The Academy

I never understood why the boys got white masks. Girls were given black ones of the exact same style and shape. One size fit all, apparently. However, if they were just the same exact masks why change the color? If they wanted to strip away our identities and make us a number, they might as well have taken away our sex as well. I’d walk through the corridors and see a mess of masks in the two spectrums of color, and it looked like one big sea of grey among their faces. It was eerie. I hated them more than the school itself. Masks weren’t my favorite to begin with. It was like one never-ending Halloween party that no one could leave. I hated Halloween. The ridiculous part was dressing up. Why bother? The day went so slowly like everyone walking in the halls. I was just glad to get back to my room and slump down onto the lumpy mattress.

I didn’t realize Collin was sitting down on his bed, and the sound of him talking was the only thing that told me otherwise that I was not alone. “How was last period?”

I sat up frantically. “Jesus, Collin. You couldn’t have said something when I walked in? I’m not used to sharing a room.”

“Well you should get used to it fast,” he smirked. “So how was it?”

I sighed and sat up on the bed with my legs crossed, trying to reflect on the day I had after the events in lunch. Collin stayed laying down, staring up at the ceiling with his arms tucked under his head. His elbows extended out past his ears and he looked content. Sighing, I cleared my head and tried hard to speak. I told Collin about the boring day afterwards and how I was scared of Jimmy. I felt like I had an enemy now; some kind of villain out of a comic book coming to smite me. Something kept getting in the way of my sleep. Jimmy’s face was in my nightmares that night. All night my head slaved in and out of dreams where his burned face was staring at me, and his meaty big hands wrapped themselves around my throat. I could feel it in my sleep, the suffocating feeling of being strangled. Jimmy Thompson had gotten the best of me with one single glare. I was horribly distraught. I felt hands on me during the night, shaking me wildly until my flailing body was forced awake. Collin’s arms had held mine and shook them violently.

“Dude, shut the fuck up! You’re being loud in your damn sleep,” he scolded quietly, attempting to keep the guards from coming to see what was happening. “If you get those assholes in here it’ll be the end of us both! Keep quiet.”

He slumped back into bed and sighed forcefully, a huff of air exhaling from his lungs. I looked over at him tiredly. My eyes were so heavy and I could’ve fallen back to sleep at any moment. I was close to falling asleep again when our door opened. I was too exhausted to look up, but I could feel the eyes of someone coming into the room. A cool breeze came into the room with the stranger. He was big and tall with a mask. He came in as a silhouette of black, almost like a ghost had entered with a cold chill. The air was stiff and I felt like my body was too tired to budge at all. It was very inconvenient when I started to feel their hands grab at my shirt collar. His large hands were familiar; all too familiar. When I was shoved from my bed and onto the cold floor I realized just how horribly fucked I was. The fists just kept coming. One punch after another, my sides and ribs began to feel like knives in my body. I felt like the entire ordeal after I landed on the floor was a dream. It felt like one horrible dream where it only got worse and worse before I woke up. All except, it was not a dream at all. I wish it was all one big nightmare, especially when I saw those eyes of Jimmy Thompson staring down at me like he had in the lunchroom only hours prior.

“Get off of me! Leave me alone!”

My voice was only a raspy murmur from the pain I was in. I felt like the wind had been knocked from my body. I remembered then how it felt slipping on black ice last winter. I remember walking, being content in the chilly air. I remembered the feeling of free-falling backwards onto the ice, the sky above me becoming the only thing I could see. It was a rush of energy just taken entirely out of my body. My being became so slight, and the world around me felt like one horrible roller coaster ride. My head spun. My eyes were rolling in every direction. Somehow, through the spinning, I could still make out the mask. The white mask Jimmy wore had that crack in it; the awful slice down his eye that revealed those nasty burns. It continued for what felt like hours. Collin then managed to get out of bed and pry him off of me. He helped me up to my feet as Jimmy stood back up against the wall beside the door.

Something came over me. It was a sudden rush of energy, adrenaline, that kicked me in the stomach where I had just been punched multiple times. I felt a stinging anger brewing inside me. My hand went to touch my nose, red all over my cheek and lip from where I had bitten down involuntarily from Jimmy’s fist making contact with my jaw. My teeth clenched at the pain, and my fists followed in their footsteps. Collin kept staring at me with concern and horror, my shirt bloodied and my ribs bruising. I was slouched over holding my ribs in agony when I found the anger inside me so intense it erupted. It had nowhere to go but out now. It happened quickly, like the fall. I swung my fist hard against Jimmy’s face, knocking his mask right off the frame of his burned head. It revealed tremendous horror, but I couldn’t stop. I’d had the adrenaline in me to continue punching him in the face, in the chest and jaw, up until arms hurriedly snatched me up from Jimmy’s limp body.

