Turn the World Upside Down Page 9

  Stray moves too, but then, “Is everything okay?” one of the nurses asks.

  “They were talking, and I didn’t see them. I accidentally ran into Jeremiah,” Brock answers her.

  “Dude, does no one understand that he wants to be called Stray?”

  Half of Brock’s mouth raises, and I realize he did it on purpose.

  “You boys need to sit down. You don’t need to stand in the walkway.” The nurse’s voice is syrup, too sweet to get what’s going on here. To get that Brock is an asshole. “You should watch where you’re going,” I tell Brock before turning to Stray. “Let’s go.” He can give me crap all he wants. I’m not going to let him do it to anyone else.

  We get almost to the table when he says, “I can take care of myself, you know.”

  My jaw tightens at the same time a voice in my head says, I was trying to protect you. That’s what good people do for those they care about. What comes out is “Whatever.”

  “Hey. I’m not trying to be a jerk. I just… I’ve always been on my own. I have to make sure I always can take care of myself. I appreciate it, though.” The story he told me about the bullies finds its way into my brain. That’s why he needs to be able to take care of himself. It’s why he doesn’t want someone to do it for him. I get it now.

  “Sorry. I forgot.”

  “No reason to be sorry,” he replies.

  I follow him over to the table. Everyone there is quiet when we arrive.

  “Hey.” I set my plate down, not quite sure why I feel the need to break the silence.

  “You need to eat, sweets.” Rosie nods at Bethany.

  “I’m trying,” she replies.

  My line of sight automatically zeroes in on Bethany as she picks at her food. It’s Rosie who responds to her. “They check your plate. Your nurse is watching. You need to eat. If you stop eating, everything changes.”

  Bethany doesn’t want to eat. Stray’s drawing on himself so he doesn’t cut. I wanted to let my fist meet Brock’s face a minute ago. My guts twist into knots. We’re messed up. All of us are so messed up.

  A loud crash comes from behind me. Yelling. Nurses and staff run to the other side of the room. I whip around, hands fisted, heart racing, and see two guys swinging, punching each other. One tackles the other as they hit the floor.

  Staff members grab them, pull them apart. One of the guys, a redhead, is thrashing in the arms of two staff members trying to hold him. They’re struggling, his screaming echoing through my head.

  Another guy helps hold him. A nurse pulls out a needle and his eyes go wide, crazy, big.

  Rosie grabs my arm.

  Stray shakes his head.

  They stick the needle in. Seconds later, he deflates like a balloon, going limp in their arms.

  I look back at Casey. He has his eyes closed, and he’s rocking back and forth, mouthing something.

  Somehow, Bethany’s plate got knocked to the floor. Only hers. Only the girl who doesn’t want to eat.

  I feel them, the eyes on me, burning, so I look up. Brock stares hard, lasers shooting through me, before he nods toward where the fight just broke out.

  He wants that to be us.

  Eventually it will be.

  Maybe everyone else has it right. They shouldn’t turn the world upside down for us. No matter what we do, we’ll never fit. We’ll always be a mess.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “LET’S TALK about what happened in the cafeteria this morning,” Amelia says when we get to group that morning.

  “Freddy got beat down! That happens when you mess with the wrong people.” Brock laughs, and another guy sitting next to Brock gives him a high five. I can’t remember his name. Mike, I think.

  “No. That’s not what should happen. Violence is never the answer,” Amelia scolds him like it’s going to make any kind of difference.

  “It’s the answer where I come from.” Brock pins me with his eyes. He’s waiting for it. I know he is. Waiting for me to back down or something, but it’s not going to happen. He can come at me if he wants. I’m not scared of him, so I stare at him just as hard as he stares at me.

  It’s not until Amelia speaks again that his glare breaks away. “But what did that really get you? Can you tell me anything positive ever came from violence in your life?”

  He flinches. It’s so small, I’m almost not sure I really see it. It’s almost as if Brock shrinks, and for a second, it makes me wonder what all he’s gone through. I know there’s the gang stuff, which had to be nuts, but then he’s puffing out his chest, with a cocky grin on his face, making it so I don’t care. “People realized who they could and couldn’t screw with. That’s what I got out of it.”

