SHOUT - Adopted by Lin Manuel Miranda

JEREMIED

In case I forgot that the system wants to put me in a safe and welcoming environment with safe and welcoming people so they can get paid and I can grow up and break free of this insanity, I have to meet with Jeremy once a month to reassure him that The Mirandas are not cannibalizing me.

I take the subway to The Bronx after lunch. Lin wants to sit in on the meeting but I play the sad insecure foster kid card and tell him that privacy will make our relationship stronger. If that was overtly false, he didn't challenge me. He walks me to the station and waves from the platform as the train leaves.

The South Bronx hasn't changed. The people remember me. Jamal from the basketball court waves and asks if I'm up for one-on-one. I still owe him $250, as the consequence of a bet we made and a basket I didn't make. I walk past without looking his way. Ricardo from the deli glares through the window as I pass his shop. Ricardo and I have a history. The deli was my favorite place to steal from. I love sandwiches.

Hope House is a three story town house. Hand prints are painted on the front steps— probably from one of the girls pinning some runt to the ground during arts n' crafts. The door shakes when I slam it shut. Ruth from the reception desk says oh God when I pass. That woman has a pencil tip embedded in her hand from the time she tried to stop me from drawing mehdni on my health records. Art imitates life. I drew her grave the next day in art therapy.

Jeremy's office is in the basement. He has a seedy cubicle with two wooden chairs and a prehistoric computer that he shuts each time someone walks by. I don't answer when he says hello. He pulls out his notepad and pours me warm coke in a Styrofoam cup meant for coffee. I remember all the times I sat here and lied about everything. There was no use telling the truth. Those counselors heard what they wanted to hear.

"So!" Jeremy sits across from me and clicks his zebra-print pen. "How are you?"

"I am so great!"

He puts his head in his hands and rubs the creases on his forehead. "Vidya--"

He knows me too well. I sink my teeth into the Styrofoam. What would happen if I told him the truth? That every step feels like molasses? That I stopped taking my meds because they sucked the Vidya from my brain and turned me to stone? That I would love to take a cozy nap smack in the middle of the subway tracks?

I grin. "Vidya, what? I'm honestly so happy."

"Tell me about The Mirandas, then."

I spin around in the office chair. "You know all the dirt on them, you are the one who dumped me on these people."

He keeps clicking his pen. "I want to know what you think."

"Wanna know what I think?" I snatch the pen from his hand. "I think you should cut that out. It's real annoying. You know what, Jeremy?" I roll back in my chair when he reaches for the pen. "I'll make you a deal, alright?"

"Um. Okay." He cleans his glasses with his shirt.

"I'll tell you all the juicy secrets on life with the Mirandas, the dark details that make the crowd go wild. But you gotta shut the hell up with this pen."

"Okay, okay. I'll use a pencil. You happy?"

"Why do you take notes on this crap, anyway?"

"Vidya--"

"I'm pleased as pie. Is that what they say? That's the crap people like you say."

"Vidya--?"

I whirl around in the chair again. "Why don't you do something else for me?"

"Okay."

"Use this ink for something nice, huh?" I click the zebra pen. "Write your mother a letter. Sign a check for the homeless. Learn a new language. Make someone happy instead of making me miserable with your stupid notes."

He doodles a lightening bolt on the note sheet with his pencil. "Fine, Vidya. Now will you please tell me about the Mirandas?"

I never realized how grateful I should be that I'm not here anymore. Younger kids were allowed to stay at Hope House, but I hit the big one-three and it was either foster care or a plot of land on the sidewalk, free of charge. I'm counting down the milliseconds until I hit the even bigger one-eight so I can escape the system. My life swaddles me with rules: I have to smile to make a good impression on my benevolent foster parents. That's what Jeremy tells me. I have to show my pearly whites and cross my legs at the table. Roll over. Sit. Good girl. What will he do, give me a milk bone? I feel sorry for him, though. He can't be older than forty and he's already strolling down a dangerous path of screw-ups. Kids like me make Jeremy's hair turn a premature gray. I don't need to see a shrink. I don't need to be straight-jacketed in a spongy walled room, and he knows as well as anyone, I'm confident in my fortitude.

I lie about everything so the meeting ends quicker.

Lin thinks Jeremy is going to drive me home. Did he really think I'd follow through on that? I tell Jeremy that Lin is waiting outside and leave without saying goodbye. I walk around the block and buy a pack of bubble gum from a nearby cigarette stand, then walk two blocks in the other direction to the subway station. I take the F train back uptown and walk three loops around the neighborhood. This time of year, it's hard to tell whether it's afternoon or evening. The leaves are changing colors. I notice when I pass a cluster of them, all red and brown and yellow, on the bank of the Harlem River. There's a distant bonfire scent, a mix of cigarettes and leaves. I stick my third piece of bubblegum into my mouth and continue my walk. I kick leaves around the sidewalk as I go.

Halfway through my fourth loop around the neighborhood, I run into a man sitting outside Fort Washington Library with a sign saying, Will play for food. He's got a harmonica. He stops whatever he was playing when I stop to watch him. He plays three rounds of London Bridge for me before asking if my folks will be worrying. I tell him no, but give him five bucks and the rest of my bubblegum. "Bless your heart," he says, when I tell him that's all I got. I re-zip my jacket before heading for the bridge. The Hudson is remarkable in sunset.

It feels good to be outside. I've spent so much time holed in the guest room, I've forgotten what air feels like on my skin. When I reach the bridge, I lean on a stone ledge beside the road overlooking the Hudson. I see Washington Point in the distance. Something about that makes me furious about the fact that I have no where else to go. Because my parents screwed up, I automatically became a teenage cargo, shipped across the city and given a one-way ticket to Mirandaland. School is no better. I practice some mehdni during class. I mostly read the horror stories behind my closed eyelids.

It's getting harder to breath. My lungs feel clogged with cement and my throat feels raw. When I wake up in the morning, my palm is bleeding from clenching my fists so tight. Sometimes I'm happy when I draw mehdni. Each time I try to talk to the Mirandas or Jeremy, I swear and puke up angry sentences. I wish there was another side of me, a nicer Vidyagirl who would switch on whenever I had conversations.

I know this isn't normal. I want to escape, cross the ocean, zap myself into another galaxy. I want to shake each thing that has happened and dump all the fear and blood and scar tissue into the Hudson. There's no loophole, no escape. Being outside is a pleasant thing, though, somewhere I can go to release these thoughts in the air where no one can hear them.