Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 46398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 232(@200wpm)___ 186(@250wpm)___ 155(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 232(@200wpm)___ 186(@250wpm)___ 155(@300wpm)
“You already told me that,” I say confidently, offering him solace. It’s true. He has told me that. He’s told me that while he’s crying and yelling and whispering. He was a wreck when he found out what they did. They closed down the school although no one was ever charged. Everyone got away with what they did.
He clears his throat again. Sounds like it hurts.
Part of me softens. Enough that I can make my eyes soften, too. “Dad.”
He meets my eyes. I can tell he’s trying to keep a straight face. I can also tell he wants me to bail him out of all the guilt. I don’t want to see him like this, so I will.
“There’s no way you could have known.”
The breath goes out of him like he’s never heard me say this before. He has. I tell him the same thing every time this comes up. He lives with the pain like I do. It’s just different.
“Does it bring up… anything?” My dad tries. “Hearing that news.”
There’s nothing to bring up. The feelings are always there. The memories too. I bury the screams deep inside—the feel of the rough concrete floor, the knowledge that I’d never get out, that I’d die in that place, and they’d bury my body in an unmarked grave in the yard. I knew it was hopeless. I knew nothing would ever change. I buried those feelings too. It’s not the news that makes them come back. They’re always with me.
I make a sound and shrug. My dad can take it to mean whatever he wants.
“Did you tell your therapist?” he asks, sounding even more gruff. “Are you still going?”
I don’t want to talk about any of this with my dad.
“They just gave me meds and they’re working,” I tell him. “Let it be, Dad. I’m alright.”
He nods, then takes another drink of his beer. I can tell the can’s empty from the hollow sound. He rests it on his thigh, tapping it a few times like that might make it fill itself up again. In a few minutes, he’ll get up and get another can from the fridge. I hope he’s lost interest in this conversation by then. If he hasn’t, I’ll think of some excuse and head out.
My dad shifts in his chair again. Guess he hasn’t lost interest.
“What’s your girlfriend say about it?” He sounds fake when he tries to be casual. “What’s her name again?”
He glances at me, smiling, trying to get the two of us to be buddies. I prefer this. In a lot of ways it’s a second chance.
I smile back at him. “Which one?” I say it like it’s a joke.
The fond expression on his face is real. So is the laugh he lets out.
“You’re a smart-ass, Dean,” he says, and goes back to watching the game. “Love you kid. If you ever need to talk, you know I’m here.” He says and then that old chair creaks as he gets up.
“I know Dad,” I tell him and turn back to the TV, trying to forget like I do far too fucking often.
DEAN
10 years ago
We’re never alone in this school. Should I even call it a school? It’s a hellhole. Hell on earth. The worst place imaginable for the worst people imaginable. Like me… but they’re worse.
I always thought that was supposed to be prison, before this. I knew people went to prison. I knew they got arrested and thrown behind bars and treated like shit.
But it’s not really about laws or breaking rules in this place. It’s not about being such a bad kid that our parents gave up on us.
It’s not about anything but sick fucks getting off on ruining our lives.
So we’re never alone. There are always eyes on us, even in the bathroom. No doors on the stalls. We can’t be trusted.
The bathroom has a concrete floor like most of the other rooms I spend time in here. There’s a drain in the middle of the floor. The concrete is almost always wet. They must have to spray it down a few times a day. More if they’re going to beat the shit out of somebody in here, and they usually do.
It has tiled walls and a mirror made out of metal and a rusted metal sink. When the mirror was new, maybe I could’ve seen myself in it, but now it’s just a metal plate with so many scratches and claw marks that there’s nothing but a shadow reflected back.
The bathroom has one stall and one urinal along the other wall. No door.
I go to the urinal. The staff member who escorted me here leans in the doorway, looking annoyed.
I bite back a sarcastic sorry. Sometimes I say things like that just to remind myself that I’m alive, but until today, I wanted to be dead.