Dear Cassie (9 page)

I heard Nez yawn, one of those long, drawn-out yawns that sound like you’re saying
yahhh
, making a big deal about how tired she was. Then she yawned again, louder, longer, probably because no one said anything about her first yawn—not that Troyer could have and not that I would have.

I knew Nez was yawning because she wanted an audience. She wanted to tell us why she was so tired, but she didn’t have to. She’d gone to the boys’ cabin again last night. She’d made a big deal about telling us while we wrote in our Assessment Diaries before lights out that
Ben
had asked her to come. We were supposed to be writing about what scared us, but considering what I had realized about Ben the day before, I didn’t write anything because I was having trouble topping it.

Luckily my head was still in the water bucket when she started talking.

“Wow, last night with Ben was amazing,” Nez said.

The rotten swell of jealousy came up from my stomach and I tried desperately to ignore it. Ben had saved me yesterday, but clearly he wanted more, and since he wasn’t getting it from me, I guess he got it from Nez.

I guess
she
gave him his
thank-you
.

I felt sick.

I forced myself to look at Troyer. She was brushing her hair and ignoring us. I wanted her to turn to me, to mouth that
Nez is a fucking liar
.

“Did you hear me?” Nez asked as she put on a lime green bra and matching underwear. We hadn’t done laundry yet and I had no idea how this girl could still have clean underwear, especially considering how much time she spent making it dirty.

Troyer stopped brushing and pretended to launch her hairbrush at Nez. Maybe she
wasn’t
ignoring us.

“Nez, we don’t care,” I said. I wiped my face one more time and dropped the washcloth in the bucket with a splash, only thinking afterward that Nez might have used it to clean up when she snuck back in last night.

I felt myself involuntarily shudder.

“Well, I don’t care if you care,” Nez said, turning around and fixing her black eyes on me. “I need to talk about it. It was very, very special and also,” she whispered, “super hot.”

“How did you not wake up Nerone?” I said with a lilt in my voice that I hoped let her know I sort of didn’t believe her.

“He sleeps like he’s been dead fifty years,” she said, explaining my skepticism away. “I mean, I was definitely screaming and he didn’t wake up.”

I looked over at Troyer. She was writing furiously on her pad and not looking up. I guess you had a lot of feelings to get out when you didn’t talk all day. Of course, she could have been writing
Nez is a bitch
over and over, filling each line on the page, like a kid being punished in school.

“Thanks for the fucking update,” I said, trying to act like I didn’t care, but I did. I shouldn’t have, though. If Nez were with him maybe he would leave me alone. And isn’t that what I want?

I walked back over to my cot to get dressed. It was good I had no plans to be with Ben or any of the other boys stuck at this camp—any other boys ever—because they were all bound to have whatever diseases Nez did. It was clear she probably had enough that Troyer would wear out her pencil writing them all down.

“Please don’t swear,” Nez said. “I’m talking about beautiful, magical things here.” She took a deep breath, sounding very swoony.

“The only magical thing about you and any of those boys knocking boots is that it shuts your mouth for five minutes,” I spit. I was tired of hearing the way Nez threw sex around like it didn’t matter.

It did matter. I knew what it could do, what it could make you do.

I felt my hand go to my stomach involuntarily and punch, once, twice, three times.

“B-T-Dubs,” Nez said, completely oblivious, “Ben is so not annoying. He’s actually super cute.”

“He’s all yours,” I said, the punches to my stomach making me nauseous. I turned away from her and continued to get dressed. I didn’t know Ben well, but he didn’t seem like he would fall for Nez’s bullshit. I guess when you’re in a place like this you’ll do anything you can to forget you’re here.

Even Nez.

“My only complaint is that he smells like an ashtray,” Nez said, sounding like she was critiquing a restaurant.

I turned around mid-dress and looked at her, my jumpsuit half on, the arms hanging at my sides. The fabric was still damp with lake water, still covered with sand. This was interesting information. “How can he smell like an ashtray if we’re not allowed to smoke?” It had been seven days since my last cigarette and while I didn’t crave them in the same anxious, needling way, it didn’t mean I wouldn’t take one if it were offered, especially if someone here had them.

“We’re not allowed to do a lot of things, but that didn’t stop me.” Nez paused and pursed her lips. “Or Ben.”

“I don’t think a fifty-foot wall of nuns could stop you,” I said.

I left Nez bragging to Troyer. I had to use the bathroom, and it was the kind of day where peeing on the side of the cabin wasn’t going to do it. Not that I ever liked using the pit toilet. Basically, I felt like I was in a metal coffin filled with shit—and the last time I was in there I saw a spider on the ceiling with a body as big as an avocado. The whole time I was trying not to sit, I was also trying not to stand. But it’s not like I had a choice.

The way I didn’t have a choice about most things at Turning Pines.

I found Rawe in front of the cabin on her knees, facing toward the sun. Her eyes were closed and her hands were palm to palm at her chest like she was praying. Her mouth was moving but not making sound. She
was
praying. What was she praying for? Who was she praying for?

Hopefully not Nez.

Or me.

I still hadn’t figured out why Rawe was here beyond her paycheck. Why would anyone choose to be in a shitty cabin with three fucked-up girls for thirty days? Three fucked-up girls who totally didn’t want to be here. Three fucked-up girls who hated her because of who she was, who hated themselves, who hated so much, there was no room for anything else.

I tried to walk by without her noticing, but the boots they gave us were not made for sneaking around, probably by design. It made me wonder how Nez hadn’t been caught yet. Maybe she was paying Rawe in sexual favors.

“Morning, Wick,” Rawe said, not turning around. Her black braid was as tight as ever, the hair in it probably suffocating from lack of air.

