NOVEL WEB You’re On Your Own, Kid
CW: Body issues / talk of starvation, slurbaiting, talk of suicide
October 21, 2022
Leigh
“Hey, Leigh, where’d you get the quiche?” Maia, a third year, asked me quizzically, deftly pouring a cup of steaming milk into her Weetabix before adding a small amount of the milk to her tea. Her voice was still a bit rough, seeming androgynous rather than the feminine lilt that was expected out of a graduate of Dorley Hall.
“You snooze, you lose, young one.” Some laughter was heard from the four other third years, who themselves each had the other four remaining slices.
“I’m older than you.”
“Not according to your NPH, you won’t be.” I took another bite. Ham and gruyère. A classic. Simple. With a little bit of grainy mustard, it was a nice pick-me-up after a run.
“Christine, do I really have to be a fucking child on my new history?” Maia groaned, looking over at her sponsor as she passed the hot milk to her.
“Yes, Maia. You signed up for this when you pulled a Steph.” I watched Christine put the tiniest splash into two separate mugs of coffee. One of them was one of the trifecta of “I’m the Mom Who Stepped Up” mugs reserved for Christine; Indira, and Tabby. When you do what any of those women do, you deserve something special. For Christine in particular, wrangling the third years while also babysitting the world’s most annoying hacker and keeping the security maintained, two cups of coffee to start the day probably wasn’t enough. “Now, eat your Weetabix, and after your voice training lessons, we can do some pen testing.”
“Fuck yeah!” Maia exclaimed, drizzling some honey from a container before using a spoon to furiously mix the concoction together.
“Honestly, don’t know how you enjoy that stuff, Maia,” I replied, looking down at my food. “If I never have to eat another brick of it again, it’ll be too soon.”
“So, why aren’t you downstairs yet today, Leigh?” Indira asked me between bites of a veggie scramble. “I thought today was the first…” She set down her fork and added scare quotes, “‘vitamin shot’.”
“It’s not even time for the boys to wake up yet. Oh, and Jace and the other new kid aren’t getting it today. I told Jace they’re getting one relatively soon, and they kinda just… took it with the same gusto they take everything down here,” I replied, forking another bite. “Although they wondered aloud if it would make them feel a bit better.”
“Oh, he’s got it bad, doesn’t he?” The elder sponsor at the table replied. “I would just ask him at this point. Maybe he’d be willing to tell you.”
“I agree,” Maia said with a mouthful of Weetabix, before Christine softly tapped her on the top of her head with the side of her palm.
“I’m not sure they’d trust me, you know?” I replied, wincing a bit at the memory of the kid I decided to save saying they’d just try to die again. “They seem willing to go along for the ride. A part of me just wants them to learn when everyone else does.”
“I saw them when I brought them lunch. They sounded pretty bright when they were singing,” Indira said back. “A lot of Taylor Swift, though. I sat by and listened for a few. They were just going to town on “You Belong With Me”. But I get what you’re getting at. Eyes just seemed dead inside.”
“I put them on an assignment of sorts.” Another bite of quiche, mixed with the zing of mustard. “Wanted to take them through the new Swift album that just dropped today.”
“Oh god, that’s today?!” Christine exclaimed, seemingly swerving her head directly for the steaming cup of coffee, before loudly groaning.
“That’s today?” The third years, sans Maia, collectively sang, flashing each other knowing glances before directing their eyes at Christine. The rest of the table couldn’t help but start laughing, the devilish grins on the faces of the soon-to-be graduates saying everything the rest of us needed to know.
“Sorry Christine, but I don’t think I gave them any new information,” I replied between coughs, trying to catch my breath amidst the cacophony of the table.
“Kill me now.”
“Can’t, Teenie,” Indira said, motioning with her fork. “You’re too important to us. So’s that little brat that’s attached to your hip these days.”
“I long for death…” Christine took one of the steaming mugs and started guzzling.
