WHERE THE LOST ONES WILL GO

one

His face looks paler today. I suppose he looks older too.

Dylan is twenty as of last Wednesday. I could not visit him then, for obvious reasons, but the last time I did see him was a few months ago: back when his brown hair was a little shorter, and the hazy look in his eyes had settled.

He's got taller too, if that's possible. We used to stand and compare our heights – which is not the most accurate measure, considering the distance between us, and the glass wall that divides us into two different rooms – but the prison guards would glare at the sudden movement, and Dylan's a pussy who hates getting in trouble, so it's been a while. He thinks they'll suspend his visiting hours or something along those lines, so now, we just talk for the few hours we see each other.

Well, we talk when we finish staring.

I am never the first to crack.

Dylan says, "Only three more weeks, Jude."

He says this like I do not know. As if I haven't been counting down the days since I've ended up here.

"Oh, really?" comes my sarcastic response.

Dylan frowns. He's always frowning. I suppose there's nothing to be happy about between these thick walls of metal and brick, with the looming presence of a guard at every corner.

"Don't get into trouble," he lectures me. "That's what I mean."

I sigh. I don't actively put myself into trouble. Rather, it's the opposite - it finds me. It hides between corners and crevices, and when I am minding my own business, it jumps. Dylan's visiting hours get taken away, and then I hear his lectures on the phone, until enough time has passed, and the cycle repeats again.

I have the tendency to blame everyone else for my own wrongdoings.

Dylan knows this. This is why his eyebrows are raised in disbelief, and he scoffs, when I say, "I never get into trouble, I'm just somehow always caught in the crossfire."

"Is that so?" his voice goes low.

I nod slowly and fold my arms tightly against my chest. "I don't ask to get punched in the face."

Dylan raises his eyebrows.

He has a very punchable face — I have often reminded him of his. Too bad that it's not the best look for me, as a juvenile to go around saying this. Soon to be ex-juvenile, though. I'll be out soon. I am very aware, however, that this freedom can be taken away from me so easily if I act out.

Dylan is right on many occasions (not that I would admit this). But he is most definitely wrong when he assumes that I am asking for the trouble I find myself in.

I do not want to be here. There is nothing I hate more than this place.

A few years ago, I would have said differently. Fifteen-year-old Jude would be glad with the mere thought of leaving our small house of locked doors and shallow light.

I am seventeen years old and feel like I know more than I should. I know that there are far worse places than here, but I also know that I am allowed to despise this place for what it has done to me.

I am excited to leave here, and return to our small apartment in Chicago, and watch the bright city lights and feel the sounds of the busy cars under our windows. I am a different person, but I am excited, a little too excited, with the thought of returning to normality. I do not mean returning to my childhood home, though. I will never go back there. Dylan has his own small apartment that was my own during the last few months of fifteen — before I was taken away.

Dylan does not talk about his life now. He does not speak of the apartment, and the lights, and the sounds. He must think that I will grow sad if he speaks about everything I am missing out on. He could not be more wrong. Life past these walls is all I think about nowadays. Freedom is close. It tastes sweet.

My brother and I are three years apart in age. We don't talk about our feelings. I won't tell him that I miss the outside, that I want him to divulge everything I miss, and he won't tell me the worries on his mind.

"What do you want to do," Dylan then says, quieter, softer, "when you're out?"

My throat closes. He asks this question many times, and I never have an answer.

"I don't know," I usually say. But right now, at this very moment, I know exactly what I want. "I want the triple-stacked chocolate-chip pancakes from the diner across your apartment."

Dylan's face changes. "Jude–"

I continue, "Or a tattoo."

Dylan stops. He raises his eyebrows at my ultimatum.

"You're not getting a tattoo."

I chuckle and examine my short nails. "You can't stop me in a year."

"You're right," Dylan grumbles. There is a look on his face, that I can't decipher. A mix of apprehension and something else. The look drops shortly after, when he says, "The pancakes it is."

"Good."

"Good," he says.

We talk a little more. We never talk enough. Dylan soon has to leave. We can't hug. Sometimes he forgets this, sometimes I see his arms raise a fraction of an inch before he drops them and gives me a small smile instead. I watch him leave. He stuffs his hands in the pockets of his jean jacket, and then he is gone.

///

updates will get longer as the story progresses!!

see u next saturday ;)