Only the Moon Watching

Chapter 59: At Least I'm in Love

It suddenly feels like my first day in the cafeteria, all over again. I don't know where to sit. I don't have Shiv's protection. I can't trust any of the girls we used to hang out with.

I already know Vapor was in on Shiv's plan – she's the one who got to Mike on the outside. Tangler must know about it, too, no way she'd let Chet speak freely to another woman unless she was getting something out of it... and Ripper – well, I've never wanted to be alone with Ripper...

I sit by myself, as close to Garda Girdle as possible, just in case I need her help. When she goes to get a Powerade, I follow her, pretending I need to throw something in the trash. When she goes to eavesdrop on someone using a phone, I toss something else. By the end of lunch I've thrown away all my food without eating it.

I go to the library next: I have to trash every kite Steak ever sent me. I'll never be able to trust they really came from him. (Shiv said he wasn't in on the plan but she could be lying. For the past two months she's lied to my face every day about being my friend, protecting me, having my back...)

The library's empty. Pin-drop silent. Moldering. As usual.

I hurry to the Romance section, knocking the little water stained post-it label off the wall in my haste to grab Cat's Cradle and tear up the letters...

But it isn't on the shelf. I drop to my knees and search the others: The Notebook, Jane Austen, Jane Austen, The Fault in Our Stars... Where is it? Did someone check it out?

I panic. My spine tingles at the thought of someone – Shiv, or Kristina Kelly – laughing at my letters. Laughing at how stupid I was to open myself up to Steak! And how immediately I'd done it! In our very first correspondence I was already excited, it's probably clear as day that I'd hoped he really would fall for me and we'd have some silly locked-up love story...

If you're a jailbird I'm a jailbird, he'd said.

How stupid I'd been to believe it! And to believe Shiv and –

"Hey. Looking for this?"
Still on my knees, I turn to see Steak, Cat's Cradle clutched to his chest in the aisle way.

"I thought you'd lost privileges!"
"Final favor from Chet's guard. One last visit alone to the library... Chet told me to bring a picnic."
I want to laugh, but still can't tell if I can trust him.

"I want to trash those," I say, pointing to the letters bulging out of the book. "I don't want them anymore."

"I know," Steak says. "Chet told me everything when you went to Ad-Seg, Jos, I'm so sorry. I wasn't–"

I laugh, startling myself with how bitter I sound. "That's what Shiv said too, that you weren't in on it. But you kept asking me about Mike! Asking when I was going to talk to him to –"

"To check up on my girlfriend!"

"What?"

My anger falters. I'm suddenly confused.
"Here. Look." Steak brings me the letters and sits next to me on the floor, his legs crossed, face set with determination: "Chet confessed everything, when you went into Ad-Seg. I was freaked out, so he promised me Shiv would get you out. It was all part of the plan...

"I wanted to read through the kites and find everything Chet added or changed. At first, he wasn't messing with anything. Just rewriting whatever I'd written. But then... I never went off my medication, anytime Adderall is mentioned, that was him. And the bit about asking Mike to bring more in, I never said that–" He points to his – I mean, Chet's – handwriting.