“As long as ‘death’ means ‘enough sleep to keep me going’, I can let that happen,” Indira said, before turning to me. “So… have you listened to any of it yet? Any triggers?”
“I went through it this morning. I have some songs I think they’ll attach to more, but it’s more about the bonding experience.” I replied. “Sadly, from her catalogue, ‘Clean’ seemed too close to home, so I cut it from their rotation.”
“Aww, that’s a good one,” Indira replied. “But I get why you wouldn’t want them getting that one.”
“Yeah… take every precaution you can, you know? Especially with the vulnerable ones. I don’t want to break Jace before they’re ready to be themselves.” The quiche had quickly disappeared as we spoke, so I pushed the plate away and wiped my fingers with the napkin and finally took a sip of tea. “Not everyone can be little miss Steph ‘I knew I was trans from day one’ Riley.”
“Hey, two things,” Christine added, one of her coffees already drained. “First, you probably knew before Steph, if what you and Tabby told us is to be believed. Steph just didn’t push it down. Second… eh, fuck it, I forgot. Indira, how the hell did you handle all this responsibility?”
“Lots of practice. You didn’t get to see me until I had already fucked up hundreds of times. You’re just in the ‘continually fucking up’ stage of things,” Indira replied. She then got up and pulled me from my seat, to my feet, in front of a crowd of laughing women. “Now, Leigh, get down there. It’s 8:45. I’ll clean up your dishes.”
I huffed at being forced out of my seat by a woman almost half a foot shorter than me. “Let me get my tea, and I’ll get down there.”
“Whipped!” I heard Maia shout, before being tapped on the head again by Christine. The third years continued to roar in laughter.
“What promise do you see in that girl, Christine?” I asked.
“Aunt Bea’s the one who saw promise. Don’t ask me.”
“Hey! You’re the one who called me a better hacker than you.” Maia gave her an innocent smile. "And that you believed in me to be a great woman."
“Your blush is telling on you, Teenie.” Indira’s perfect teeth shone brightly. “I’m proud of you. You've come a long way as a sponsor."
“Shut up.”
Jace
Today was the day I was getting released from the room, and supposed to be the day that I would get to listen to some new music with Leigh. Even if my skepticism of the women who seemed to surround me grew by the passing day, I couldn’t deny that there was an excitement to being out of this room.
It felt… small. Felt like sharing my freshman dorm with my roommate in one of the oldest buildings on campus last year. The walls weren’t closing in on me or anything. I knew that they stayed the same size each day. It just meant that the rest of the world, outside the boys in this place with me, had been largely revealed to themselves.
Each meal, a different girl brought me food. I got to know more names. Steph. Bethany. Christine. Mia. Nora. Holly. Indira. Faye. Regina. Monica. Pippa. Patty. Rebecca. Molly. It seemed like those girls would be some of the ones I’d see the most of. A few stayed behind to talk. Mostly about pleasantries. But the times Leigh stayed behind, it felt a bit like my older sister was with me, if only for a brief moment. We talked about music, about life. Every single one of them seemed to know exactly when to leave before I could blow up on them. But the fuse seemed to be longer than before. I couldn’t tell what had changed in just a week. But something did feel… different.
Each of them gave me space to breathe, to catch my bearing, for this place to start to feel familiar. It was unlike the social interactions that I could still remember in my life, and most like my conversations with my sister. Uncomfortable, but never burdensome.
Unfortunately, Monday came around eventually. The time for the physical exam. The meal didn’t arrive. I was left to myself for much longer than expected, breathless, trying to prepare for something I wasn’t sure about.
When it started, however, I couldn’t find much to be worried about. Despite the relative solemnity that hung over the whole affair, It seemed relatively quotidian, like a yearly checkup when I was a teenager. Leigh turned away, poorly hiding a deeply pained expression as they did a once-over on my body. Olivia looked away from me, too. I joined them, looking away from my own body, but otherwise unconcerned with the whole thing.
Olivia seemed to freeze when she saw how calmly I was taking the whole procedure. Why, I couldn’t quite tell.
