Gucci in Juvie

Chapter 10

"Coz' I've got thick skin, and an elastic heart.'

-Elastic Heart, Sia

'So what are we going to do about it?'

Nathan, Hu Li and I were sitting around a cafeteria table, ignoring the repulsive lunch that we had had to take. Hu Li had been absent-mindedly dragging her chopsticks through the sludge (I kid you not, she had chopsticks) and Nathan was staring at his food with a small frown on his face.

It had been three weeks since Hu Li told us everything. In that week and a half, I had had melt-downs, (which involved me suddenly bursting into tears and crumbling into a heap on the floor), periods of time where I would just sit and stare into space, and insomnia. I couldn't get the fact that my parents didn't love me, out of my mind. I was their only child. I had been the one who they spent the most time on, I had gotten all of their attention, I was priceless to them. Or so I thought.

These strange activities didn't happen all at once. It was quite ordered, actually.

STAGE ONE OF CASSIDY TAYLORS' INTERNAL COLLAPSE AND DISINTEGRATION: Denial

After that break-down in the bathroom, I refused to accept it. I refused to talk about it, I even refused to talk to Hu Li because she was the one who told me this horrible thing. She accepted it quietly and moved on, like she had always done before I met her. Nathan was a little afraid of me and quite suspicious as well, because I was just stubbornly refusing to acknowledge that my parents didn't want me. I would plaster a huge smile on my face and talk about my family back home as if nothing had happened, as if I actually did get arrested for a reason.

Nathan and Hu Li had been talking with each other behind my back (well, not really, because I see all) and because I didn't want to talk to Hu Li, Nathan had to slowly deliver me pieces of information about J.U.V.I.E that just further solidified what Hu Li had told me. For example, why they never allowed any form of communication to get in and out of the place. Why they had facilities that normal prisons would not be able to afford, as our parents paid a lot of money to keep us here. Knowledge that just made it even more believable and more real, until finally, I gave in.

STAGE TWO OF CASSIDY TAYLORS' INTERNAL COLLAPSE AND DISINTEGRATION: Impact

They say that you fake it till you make it. I tried to fake it. And I didn't make it.

It had sunk in (sort of), but I was still trying to act like all was well and good. I was told later that it was quite frightening, actually, to see me try to go through it all cheerfully even though it was painfully obvious that I was dying on the inside. There was an instance where I was sitting at lunch with Nathan and Hu Li, and I was thinking about this bad news. Out of my peripheral vision, I saw Nathan and Hu Li watching me carefully as they pretended to eat their lunches (like, come on now. They couldn't have seriously not expected me to think that they were eating peacefully. You can't eat sludge peacefully).

I didn't notice it at the time, but they told me after that I had been clenching my spoon in one hand, my other hand clutching the edge of the table, making my knuckles protrude further than they should have. My face was completely blank with the exception of an utterly fake smile. One of those smiles that stretched the lips as far as possible, and that showed all the teeth. My eyes didn't blink, instead they were wider than normal. I stayed like that for an hour, whispering through gritted teeth 'I'm fine. I'm fine.' But after the hour had passed, I cracked and tears started rolling down my face even though I stayed in the exact same position.