I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say back, because she was kind of being nice and I wasn’t used to it. Not from Rawe. If she used my name, it was in command, not in greeting.

“Morning,” I said. What people say when they see someone on the street that they don’t know but who is nice enough to say,
Morning
, like an old man with a hat that he tips.

I was surprised Rawe was even talking to me. Not that I wanted to talk to her, but when I heard I was going to rehab, I was kind of expecting to be forced to confide my feelings to someone. So far I had only been confiding to myself.

“Care to join me?” Rawe asked, patting the ground next to her, calling me like a dog.

“I came out to use the bathroom,” I said. Was she asking me to join her or telling me to join her? I wasn’t sure. If I didn’t, would there be more push-ups? I had to use the bathroom too badly to do push-ups. I had to use the bathroom too badly to do anything.

“Maybe on your way back,” Rawe said, still not turning around. She was kind of spooking me out. I could take seeing her as a soulless, angry bitch or the prescriptive voice pushing us to write in our Assessment Diaries, but I didn’t know what this was.

“Um, maybe,” I said, even though I was positive if I kneeled down to pray, the sky would open up and lightning would fly out like octopus arms and burn me to a crisp. I didn’t deserve to pray. Not that anyone but my brother knew it, but I didn’t deserve anything except to go take a crap in a pit toilet.

“It’s about changing patterns,” Rawe said, like she could read my mind.

“I don’t have a pattern,” I said. I did before I came here. I did before Aaron, but now I was surviving. Waking up every day and struggling like a sapling against the wind.

“Sure you do,” Rawe said, finally turning around. She squinted. “You weren’t sent here because you’re special. You were sent here to change.”

“Into what?” I asked. I was fine with changing. If changing meant I didn’t have to feel the way I felt anymore, then I was more than fine with it. But it certainly didn’t seem like that was what this place was about. How are you supposed to change when your body is so tired you can barely see? How are you supposed to change when you’re forced to rehash your life nightly by flashlight?

“That’s what you need to decide,” Rawe said. “The goal here is to prepare you for your future.”

“Some future,” I said. I thought of everything I’d done since I arrived. The only life this was going to prepare me for was one as a lumberjack.

A very poorly paid lumberjack.

“Come pray with me,” Rawe said.

“I can’t,” I said, instead of just saying
no
.

“You don’t have to be religious to pray,” she said.

“But you have to be good.” I paused, looking at the orange pinecones that covered the ground. “Deserving,” I continued, “and I’m not.” I was surprised I’d admitted it out loud. It was one thing to punch myself until I couldn’t breathe and keep everyone away like I had porcupine needles coming from my skin.

It was another thing to say it, especially when I couldn’t even write what that really meant yet.

“You’ll feel better,” she said.

It was tempting, but pretending to pray was probably not the best idea. I was already on a slippery slope with whatever was looking down on us.

Rawe was naïve enough to think I was someone who deserved a second chance.

But as I walked toward the pit toilet, I couldn’t help thinking that it didn’t matter where I was. I would still feel this.

I would still be me.

I will still have done what I had done.

22 Fucking Days to Go

A
fter a day spent repainting the lines on the tennis courts without the boys, we are back in our cabin being forced to write about what we want to do when we leave here. Considering the day we had, which involved enough masking tape and white paint to turn the three of us to mummies, “painter” is definitely not on the list.

But honestly, until Rawe gave us the directive, adding that we needed to start planning our lives beyond this place, I really hadn’t considered it.

As much as I wanted to leave, I certainly didn’t want to think about what my life would be like when all the choices were mine. It was obvious I was pretty shitty when it came to making choices: look at everything that happened to me before I got here. Or, more specifically, everything I let happen to me.

Cue stomach punch.

Once I was done here, I would have to make real choices—life choices. Even though I hadn’t had a chance to experience much of it, I had graduated from high school. I was “out on my own,” or would be once I was allowed to leave here. Would I move back in with my parents like my brother had? Would I even be allowed to? It’s not like college was ever a choice for me. Community college maybe, but not anywhere with kids like the ones who used to go to this camp.

I stared at the flypaper on the ceiling and the names carved under the shelf above my bed, people who’d written they “wuz here” and the year. My guess was none of them ever had to wonder whether it would only be them and their duffel bag when they left this place, waiting at the bus station or airport for someone to pick them up and having no idea if anyone would.

That sucked to think about, so instead I started counting the flies stuck like dead raisins to the flypaper, which looked like sickly stained glass when I aimed my flashlight at it. Maybe I couldn’t think about what I wanted to do when I left here until I thought about where I was supposed to be instead of here—where I was supposed to be with Lila and Amy instead of here.

Fuck Rawe for opening that can of worm crap.

It had all been set until three weeks before prom. As usual we had spent the night at Lila’s and as usual when I woke up bleary eyed on Lila’s floor, Amy’s sleeping bag was empty. It didn’t matter how early in the morning it was or what time of year it was, she was always out on Lila’s fire escape.

Sometimes I would go out there with her and have a cigarette and we would sit together without talking, just sharing inhales and exhales, breathing in a rhythm until Lila woke up. I would watch the sun rise around Amy’s head while I wondered what she was thinking about. While I wondered if she was wondering what I thought about. While I wondered why sitting with her like this and not saying anything made me feel so calm. I figured it was partly because for once I didn’t have to talk.

The morning everything went to shit, I woke up to find Amy’s sleeping bag empty as usual. She was out on the fire escape, thinking about the things she thought about.

I was ready to go out there and join her when I saw she wasn’t alone. She was talking, whispering with Lila. They were both still in their pajamas, and Lila had a comforter wrapped around her. The sun was coming up, big and bright, turning them into silhouettes. The window was open. I lifted my head slightly and tried to hear them.