Dangerous Girls

“I know.”

“But they send their best. We’re all thinking about you.”

I nod. Maybe it’s true. I want to believe him, but I’ve had too much time in here, long, empty days to think about my friends, and all the reasons why they haven’t come—haven’t even sent letters, or called, even though I made sure my dad told them about the visiting hours and phone privileges.

I’m angry at them for it, hurt, too, but every time I try to muster some kind of sense of betrayal, I can’t help but wonder: Would I be any different, if the roles were reversed?

Lamar looks at me again, closer. “You are okay? I mean, you would tell me, if they did . . . If there was trouble, with any of the other girls in there.”

“I promise,” I tell him. “It’s no sleepover, but it’s not like a prison movie or anything. The guards keep a pretty close watch on me; I guess I’m high-profile or something.” I give him a wry smile. “Mostly the other girls just leave me alone.”

“Good.” Lamar’s dark eyes are wide and expressive. “It’ll be okay,” he says again, pressing him palm against the glass. “Just hang in there.”

I know I should smile and banter, pretend like I’m keeping my spirits up, but the truth is, I’ve been in a daze ever since the judge made her announcement, the words echoing in my head, so icy and detached.

The defendant is a flight risk, charged with a violent crime of the highest degree. . . .

Dad tried to reassure me, that the lawyer would be launching another appeal, but something in me seemed to switch off, there in the courtroom. I watched in shock as the guard went to release Tate. The handcuffs fell from his wrists, and he turned to embrace his parents, enfolded tight and safe in a circle of celebration while I was hustled out, unseen, through the back door. Away from them all.

The drive back to prison blurred to strips of sand and olive and dusty brown through my red, raw eyes. I didn’t even flinch when they strip-searched me, standing numb in a white-tiled room as a middle-aged female guard patted my body down, avoiding my gaze. I don’t know what she expected to find—as if I’d managed to duck away from my constant supervision in the crowded courtroom to slip something in my bra. Pills, a razor blade. I can’t imagine it, but I’ve only been locked up here four weeks. Some of the women in my wing have been stuck in here for years.

Years.

The thought of it is too much: like staring straight into the sun, blotting out everything with sheer panic. So I don’t. Every time it creeps into my mind, I look away and remind myself of everything my dad and the lawyers said. That this is all a big mistake. That it’s a witch hunt, a prosecutor gone crazy. That soon the charges would be dropped, and we could go home. I lie awake in the small, hot cell at night and repeat their words over and over again, wrapping myself in them like a security blanket on the hard, narrow bunk. But still, in the long dark of the night, surrounded by other people’s breathing and my own crushing fear, I can’t stop the first seeds of doubt from creeping in.

What if they’re wrong?

“Just stay positive,” Lamar tells me, as if my secret fear is written plain across my face. “This will all be over soon.”

I take a breath. “Have you seen him?”

Lamar doesn’t need to ask who. He nods. “We went over, after he made bail. They’re in a house over by the far point, this big gated place on the beach.”

“How is he?” My voice twists, “Did he say anything? Did he ask about me?”

Lamar looks uncomfortable. “We weren’t there for long. He didn’t really want to talk. He was having panic attacks,” he adds, “in prison, so they put him on a bunch of meds. He was pretty out of it.”

I exhale slowly. “So he didn’t say anything about me.”

Lamar shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”

He’s not the one who should be sorry. Anger flares in me, as fierce as my fear—and just as deadly. “It’s fine.” I swallow it back. “I’m sure he’d come if he could. The lawyers are probably keeping him away, and his parents . . .” I force another smile. “Like you said, I’ll be out of here soon, and then we’ll all go back to Boston, and everything will be okay.”

Lamar shifts in his seat. “That’s the thing I wanted to tell you.” He pauses, his voice heavy and reluctant. “We’re . . . going home.”

I stare.

“The police said they don’t need us anymore,” he says, stumbling over the words. “And with school starting, and our parents—”

“No, I get it.” I push down the ache blossoming in my chest. “Right, of course. You can’t stay, sitting around on the beach all day.” I fake another smile. “When do you leave?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Oh.”

“But I can call, and write, or whatever.” He adds, “Until this all gets cleared up.”

“Right. Sure.”

There’s silence as his words sink in, heavy and dark. Home. I never felt much for the word before—I didn’t get homesick the summer I spent camp, or feel the same sense of security and place other kids seemed to. For me, home was just a house we lived in, a place my parents picked, and decorated, and filled with the noise of endless renovations and upgrades to the things we didn’t need but somehow were necessary now that we were rich. In-room surround sound. Under-floor heating. New skylights, glittering across the back of the house. When they were both there, it was bad enough for me—closed doors, and rooms I wasn’t welcome in—but this past year, it was worse, a silent fortress I could never bring to life, not even with music playing through those brand-new speakers in every room. I spent all my time at Elise’s, in the end; even Tate’s disapproving parents were better than the emptiness of my own echoing hallways. But now, I ache for that house and all its dark memories with a fervor I didn’t know I could possess.

Tomorrow, a plane is taking off, and I won’t be on it.

“Do me a favor?” I ask, glancing at the clock on the wall. Time’s nearly up. “Keep an eye on him for me. I mean, you guys can talk, and I . . . I just want to know how he’s doing.”

Something flickers across Lamar’s face. He pauses for a moment, then leans closer. “Are you sure?”

I blink. “About what?”

“Tate.” Lamar pauses again, and I can see him weighing the words before he speaks. “You were really with him, all day?”