“Knock it off,” booming voices from above me called. “Get the hell up against the wall!”

I felt a slam of pain against my face as a guard shoved my back and pressed my cheek against the cold wall. Some other guards came rushing at the two of us just in time to see me struggle from the guard’s restraints. Two held me there against the wall, and three more large guards had to hold Jimmy back so he couldn’t run at me. Then I heard a familiar voice. Collin was back in the room, scared shitless, I imagined, trying to tell the guards what happened. It wasn’t my fault, he tried to explain. I didn’t start shit. They didn’t listen. It was no wonder; no one seemed to listen to Collin, not even me. Jimmy had snarled and screamed out foul things at me with a hardly audible speech. His burned face was horrid enough, but the sound of his voice, as I imagined, was just as horrid. Guards pulled him away down the hall. Caughenour followed in. I was sure to see him.

“Whenever I hear some kind of commotion, I always find you around, Cal,” he said smirking.

I was still against the wall, my hands restrained behind my back hard with handcuffs. The cold metal was digging tightly into my wrists. He stared at me for a moment before grabbing hold of the handcuffs behind me. Collin continued to talk to the guards, but they didn’t listen to a word of it. Their minds were clearly set on other matters. They only focused on hauling Jimmy Thompson and I away down the corridor, down the stairs, and into a strange room where everything was yellow. The lights stung my eyes as I entered. There was a bench against a wall right outside a glass windowed office space. Inside, a guard was filing paperwork and typing away on the computer that illuminated his face with light.

“Two rampaging idiots. That kind of a night, huh?” This guy obviously thought he was a comedian.

“Sure is,” Caughenour scoffed.

“Let me grab my keys.”

I looked behind me at Caughenour and glared. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll get real used to this place.”

The comedian faculty member grabbed a large set of keys and wandered towards a door at the back of the yellow room. It was a metal door with many locks. One was a sliding lock, the others were for key holes. I looked at Jimmy in front of me, his mask back on his face where it was before I’d knocked it off. He didn’t seem to move, or breathe for that matter. He became silent and murderously provoking again. His fists were bloodied by my face and his back always stayed to me. I could say it was the guards keeping him facing forward, but the idea of him wanting to keep his eyes off of me was far more reasonable. Caughenour led me behind Jimmy through the door after the locks were undone. It was a long white corridor with other doors. Rooms, by the looks of it, were lining each side of the corridor. They were sliding metal doors with latches from the outside. It was intense an bright in there, with the beaming lights on the ceiling on full setting. I squinted from the brightness and tried to keep my eyes down at my feet to hinder the light’s glare.

“Which ones, boss?” The man with a shitty sense of humor pointed around him at different doors.

Caughenour thought a moment before smiling. “Put them in one cell. I want to see some apologies happen. Don’t let them out for three days.”

Jimmy shook his head and glared back at Caughenour with shock. At first I didn’t understand, but when I realized where I really was, it all made so much more sense. We were in The Pit. I imagined a gloomy place with black flooring and rusty walls. It was absolutely the opposite. For some reason, though, Jimmy looked like he had entered the scene of my worst expectations. He staggered backwards away from the cell and tried to break free of the guards more and more. Meanwhile, I stood back in Caughenour’s grasp and watched in confusion. The guards shoved Jimmy onto his knees inside the dark cell and let him free from the cuffs. I was next. Nervous and shaking, I felt the pain in my ribs as I was thrown down into the cell. I landed on my left side and shooting pain rocketed up through my torso. For a moment I laid there in pain while the metal door rumbled to a close. I heard those bolts latch and I was then submerged by complete darkness.

I couldn’t see in front of me. I was blinded with darkness and everything felt so cold. There was no bed, no windows, nothing. It was a cold, hard floor and walls that felt like tile. I managed to pull myself up off the floor to sit in the pitch black. I heard Jimmy’s breathing but that was all. I heard my heartbeat in my ears but it didn’t last. Silence fell after a few minutes, and we didn’t talk at all. My head was spinning trying to adjust to the room, but when I heard Jimmy speak from the darkness my blood ran cold. It was a muffled whisper, raspy as before. “You should be dead right now.”

