Viper House

Planning for the Future

That night, I didn't barge in on their conversation. I went back upstairs to watch a movie with Maia. Dylan showed up after about twenty minutes and ended up falling asleep on the floor ten minutes later. He apparently worked at a gas station on the weekends.

Elijah and Lauren didn't let on about the conversation they had, but I didn't figure it ended that night. I pretended that I hadn't heard anything. I'd already thought about what would happen now that I was out. The people who I had debts to would find me or I would have to find them. It didn't matter which happened first. The outcome was going to be the same.

I didn't have any money to pay for my debts. Elijah and Lauren didn't give me an allowance, which was probably smart on their end. It would have made it easier to slip into old habits. Instead, I'd have to pay with deeds. I'd seen what they did to people in that situation. I'd done things close to what they were forced to do, but even it was on a lower level than what my drug-stupor self wanted to go.

Instead, I started distancing myself from Maia and Dylan the best I could without hurting them too much. Missing a few lunches, saying I had to meet with my foster parents after school, meeting with my parole officer. Nothing that would make them be suspicious. Lauren asked a few times why Maia hadn't come back to the house. I'd made up an excuse about being bogged down with homework and clubs.

Lying was something that had always been easy for me. Hell, I'd been doing it my entire life. I'd lied about my parents. I'd lied to my parents. I'd lied to drug dealers and cops and the sweet people who worked late at night at gas stations, pretending that they didn't know the life I had. I'd lied to the social workers, people at rehab, counselors, teachers, friends. I'd told lies to my brother. It was telling the truth that was difficult.

I'd spent hours in an interview room with different officers and detectives coming in to pry whatever information they could out of me. They knew my name within an hour. They knew where I had lied and who my parents were and pretty much all there was to know about me within two. Not once did I give them anything that they could use. Not when they threatened me with years of juvie and then being transferred to an adult prison when I turned eighteen. Not when they threatened to bring in my brother and tried to play the "what would my brother think" card on me. They tried to feed me information that the others had supposedly told them.

I'd cursed and insulted them. It'd only gotten worse as the drugs had started leaving my system and I started craving a high. They'd taunt me, saying they'd let me have a cigarette or whatever if I told them something. I was past needing a cigarette. After I'd thrown up on the table, they'd put me in a cell where a doctor or a nurse—I was too fucked up to pay attention—would check on me. Eventually, the charges were filed, and I was taken to a rehab center to await my trial.

I'd been so angry for so long. I'd finally start to get a grasp on it and then something would set me off. A meeting with my court-appointed lawyer, someone making a comment at group, another hearing. Juvie taught me how to suppress it, but it would come out in bursts and my sentence would get stretched out further. Once I started meeting with the counselor daily, more than once a day even, it made it so much better.

A lot of the anger had been pent-up stress. Being able to meet with the counselor, something that I was very reluctant to do at first, had helped more than I would have ever expected it to. That and my sponsor would give me a kick in the ass to get me back in line.

"Great news!" Maia said to me a few weeks after our movie night. She leaned against the locker next to me and held up a paper bag. "My grandma made the three of us lunch. That and Heather wants to join us."