  Amelia tries to talk to him about changing patterns in our lives, and how people shouldn’t use fear as a weapon and all sorts of things it’s obvious he doesn’t care about. Soon, she brings it back to the fight.

  “Whether we want to admit it or not, seeing situations like we witnessed this morning can have numerous effects on us. People become numb to it, accepting it as normal, when it shouldn’t be. It’s never okay to hurt someone else, and if anyone is afraid of being hurt, the best course of action is to speak up.”

  A few people around the circle nod at what Amelia says.

  “Today, I want to talk about healthy ways to work through anger,” she continues. “What do you think, Hunter? Can you give me a positive alternative to dealing with anger?”

  Her words have the opposite effect on me than what she was going for. They take control of my fingers, making them ball into fists. She knows what she’s doing. She has to. Let’s talk to the guy who went ballistic about violence.

  “Don’t know.” I shrug. “Sometimes there isn’t another way.” If Brock goes after someone else, there won’t be another option.

  “You know that’s not true.”

  Do I? Do I really? I’m not sure. If I had my chance at Dad again, I wouldn’t let him get away. Jail was too light a sentence. “If a person hurts someone else, they deserve it in return. Eye for an eye.” My words leave a bad taste in my mouth that won’t go away.

  “Why do you say that?” Amelia asks.

  Are people like Brock supposed to be allowed to hurt people? Should my dad have been able to leave his mark on Holly’s life, with nothing but free room and board as punishment? “Because it’s fucking true!”

  My insides start to shake, and my head aches. Almost frantic, my eyes scan the room, dart from one side of the circle to the other. Everyone’s looking at me. Everyone’s trying to figure me out. Brock’s smiling, and it makes an aftershock rip through me.

  “Why? Why do you think that’s true? People make mistakes. Two wrongs don’t make a right.” I don’t pay attention to Amelia as she talks. Casey draws my attention. Casey, whose eyes are wide behind his glasses. Casey, who might have an earthquake going off inside him, the same as I do. Only, for Casey, it’s because of me. He’s scared of me.

  I don’t want that. God, I don’t want it. Everyone looked at me like that when I lost it at school. Shock and fear as I shattered glass, as I shoved over a case holding trophies with my name on them. As I hit a teacher.

  Does Casey think I could hurt him? That I would hurt him?

  “Hunter? How do you feel about what I just said? Can you answer my question?” Amelia tries again, but it’s too late. I’m locked up tight again—a vault. I’ll never open.

  People like Brock? I want him to be scared of me. Someone like Casey? Maybe even someone like Holly? I don’t want that, so I keep my mouth shut so I don’t say the wrong thing. So they won’t know how I feel, because it must be screwed up. Maybe I’m no better than Brock.

  “CASEY?” IT takes me almost the whole day to catch him alone. He ran out after therapy, when Amelia caught me to tell me that she’s glad I spoke, that I’m making progress, which feels like a line of BS to me.

  He didn’t go to our room at all from what I saw, and he wasn’t at lunch either. It’s luck that
I catch him on the way to dinner, and that he doesn’t have Bethany or Rosie with him.

  He stops in the middle of the hallway but doesn’t turn around. When I step next to him, he backs toward the wall. Not like he’s scared, I don’t think. I’m hoping he’s just trying to get out of the way.

  Now that I have him here, my mouth is glued shut. My brain shuts off, and I’m not really sure what to say to him. I’m sorry if I freaked you out. I wouldn’t hurt you. Those would be good places to start. Casey’s maybe the most innocent person in this place, and I don’t want him to be scared of me. I did that to him in the beginning, just the way Brock did. I don’t want that to be me. Not when it has to do with someone like him.

  “I’m sorry,” Casey says so softly I can hardly hear him.

  “Huh? What are you sorry for? I’m the one who was supposed to say that.”

  “I… I know I make a big deal about things—the fight, what you said. I shouldn’t. M-my brain knows that, but it’s like all the wires don’t always connect. It’s like I’m being overloaded by too many things all the time, a-a-and I just sort of short-circuit. I get nervous and scared, and I don’t know how to deal with it.”

