Chapter 10. Ethan
Dinner is always loud but tonight the cafeteria sounds worse. Forks hitting trays, plastic chairs scraping concrete, voices bouncing off the cinderblock. There's just this restless energy in the air, the bad kind.
At the next table, Reed has his arms folded tight around his chest. Mason sits next to him, hands in his lap, chewing, his eyes darting to Reed every few seconds. The rest of the table is a circle of guys who follow Reed everywhere, guys who want in on Reed's protection.
Jack is telling a story about the time he snuck into the mall after it was closed and got locked there overnight. Liam is eating up every word with a huge excited smile, probably thinking that was the most fun thing anyone had ever done.
Then Griff walks in.
Whenever Griff walks in anywhere, we all kind of freeze. He's the most respected person in this institution. And he can make our lives a living hell. Every head swivels. The entire cafeteria drops to half-volume in three seconds flat.
Griff's eyes sweep the room once, then settle on Reed's table.
He walks over. His shoulders carry a tension I haven't seen in months. When he reaches the table, he stands for a moment, waiting for Reed to look up. Reed doesn't. Instead, he keeps his gaze locked on Mason, who is so pale now I can see the veins under his skin.
Finally, Griff leans in and says something too low for the rest of us to hear. Mason's head snaps up, and even from thirty feet away I see the shock land like a punch. Mason shakes his head. Griff's voice gets quieter, not louder.
Then, Mason stands up. His legs are unsteady, but he keeps his back straight as Griff puts a hand on his shoulder. The hand isn't rough or threatening, but it is absolute: there's no negotiating with it. Mason doesn't look at Reed as he picks up his tray. Doesn't look at anyone.
Griff steers him toward the exit. The doors swing shut behind them.
For a full five seconds, nobody moves.
Then Reed stands.
Reed stares at the double doors for a long, frozen moment, hands clenched at his sides. I watch him. Everyone does.
Instead of bolting, instead of smashing something or making a scene, Reed sits back down. He lifts his tray and begins to eat. Every muscle in his body is locked.
After a minute, conversation resumes. But nobody at Reed's table talks. They just eat, heads down, every guy glancing up at Reed, then back to their plates.
Across the room, Liam leans into me and whispers, "You ever seen him like that before?"
"Once," I say. "The week before he put a kid in the hospital."
Jack also whispers. "What happened to Mason?"
"Transferred?" I guess.
Liam draws a line down the center of his tray with his fork, not looking up. "Reed must be devastated."
Nobody has anything to say to that.
We don't see Reed anymore after that.
At the dorms, most nights, the rhythm is predictable: Jack is loud, talking about something, Miles sinks into his books, Harry deals out cards to himself, and Liam stays next to me until I shoo him to his bunk or let him sleep with me, depending on how much sleep we actually need that night.
Tonight, though, Harry calls us all together.
It's not the usual Harry. There's no smile, no performance. He just sits on the edge of his bunk, head low, and he looks…
Scared?
"Can I talk to you all for a second?" he asks.
His glasses are dirty and his black straight hair is longer than he usually lets it grow, like he forgot to get a haircut.
Both things are wrong. Harry's glasses are never dirty.
Harry always keeps his hair cropped short — his words: no girls here to impress.
He sounds so serious that we don't even say anything, just look at each other and stay quiet, waiting. Even Miles sits up, paying attention.
"I need to tell you guys something because it can fucking affect us, and… and this time I'm in trouble," he says. His voice is quiet. "My contact's gone dark, and my clients aren't happy."
Jack raises an eyebrow. "Like, for how long?"
Harry shakes his head. "A month, maybe longer. Last package never made it. Last two, actually."
Miles closes his book, attentive.
"Do you think he got caught?" Jack asks.
"Maybe," Harry says. "I don't know. But the point is, I'm out. Supply's gone. I tried brewing juice to offer them instead. Something went wrong with the fermentation. It's undrinkable. My clients aren't happy. They said I'd better get more, or I'll get hurt."
Nobody speaks for a minute.
Then Jack says, "How bad is it? Like, who are we talking about?"
Harry looks at his hands. It's the first time I've ever seen him look like this, and I realize the word I couldn't name before was right. He looks scared.
"Ramos," he says.
Liam goes still. Miles doesn't react visibly, but his stillness shifts. Jack exhales through his nose.