I scoffed. “Wouldn’t that be dandy? I’d be out of this shit hole with you psycho!”

“Shut up!” I felt a shove on me. “I’m not afraid to kill you in this damn cell.”

My voice became a harsh tone. “You’re the reason we’re in this shit heap! Do you see where we are? I sure as hell don’t! I can’t see an inch in front of my face. Great idea, genius.”

“You did this to yourself… You screwed up when you looked at me. You don’t look at me. No one looks at me.”

“What’s wrong with your voice anyway? Did you get sick or something?”

There was a pause. Jimmy fell quiet and the whole room seemed to become a tomb. I felt trapped in a crypt with the dead, the cold, trying to stay quiet not to wake the dead. I waited for a response but he didn’t give me one. He sat in silence and I couldn’t think of anything else to say. My anger had subsided a little and all I could think of was sleep. If we were going to be in here for the three days Caughenour said, I didn’t plan on spending the majority of it awake. I closed my eyes and rested my head against the inside of my forearm. I laid on my side making myself as comfortable as humanly possible before sighing. I didn’t face Jimmy, which I knew from his breathing, and I kept my distance on the other side of the cell. I felt like I was in a war; we stayed on out own sides with our own selves minding our own business.

“I’m not going to do this,” I said. “I’m going to sleep. You can be a dick over there for no damn reason, but I’m getting some sleep…”

He didn’t say a word. I managed to doze off and when I heard Jimmy’s breathing slow down I knew I wasn’t the only tired one. I fell asleep shortly after and had no dreams. It was the emptiest, quietest sleep I had ever had. The sound proof walls were a better touch. There was no ticking alarm clock or the sound of trucks and cars passing outside the window - because there were no windows - and it was so peaceful. Aside from being stuck with a complete jerk, this place didn’t feel so bad. Everyone seemed all freaked out and horrified by The Pit, but I was just grateful to catch some more sleep. Jimmy knew more than I did, by far, and I soon realized just why he was so upset about being here. I imagined this wasn’t his first time in here, and I was sadly misled by the quiet. I was shaken awake by the same meaty hands that put me in this mess. He started yelling at me saying to shut the hell up and keep it down. I was mumbling in my sleep again, wasn’t I? I didn’t know what time it was or if there was sunlight outside, but I knew I was now sluggishly awake with no intention of going back to sleep.

“You dream about the strangest shit,” he said under his breath. “Why bother anyway? If you’re going to annoy me why don’t you just be awake for it?”

He was starting with me already, and I was still rubbing away the crusty residue my eyes. “At least when I’m asleep you don’t get my foul mouth bitching you out.”

“You should be dead,” he repeated.

I sighed with annoyance. “You’ve mentioned that.”

I felt his presence near me and his fist lodging itself against my jaw. In the dark, I fumbled to the floor and held my cheek where the hit connected. I was tired of the games. I didn’t know why I was thrown in here with him when I didn’t do a damn thing wrong. If self defense was a crime I’d be on death row apparently. I felt his foot kick at me repeatedly and his leg was right near my hand. I could feel his pant leg on my arm and I instinctively reached for it. I made contact with his calf and grabbed at it, forcing his body to the ground backwards with a thud. I think there was a crack because he yelled out in horrible pain. His voice was pained and I knew then that he hit his head badly against the concrete floor.

“Are you done?” My voice was harsh and impatient.

“Am I done? You”- He sighed. “I’m done. Fuck…”

I heard his body shift. “What the hell is your problem with me? I didn’t do anything wrong!”

“You’re an inconsiderate prick with no manners,” his voice lowered. “No one looks at me unless they want a death sentence. You don’t even know what happened to me. You just gravel back in horror like I’m some kind of movie monster.”

I sighed. “What happened to you, Jimmy?”

I couldn’t see his face in the dark, but I could hear his quietness. There were times when his breathing would slow, then become frantic again. Every so often he’d sniffle and I then knew he was trying to hold back tears. A guy like him was crying? It seemed almost impossible to believe.

“You know damn well what happened,” he protested.

Shaking my head, I realized my words needed to be heard, not my actions. “I only know that something horrible happened to you last year. Something terrible.” I wanted to hear it from his mouth. So I stayed vague and concerned.