When I had blood drawn, it was a calm affair. Leigh actually held my hand, letting me squeeze it like a stress ball. I closed my eyes, and it was done relatively quickly. I held the gauze to my arm, and it was taped down. While I breathed heavily, letting the sting of the arm begin to fade away, I heard the two of them mumble about how easy I was in comparison to the rest of the boys. I said nothing, deciding to remain ignorant. Perhaps they weren’t willing to let their blood be drawn by someone who seemed like a doctor to me.
The two women lingered around for fifteen minutes, and when I started to feel a bit lightheaded, they left me a cold carton of apple juice while I felt too disoriented to lash out. Compared to just water, the juice seemed like a lovely little treat, a departure from the lukewarm bottles I had guzzled over the past few days to keep a reasonable water intake up. I preserved it for as long as possible, for well after Olivia and Rabia had departed, taking tiny sips to give me more opportunities to enjoy it. By the time the rest of the liquid was gone, it had already gotten somewhat warm.
Leigh stayed with me during the whole procedure. She asked if I was okay, and was puzzled when I said I was fine. Said it seemed normal. Asked me what the hell sort of doctor situation I had back in the States. I shrugged. They seemed respectful of me. I wasn’t touched more than I needed to be; I didn’t have to look at myself too much, and I got apple juice out of the whole thing.
The subject quickly drifted from that, and onto other subjects. About the music I had been listening to, outside of Taylor Swift; about my talks with Blondie, and even the odd little update on the outside. I had known that a new Waxahatchee project was dropping, and I only asked how it was doing. She said she had checked, and it had good reviews, and I felt a bit of peace. Some consistency in the world. Some things would always be good. Seemed to be anything to get me away from what I had just experienced. But I barely remembered it by then.
And when Leigh had finally left, I just wrapped myself in my blanket, rested, exhausted from the experience. The shouts from Blondie’s cell, and the silence I heard from his side of the wall, indicated that he wouldn’t be there tonight, and by the time he finally quieted, I had rolled over for a nap.
The thoughts of the previous week swirled in my head, the monotony of Tuesday through Thursday, the repetitions of Taylor Swift until more and more songs disappeared from the catalog. The world around me remained the same, no more conversations from Blondie from Tuesday to Thursday. The world remained silent outside of the clockwork, mealtimes brought to me by some beautiful-looking woman, where a passable portion of food came to me and the courier in question gave me varying degrees of attention as I ate, and then regular check-ins by Leigh, who became more and more familiar as we talked pleasantries.
When Blondie finally returned to me, with five raps against the wall on Thursday evening, he complained to me after dinner about something happening tomorrow. He ranted and raved about his annoyance, and I responded nonchalantly about it. Maybe he went to the ‘cells’ I’ve heard so much about beforehand, and now was returning. When he asked me if I had heard anything about it, I told him I hadn’t been told anything. I just had some sort of physical examination on Monday. He actually apologized to me about it. I wasn’t sure why; I just accepted it, mimicked his sympathy. I didn’t want to seem too different.
Our talk was short that night. He wanted to get a good look at me before we talked again between the walls. I went to bed pretty quick after that.
The alarm to wake up had long since passed, and I rested in my bed. I took sips of old water that I had brought to me before bed last night, letting the pleasant pangs of hunger ride themselves before I could actually eat, wondering if maybe this was the time that they’d just let me die.
Starvation would be a painful existence for a while, or so I’ve heard. I’d read about, in moments of curiosity as I stumbled upon them in quests for knowledge, on the hunger strikes that happened in places like Ireland, how it talked about them drifting away, in and out of consciousness, before slipping away forever. I didn’t think I wanted that. But right now? This feeling, the space past the early forms of hunger, the comfort of the rush, was the sort of feeling I’d ride when I was working on something important and couldn’t pull myself away to eat just yet, that surprisingly pleasant lightness, with just the tiniest feelings of dizziness coming from the mild dehydration and the almost euphoric emptiness that permeated under my ribcage.