  What he just said tells me he’s braver than I could ever be. He’s brave like Holly. He might be afraid of a lot of things, but he’s not afraid to say how he feels. He keeps going, keeps fighting, even though it’s not easy for him. “Maybe it’s not short-circuiting.” I shrug. “Maybe it’s okay to feel things so much. Could be the rest of us who are doing it wrong.”

  He stands up a little straighter, but has a frown on his face. “You feel things. I think you feel everything, you just show it in a different way than I do.”

  I nod, and I’m pretty sure I want him to be right. “I’m not like, violent or anything.” Really, I kind of am, so I amend my words to, “I wouldn’t hurt you.”

  “I know. Knowing just doesn’t s-s-stop me from freaking out sometimes.” He looks away. “I was embarrassed. You protected me already. You would’ve done the same thing for Stray if he needed it this morning. You’re not afraid to act. I am.”

  The biggest tragedy in the whole wide world might be if Casey became more like me.

  “Are you going to color Stray’s hair with us after dinner? I know he wants you to.”

  “Yeah,” I tell him. “I want that too.” And this time, I don’t keep myself from touching him because I don’t know him. “Come on.” I nudge his arm. “Let’s go eat.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “DID YOU bring the stuff?” Stray asks Rosie after dinner. I feel like I’ve walked in on a drug deal.

  “Yep. I got them,” she replies. She’s walking between Stray and me, holding his hand as she leads us to the game room.

  “Am I missing something?” I ask, just as Rosie says, “Let’s do this,” walking a little faster and pulling Stray with her. He looks over his shoulder at me, blue hair in his eyes, and shrugs, as if to say he has no choice in going with her.

  “Bethany, Casey, Funny Boy, hurry! We have to make Stray handsome.”

  “He already is” tumbles out of my mouth. There’s a brief second where I want the words back, but it passes quickly. I feel good when I’m with them. It’s the only time I feel good anymore. And I do think Stray is good-looking. Too many things are already trapped inside me. The happy stuff is a lot easier to let out than the rest of it.

  “You got it bad.” Rosie smiles. My eyes veer toward Stray.

  “’Bout time. I was starting to wonder if it was just me,” he replies.

  “Oh my God,” Bethany says with a sigh. “This is so cool. What if you guys fall in love? See? It’s not as bad as you guys think it is here. Stray and Hunter are going to fall in love.” Bethany sounds completely different than Rosie does when she says things like that. With Rosie, it’s obviously a joke. Bethany’s voice sounds so wistful, yearning even.

  “Slow your roll with all that. We’re too young to fall in love,” I say. There’s also a little bit of surprise in there that she said this place isn’t so bad. We’re in a rehab center for kids the rest of the world doesn’t want to deal with.

  “You really are funny, Funny Boy.” Rosie stops walking, which means Stray does too. She uses her free hand to grab mine. “You’re never too young to fall in love. I’ve been in love. I want to fall in love a million times before I die.”

  There’s no doubt in my mind that she will. Rosie loves life and her friends more than anyone I’ve ever seen. I can only imagine the ferocity with which she would love romantically too.

  When we get to the game room, I try to turn in, but Rosie’s grip on my hand keeps me from it. “Not in there,” she says, like I should know it’s a stupid idea.

  “Where are we going?” I let her continue to lead me.

  “To color Stray’s hair.”

  “Where?” I’m pretty sure it should be obvious that’s what I meant.

  Her feet suddenly stick to the floor, and she jerks me to a stop. She puts two fingers to her lips. “Shh.” Then she lets go of our hands, jogs around the corner, and starts talking to the guy sitting at a desk in the short hallway where he’s on guard.

  “Have you seen Mrs. Spencer?” she asks, standing right in front of him.

  I watch as Stray gets down on his hands and knees. Holy shit. They’ve got to be kidding.

  Apparently they’re not, because Stray crawls as quickly as he can across the hall where the guard is, and doesn’t stop until he gets to the other side.

  Getting caught would be the easiest thing in the world. The only thing standing between us is Rosie’s skinny body in front of a guard. I hear her telling him she’s supposed to meet Mrs. Spencer and all sorts of things I know aren’t true.