“I smuggled in a pack of smokes for one of the guys. They didn’t know what it was for. The guard I knew and did business with wasn’t in. I got cuffed and beat down until I couldn’t walk. I got dragged down to the infirmary where they strapped me to this dentist chair, strapped me in, and they did something to my face. It felt so cold. It was hard to breathe. They didn’t even bother to take off my mask prior to pouring that shit in my face. That’s why my mask is shit… It burned so bad, man.”

My hands were caressing my face, trying to picture what he had seen. I could feel the sensation in my face as he told the story I’d been told already. Hearing it from his mouth, however, made chills run all over my arms and back. Cold sweat gathered on my neck and forehead. Beads of perspiration fell down the temple of my face and rolled down my cheek. Tears followed it. I felt like an absolute idiot for crying but it was too much to hear. Where we were felt like every step had to be planned. Every breath had to be quiet or they’d hear it. Every word had to be kept shut in my throat so no one would beat the shit out of me. To now that Jimmy Thompson was tortured the way he was made me feel sick to my stomach with fear and pity.

“They told me that I should be dead for smuggling stuff in. I wasn’t the only one, though, and they damn knew it. They just want to watch us bleed in here. Die in here, why don’t we? They watch us like insects.”

I sniffled back my tears. “Why can’t you talk right?” I almost instantly regretted asking that question.

“Why do you think,” he asked sarcastically. “They let some of the shit go down my throat. It was the most foul thing anyone could taste. This woman was trying to suction the shit out of my throat but it already damaged my vocal chords. They couldn’t fix it, and they didn’t care to. The only thing they cared about was making sure I was awake the whole time and that I didn’t die from infection.”

My throat felt suffocated, tightened. “It was acid…”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess so.”

I couldn’t figure out what to say after that. I didn’t know if it was guilt or pity for Jimmy Thompson, but the last thing I remember about the first night in The Pit was apologizing to him. Sleeping was next. We wee both exhausted from being awake talking, and there seemed like plenty of time was available for it. I didn’t have much to talk about anyway. Jimmy slept longer than I did, so I imagined he didn’t have anything to say, either. He even slept with his mask on. I couldn’t imagine doing that. I didn’t have mine with me, and it felt freeing to be able not to wear it for more than six hours. He did it on purpose; to hide the ugliness he felt. In reality, who cared about burns? People didn’t know him. I didn’t know him, and I judged him too quickly. Rather, I got scared like a little school girl at the sudden sight of his face. Could anyone blame me, though? It was a very shocking discovery on my part. Everyone else seemed to mind their own business, giving away no indication of the horrible truth behind his white cracked mask.

The next two days were torturous. My stomach was going absolutely crazy, setting pain deep down inside my body like a punch from the inside. I felt sick to my stomach from it and Jimmy didn’t seem phased at all. He looked over at me with pity because of how hungry I was becoming. Sighing with annoyance, he sat up and reassuringly shrugged.

“You’ll get used to it,” I heard. “If you stay in here enough times it’ll go away. Just think about something else to keep your mind off of it.”

My head was a mess with so much noise. I was hungry and angry and irritated. I wanted out. I wanted food. Without at least a crumb I was sure I would die of starvation in here. Then I remembered how children in foreign countries must feel. Don’t be selfish, I would say to myself. Don’t think like this; be grateful you’re still drawing some breath.

“Yeah… Something else.”

What was there to think about in a pitch black room? It was desolate and I wasn’t even opening my eyes anymore. I think sleep was better. I liked it better in my sleep. At least in there I could dream about random things instead of staring in the darkness at the movements I could feel from Jimmy’s shifting body. He gave off a breeze each time he shifted, and I knew exactly where he was at all times. I should be grateful he didn’t hate me any longer, but it was the exact opposite. I wasn’t relieved at all. I felt worse now that we weren’t rivals. How dd it comes to this, anyway?

“This is so stupid,” I murmured. “We shouldn’t be in here this long over a glance at someone.”

He scoffed, but I could hear a secretive tone in his voice. “You think I wanted to be in here?”

“Yeah, I think you did. This place isn’t bad at all. In fact, I got more sleep in here than I would’ve in my own bed.”

It was true. Collin didn’t tell me anything about The Pit besides the negatives. You would stay in here and starve, sure, and no one would care if you died of dehydration or starvation. Still, you got to sleep for the amount of time in this hole, and the guards wouldn’t know because they don’t even check up on us. Jimmy had been quiet for a moment before deciding his silence wasn’t making a difference.