Still, I couldn’t think of much but food. Even some dry cereal might be enough to satiate me long enough to actually get to eat in the common area this morning. They’d kept me alive on a couple of protein bars and an apple each breakfast for a week now, but by lunch I’d be feeling a gnawing hunger, a need to put whatever was in front of me down into my gullet, and it'd be far worse at dinner. I needed far more than they gave me. But I didn’t want to get any bigger than I was. I did well getting down to a good weight in my first year of college. What they gave me was enough for that purpose.
If I wasn’t exercising anymore, maybe I’ll finally balloon. Become more like my parents. Lose the subtle curve of the waist that I'd earned, that I honestly didn't mind. Not be able to fit the clothes Leigh and the others graciously gave me.
I sighed. Looked in the mirror at the stranger who mimed my movements. Raised up its shirt, sucked in its stomach, felt how far it caved inwards compared to its ribs. Smiled. Perhaps I was mistaken.
Leigh opened the door as I was lost in thought, and I shoved my shirt down, but not before she definitely got a sight of my abdomen. I sighed, looked at her and said, “Good morning.”
“Are you… alright, Jace?”
“I am… very, very hungry, Leigh.”
“I think… I can see that. Let’s get you in the shower first, though, okay?”
“Alright.” I pushed myself out of bed, got myself to my feet. Leigh was already collecting a new pair of sweats for me, her cold cup of tea on the counter next to her.
“Jeez, Jace, how long have you been in that pair of sweatpants?” She asked me as she rummaged through the closet.
“Uh… I don’t think you want to know,” I replied. I heard Leigh groan and she pulled out another of the nameless sets of clothes.
“Alright. You stink, Jace. Get your shower kit and come on,” she replied, and I obliged. I picked it up off of the dresser, grabbed a pair of undies and some under-clothes, and followed her out the door silently.
“Today, we’re gonna take you to the common area. It’s gonna be a little bit until the rest of them join you. You’ll be left alone with me and the other new boy for a little while, if that’s alright. Then you’ll meet the rest of them.”
“Fine,” I replied, going into the shower. Leigh followed me. “Could I… have some privacy first?”
“I need to take your clothes to the wash. You need to change your clothes everyday.” She said something I already knew, but… I was lost in the monotony and sadness of the past few days.
I stripped mechanically, and before I got too far, I looked over at Leigh. She sighed, looked away for a moment, backed away from me. I stripped further, and wrapped a towel around my crotch as quickly as I could. “I’m finished.”
“Alright,” she replied. “Get in the shower, and I’ll collect the unclean clothes after I put your new ones somewhere you can easily access them. Be done in under 10 minutes, or you might meet some of the boys before you’re ready for them.”
That seemed like more a threat than it realistically could’ve been. I threw myself into the shower, letting the water hit me and take me to a different place for a bit as I acclimated to its temperature. Shampoo through my long locks, that seemed oily after days of vague self-neglect. Soap around my body, the first of two coats given my dereliction. I let it wash off, blasting the cool water into my hair to shock me and letting the suds fall over my tilted head.
A second layer of soap. I moved to a little space in the shower where the water didn’t hit. I shuddered from the cool air in the shower, made even cooler by the water hitting the tile. I knew I only had a few minutes, but I wanted it to actually have some time to set. In the meantime, I splashed my hands to get rid of the residue and got some conditioner on my hands and through the follicles.
I felt my back move against the similarly tiled wall. Shivered, reminded of high school locker room showers and the lack of privacy they often entailed. I breathed deeply to calm myself from the memory, trying to give time for the conditioner to work its magic, to give me my silky hair back. At least here, I felt included in something.
I forced myself back under the water, grunting at the sensation reaching the back of my neck, both from the blast of the shower head as well as the water trickling down towards my shoulder blades and down my back. I ran my hands vigorously through, trying to rid the conditioner from my hair, to not let my hair become sticky from its setting and drying. When I felt satisfied, I positioned the head to blast the rest of my body as I turned around-
A jolt went up my whole body, the frisson of the water hitting the back of my neck. I looked up, away from myself, trying to finish this as quickly as I could. I could shave tonight.
