New Horizons (5 page)

There was more cursing coming from outside the room, masculine voices, going back-and-forth about wanting different things than what was going on. Someone wanted an explanation, but nobody was giving it to him. I shifted my weight from one ass cheek to the other, and waited for the boys to give up. It was so much easier that way.

The door opened and a group of boys joined us. That wasn’t exciting to me. There was nothing worse than being around boys. Boys were fucking exhausting and always pushing girls into doing stupid things. Every boy I saw just reminded me of Jordan, and it made me annoyed to even look at their angry gazes. It was like they thought they were going through something different than us girls. We were just getting over it faster.

I turned my head so I didn't have to look at anyone. When I saw Larry walk past me, I put my head down on the table. Listening to him breathe and shuffle his papers around was enough to irritate me.

"We're going to watch a very short orientation film about this program. All eyes on the board please," he said.

The video began to play shortly after his speech. I stayed how I was, with my head on the table. I was completely content like that because I couldn’t see anyone, and I pretended they couldn’t see me. I wish that was a thing. But it wasn’t.

There was a tap on my desk.

I kept my head down and pretended to be oblivious to my surroundings.

"Valerie.”

I opened my eyes and peered up at Larry. “Yes?”

“Please lift your head off the table."

I lifted it up slightly and kept eye contact with him.

“Thank you.”

I smiled. Because I wanted to be pleasant and I didn’t want him to think he could say anything to bother me. Because he really couldn't—

“That wasn’t too hard now was it?”

I smirked. My pleasant behaviour was already flying out the window. There was nothing I could do to hold back. It was just a waiting game for when I was going to burst.

“Is there a problem?” he asked.

"Screw you,” I said. My head found its resting place on the table again. I was tired. And when you were tired, it was normal to rest. But for some reason, there was no amount of rest that could solve the kind of tired I had going on in my system. It was the kind that required a complete shutdown or reset, and at that point, I was ready to just be broken in half.

From what it sounded like, I had done something wrong. People behind me were whispering and giggling after my freedom of speech. Apparently I was the first person to test the waters. Next thing I heard were footsteps across the room and the classroom door being opened and shut.

The whispers grew louder.

“She’s actually crazy.”

I wasn’t crazy. I was tired. I was so tired that I was comfortable resting my eyes in a room full of strangers, and telling an old man to screw off. It was stupid, and I knew it was stupid, and when you did things you knew were stupid, you had issues that anyone could point out right away.

The door re-opened. And I was aware that footsteps were quick and headed right for me. I stayed completely still and anticipated being yelled at—maybe being punched in the back. Something violent where I could fall on the floor and lay there and make a great scene.

No one hit me.

Instead, someone pulled me up out of my seat. It was just as exciting. I ripped my arm from the counsellors grasp. When I looked at him I realized it was Avril. Just behind me, Burrito Eater wrapped his freckled arms around me and lifted me off the ground.

I kicked at Avril. For a couple seconds he couldn’t get a hold of my flailing limbs. Everyone was screaming and hollering, and it would have almost been exciting if it wasn’t happening to me. It was another scene I would’ve liked to see someone else act out.

Avril eventually got a hold of my legs and lifted my bottom half up. I didn't want them taking me back to solitary confinement. I couldn't handle more time in there. They began to walk my kicking and swearing body out of the room. It was so different than last time when I had let it all happen. This time I had an audience I needed to scare. I wanted everyone to know not to mess with me.

“Get her out of here,” Larry yelled.

I thrashed even harder against the men just to show the residents and Larry that I wasn’t there to get well. It was just a crazy display of the girl who was where she needed to be. But that wasn’t the case in my head. I was fine, bored even, and it was something to do. And just as I was leaving through the door, satisfied with my moment, I made eye contact with the last boy in the row. He had a buzz cut, bushy eyebrows, and two black eyes.

“You’re exhausting,” he said.

I went limp.

Avril and Burrito Eater took me out of the classroom. The scene was over and I didn’t care about it anymore. I was back to being dead because someone had snapped me out of it. Told me I wasn’t actually all that wild—just annoying and desperate.

There was a chair in the hallway. It had no arms, and when they put me in it, I stayed completely still. I felt like a statue and I stared at the wall across from me. It was cement.

Larry came out of the classroom minutes later. I could still hear the video playing. I felt his eyes on me but I stayed looking at the wall. For a cement wall, it sure had a lot of dents.

“I know a month seems like a long time, but it will seem even longer if you don’t pick up your feet and do something with yourself while you’re here.”

I kept my eyes forward. It was a lot to take in.

“I see how it is.”

I smiled. “What? I’m being obedient.”

“Don’t be a smartass. You’re not a kid. You’re here because you need help. This place isn’t summer camp.”

“Actually, it’s funny you should say that—”

“We’re warning you, Valerie.” He turned his back.

“No one has warned me about anything yet, actually.”

He left me with Avril and Burrito Eater. They stood on either side of me while I listened to the video about New Horizons play in the other room. It talked about being the only program in the province with both freedom and security. How it wasn’t a correctional facility, but an opportunity to better ourselves. We were to think of the experience as a privilege—a chance to re-energize away from our everyday lives.

But in my head, it was still that summer camp where acne first popped up on my chin, and my brace face learned to kiss. It was a so-called facility for troubled youth, in a summer camp that Patty Slaunwhite had funded, and Uncle Mike had sold out of sadness.

Now, without warning, we were all Stones.