“Yeah,” he boomed. “Yeah, I do want to be in here. Out there, they hurt you and you have to hold your breath whenever you pass someone in a uniform. In here you have more freedom. You can talk, sleep in, say shit you usually wouldn’t out loud, and no one else bugs you. No one is pouring more acid down my face, if you want to know the truth. Yes. I do want to be here.”

My head started to hurt from the dark. I had to keep my eyes closed to keep from feeling the pain. His voice was harsh and didn’t help much. I was quiet while he relaxed, sighing deeply and exhaling forceful when he finally felt better. I laid on the floor with my hands on my chest. That was really the only conversation we had on the second day. The third day was worse. We were both agitated from no food or water and it was getting closer to being let out. I almost didn’t want to go. Jimmy didn’t for sure. He’d rather sit there and die in here than be out there with those sadistic fucks. I didn’t blame him; if I had a choice I’d want to be in here, too.

“I hear boot steps,” he said in a hushed tone. “We’re getting out.”

I was not prepared for the amount of brightness that came next. It was intense and the brightness in my eyes gave me the worst headache, on top of the one I already had. I felt a chilly rush of air come through the brightness and warmth surrounded me as soon as my skin met the light. There was a window right outside, up above a man’s head. His shadow interfered with the light and made it harder for my eyes to adjust. Jimmy guarded his eyes instantly, instinctively. He stood up weakly and turned to meet the gaze of Caughenour. I was never so happy to see his face. He glared down at me as I struggled to adjust to the bright beams in my eyes. I staggered to my feet as they waited for me, and when I got out of that room it was all downhill. Sitting and laying down made my legs weak, and my feet did not want to move as I wanted them to. No wonder Jimmy kept shifting all that time. I should’ve asked for more pointers. I did my best attempt to follow Caughenour and keep up.

He lead us out into the yellow room, which did not help my headache, and into the corridors to our rooms. I went to mine and when I felt myself all alone, I realized everyone else had left to class. I looked at the clock over the doorway in my room, expecting it to be five in the morning or something. When I saw it was past ten and everyone had gone to their designated areas, my heart sank and I knew I would be forced to my own. How I would’ve wanted to see Collin’s face. I needed to tell him about Jimmy and The Pit. I’m sure he was already aware of everything I went through the past three days, but there was just no one else to rant to about it. It was not bad like he said, and I wanted to chew him a new ear until he knew how angry I was with him. What was his idea of “bad” anyway? Was I supposed to expect whips and slave kennels where I got chained up to a wall for that period of time? It was ridiculous to think about.

“Get your shit,” Caughenour said to me snapping in the doorway. “Classes aren’t going to wait forever. Neither am I, so go wash yourself down and get to class.”

When he left me I was staggering on the floor under my bed for a change of clothes. I grabbed jeans and a t-shirt, wandering down the corridor to the tiled bathroom. It was freezing. My hands felt numb and my toes were not capable of feeling anything now. It wasn’t so bad. I knew that once I got through the first class I could go to lunch and see Collin. That was exactly what happened. I’d stayed under the showered for what felt like two seconds, but it was the best two second shower ever. My skin was dirtied from the floor of the room I’d spent nights in. My knuckles were bruised and rough from the fight, and my headache just wouldn’t go away. I hadn’t felt such an amazing feeling in my life until I was sitting in the cafeteria scarfing down food. I hadn’t felt so hungry in my life. It felt like no end to the hunger in my stomach. I didn’t bother searching the room for Collin. I immediately went and sat down with my lunch and ate in silence. I had my mask propped up on the bridge of my nose, still covering my eyes and nose. I heard approaching footsteps and I didn’t bother looking up.

I instantly knew who it was. “Dude, why didn’t you come find me?”

“I needed to eat.”

He sighs and sits down, slumping into the seat like a pouty two-year-old. “Well, for starters, I was worried sick, you ass. Second, there’s people asking about you like you’re some kind of damn superstar convict.”

“Yeah, right. Who the hell would care about me?”

“Lola Vanderbonne, that’s who.”

I looked up at him and shrugged. “Who the hell is Lola Vader Bomb?”

“Vanderbonne… She’s a girl from the junior class with me. She’s in my advanced sociology class. She couldn’t stop talking about you. She practically worships you. I think everybody does now. Do you realize what you did? No one stares at Jimmy Thompson. That would’ve been a death sentence.”