I turned off the shower, opened the curtain, and reached for my towel while using the curtain as a cover for my modesty, covering my chest downwards, as I always did. I retreated back inside, and then wrapped the towel around my left arm. I used my right arm, holding the left away, to wring out the excess liquid from my locks, trying in vain to keep the towel completely dry. I hadn’t realized that I touched part of it to the wet wall.
Regardless, I started to fluff my hair wildly with it, trying to clear out most of the water. While doing this, I realized that there was a second shower running. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. I disregarded it, leaving my hair uncomfortably wet, before quickly using the towel to wipe off some of the liquid before re-wrapping the towel, long enough to cover both my chest and my privates, around my form with a tight seal.
I reached for my undergarments and retreated back inside. Without removing the towel, using a skill I had long practiced, I slipped the boxers onto my legs and up and over my crotch. I then unwrapped the towel, sighing in relief. As I reached for my shirt, I heard the water in the other shower turn off. I quickly retreated back to my shower.
“Would’ve liked it warmer, Beth!” A voice I didn’t recognize whined confidently in the shower room. It sounded… artificially high for a boy’s voice, but it still had enough qualities that rooted it as firmly masculine. “If you had been here earlier, it would’ve been!” Beth replied, making me involuntarily chuckle as I put on my shirt.
“Whatever! Am I getting breakfast now? I’m fuckin’ starving.” Loud footsteps piqued my curiosity. The high-pitched voice neared my shower.
“Ew, Tyler, put your clothes on!” Beth squealed before I could glance outside at the boy leaving the other shower.
“Fine, fine,” Tyler said, before stopping near my curtain. “Hey, other boy! Come on out! I’d like some backup against these two. It’s unsporting to leave me alone against them.” He tapped against the flimsy fabric, making me back away. Based on the placement of his fingers, he was definitely much taller. “I know you’re in there. Your hoodie is outside.”
I slowly unraveled the shower curtain so I could step out, before I stopped and looked up at the other boy who blocked my path. He actually looked incredibly charming. A side-swept mop of black hair that, when dry, probably held even more volume than mine, that rested on the right side of his head. Thick, prominent eyebrows that framed almond shaped green eyes and led into a strong, pointy nose. Average-sized lips that were thinned out to reveal an unsettlingly bright smile. A strong jaw. All in all, a very conventionally attractive man… which deeply, deeply unsettled me.
“Oh, shit, sorry, miss,” he replied, making me blush. For a brief moment, that actually felt… good. Reminded me of… nevermind. I can’t go back to that anymore.
“Um… yeah, I’m a guy, just like you,” I replied awkwardly, looking away, stumbling over the word ‘guy’ more than I’d like to.
Tyler laughed. He paused for a brief moment, before adding, “Of course you are.” He reached around my torso and gave me a hard pat on the back, making me stumble forward, struggling to keep my balance.
At that moment, I realized he was completely naked, and covered my eyes. “Dude! Nobody wants to see that!”
“I’ve spent time with several women who would beg to differ,” he replied, before picking up his own boxers and slipping them on. “But I assume breakfast in bed isn’t an option down here, so I’ll oblige.”
“Thank you,” I replied. I didn’t want to let my eyes linger on his body, but he seemed to have not taken much good care of his form. I envied the body hair situation he seemed to have, which was very little, but my eyes lingered on his arms a moment too long.
My breath caught.
“Dude, you’re staring,” he replied. I looked at him; he flashed me another awkward toothy grin. It looked fake, but I couldn’t just say that from the first meeting. I’d need to know him more. “Don’t mind if you’re gay, but keep a hold of yourself, okay?”
I blushed. “S-sorry, dude,” I replied as he moved towards his hoodie.
