Chapter 4. Liam
The rec room is louder than I've ever heard it, and that's saying something, because this place has never been quiet in any fucking sense of the word.
Everybody is always behaving like rabid gorillas, screaming, smacking each other.
There's a TV, and the TV is ancient, the kind with a screen that curves at the edges and makes everyone look slightly wider than they are; sometimes it glitches green and pink, and Ethan explained to me why this happens.
Still, I didn't pay too much attention, as I was too busy staring at his lips.
The TV is bolted to the wall as if the administration expected someone to try to steal it, which, honestly, is a fair assumption.
However, they'd be caught in ten minutes: imagine someone trying to run through the Academy carrying a huge ass TV.
But tonight nobody cares about the quality because it's the Super Bowl and Griff actually approved the viewing privilege, which means sixty boys crammed into the rec room, sitting on every surface that can hold weight and some that probably can't, like the pinball table, despite several warnings from the guards.
I'm on the floor next to Jack, both of us cross-legged, close enough to the screen that the light flickers across our faces in blues and greens. My whole body is vibrating, and it's a fucking miracle I can stay sitting in one place. They should pay me. I could be a much worse type of menace.
It's the Buccaneers and the Steelers. As my team, the Dolphins, won't ever make the Super Bowl again, I decide to support our fellow Florida team, the Buccaneers.
Some people here, though, are Steelers fanatics, and they're ridiculous rivals, so I decide not to be too loud about my support for the Bucs, in case someone decides that's a punchable offense.
"THROW IT! THROW THE GODDAMN BALL!" Jack is on his knees, arms extended like he's directing the quarterback.
The Batman tattoo on his neck stretches as he cranes forward.
A kid behind us tells him to sit down, and Jack flips him off without looking, which gets a laugh from half the room.
I don't think he's supporting any particular team; he just likes to scream.
I'm no better. When the receiver catches a forty-yard pass and gets tackled at the five, I'm on my feet, hands in my hair, making a lot of noise together with the others. We're all jumping up and down, screaming, and now the resemblance to a bunch of untamed gorillas is really uncanny.
The guards are stationed at the corners, two by the door, one near the windows, one by the hallway entrance.
They're doing their best impression of not enjoying themselves, but I catch one of them, a younger guy whose name I haven't learned, pumping his fist when the play goes well.
He smooths his expression immediately when his partner glances over.
They warned us that any fights or problems would get us all locked down and cost us a month of privileges.
If this happens, I will be so fucking pissed.
We never get football privileges, so this is a big thing.
A boy named Johnathan is behind me, narrating every play like a sportscaster.
He has a big nose, and he's one of the oldest residents at twenty-eight.
They said he has until thirty to finish his degree and get released for good behavior; otherwise he'll be transferred.
I'd be worried as fuck if I were him. But he seems too entertained by his possible imaginary football narrator career to care.
A couple of newer kids I don't know well are arguing about whether the ref made the right call, and the argument is getting loud enough that a guard shifts his weight, preparing to intervene.
But then the play clock starts, and everyone's attention snaps back to the screen like magnets.
I love this. The collective energy, the way everyone forgets for a few hours that we're locked up.
Then the commercial break hits.
The noise level drops. People start getting up to stretch, some making a run to the bathroom before the guards decide to enforce the one-at-a-time rule.
Jack starts debating defensive strategy with Cedric, a boy from MMA, using his hands so aggressively he nearly takes out the kid sitting next to him.
That's when I notice Ethan.
He's on the couch at the back of the room, slightly removed from the main crowd.
Not unusual; he does that, positions himself where he can see everyone without being in the middle of anything.
But tonight his posture is different. He looks…
sad? His shoulders are forward, not back.
His hands are clasped between his knees, thumbs pressing against each other.
And his eyes aren't on the screen or on the room, or, more importantly, on me.
They're on his feet. God, he looks miserable.
I get up and drift toward him. At this point, everybody in the facility knows we're together. Dating isn't forbidden, but it's not exactly encouraged either. The staff looks the other way as long as we keep it cool.