I remembered the three days I spent with Jimmy, and my hands fell to the table with irritation. It was no a big deal. Who cares if I stared at him? I didn’t know Jimmy Thompson or what he did. I only knew the tragedy and why he hates people so much. I didn’t feel like a superstar at all; in fact it was the opposite. I genuinely felt horrible for the way I looked at him. It was such a shame I couldn’t have gotten to know him before that happened to him.

“Jimmy isn’t a sociopath, Collin. He’s just a normal guy. He’s got acid burns all down his face, for the love of Christ; give him some slack.”

Collin chuckled at my defensiveness. “Dude, chill, this is a good thing! Lola has this lady friend. They wanted to know if it was okay to sit with us. Today.”

“Well I already ate,” I protested.

“Please.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“Collin, this is stupid.” I paused and put down the gross meat sludge on a bun, complying. “Fine. Fine, but I’m not signing any boobs.”

He sighed with relief and smacked his hand down onto his thigh for the hell of it. He looked over his shoulder and nudged his head up in a single nod. I looked over in the direction he was staring in. Two black masks in the crowd stood up from a table in the corner of the room. They were both skinny girls with long hair. One of them had pure blonde hair tied up in a ponytail that still managed to reach her lower back. She had big blue doe eyes through the holes of her mask, and they gleamed like pearls. The other girl with her carrying her lunch tray was a brunette with brown eyes the color of chocolate. She was very shy looking in contrast to the blonde, who looked upright in posture and very talkative. She looked like one of those kinds of girls who could talk for hours with a person, but her friend seemed to be too shy to look at me.

They sat and Collin introduced me. “Cal, the blondie with the ego larger than her chest is Lola.”

“Oh, come on, Collin, is that really my identifier?”

He chuckled and apologized jokingly. “This is Julie, the one who doesn’t say much.”

“I’m Cal,” I let out.

“We know,” Lola giggled.

Her and Julie exchanged glances as if they knew something I didn’t. It was strange meeting them. I think it was more stranger that they were both in such good spirits. In here, it seemed like everyone and their friends were more miserable than turkeys on Thanksgiving. Julie seemed more chill and she slouched a bit. I could tell Julie was the laid-back and listening type. Lola liked to hear herself talk. I think that’s why Collin had to hush her every so often so he could get a single word in.

“Did Jimmy Thompson beat the hell out of you?” Lola asked it so blatantly it sounded harsh. “Did you get any hits in?”

I laughed. “Yeah, a few. And, no, he didn’t beat me in The Pit. We just sat there. Talking was minimal. We slept. We talked briefly about his face, and”-

“Let me stop you right there,” she said loudly. “So he didn’t beat you in the dark? Fucker… That’s the time you strike. The first day is your window. When you beat each other up on the first day in, it’s like every day after that is a calm period. You can sleep as much as you want but at least get a few kicks and broken ribs in first.”

Collin was chuckling to himself, eating slowly at his lunch and listening to Lola chat away at my ears.

“Did you really get to see his face?” Julie spoke up.

I nodded and then there was a pause. Around us was small conversations buzzing from corners of the room. They were hushed conversations unlike the one our group was now having, but it was complimentary to the small roar of talk. We tried to hide our voices better when a few people started to wonder what we were talking about, glaring over to give us that “can-you-please-shut-it” kind of look. Lola would snap a nasty glare at them and continue talking away. Julie hadn’t said much of anything after that.

“Yeah,” I nodded. “I saw the burns through his mask and that’s what freaked me out. Then he got all huffy puffy and caused a scene.”

“I warned him,” Collin snapped.

It was almost impossible to me that two girls like Lola and Julie were capable of doing something bad to end up in here. They both looked like very nice girls, but then again you can’t really tell in here. So many people could deceive you. I was still nervous about Collin at times. He was my friend, I would like to say, but he still gave me anxiety when we laid down to go to bed at the end of the day.

“Why are you guys in here, anyway?” I looked over at the girls.

Lola laughed. “I could ask you the same thing!”

“I didn’t do it,” my voice lowered.

Collin scoffs. “Neither did Lola or Julie.”

“No, I did what I was put in here for,” Julie’s voice seemed a little too pleased with herself. She didn’t seem too phased by it and smirked when we all looked at her with surprise. “Prostitution and stealing.”

“No, no. You’re a kleptomaniac, Julie.”

