“Yeah, I know,” I reply with a sigh.
“On the bright side, it’ll be easier for you to avoid your dad there.”
“Yeah,” I say with a small chuckle. “I guess that is one perk.” She, Gordy, and Nate are the only ones who know about my war with my dad. He and I used to be best friends, but the moment I found out he cheated on my mom, everything tanked. He tried to act like life was exactly the same—showing up to my games or guitar performances, trying to play pickup with me and my friends, bringing donuts and chocolate milk over for breakfast every Sunday morning—but it wasn’t.
It never could be.
Which is why I’ve spent the last five years devising every possible way to avoid him. It’s funny that military school never crossed my mind, though Lora’s right—this is probably the absolute best way to keep him away from me.
“Hey,” I say, thinking I might be able to make things a little less miserable around here, “we can have visitors if you want to come up for a weekend.”
“I can stay in your room?” she asks, sounding excited for the first time this call.
“Well…” I pause. “No, not really,” I mumble. “You can’t even come into my dorm. We could hang out in the rec hall.”
“Where would I sleep?”
“I’d get you a motel room.”
“Can you stay with me there?”
“No,” I reply, my shoulders slumping. It would be nice if we could have a little alone time again. Eight months from now is going to feel like forever. “I’m not allowed off campus,” I grumble.
“Hmm … I doubt my mom will let me go to some remote mountain town and stay in a motel by myself.”
“It was just a thought,” I say, trying to hide the disappointment.
After a long pause, she adds, “Maybe I could find someone to come with me. I could ask around.”
“Yeah, that’d be good.”
“And I’d have to find a weekend that would work.”
“Yeah, sure.”
It’s her senior year, too. I’m sure she’s got plenty of better things to do than drive all the way here to visit me. Although, to be honest, I can’t for the life of me think of what those things could be. She’s like me—no job, no real responsibilities, no need to study to get good grades. That’s one of the reasons we got along so well—lots of time to do whatever we wanted. Add on mostly absent parents, and we had plenty of freedom to do whatever we wanted, too.
“So,” she says, “That thriller I ordered a few weeks ago finally came.”
“Yeah? How is it?”
“Amazing. I stayed up all night finishing it. You should read it—you’d love it.”
“I’ll have to—” I’m about to say “grab a copy,” but that’s not possible when I (1) can’t leave campus and (2) can’t drive even if I were allowed to leave. And I doubt online shopping sites will make it past Wallingford’s firewall. “Maybe you could send it to me?” I reply with a sigh. This is what life has come to—not even being able to buy a freaking book when you want to.
“Sure.”
I don’t know if it’s the fact that I’m exhausted from all the shit I have to do here or that I’m annoyed she gets to go on with her life like nothing has changed while I’m stuck here, but this conversation, which I had been looking forward to all morning, is suddenly making me want to crawl back into bed.
“I gotta go. Time for PT,” I lie.
“Oh, okay. Text me later. I love you, babe.”
“Love you, too.”
As soon as I hang up, I switch hands so my frozen one can thaw out in my pocket, then start a text to Gordy, my best friend.
I hate this place, I type.
Not even a second later, his reply comes. What’s up man? How’s the Rambo thing going?
I hate my life.
I expect another immediate reply, but minutes go by with nothing. It’s not until I’m inside the computer lab with my laptop booting up on the table in front of me that my phone starts ringing.
As soon as I answer, Gordy says, “How bad is it?”
“Worse than you can imagine.”
“Shit.”
“I’m ordered around from six in the morning until ten at night. And it’s not just by adults. They’ve got these students with some sort of god complex who try to completely control everything I do.”
“Tell them to piss off.”
“I tried.”
“What happened?”
“They took away my free time. Made me sleep in the dean’s office. Run laps. If I don’t listen to them, they could legitimately drive me insane.”
“Are they allowed to do that? Maybe you need to talk to your lawyer. None of this seems legal.”
“You think?”
“Yeah. Maybe your lawyer didn’t realize how messed up that place is. Maybe there’s another option.”
Could he be right? I don’t want to get my hopes up, but they rise anyway. As soon as I hang up with Gordy, I’m calling Mr. Needleham.
“You’ve got your computer with you, right?” Gordy asks.
“Yeah.”
“Why haven’t you logged in to our game? I kept checking all week. Even skipped a day of school thinking maybe you were keeping vampire hours now or something.”
“I tried during personal time but got a nice warning pop-up from the ever-so-charming dean letting me know video games were prohibited.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah. Apparently personal time isn’t actually time you can use for personal interests unless those interests are preapproved.”
“What’s been preapproved?”
“Oh, plenty of fun activities,” I say in a mocking tone, “like working out, studying, participating in drama or some other pointless club, or taking online courses from the community college.”
“Maybe you could take a course on video game design from the community college.”
I smile. I can always count on Gordy to come up with interesting ideas. I usually support him from a distance, which is why he spends many afternoons in detention while I’ve been basically unknown to our principal. Well, at least I was until two weekends ago. God, has it only been two weeks since everything went down? It feels like a lifetime ago. Based on how my life has changed, it was a lifetime ago.
“Yeah, maybe I’ll try that. Thanks, Gordy.”
“No problem, Lo. Call whenever.”
Whenever you need me. He doesn’t say it, but that’s what he means. Usually I’m the one helping him after he’s gotten into trouble, not the other way around. In fact, two years ago, I would’ve put all my money on Gordy being the one sitting in military school. Yet here I am while he’s still lounging on the couch in his basement.
I hang up and roll my neck. It’s Sunday afternoon and instead of wasting the day with Lora or Gordy, I’m stuck in a computer lab with freshman, sophomores, and others who don’t have off-campus privileges. It sucks. We’re trapped here against our will. Well, at least I’m trapped against my will. I guess some of the others signed up for this knowing full well what they were getting into. I can’t even imagine what would make them consider Wallingford. Things must’ve been really bad at home if they were willing to come here.