Internment(31)

The corporal slows his steps, then stops short and turns to me. “I’m not going to shoot you.” He speaks slowly, enunciating each syllable. He opens his mouth, hesitates. “Also, you’re right. Lewis Tan should have played Iron Fist.” The curve of a smile almost appears, but he seems to force it off his face. Then he continues walking, faster. I hurry to keep pace, allowing myself a small grin.

We get to the Hub, but he directs me to a trailer located beside the admin building, where the Director has an office. Corporal Reynolds looks around before he points me to a side door, which he quickly opens and then ushers me through.

It’s a trailer like the one my family was assigned to, but without a kitchen or living area. The unit has been retooled into an office. There’s a rectangular table—like the kind we set up for bake sales at school, but narrower—pushed against one side of the trailer. Three gray metal folding chairs are beside it. He motions to one of two phones on the table. I take a seat. He picks up the handset and enters some kind of code. He hands it to me.

“Two minutes,” he says.

I hold the phone to my ear. I don’t remember the last time I picked up a landline. I mock my parents for still having one. But there it is: a dial tone. A regular landline dial tone, reaching out from the past like a security blanket, a sign that the world beyond this fence still exists. The phone slips in my sweaty palm, and I quickly reposition it at my ear. With shaking fingers, I press the buttons that will lead me to David. Or at least to his voice. There are only three numbers besides my own that I’ve memorized: My parents’ cells. And his.

I wonder if he’ll sound different. I wonder what I should say to him to get him here somehow—to get his help—while the corporal and whoever else listens in. He’s turned his back to me, at least. It’s not much, but it’s a gesture to give me a pretend kind of privacy.

Ring.

My heart thumps in my ears. It reverberates through my entire body. A sort of lightness swells in my chest, and I think it’s something like hope. It hurts. Like a muscle I haven’t used.

Ring.

Two minutes. Think, Layla. Get David here. Tell him you love him. But don’t waste all your time on sentimental mushy stuff.

Ring.

Panic grips me. I look around, and my eyes fall on the microwave clock flashing the time in bright-green numbers. It’s a school day. David’s in school. Right now he’s in English class.

No. No. No. No.

Ring.

Ring.

“Hey, it’s David. You know what to do.”

The phone beeps. And then there’s only silence. “David,” I whisper, choking on my words. But then fury surges through me and I slam the phone down. My mom’s voice pops into my head: Take a breath, Layla. I push her voice out of my mind, shove it away, along with every ounce of reason I have. I’m angry. Rage burns my insides. I can’t temper my feelings with logical thinking.

Corporal Reynolds whips around, startled by the loud clatter of the handset against the phone’s base. “Is there a problem?”

“A problem? A problem?” I start to laugh but choke on it. “Where should I start? It’s not one problem; it’s a million. It’s my life. It’s the fact that I’m in this fucking camp because I had the gall to merely exist.” My stomach twists in knots, and I can hear my voice getting louder and my breath faster. But I don’t stop. I step closer to Corporal Reynolds. “And you and everyone in here, every guard, every politician, every neighbor who watched us get taken away and said nothing—this nightmare is on you. I can’t even make a goddamn phone call to hear my boyfriend’s voice without begging. And I’m so sick of it. I hate the president. And I hate you. I hate you so much right now because you can shoot me for no reason at all and no one will say a word. And I hate myself, too, because I’m so fucking stupid to yell at a guard, and now I have to bow down and count on your mercy to not throw me in the brig or disappear me like all those other people who just wanted to live.” I suck in my breath. Hot tears splash across my face. I wipe them away with my sleeve, waiting. Waiting for Corporal Reynolds to say something, to do something. To handcuff me, to punch me, to take me away.

But he doesn’t. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other while staring down at his boots. Then he lifts his head and meets my gaze. The air in this trailer is too thick to breathe. My cheeks are burning up. Still he says nothing, just stares at me with a sort of pained look in his eyes.

Finally, he takes a deep breath, clears his throat, and gives me a slight nod. He steps forward, opens the trailer door, and walks out.

I pause. I feel a little like throwing up. I can’t take back anything I said. More important, I don’t want to take it back. Maybe this was totally stupid, but a part of me feels good. Maybe even happy. Does that make me even stupider? I don’t know. Maybe it just makes me human.

I open the door; the sun blinds me. I raise my hand to shade my eyes. Corporal Reynolds is waiting for me. He gives me a sad sort of smile. We walk back to Block 2 without another word.





I pick up a little rock and throw it toward the mountains. That’s exactly what I feel like: a little rock against a mountain. I sit leaning back on one of the boulders in the garden. David’s message plays over and over in my head. I only choked out one word before succumbing to my anger and slamming down the phone. God, I’m a genius. He probably thinks I’ve lost my mind. Maybe I have. At least I got to hear his voice on his message. But it’s a shitty consolation prize.