"Hey you," I say, dropping onto the couch beside him. Our shoulders touch, and I feel the warmth of him through both our hoodies. I wish I could hug him or straddle his lap. "You okay? You look like the game just murdered your family."
He almost smiles. Almost. The corner of his mouth lifts, then falls.
"Four years, baby," he says. Quiet enough that I have to lean in to catch it over the noise. "Four years ago today. That's when they brought me in."
Four years. He was eighteen. I try to imagine Ethan at eighteen, probably already too serious, being walked through those gates.
Being processed. Being stripped of his clothes and everything that made him a person and given a bunk and told this was home now, and that he didn't know when he'd leave.
And he never did anything to deserve being here.
"And my birthday's next week," he adds, like it's an afterthought. "February fifteenth. Twenty-three." His jaw tightens, but he's still looking me in the eyes, trying so fucking hard to be brave. "Nobody's ever... it's not a thing people celebrate here."
He tries to say it like it doesn't matter, but by now I can see how much it actually hurts.
Ethan doesn't do self-pity. He barely does emotion.
But right now, he looks like he's reached a breaking point, at least for a little while.
And I want to hug him so fucking bad. My Daddy, my baby, my darling, my everything.
Yikes, I don't know when I became so romantic.
All I know is that I want to take his pain away.
I don't say anything profound. I don't have anything profound to say. What I do is scoot closer, press my thigh against his, and turn my body so I'm half-facing him and half-facing the screen. The commercial ends and the game roars back to life.
"Watch this," I say, pointing at the TV. "They're going to run it. Watch."
They pass instead, and I groan loudly enough to make Ethan flinch, then he laughs.
"NOOOO, I told them to run! They'll ruin this!"
"You don't know anything about football," he says.
"Excuse me, Daddy? I'm a specialist. Maybe I watch it to see hot men grabbing each other too, but I know a thing or two."
Another laugh. I keep talking. I see that he's barely listening to my rant about the last fumble; he just looks glad that I'm close.
His eyes soften; he leans back into the couch, his arm stretching along the top of it, behind me but not quite touching, and he keeps paying attention to me with that smile. It's so cute I could die.
The game enters the fourth quarter, and I'm yelling again, jumping at a fumble recovery, grabbing Ethan's knee without thinking, and when I look back at him, he's not watching the screen at all.
He's watching me.
That look. His eyes are soft, his lips are slightly parted, and there's something in his expression that's bigger than fondness, bigger than desire. Oh God. He can't look at me like that for too long, or I'll cry. I don't know when we became so disgustingly in love, but it happened.
I squeeze his knee.
"Happy anniversary," I whisper. "I'm glad you're here. Even if this is kind of fucked up. I'm fucked up and selfish. I like that you're here because now you're mine."
He laughs, softly. His hand finds the back of my neck, and he squeezes it. He doesn't say anything, but he looks way more content than before.
The Buccaneers win; we're all screaming, some in anger, others celebrating, and the guards are all telling us to line up to go to our rooms.
Ethan gets up, and I get up with him. He smiles at me again and says, "Thank you."
It's so tender, so truthful, wholesome, that I can't even make any jokes. I just nod and try not to tear up. Stupid fucking tears, always trying to fall.
?
I show up at the kitchen twenty minutes before my shift, which Lu notices immediately because I'm never early for anything, not once in my entire life.
Especially not after lunch just ended and I desperately need either coffee or a nap.
She's at the prep station, her head wrap today a deep purple that makes her look like royalty, and she clocks me the second I push through the swinging door.
"Something wrong?" she says, not looking up from the plantains she's slicing. The dishes from lunch are all waiting for whatever unlucky bastard gets dishwasher duty, and I hope it isn't me.
"No. I mean, nothing's wrong. I just… I need to ask you something."
She stops slicing. Wipes her hands on her apron and gives me her full attention, which is a little like standing in front of a spotlight, and which ALSO makes my eyes want to water.
I can feel them prickling. It's so ridiculous how attention-starved I am, how being raised the way I was did that to me, and how nowadays I can't stop crying at the first sign of affection.