He slid a shirt and then a hoodie on. The hoodie went on sleeves first. “No worries, I view it as a compliment. Just don’t talk about it and we’ll be right as rain.” When his head finally poked through the hole, that ever-present smile was still there. “I may be okay with it, but others down here may not.”
“A-alright,” I replied. “My name’s Jace. I heard yours was Tyler?”
“The one and only Tyler Brooks,” he said, pointing with his thumb at his chest. “Good to meet you, Jace. Short for anything?”
“No.” The bile slipped up my throat for a moment. I realized I had given him a death glare, and looked away. “I… sorry about that.”
“Hey, not every guy likes their first name. I go by my middle name,” he replied. “Someone decided Reginald was a fucking good idea to name someone born in 1999.”
“Oh, god. Yeah, my last name was Rogers. My dad liked to joke that if Sandra had been a boy, my name would’ve been Roy.” I realized both of us had fully dressed by this point, so I motioned for us to move forward. God, in this outfit, the basement was much more bearable. “Hurts to have someone so old name me, you know?”
“I believe it. Is Sandra your older sister, then?”
“Yeah. She was so supportive of me when I was younger. But I hadn’t talked to her in a while before, well… I ended up down here.” I sighed, putting my hands in my pockets. “I miss her already.”
“Hey, you two can keep talking in the kitchen,” Leigh called out. “But I think you’d appreciate some breakfast.”
The two of us nodded and followed her. While we walked, with the sponsors in the middle of each of us, I noticed both of the girls put their eyes on Tyler. He seemed to be blissfully ignorant of the leering that was going on as he was brought towards the kitchen, but I recognized the stares towards him. Leigh leaned into my ear.
“Be careful around him, okay?”
I raised an eyebrow, and she nodded without further reply. Throughout the rest of the short walk, I noticed their eyes seldom left him.
As I sat down, a bowl was placed in front of me. Bethany pulled a carton of milk from a nearby fridge, and Leigh pulled a saucepan from off the table. She took the milk from the other sponsor and poured a generous amount into the pan before placing it on a contraption that seemed to be like a stove.
“Well, you can use them for milk, too. And you don’t get tea down here,” Bethany replied. “You’ll get milk or water for now. Coffee, too, if you want it.”
“I… can’t handle caffeine, so I’ll just take milk or water.”
“Oof. Suit yourself, then.” Bethany took a seat next to Tyler. I looked over to see Leigh reaching into a high shelf to pull out two yellow boxes. The first simply said Weetabix as she got close with it, but I couldn’t quite see if the other one was the same. I narrowed my eyes, trying to think if I’d ever seen this in the US.
“Weetabix for you, Tyler, and Weetabix Protein for you, Jace.” My sponsor set down the box in front of me before turning to the cabinets to pull out what looked like a serving vessel. I quickly opened it to find what looked like little cakes of grain inside. “You put one in the bowl, and then you’ll fill it with hot milk when it’s ready.”
I looked at Tyler, and he shrugged. “It’s not great, but it’s better than nothing.”
“Yeah, sorry, that’s what boys in the basement get right now. Are you… allergic to anything, Jace?” Leigh asked, as she deftly poured the milk from the saucepan into the vessel and topped the lid back up.
“No. Just never had it before.” Leigh put the vessel in front of me first. I poured the milk into the weetabix, and it started to look familiar. “Thought I’d get what y’all were serving me in the mornings down here.”
“Did nobody ever tell you that that was what’s in your breakfast bowl each morning?” Leigh sat in the seat by me, relaxing. “You just have to make it yourself now.”
“Oh, that’s weetabix? Huh. Not bad, to be honest. Just a bit plain.” I took the first spoonful and, yep, tasted familiar enough. “Kinda a lot like frosted mini-wheats back home, except without the sugary topping.”
“Are you from the US, by the way, Jace?” Tyler suddenly interjected.
“Y-yeah,” I replied.
“Oh, fascinating. Didn’t think I’d see an American down here. Seems like every person I’ve come across so far down here is British.”
