SHOUT - Adopted by Lin Manuel Miranda

FLATLINE

The officer drives the three of us to the police station. He holds us there for an hour before confirming with Lin that the Mirandas are my legal guardians and it's safe for me to return home with them.

By the time we get back to the apartment, it's 9:00 at night. Lin walks in ahead of Vanessa and I. He paces the length of the living room before spinning around and pointing towards the hallway. "Vanessa, I gotta talk to her alone."

Vanessa hesitates. "Lin—"

"Go," he tells her. Something in his tone makes her know not to argue. She glances from me to Lin before reaching back to close the open door. I want to tell her to stay, but before I can claw out the words, the bedroom door shuts softly behind her.

The moment she's gone, Lin turns to face me. "Alright, I wanna know how long you were hiding that ticket."

"Why does it matter?"

"How long has this been going on?" He asks, daring me to mouth off again.

I gulp and shake my head. "A month. It was only a month."

"Only a month. Only a month, you were hiding a plane ticket to Pakistan in our own god damn apartment for only a month—"

"What do you—!?"

I cut myself off. Something about the way he said Pakistan like the word was expired makes me too furious to speak.

Lin steps toward me. "What? What do I what?"

"Nothing," I say.

"Nothing." He crosses his arms. "Tell me how much you took."

"What?"

"I'm not an idiot, Vidya, how much did you take?"

"I don't remember," I lie.

He raises his eyebrows. "You don't remember." He takes a step toward me. "How do you expect me to trust you after this, huh?"

All the lights are still off except the automatic lamp in the kitchen. The gravity in the room seems to shift until it's difficult to stand.

"Hey," he snaps. "Look at me."

I stare at the ground and don't move.

He moves toward me. I back away from him and slam into the wall so hard, my ears ring on impact. When he catches up to me, he yanks my duffel bag from my shoulder and throws it to the ground. "Look at me, Vidya."

His voice is razor sharp. I breathe in enough air that the room stops spinning and look him in the face.

He stares at me for a moment before speaking. "When I asked if I could trust you with that credit card, you said yes."

"You can't say shit, Miranda. If you were me you'd wanna get out of here, too."

He backs away a few steps and crosses his arms again. "Huh." He chews on his lip for a moment. "Is that so?"

I watch him glare at me. When I don't react, he tilts his head toward me. "No, I think if I were you I would have thought about the consequences of my actions."

I pick my duffel bag up off the floor and sling it over my shoulder. I try to walk around him to the guest room but he blocks my way. "We are not done—"

"Look, I get it! I get it, I'm a screw up, and you're mad, and— I'll pay you back, I'll—"

"Is that what you think this is about?" He asks. "The money?"

"Isn't that what everything is about?"

"Forget the cash, Vidya, that's not what I'm thinking about. I'm thinking about your life. I'm thinking about Vanessa too, Vidya, I'm thinking about Sebastian."

My voice cracks. "Sebastian?"

"That kid looks up to you. And if you're gonna be running away, catching planes to God knows where, you think I want him growing up following that example?"

"My example?" I step closer to him and ball my fists. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I know you had it rough, Vidya. And I know you didn't grow up in a safe home, and I wish you knew how angry that makes me, but..." He widens his eyes and points to Sebastian's closed door. "That kid knows about things he shouldn't know exists, he's talking about gangs and fights and ra—"

"And that's my fault."

"You're damn right, it's your fault!"

I stare him in the face and wait for him to lunge out at me, slap me, do anything but stand there and look at me like I'm some failed experiment he spent his whole life working on. I try to swallow, but it feels like there's a bullet lodged in my throat that'll shoot out at him if he says the wrong thing.

He drops his hands to his sides. "I tried," he whispers. "I tried so hard for you, Vidya."

I shake my head. "You—"

"I what? Think I didn't try?" His tone is suddenly harsh again. "I wish you knew how much faith I had in you. I wish you knew how many times I prayed for you, and how much you made me think I could trust you. You think it doesn't hurt me, what you did?"

"I'm sorry!" I shout.

"Sorry isn't enough." He spits out each word. "This isn't just about me, this is about my trust in you. This is about my kid." His voice is raspy from shouting. "He can't grow up with this stuff in his head."

The iron beneath my skin begins to crack. "So what are you gonna do, huh?" I fling my duffel bag to the ground and get in his face. "Gonna put me back in the doggy pound? Get rid of me for good?"

"I don't know, Vidya." He brushes past me. I spin around to watch him. He sits heavily at the table and puts his head in his hands. "I don't know."

The iron cracks some more. I hear it crackling beneath my skin and splitting open like I stomped on a sheet of thin ice. The fear I have of what's beneath it triggers the bullet in my throat to shoot out from my mouth and hurtle into his face. "'Cause you think I care, right?" I shout. "Think I can't survive on my own? Guess what, alone was my life before here, and I'll be glad to go back, I've been waiting for this since the day—"

He jumps up from the chair as if my words gave him an electric shock. "Then go!" He pushes out from the table so hard, the chair slams into the floor. "If you're really that miserable, then leave!"

I don't realize what either of us have said until my heartbeat downshifts and the iron beneath my skin splits down the middle and sheds to the floor. His words hit my gut in a way that makes me feel like I'm the one who said them. "What do you mean—"

"You heard me, dammit."

He lurches forward and grabs my arm. I gasp. Flames rage behind his eyes. I want to say something to fix this, but we're so far beyond the point of no return, I'm not sure he'd hear me. He tightens his grip, pulling me towards him. His free hand is balled into a fist. He could cuss me out, humiliate me, or lose every last bit of trust in me and we'd both find a way to live with it. But he's never hit me. Not once.

I brace myself.

He exhales and lets go. When I open my eyes, he's backing slowly away from me into the hallway.

"You can go back to the group home," he says, barely loud enough for me to hear. "You can go to the CPS, tell them what a monster I am. Go use those plane tickets, for all I care." He drops his hands to his sides. "Because I'm done."

The slam of his bedroom door shatters every bone in my body.