Day Fifteen

Day Fifteen

Get up. Crack of dawn. Chuck run. Shower. Change clothes. Brush teeth. Cook breakfast. Eat breakfast. Stand against the wall in the activity room. Click. Click. Click.

—

Tracy has pulled our Polaroids off the wall and arranged them on separate tables so we can look at them privately.

At first I just look at the floor. My sneakers. The hem of my pants. The lip of the table.

I gradually stop, right there, at the lip of the table.

How bad could it be? I ball my fists in the pockets of my hoodie. I saw myself in the hospital, but isn't that the worst it could have been? The very worst? Because that was right after. When everything was the most fresh on my face. Math-in-my-head time: fifteen days.

Fifteen days.

My eyes waver at the edge of the table. I raise them slowly. I try not to do that thing I do in the bathroom, where I kind of blur my eyes when I'm by the mirror. I keep them focused.

She arranged them chronologically.

My heart sinks at the first one.

I'm a piece of meat, pounded and pulped. One eye is looking down; the other is lost in a swirl of purple flesh that stretches down my left cheek.

There's a hot ball in my throat. I force myself to look at number two.

If there's a change, it's imperceptible.

I sweep my eyes across them one by one, left to right, slowly, an agonizing crawl.

Gradually, the purple gives way to something else: a dark blue, then a light blue, then various shades of pink and lilac, with yellow beginning to creep in toward day ten, like a flower you didn't know you planted that suddenly sprouts in a thicket of weeds.

But in there, too, in all that pulpy, changing misery of my face, is something else, and it's in my eyes. They start out dull and ashamed, looking everywhere but at Tracy's camera lens, and then they get more focused. They get clearer. As the swelling in my face goes down, my eyes get stronger, even as I'm having a hard time here. I stand up straighter in each photo.

Something is happening to me. But—

Holly is next to me.

"Oh," she says, laying a finger on Day One. "I remember that. The first day. I'm sorry I said you looked like crap. I think I was just scared."

"Me too," I say. "It's my face. Imagine how I felt."

"You haven't said," she says quietly. "Like, how that happened."

"Someday I will," I tell her. "I promise."

"You kind of look unreal," she says. "Not in a bad way. But all the color. Like a painting. These look like little paintings of you, almost, but you're the painted thing."

"When you say it like that, my self-destruction almost sounds cool."

"Do you want to see mine?" Holly says. She's got them pressed against her chest. "I'm like Wednesday Addams in each one."

She spreads them on the table above mine. It's gradual, like with me, but you can see the difference as the days go by.

"What time are your parents coming?" she asks. "Can I meet them? My fosters are coming. I called. They promised. I had to beg, but they promised."

Her eyes are gleaming.

"I told my parents not to come," I say.

Her smile dies. "Really?"

"Really," I say. "And it's okay. I'm going to pretend it's okay. They'd just make me miserable, and I'm miserable enough, you know?"

"I get it."

"I'm gonna take pictures of these, okay?" She holds up her phone. "I want to remember all of them."

I hesitate. "Are you…you aren't going to post them anywhere or anything, are you? Because I'm not cool—"

"No, no," she says. "I'd never do that. It's just for me. I like to draw. Maybe I'll draw from them sometime."

"That would be okay," I say. "I'd like to see that, actually."

"When we get out," she says. "We'll hang out. Pinky-swear."

We link pinkies.

—

Visiting is three hours, from eleven to two. They can eat lunch with kids in the meal room, take a tour of the buildings, see the animal pens, walk the paths, admire the gym, sit in the activity room and talk.

I keep myself busy in the kitchen. Most kids have people coming, so the kitchen is a little understaffed. Fran and Chuck have stepped in to help make lunch.

"You okay, kid?" Fran asks.

"Fine," I say. "I am, really. It's better this way. The only person I want to see is my little sister anyway, but she's too young to come."

Fran nods.

"We better take these out," I tell her, pointing to trays of sandwiches and salads and fruits.

"Your wish is my command," Fran says, swooping up a tray of sandwiches and disappearing out the double doors. I follow her with the cart of drink coolers.

As I'm setting the coolers and cups on a table, I peek at everyone.

Brandy is sitting with an elderly woman with gray hair in a bun and a concerned look on her face. They aren't talking. Brandy isn't eating. I didn't picture her mom that way at all, the way Brandy's been describing her. That seems weird. At the end of another table, Josh looks miserable, sandwiched between a tall blond woman and a surly man. They're peering suspiciously at their sandwiches. I look around for Holly, but I don't see her. Maybe she's giving her fosters a tour. I don't see Gideon, either.

I busy myself setting out extra cups. If my parents had come, I can picture what would have happened, can hear what they would've said. My mother would be sad but hopeful, and my dad would probably be critical of the food, or the dumpy quality of the place, and then my mom would say, Well, why didn't you look for the place, then? You made me do all the research, and then he'd say, Well, I didn't want her to be here in the first place and—

I stop. Take a breath.

I didn't want them here and they aren't. So I'm not going to think about what might have been. I don't need them in my head right now.

—

After Chuck and I clean up from lunch, I walk back to our room. On the way, I look into the activity room. Josh is playing chess with his mom while his dad looks at his phone. Gideon is there with a bearded guy. Brother? Too young to be her dad. They're at the table closest to the door and they're both wearing the same kind of blue sneakers, which seems weird, but okay.

Holly is at a table in the far corner, drawing, alone.

I hope her people come soon.

—

In our room, Charlotte is asleep, curled into a ball.

I lie down on my bed and stare at the ceiling.

That's what I'm doing when Brandy comes in and hurls herself on her bed.

I look over at her. "You're back early. It was nice your mom—grandma?—came."

Her eyes burn. "That was not my grandmother. Or my mom. That was Mary, our maid. My mother went to Cabo. Like I told you, I'm nothing to her. I made Mary leave, even though we still have time."

Her voice wavers. She takes off her sneakers and throws them against the wall.

"I'm sorry," I say.

"Whatever," she says. Then she sighs. "Sometimes I get my hopes up that she's going to start to care. It's good to be reminded yet again that she never will."

She flops onto her side and closes her eyes, her mouth trembling.

Gideon walks into the room slowly and sits down on her bed. Folds her hands in her lap.

"Are you okay?" I ask. "You don't look well."

She raises her eyes to me, only I feel like she isn't looking at me but through me.

"Gideon?" I ask.

She snaps to. "Sorry. I'm just…tired. My cousin tires me out. But at least someone came, right?"

She slides off her blue sneakers. Holds them in her hands and looks at them for a long time.

"Gideon?" I ask again. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah," she says. "Totally fine. I was just thinking I need to get a new pair of sneakers when I get out of here. These are getting kind of ratty. Don't know where I'll get the money, though."

Carefully, she puts them on the floor and bends forward, sliding them far back under the bed. Then she lies down.

I'm getting drowsy. I close my eyes.

—

A siren blaring makes me bolt off the bed, confused, my ears hurting.

Gideon yells, "Down, get down! Runner!"

I slam myself onto the concrete floor, press my cheek to its coolness.

The four of us look at each other on the floor.

I look toward the open door. Josh is flat on the floor in the hallway, his face turned to me, his parents looking down at him in horror.

Holly, he mouths.