“Ugh, I hate her.” I shake my head.
“I can’t believe I have the same guidance counselor,” Salem laments.
I totally feel her pain.
Poe and Salem share the same guidance counselor and I swear Miller is Satan. My guidance counselor is pretty mellow on the other hand — another thing that I can admit that I like.
Poe bangs her fist on the table. “See? That’s why I hate him.”
None of us need her to elaborate who he is. Her guardian.
“This is why,” she continues. “All of this is happening because of him. Everything wrong in my life is because of him. Everything. That stupid, tweed-coat-with-elbow-patches-wearing, unfashionable, old… man.”
Wyn, Salem and me, we look at each other and press our lips to stop from laughing out loud.
“Old man.” I nod.
“Unfashionable too,” Wyn says.
“Yeah, let’s not forget unfashionable,” Salem instructs us. “And elbow patches.”
I nod for emphasis before saying, “How dare he? Tweed coats, oh my God! The man should die.”
Poe narrows her eyes before throwing her empty water bottle at me. “You guys are the worst.”
And we burst out laughing.
Which somehow turns into the highlight of my day so far.
Sitting on these hard benches, under the gray sky, laughing with the friends I’ve made at this reform school, I forget why I’m here in the first place.
I forget that I don’t have any freedom now.
That I’m caged inside these brick fences and iron gates.
That I’ve been caged here for two years now.
Because one night when I was sixteen, my heart broke.
It broke so badly that I died.
I died from the pain, and when I came back to life, I went from being good girl Callie to a heartbroken girl.
A girl who, in the throes of her pain and her hurt, did something that she never could’ve imagined doing.
A girl who did it all in the name of love.
I became a girl who was supposed to land in jail for it — for the thing I did, the crime I committed — but somehow was sent here.
As a mercy.
Away from everything that I’ve ever known: my town, my home, my four older and overprotective brothers.
I forget all of that and just laugh.
Which makes Poe growl. “Fine, whatever. Laugh it up. The only choice I have now is to live my best life. Tomorrow night.” She lowers her voice then. “When we sneak out.”
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow is Friday.
Fridays are special.
On Fridays, we sneak out, all four of us.
And if tomorrow is Friday, then today is Thursday.
And Thursdays are special too.
For me.
It’s a little before midnight and everyone has gone to sleep.
Especially my roommate, Wyn.
Which works out great for me.
Because as I said, Thursdays are pretty special and I have somewhere to be.
So slowly, I climb out of my bed and go to my dresser. I open it and grab my pre-packed bag and creep out of my room.
Out in the darkened hallway now, I close the door behind me and look from left to right. The coast seems to be clear so I walk down the narrow hallway, which is flanked by beige doors and walls that have bulletin boards and motivational posters hung on them.
My feet are quick but quiet, matching the silence this time of night.
Well, except for the low drone of the television up front in the reception area.
There’s a twenty-four-hour warden – they change shifts – to keep an eye on things and I’ve chosen Thursday in particular to sneak out because I know Miss Alvarez likes her late-night shows way more than she likes watching over the bad girls, and after two years of sneaking out, I’m an expert.
I know all the twists and turns of this hallway. I know how long it will take me to reach my destination if I walk at a certain speed. Twenty-five seconds.
It’ll take me twenty-five seconds to go where I want to go.
I’ve timed it.
And sure enough, twenty-five seconds later I’m there.
At the exit.
Which is located in the back of the building.
It’s a metal door with a trick handle. You have to jiggle it and push at it just so to spring it open; it’s something that none other than Poe discovered the first year she was here with me.
The metal door thuds open and I step out into the September night, which is slightly chilly but nothing I can’t handle.
I wedge a rock between the door and the jamb before I take off running through the concrete pathways and cut through the grass clearing toward the campus brick fence. Propping my feet on the gaps, I climb and cross over to the other side.
When I get down, I start running again.
From here I have about ten minutes to make it to the St. Mary’s bus stop, which will take me where I want to go. I run through the woods that line the back of our campus and reach the bus stop just as the bus is pulling in.
The inside is empty except for a woman who’s sleeping in the fourth row. It’s slightly scary, traveling in an empty bus at midnight, but I have no other choice, do I?
I show the driver my bus pass — I bought it over the summer with my own money, thank you very much — and then I’m off again.
It takes about thirty minutes to reach my destination.
Back to my own town, Bardstown.
My heart always flutters when we cross that line, from St. Mary’s to Bardstown, the town I grew up in and the town I adore.
The town in which I fell in love for the first time.
The town in which I fell from grace.
When the bus pulls in at my stop, I thank the driver and get off.
So far things have been okay, slightly risky but nothing illegal.
This next part that I have to do is sort of a felony.
I mean, it’s not as bad as say, stealing someone’s car and drowning it in the lake — which I have a little experience in — but it’s still pretty bad.
Because as I said, I have no other choice, do I?
I pull out a pin from my hair and jam it into the lock on the door, twisting it in a precise motion. When the door clicks open — which I knew it would, I enter.
Into the Blue Madonna, my old ballet studio.
The place where I spent years and years training to be a ballerina.
Until they kicked me out.
Honestly though, kicked out is a harsh term.
They didn’t kick me out, per se. They gave me a choice to leave and I took it.
By they I mean my teacher, Miss Petrova, who once upon a time was super proud of me and my talent.
She looked very sad when she said, “Parents are worried, Callie. They think you’d be a bad influence on their kids. I’m really sorry. You’re one of my star students but girls are pulling out because they don’t feel safe around you and I don’t know what to do. I’m at a loss here.”
So I told her that I’d leave.