  Quickly, I peek down the hall and see him looking through a logbook while Rosie points to something.

  I let my eyes meet Stray again, and he’s signaling for me to come over, so I drop onto my hands and knees and crawl toward him. Then Bethany does it. Then Casey. Seeing Casey do anything against the rules is a shock to my system, but when he reaches us, there’s a glint in his eyes. This makes him feel normal, I realize. Hanging out with these guys, with me… he needs this, and that makes me feel good.

  Stray points toward the ground as if to say stay down, and then he starts crawling again. He doesn’t stop until he gets to the far end of the hallway. He pulls a key out of his pocket, which I’m betting he’s not supposed to have, unlocks the door, and slips past it.

  The three of us follow.

  “What about Rosie?” I ask when we’re tucked away inside.

  “She’ll make it. She always makes it,” Stray says. “She’s the one who figured out that camera is angled a little wrong. If you’re low, it can’t see you. Hell, she probably found a way to do it herself.”

  The first words that come to my head almost make it out of my mouth: what happens if we get caught? But I realize I don’t care. My friends and I snuck out more than once back home. I got grounded once for skipping school, and it was totally worth it. This makes me feel free again.

  “How’d you get the key?”

  “Rosie got it.” Stray stands and then holds his hand out for me before pulling me up. His skin is warmth, seeping into me. “She helps the art teacher sometimes. Obviously enough to be able to sneak the key.”

  “I thought we were supposed to get blue markers today?” Not that I did. I forgot.

  Casey and Bethany stand up and walk over to one of the cabinets. Casey reaches up and opens it before pulling a bin down.

  “We were, but this felt like more fun. Come on.”

  I keep my fingers threaded through Stray’s as we walk over to Casey and Bethany. He lets go to pull himself up and sit on a chair. Just as Casey hands me a blue marker, the door opens just enough for Rosie to get inside.

  “He was talking my ear off! I didn’t think I’d make it!” She stands up with a little bounce.

  “How did you?” I ask.

  “A girl h
as to keep some secrets.” She winks and then gets a marker of her own. We all stand in a circle around Stray, me in front of him, standing between his legs. Bethany, Rosie, and Casey all pull their markers out, take a chunk of his blond/blue hair, and start coloring.

  It’s strange, but also maybe the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. Stray looks up at me, happy—all smile, blue eyes, blue hair, freckles and a dimple. There’s sadness in there, hiding in his eyes, but it’s intertwined, braided together in this moment where we’re just five kids doing something we’re not supposed to do, and loving it. Sure we’ll have to figure out how to get past the guard again and could get into trouble, but right now, none of that matters. The only thing that does matter is these people, and his smile, his freckles, his eyes, his hair, and his dimple.

  My stomach flips, and I realize I really do like him. That if I thought I could fall in love, he might be the boy who could make me follow him there.

  Picking up the section of his hair that’s always in his face, I color.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  THE NEXT few days go by without any freak-outs from us or any of the other residents.

  Casey’s been playing his clarinet every night since the fight. Things seem to linger more with him. He gets nervous every time we go into the cafeteria to eat. Stray says Casey will be okay, and I believe him. It’s hard not to believe anything Stray or Rosie says, even those times when I don’t want to.

  My hand is back to normal. Last night I beat everyone in our group in air hockey. I like those times, when it’s not about set activities or therapy and I just get to be again. With all these sessions and lessons, they make it too hard to forget in this place, when I’m pretty sure that’s what all of us want, just to forget.

  When I’m hanging out with Stray and everyone, I’m able to forget.

  It’s early, just after six, when I get out of bed. Today, I get to leave. Not leave leave—we’re not even going toward civilization—but a few of the equine therapists are taking a small group of us out for a hike. If it weren’t for Stray, I wouldn’t be going. Each of the five patients who wanted to go is supposed to have a partner, and he asked me. I felt a little bad at first. I don’t even really like horses, and Rosie pretended to pout when she found out Stray invited me. Then she laughed, slugged my arm and said better you than me, so I’m not sure if I should be excited about today or not.