Even I know who Ramos is. He's been transferred twice and ended up back here both times. That alone should tell you everything.
"Harry," Jack says slowly. "How long have you been dealing for Ramos?"
"I'm not dealing for him," Harry says, fast. "I source independently. He's a client. Or he was." He stops. Rubs the back of his neck with one hand. "He was my biggest one."
"That's the same thing," Jack says.
"It's not…" Harry starts, and then doesn't finish. For a second his jaw works, like he's running through the argument in his head and realizing he doesn't have one. He closes his mouth.
Then something happens that I don't think any of us were prepared for.
Harry takes his glasses off.
He folds them carefully, the way he always does. And then he presses the heels of his hands against his eyes and just… stays there. Breathing. His shoulders are up around his ears, and he's not performing anymore.
He's just a twenty-year-old kid who's scared as fuck.
"I thought I had it handled," he says, and his voice comes out wrong.
Stripped of the usual polish, lower and younger than I've ever heard it.
"I always have it handled. That's the thing, that's what I do, I always…
" He stops. Presses harder. "I built something in here.
A system. I know who wants what and who has what and I know how to stay two steps ahead.
That's the only way I know how to be safe.
" He lowers his hands. His eyes, without the glasses, without the smirk, look very young and very tired.
"And now I don't know where my contact is.
And Ramos is sending messages through people.
And I don't have a move. I can't get more. I can't."
The room is so quiet I can hear the pipes in the wall.
Jack gets up from his bunk. He crosses the room and sits down beside Harry, not saying anything, just putting himself there. His shoulder against Harry's.
Harry looks at the floor. "I'm not asking you to fix it. I just…" He exhales. "I didn't want you to get blindsided. If something happens to me. Or near me. Or to you all."
"Nothing's going to happen to you," Jack says.
"You don't know that."
"I know Ramos isn't going to touch you in front of sixty witnesses and Griff."
"Griff isn't always here. He'll make it look like it's an accident."
"We are," Jack says. Simple. Final.
Harry looks at him for a long moment. Something moves through his face. It's not gratitude exactly. It's more like recognition. Like he didn't expect that and doesn't know what to do with it.
"I'll fix it," Harry says, quieter. "I just need time."
"Then we buy you time," Jack says.
Harry nods. Puts his glasses back on. And just like that, the mask is back, almost. The smile doesn't quite reach his eyes the way it usually does, the performance is a half-beat behind where it normally sits, but he's trying. He's assembling himself back into Harry, piece by piece, in front of us.
I watch him do it. I think about how much energy that must take. Every single day, just to exist in a room.
We drift to our bunks eventually. Harry lies back and stares at the ceiling, arms folded behind his head.
Jack rummages in his trunk, finds a sketchbook, and starts doodling.
Miles flips open his book, but his eyes are distant, not really reading.
Liam sits cross-legged on his bed, staring at the wall with his chin in his hand, chewing the inside of his cheek.
I look at all of them. This room, these four people.
Jack who is losing his sister's shop and still told Harry nothing's going to happen to him.
Miles who says almost nothing and meant everything by the hug he gave Jack at lunch last week.
Liam, who asked me to tell him about Tyler and then just listened, all the way through, without flinching.
Harry, who just broke down in front of us, which might be the bravest thing I've seen anyone do in this building.
I think about Tyler saying if you leave, I won't make it.
I think about Harry's hands open in his lap, not working any angle, just sitting there.
I think about Liam's fingers tightening around mine on the courtyard bench, and the promises we made.
I think about a hospital an hour away, and what it means to be building something that reaches outside these walls, and whether the things I'm building inside them are strong enough to survive the distance.
I don't know. I don't know any of it. The room settles into darkness. One by one the sounds thin out, Jack's pencil going still, Harry's breathing evening out, Miles turning a page and then not turning another.
Liam's voice comes from across the room, barely above a whisper. "Daddy?"
"Yeah, baby?"
"You okay?"
I look at the ceiling. Down the hall, someone laughs, then stops.
"Not really," I say. Which is the most honest thing I've said in so long.
A pause. Then: "Me neither. Can I lie down with you?"
"Please," I say. He crosses the room and I shift over. He tucks himself against me.
I close my eyes. The room breathes around me, five people in the dark, all carrying something.
So I try to sleep.
For a long time, I fail.
But eventually, I don't.