Oh, well. Her dark eyes search my face with that unsettling ability she has to read people.
"I want to bake a cake," I say, trying not to chicken out. "A chocolate cake. For someone. For… for Ethan. His birthday is Friday, and nobody's ever done anything for it, and I just thought..." I trail off because Lu is already smiling, this wide, gap-toothed grin.
"Oh," she says. "Oh, my sweet boy." She turns to Dora, who's just arrived and is tying on her apron. Lu talks to her in Portuguese and Dora's face lights up with a smile. She's still tying her dark curly hair under the net.
"We make cake," Dora confirms, as though the matter has been decided by committee. "Good cake. Not box mix from America."
"It's also Valentine's Day on Thursday," Margarete says from her station, where she's preparing today's snack: cheese sandwiches cut into little triangles.
"I… I didn't even remember it," I say, blushing. I'd never celebrated Valentine's Day; I’d never had a boyfriend. I had a girlfriend for a week back in sixth grade when I chickened out before kissing her, and everybody kept making fun of me for the rest of the term.
Lu pulls cocoa powder from the top shelf, the good stuff, she says, not the institutional kind that tastes like chalk.
Margarete retrieves eggs, butter, and milk from the refrigerated section.
Dora appears with a bag of sugar and a bottle of vanilla extract that she guards like it's liquid gold, because apparently it basically is.
It's so cute that all three of them are helping me on this mission.
Lu sets me up at the largest mixing bowl and lines the ingredients along the counter in order. "First, flour. Two cups, leveled, not packed. You know the difference?"
I don't, but I nod. She sees through it instantly and demonstrates, scooping flour, then dragging the flat edge of a knife across the top of the measuring cup so the excess falls away in a fine white curtain.
She tells me to crack the eggs and mix it all.
I try. The batter resists, clumping in places, but gradually it smooths out into something dark and glossy.
While we wait for the oven to preheat, the women start talking about birthdays. Lu goes first, leaning against the counter with her arms crossed.
"In Haiti," she says, "when someone has a birthday, you make diri ak djon djon. Special rice, black mushrooms, so the rice turns dark like the night. You serve it with griot, fried pork, and pikliz, the hot cabbage. Everyone comes. Everyone eats. The birthday person doesn't lift a finger."
"That sounds incredible," I say.
"It is. Because the food says: you are important enough to feed." She taps the counter with one finger, emphasizing the point.
That's really important, I think, and I can't forget it, even though I often forget things I tell myself not to forget ever.
"In Brazil," Dora says, "the birthday person cuts the first piece of cake and gives it to the most important person. Not themselves. Someone else." She looks at me with an expression that's half teasing, half tender. "You think about who Ethan gives the first piece to, yes?"
My face goes hot. "I'm scared it won’t be enough. It's just a cake."
"Oh, no, sweetheart. It is never just a cake, and he'll know it," Lu says.
These women are always trying to teach me life lessons, and I appreciate it a lot.
The twenty-eight minutes it takes the cake to bake feel like twenty-eight hours.
I pace around the kitchen, basically bouncing off the walls.
Lu tells me to stop pacing. I sit down. My leg bounces.
Lu tells me to stop bouncing. I drum my fingers on the prep table.
Lu gives me a look, and I shove my hands under my thighs.
When the timer goes off, I'm at the oven before the sound fades. Lu pulls it out; she doesn't trust me to do stuff like that after I burned myself last year, and sets it on the cooling rack.
It's lopsided. The left side has risen higher than the right, creating a gentle slope that resembles a chocolate hill. There's a crack along the top where the crust formed too fast.
"It's ruined," I say.
"It is not ruined, darling," Lu says. "It is homemade."
Lu's chocolate frosting saves most of it. With three precise strokes, she creates a simple pattern on top, a series of waves. I stare at it. It's not what you'd see in a bakery window. It's dark and slightly crooked, with uneven frosting, but it looks amazing.
"Go," Lu says. "Before you cry in my kitchen and ruin the floor I just mopped."
I'm not crying. My eyes are just doing that stupid fucking thing they do sometimes.