The Innocents

Chapter Twenty-Four

On the last day I saw Jackson the visiting room was full so we didn't have a table to ourselves.

I waited behind the shatter proof glass, keeping an eye at the door. There was a girl from The Thorn there. Her name was Clara and she was small and brittle like one of those accidental anorexic looking girls. Like a small breeze would blow her over. She talked on and on all the time about her parents but nobody had ever seen them. She said that day that they were definitely coming. For her sake, I hoped so otherwise we would have to rename our ward.

The visitors poured in. I saw Jackson right away. His hair was combed back the way I liked it and wearing head to toe black. I guess I should have seen the symbolism there.

The hands on the clock moved, but he didn't. He stood with his back to me. I knew that he could see me in his peripheral when he turned his head slightly but he was treating me like some sort of Medusa. Then he walked the length of the room, rounded it so that when he walked back toward the door he would have to walk past me. I stood up as he approached, but he just kept on walking.

He could have at least said goodbye, give me some small sense that he cared even just a little bit. His silence was crueler than any words he could had spoken.

He walked away from my life. Not a glance. Nothing.

The cafeteria was serving meatloaf a few days after that, both for lunch and dinner which was a change from the fish and a good change at that. I hadn't gotten much sleep, my appeal working its way through my every thought. I had to force myself to move past the idea that maybe what I was doing was wrong and a ball would drop into my stomach making me feel heavy and dizzy all at once. The other side of me just said, what do you have to lose? I sided with that one because it didn't make me feel like crap.

There was something in the air that day that stunk and it was the kind you couldn't find the origin of so it made it hard to eradicate. Everyone was doing their normal thing. Jo was laughing over a joke Marla had told her and Fidola was indifferent, mashing her food together like it was a work of art until she left to wallow someplace quieter. Across the room Gladey sat with a pair of other girls from the other wards. They all looked like witches. One even cackled like one. Gladey shot a glare my way and I returned it with a smile.

Somebody turned the tvs on. I didn't see who, but it had to be one of the four guards in the cafeteria that day. I only knew their last names and they were, Holden, Grazinsky, Powell and Rooney. Anyhow, it could have been any one of them, but the point is moot. They were on and that is where everybody was now looking. Something felt off. Something felt wrong here.

The news was on. It was some Special Report with Mason Rathburger and Jean Gillian Withacker and they were standing in front of a building that looked oddly like my college and that was the second indication. The camera panned from Mason to Jackson. I felt my heart sink into my stomach.

"The appeal is underway for Salem State student, Drew Masterson accused and convicted of defamation of fellow classmate and son of wealthy business tycoon Mitchell Sills," Mason said. The camera panned back to Jackson. "Tell us, you were involved with Ms. Masterson very closely, am I correct in that assumption?"

Jackson was wearing an argyle sweater with a dress shirt underneath. He had on dress slacks and church shoes. He looked like somebody who had just raided his grandfather's closet. It didn't look like him at all. His hands were folded on his crossed legs and his head was tilted as he listened to the reporters. What had happened to the wild haired boy who always seemed more distracted by something shiny in the room than to speak and actually listen to adults?