“That’s because Jace is the only person down here who isn’t British in some way,” Leigh said, draining the last bit of her mug with an audible slurp as she sat down next to us. She grabbed the milk vessel and poured a few ounces into the cup.
“What are you down here for, Jace?” Tyler asked, just as we heard steps down the hall. Leigh and Beth vacated the tables, moving towards the walls, each moving one hand to their hips, likely for their tasers.
“I think you might want to wait for that one, Tyler.” Given the precautions, I assumed that the boys were coming.
And they were.
I noticed Tyler relax as he entered the crowd of boys, but his eyes were firmly on me, still.
“Oooh, we got fresh bait. The elusive 06 is finally out of their shell. And who’s this?” Blondie’s hair was still flopping around as usual. It made me giggle to see the inconvenience, to watch him repeatedly move it away from his face.
“Name’s Tyler Brooks. And you are?” The boy finally looked away to lock eyes with my cell neighbor.
“Christian Davies.” He extended one hand to Tyler, and the two shook firmly. “Fourth to arrive. That’s 04. I assume you’ll be 07, Tyler.”
Blondie then reached out his hand to mine. His grin seemed less genuine than Tyler’s. “And you’re…?”
“Jace. Jace Rogers. Number six to arrive, I guess.” I nervously shook his hand with as firm of a grip as I could muster, watching Tyler’s gaze shift to lazily surveying the rest of the crowd.
“Splendid. Now you know my name, don’t call me Blondie anymore,” Christian replied, before turning to the boy who had arrived with me. “Now, what brings you down here, Tyler? Seems like you’ve been a bad little boy to have yourself subjected to our little hell.”
“I honestly didn’t do anything,” Tyler replied, looking confused. “I thought I was a good enough guy. I thought I had avoided going down that path of toxic masculinity!”
“Bull,” Beth spat in the background.
Christian snorted. “Fair enough. We’ll likely learn in time.” Leigh gave each of the boys a bowl and they all sat down, starting to pass the normal Weetabix. Only one other boy reached for the protein Weetabix: A spindly looking guy with long, flowing brown locks; a full and plump beard, and a resting bitch face.
“So… let us get you two all the way up to speed. Would everyone be so kind as to tell the class why you’re down here? I’ll start. I started a massive brawl that left 30 people injured and the streets closed for a few hours last month.”
The next boy to speak up was from the other side of the table. His bald head had the signs of nicks that came from shaving it himself. Like the guy with long, brown locks, he also had a beard, but his face went past RBF. He looked like he was going to try to kill Christian. “He says he started it. I threw the first punch into his little prissy-boy face.”
“I’m gonna call that hearsay. It’s your word against mine. Hey, Jace, Tyler, who do you believe?”
Tyler shrugged. “Both of you make some excellent points. It’s not really my place to judge, but I’ll have to hear more from… what’s your name?”
“Jacob.”
“I’d need more from Jacob before I make a decision on that, I guess.”
Jacob grumbled at Tyler as he spooned a bite of Weetabix.
“I… don’t want to take sides in this.” I looked back down towards my Weetabix.
“Not much else to do down here, Jace. Might as well take sides in things that ultimately don’t matter,” Tyler replied, grinning.
“What do you mean, Tyler? This is the most important thing we could be doing right now!” Christian smirked. “Hey, catboy, don’t you think so?”
“Shut up,” the curly haired boy in a cat-ear hoodie and a frilly black choker spat back. “Leave me out of it.”
“Oh, oh, Gerald, you’re in the basement. Can’t be left out of it anymore!” Christian replied, sitting up and leaning into the table at the kid named Gerald, who seemed uncomfortable in his own skin. I watched Beth move herself off the wall.
“Christian, stop antagonizing the other boys.” I frowned at being associated with them. It felt wrong; I was nothing like Mr. Loudmouth over here.
