.
She’s not being considered for placement in a locked adult facility, as she loves to remind us.
But what makes people feel special is also their weakness.
If I ever needed to mess with Keisha, I’d start there.
I wouldn’t do that to her though. I hate just about everyone, but not Keisha.
I’m sixteen, so I have about a year and a half to go before I get to leave.
The best I can hope for is transitional living like Keisha.
They give you your own apartment, a job, and tuition for community college or a trades program if you want it.
That’s the goal. That’s why I’m usually on my very best behavior.
I can’t go to an adult facility. I just can’t.
And I’m definitely not going back home. There’s no home to go back to.
Meredith and Daniel Wallace adopted me when I was two.
I don’t really have any memories of life before them.
Anyway, they surrendered me back to the state four years later.
No hard feelings. Not everyone is cut out to be a parent, especially to a kid like me.
I entered foster care after that and bounced from home to home.
After the last foster family dumped me, a judge ordered a residential treatment center.
I’ve been at the Pegasus Center since then.
It could be worse. They could have easily sent me to juvenile detention for the things I did.
Instead, they sent me for treatment. The system has a weakness for girls who look like me.
Blond hair, white skin, sweet face, small build.
I’m not saying it’s fair, but it’s true.
I’ve learned all kinds of things in therapy too. My therapist tells me when I’ve hurt someone’s feelings and when my facial expressions don’t match the situation.
She explains how other people think and feel and why. I pay attention as if my life depends on it, because it probably does. If I can read people, understand what makes them tick, and match their energy, I can usually go unnoticed. I think I’m blending in pretty well now.
After breakfast Mr. Josh escorts us to the elevator and down two floors to the classrooms. We’re split into small groups according to age and ability level.
Only a few of us are smart enough to qualify for regular high school classes.
It could be worse. As long as you put in a little effort, you pass your classes, and your teachers can go home to their families and feel better about themselves because they saved a crazy child today.
It’s best to keep them feeling optimistic about you.
They’ll let a lot of things slide if they feel like you’re making progress.
I raise my hand to let my teacher know I’m done with my work early.
Without a sound, she smiles and points to the tablet cart.
I grab one, find an empty corner, and settle in.
These things aren’t supposed to connect to the internet, of course.
In fact, the only things we’re allowed to do on them is read books, play math games, and draw.
It wasn’t hard to unlock the good stuff, though.
I can’t get on the internet, but I figured out how to get into the internal server if I have a staff member’s password, and I do.
Mr. Josh charts on us so often that nobody notices the extra log-in records. His password is his own birthday, which I learned while watching him show pictures of the big day to Ms. Rose, trying to impress her. When she asked how old he turned, I did the math. It was too easy.
I open the electronic charts and start reading where I left off. As always, I check my own notes first.
Quinn Wallace woke and initiated her hygiene routine on schedule without prompting.
Her cooperation continues to improve per her behavior plan.
She showed patience toward a struggling peer during the morning routine.
However, she did not show empathy or attempt to console her peer.
She avoided eye contact and maintained a flat affect throughout the duration of her peer’s tantrum.
Empathy and compassion remain underdeveloped for her age and developmental level.
“Dammit,” I mumble under my breath. I make a mental note to remember to try to talk to January during her next tantrum or at least act concerned.
I back out of my own record and scroll until I get to January’s chart.
It’s about time I read her file. Her daily notes are just a timeline of her tantrums. Boring.
I check her psychological test scores. That explains it.
She’s fourteen, but it says here she’s functioning like a kid less than half her age.
I guess she can’t really help it. I scroll back to the beginning to read her family history.
Both her parents still have legal custody of her.
That’s different. Why would someone with two functioning parents get sent to a residential treatment center?
I skim past her developmental milestone records and behavioral testing.
I just about choke on my own spit when I see the answer.
“Jesus Christ, Jan,” I sigh quietly. Who knew she had it in her?
It’s right there in her chart, though. About a month before she arrived here, she started a small fire in her family’s garage.
From the notes, it looks like they believed it to be an accident.
Then, a few paragraphs down, there’s a note about her using a lighter to set the family dog’s tail on fire because he was getting more attention than her.
Then I read what must have been the final straw.
In a blind rage over her bedtime, January used a nearby candle to set her parents’ bed on fire.
I guess they lived to tell the tale and then sent her here. Wow.
I don’t get spooked easily, but something about this rattles me. And I thought I had a colorful record. I log out of the tablet quickly, erase my history, and ask to visit the library. My teacher smiles and nods, and I walk to the back of the room, my heart slowing as I go.
Our library has a pretty decent selection.
We get a lot of donations from local businesses and charities.
We also get castoffs from local high schools and the public library.
There’s enough here to keep your mind occupied for years.
The shelves in the back of the room are ancient, made of carved hardwood, rising all the way up to the high ceilings.
It feels like another world, not like the sterile hospital-like environment on the sixth floor where we spend most of our time.