The video turned off after a while and the groups came out of the room. I glanced up and down at the residents as they moved along the hallway. We all looked the same. The buzz cut guy looked right at me as he walked with the army of other troubled youth.

He rolled his eyes.

“Like I care,” I told him. But I did. There were a lot of annoying things a person could do, and the small, simple ones, like an eye roll in my direction, had the capacity to make my blood slosh around inside of me.

He had two bruises around his eyes. They were purple, green and black that circled around the sockets, and emphasized the whites around his pupils. His face was full of colours, and his irises were grey. A lonely, pathetic grey.

I imagined what it would be like to jump out of my seat and strangle him. But I had no idea who he was, and I wanted to be good for at least ten minutes. Right then I was the bad kid who had been sent out of the room. Nobody wanted anything to do with me, and it was kind of nice. But when everyone was gone, a woman came out of another room, ruining my alone time.

“Hello,” she said. She looked at the two huge men beside me. “I will take her from here.”

Burrito Eater and Avril left her alone with me. Maybe that wasn’t too smart.

I looked at the old woman. Everything about her—from her clothes to her face—was crumbling. I wondered what held her together from the inside. I bet her bones were about to crack. With her frail condition, she seemed like the kind of person who could pass away from a broken ankle. She was an old, family horse that was there just because somebody couldn’t stomach getting rid of her.

“I’m Sharon and I’m your group counsellor.” She held out her hand.

I shook it but didn’t bother telling her my name. I was so confused by her.

Sharon had grey hair that was rolled into a bun and wire glasses that she wore low on her nose. Maybe she didn’t know that glasses could come in plastic. When she moved, she walked with a hunch, as if she had just pulled her lower back. Her wrists were limp, and it looked like she was waiting for her nails to dry after painting them.

My favourite part about Sharon were her wrinkles. They weren’t deep, but they were definitely there and pointlessly scattered across her face. They were what made me wonder if she was barely alive, or nowhere near dead. She had to be a hundred. Or sixty. She reminded me of Patty Slaunwhite before she got ovarian cancer and croaked. And Granny, before she died of a little bit of everything.

“There are several new residents for this summer, as you’ve seen in the classroom. There are thirty-two residents currently in the program, and you twelve are the last for the summer. These will be your cabin mates—boys with boys, and girls with girls, of course. You all start out at the same Stone level, but that doesn’t mean you will all be progressing together. At the end of each day, you’re all there to help each other out. We’re each other’s support team. We encourage each other to be the best version of ourselves that we can be.”

I was pretty sure that I was already the best version of myself. And that was sad because my version wasn’t anything special. Everything I could achieve in life felt like it was out of my reach, and since it was so far away, I didn’t want to go for it. But I didn’t bother telling her that. I let her take me out to meet my new cabin mates. They were all waiting for me down the hall in the lobby, looking irritated by me already.

“This is your group,” Sharon said.

There were five other girls staring at me. We all matched in our plain uniforms, but none of it looked the same on us. It was funny how clothing was subjective. There were many different ways that a t-shirt and shorts could go horribly wrong, all depending on what body they were placed with.

“Oh Jesus Christ on a cross.”

Even though I knew someone was just trying to provoke me, I looked over at the girl who was already bringing Jesus into it. I smiled. “It’s Val, actually.”

“I don’t care about names,” she said.

“Sure you don’t.”

The girl was the only one really looking at me. Maybe because I was looking at her. She was the widest of the group, and she had a braid on either side of her head. They were tight, precise braids, with fuzzy fly away hairs. I wondered why she got to have two hair elastics when I was only allowed one.

Sharon came between the braided girl and I. We separated, and Sharon led us to our table in the mess hall.

“This is our table. This is the only table you’re allowed to eat at. No eating alone. No eating with other groups. You ladies only have each other, and that’s how you survive here.”

We all took a seat at our new family table. Braids and I ended up next to each other. A counsellor wearing an apron came out of the kitchen carrying a huge pot with a lid. Steam came from the pot and blew around her as she walked. Sharon went away and came back with styrofoam bowls and plastic spoons. I thought about stealing a spoon in case I needed to make a shank later, but I wasn’t sure if it’d be that kind of a program.

It was tomato soup for supper. No crackers. No anything else. Just red soup in deep, disposable bowls. It was a plain and simple, poor person meal.

“Eat up, you missed lunch because of orientation. Normally it’s not this late, it’s almost supper. The only rule is that you eat what you take.”

We each dipped the large ladle into the pot and served ourselves. I had been hungry earlier, until I got so hungry that I wasn’t hungry anymore. It was more of a nauseous thirst. I took about a cup full and looked down at it, waiting for it to become cold. It was the only way I could eat something hot. After about a half-hour, I had gotten down most of it.

“Please follow me to your cabin. Again, no talking at all. Just look with your eyes and breathe through your nose.”

I stayed at the back of the line as we were led out of the building. The property really was exactly how I remembered it, but just a little more overgrown and rundown. It was such a shame that people had to go and die and ruin things for other people.

It was already late in the day when we left the mess hall building. There was a sunset beginning to peak through the trees, and I couldn’t wait to lie down. The day had flown by, but most of it was wasted from sitting around between tours, and listening to the rules of the place. It was a restless process, and it took a while for each and every resident to cooperate. I was obedient out of sheer boredom, and the entire day I was waiting for something to do. And then out of nowhere, the sky was dark and scattered with stars.

Sharon led us toward the woods and my heart began to hurt when I realized what path we were on. The tree branches reached out and touched the skin on my bare arms, and it felt like I was walking down a magical, childhood path.