“Shut up, Lola, you’re in here for arson!”

She shook her head and folded her hands on the table. “Nope… I’m innocent. I was accused of arson and breaking and entering. Can you believe that?”

“Collin murdered his dad.” My voice broke through.

“Stepdad,” he corrected me.

We laughed but it wasn’t to make things less awkward. We were all in here because of something, but it felt like everyone but Julie and every other piece of shit was innocent. Not to say Julie isn’t a nice girl, but if she can confess to something awful and smile about it like she’s not a criminal then I think she herself is a bad person. Lola said she was innocent, but how could any of us be sure she was telling the truth? It was her word over ours. We could believe she was innocent all we wanted to but if she did it there was no telling what else she’d lie about. Everyone at the table could lie. Everyone but Julie could lie, anyway. She seemed pretty pleased with herself.

“Collin doesn’t look like he could hurt a fly,” Julie grinned, her fingers stroking his face like he didn’t have a mask over it.

Lola pretended to gag. “Please, not here, I just ate. God, Jules, can’t you keep your cat in your pants until lights out?”

“Lights out,” I asked.

Julie shrugs. “After everyone locks down I sneak out. Don’t talk about that too loudly, or they’ll throw you in The Pit for a week and put new bolts on your door… See, the trick is to shove a sock or a piece of paper in the door. When the lights go out, you’re a free man. Well, you’re free until you nearly get caught. You have to be super quiet.”

“Julie is a master prostitute,” Collin jokes. “Why else would you risk your life for sex? She’s a total badass.”

I wasn’t impressed. In fact, I was mortified. Julie would sneak out for sexual favors. She told us about the things she did for it, as well. She hung around with a group of guys who knew how to “get things,” she said. Not only did I become fearful of my safety, but I was nervous for Julie’s. What if she got caught and they threw her in The Pit? A girl like her couldn’t do so well in there by herself, especially if she got thrown in with a guy. Scum like that would punch any girl in here to get three days alone with her. It sickened me to think about. Surely, there had to be some restriction on sex pairing for The Pit. I asked her about it but she shrugged, making an entirely new conversation. She avoiding the talk entirely, and Lola gave me a look that was half serious and half concerning. I saw it in her eyes. The black mask brought out the bright blue in her eyes, and I could see the emotions clearly. Collin didn’t seem too interested in Lola like I did; he’d rather talk about sex more with little Miss Prostitute.

I didn’t feel like Julie would make a good friend, so I stopped talking to her after that. We would sit together, sure, but those following weeks were awkward sitting near her. It felt like the stench of regret and sexuality radiated off of her. I didn’t think she was a whore, though, unlike how everyone else seemed to think. I saw her as a girl with many issues, trying to make it on her own and support herself in a piece of shit place like this. I understood, but I did by no means support it. It was dangerous, especially for girls. It wasn’t a sexist thing to think. I naturally felt concerned for Julie’s safety and tried to convince her to stop sneaking out. Collin seemed on my side about that, but when she denied stopping her explorations at night we both didn’t fight with her.

I learned that Lola had an anger management class with me in the second semester. It was one of those classes that taught us about why we do the crimes we did based on our pasts. Turns out, everything they told us was spot on. The lady directing the class said that people who partake in arson are people who want control. I didn’t understand it at first, but when Lola and I talked about it the truth was a bit shocking. Turns out, Lola’s dad would touch her. It was a shit thing for a father to do, but to burn the house down with him in it just wasn’t like Lola. I knew she wouldn’t do it, even if her dad did those things. She had too much innocence. She looked at me and I could just tell there was something better than all of this chaos in her. She didn’t deserve to be here; not at all. All I knew for certain was that being in the same class together would be hard. She was attractive and very interesting, and my eyes just couldn’t focus on anything else when she was sitting there at the lunch table.

There was just one thing about Lola I didn’t quite understand. She was always carrying around a notebook that looked old and unusual. It reminded me of brown off-white paper people in the olden days would use. It looked like paper spilt with coffee or something stainable. It was an old notebook, for sure, and I couldn’t imagine what you’d want to put in that old thing. I wouldn’t even write notes down in that. It just didn’t look right with her. She was so beautiful and so bright, colorful, and talkative. That notebook really put off her appearance; it had a very secretive and foreboding energy about it, if that even made sense at all.

“Earth to Cal,” Collin snapped in my face. “The bell went off. Come on, man, time to go.”