A List of Cages(63)

He shakes his head, disgusted. “Neither.”

“Vanilla it is.” I tear away the plastic lid and plunge in the spoon.

He crosses his thin arms over his chest with the same sulky expression he used to pull when we were in elementary school and I’d force him to read. If these weren’t such horrible circumstances, I’d laugh.

“You’re eating this, Julian.”

He tilts his head to the side like a confused puppy and sinks back against his pillow.

He takes a small bite, then shudders, and for a second I think he’s going to throw up. Then he takes another.

“Keep eating and you’ll get out soon. You wanna leave, right?”

He hesitates, just a little too long. “Right.”





I’M NOT ALLOWED to walk long distances yet, so Adam pushes me in a wheelchair while Delores strides alongside us. The bright, busy hallway is overwhelming, and I’m still nauseous from the breakfast he made me eat.

When Delores arrived this morning, she told me she wanted me to join a special group of teenagers. Ones who were originally confined to the psychiatric ward on the sixth floor but have graduated to the outpatient program. Adam didn’t look shocked at all that Delores wanted me to spend the day with mental patients.

The two of them talk cheerfully above my head as we take the elevator down to the first floor. Adam pushes me through a maze of hallways, then into a large white room with a long row of windows where the sun hurts my eyes.

At the far end of the room there are about twenty plastic chairs in a circle, and half are filled with older kids. I’m the only person not dressed in real clothes, the only one wearing pajama pants and hospital-issue treaded socks.

A girl with a shaved head immediately zeroes in on me and aims sympathetic eyes at my hospital bracelet and wheelchair. Two boys, one with more piercings than skin, begin to argue, then they stand and yell into each other’s faces. The other teens try to calm them down while a woman in a white coat wedges herself between them.

“I don’t want to stay here,” I whisper.

“You’ll be just fine,” Delores says.

Adam wheels me across the long room, right into the circle.

“You’re new,” the bald girl says.

“No,” I answer quickly. “I’m not staying.” I can’t breathe. “Adam.”

He reverses me so fast I get dizzy, and then I’m flying to the other end of the room. He stops behind a bookcase full of art supplies.

Delores bends down. “Take a deep breath with me,” she says, inhaling loud and deep. “Lower. Not from your chest, from your diaphragm.”

“I can’t. It hurts.”

She taps my chest. “These are short, panicked breaths. Try to go lower.”

“I don’t need to breathe. I need to leave!”

“Julian.” Her voice is stern. “Adam has to go to school today, and you’re going to stay here.”

“I can’t.” There’s not enough air. “It’s too dark.”

“Delores, come on,” Adam says. “I can stay with him one more day.” He crouches in front of me and wipes my wet face with his sleeve.

She tugs him up, then leans into his ear. The only full sentence I can hear is, “Let’s not drag this out.”

He nods solemnly. “This’ll be fun!” His voice is suddenly loud and filled with false cheer. He grabs a container of Play-Doh off the shelf, holding it up like it’s evidence. “You like art.”

“I don’t like art.”

“But you said—”

“It wasn’t true. I don’t.”

“Well…you like writing stories. You’ve got a roomful of crazy people over there. You’re gonna have so many great stories for me later.”

“Adam!” I can’t tell if Delores is playfully scolding or not. “In all seriousness, Julian, everything here will be confidential.”

Confidential. I hate that word.

She gives Adam a brusque nod.

His face is overly bright. “All right, let’s do this.” He pushes me back into the circle. “I’ll be here as soon as school’s out,” he promises, then he kicks the wheelchair brake into place so I don’t roll away.




The cafeteria’s like it always was—warm and dangerously crowded—but for some reason the noise irritates me. Exhausted, and fueled on hospital coffee that’s making me edgy, I squeeze into our table between Jesse and Matt, across from Charlie and Allison. A few people I didn’t see this morning hug me and ask about Julian.

“He’s fine,” I answer, not in the mood to get into it.

I can’t stop my foot from tapping, but so far no one’s told me to settle down. I’m half-listening to conversations, half-thinking about what about what happened when I got to Dr. Whitlock’s last period. She and Principal Pearce were both there, standing shoulder to shoulder. He was holding on to his cane, looking particularly fierce, as Dr. Whitlock asked: Did you know?

Did I know what was happening? Did I know and not tell her?

I looked back and forth between them, then admitted, Yes. I knew.

Her eyes went a scary sort of livid. You should have told me.

I’m sorry, I said, throat convulsing and eyes suddenly blurry. She turned away and shut her office door.