A List of Cages(41)

The noise should drive them away, but Emerald’s hand stays, and Adam’s hand stays, and he keeps washing my face long after it has to be clean.

Eventually, all the tears are gone, and I’m empty, but it’s a good sort of empty. Like I’m lighter, and if Emerald’s hands weren’t still on my back and Adam’s on my head, I might just float away.

I hear my slow, hitching breath, and suddenly I’m too tired to keep my eyes open. I can barely see as Adam helps me stand and steers me down the hall into what must be Emerald’s room. There’s a feminine scent, like the way it used to smell after my mother took a shower, and on every surface are porcelain butterflies.

I’m swaying on my feet until Emerald tells me to sit, gesturing to the flowery comforter on her unmade bed. I sit, and vaguely hear Adam ask me to lift my arms. I do, and he peels my shirt over my head and dresses me in one that’s clean and warm. I’m so tired, a cell-deep exhaustion like nothing I’ve ever felt before.

My eyes fall closed, then one of them, either Adam or Emerald, pushes me to lie down. One of them pulls off my shoes. One of them presses an ice pack to my cheek, and I’m tired, so tired. One of them pulls the blanket up to my chin, and the scent of my mother is stronger. Then one of them presses lips to my forehead, and I’m asleep before one of them can turn off the light.




“I can’t just not call,” I tell Emerald once we’re back in her off-limits living room. She takes my hand, pulls me to the couch.

“He doesn’t want you to.”

“I don’t care what he wants.”

“Adam.”

“I’m serious. I’m not sure he’s the best judge of what we should do. That guy should be nowhere near him.”

“People make mistakes.”

“Mistakes?”

“I’m just saying, sometimes parents do bad things. Not everyone’s family is perfect, you know.”

What are we even talking about? It’s like we’re having two completely separate conversations. “Julian’s uncle hit him. He was freakin bleeding.”

“What do you think will happen if you do call? What? Maybe his uncle will go to jail for a couple of nights. Then what? Julian will be right back with him, and things might be even worse.”

I’ve heard my mom say the same thing a million times about other abused kids, so Emerald might be right, but I don’t care. I want her to say that maybe it won’t do any good, but that we still have to try. “I can’t just do nothing.” I pull my hand from hers.

“Adam…” Her eyes fill with hurt. “Don’t be mad at me.”

“I’m not mad at you.” I’m really not. Anger is such a waste of time. “I just don’t know what to do.”

We sit without talking, without touching, till she says, “It’s late….Are you tired?”

“Yeah.”

She picks up my hand again, and we walk to her room. For a minute we stand in her doorway watching Julian sleep, the ice pack still resting against his face.

Suddenly he cries out like he’s in pain or he’s scared.

I cross the room and touch his shoulder. He goes quiet. Once his breathing is nice and even again, Emerald and I crawl under the covers, on opposite sides of Julian.





SPRING BREAK STARTS in—I glance at the clock—guh, forty more minutes. All day the teachers have been totally checked out. As soon as we got to seventh period, Ms. Fry let Charlie stick in a DVD he brought from home—one about this guy with a vendetta who keeps stabbing people with his machete. I’m pretty sure it’s not school-appropriate, but I guess it doesn’t matter since Ms. Fry hasn’t looked up from her computer.

“This is boring!” I finally have to shout.

“Shut up.” Charlie wants to punch me, I can tell. “It’s good.”

The killer—I still don’t know if he’s supposed to be a hero or villain—pulls his blade out of some guy’s stomach and wipes it across his sleeve. “Why do they always do that in movies?” I ask.

“Do what?”

“After they stab someone, they take their knife and wipe it on their shirt. Why? So the next person they stab doesn’t get an infection?”

“Adam,” Charlie moans, “stop talking.”

This sucks. I tap my foot, watching the clock till finally the bell rings. I leap into the hall, get yelled at for running, then burst outside, where Julian’s waiting by the van holding a Hamlet script. Even though I just saw him this morning and even though it’s been nearly two months since his uncle hit him, I still spend a few seconds just looking at him.

When he got back to school a few days after it happened, his lip was swollen and his cheekbone was bruised. “Dr. Whitlock’s gonna wonder about your face,” I told him. He didn’t have real appointments with her anymore—most of the period we just walked around—but he’d check in with her for the last five minutes or so.

“So I won’t go to Dr. Whitlock’s,” he said.

“Maybe I should tell her.”

Desperation filled his face, making him look half-crazy. “If you do…” He was clearly struggling to come up with a threat. “If you do, I won’t be your friend anymore.” That was something I hadn’t heard since elementary school, back when it was common to withdraw or offer your friendship as some sort of bargaining chip.