“Fine.” He sat back down, gripping a spoon and digging back into his Weetabix. With his mouth full, he added, “So, Gerald, let them know what you did. You’ve never told us. I think the class would like to know.”
Gerald shrugged. “I just harassed a bunch of tra-” He realized what he was about to say, and looked over at Mia. She did a curtsy with a surprisingly short skirt bundled under a very long cat-eared hoodie and flashed him a toothy, almost predatory grin. Seemingly daring him to say it. He blanched, and he turned back to us. “I’d rather not talk about it.”
“Good boy,” Mia said, loud enough for the rest of us to hear. Guess I was going to avoid that kid. Sounded like a dick.
“Whipped!” Christian cupped his hands around his mouth and called out. Nobody laughed. I realized in that moment how… good I probably had it with Leigh in that moment.
“Now, I assume it’s young Henry’s turn.” Christian motioned to the two at the other end of the table from me. The guy with a full-on beard raised his hand.
“I did some terrible things. Made my way here. Simple as,” Henry said in a gravelly voice before returning to his weetabix.
“Henry here’s actually the youngest of all of us. He’s only 19, but getting anything out of him is like getting blood from a stone. Plus…” Christian’s eyes narrowed. “He actually prefers it here to wherever he came from.”
“Guilty.”
“Now, Ritchie is next to him. Your turn.”
Ritchie jumped when he realized that his name was called. “Well, I… I was protecting my reputation, is all. Some women had reservations about my behavior, so I made my own reservations about them known.”
“You spent ten thousand pounds on a smear campaign and ruined the lives of several women, Ritchie,” Steph called out from the exit. “You harassed them, and then spread compromising lies about them across the internet. They went viral.”
“Details, details! You’re leaving out an important part, Stephanie,” Ritchie said, wringing his hands. “I’m able to say what I want. Free speech.”
“You guys don’t have the First Amendment,” I replied. “I don’t know what you have, but I know it isn’t gonna protect you.”
“Yeah, Jace isn’t even a Brit and he’s right.” Leigh was leaning across the countertop, a grin across her face. “If you weren’t down here, Ritchie, you’d be facing lawsuits. Maybe even jail time, depending on how they define the offense.”
“Says who?”
“Says British law.”
“My grandfather’s in the House of Commons!” Ritchie exclaimed, raising the eyebrows of everyone in here.
“And that matters to us… why?” Jacob asked, making Ritchie jump and hold his cheek. “You’re down here in what could be some twisted Sartrean form of hell. You might not get out of here alive. Knowing who your grandfather is means jack shit when you’re mobbed by women armed with tasers, your veins filled with who knows what.”
Ritchie squeaked as Jacob rose from his seat. “How do you know Sartre? You said you didn’t even finish your GSCEs!” The smaller boy squeaked out.
The girls each seemed at the ready, reaching for their tasers. Jacob put his hands up, looking glumly at the rich kid. “I’m not gonna hit him this time, ladies. I just want him to understand that it does NOT matter who his grandpa is when he’s on his own. Maybe appealing to that worked for him in an environment full of bootlickers. But I don’t think any of these ladies voted Tory. Did you?”
A chorus of disgusted rejections roared from the sponsors, leaving Christian in stitches.
“Alright, Jacob,” Mary spoke up. “As much fun as it is to mock the Tories, we need to keep the peace. Remember what we talked about?”
Jacob nodded with a scowl on his face, looking away from Ritchie before sitting down. “And it’s called a library, Ritchie. Ever been in one?”
After breakfast, the crowd dispersed into some social time in the common room. By social time, however, I meant that Henry, Gerald, and Ritchie silently watched television on the couch; Jacob found himself in the chair away from the rest of us to read another book, and Tyler and Christian had taken to shooting the breeze on the whole other side of the room from me.
I took stock of my surroundings. A television with furniture of various means arranged around it, a couple of other pieces of furniture; a tall bookshelf with various paperback books as well as a few board games… and not much else. It seemed like a place to chat and watch television and read. Simple pleasures, ones that I could partake in, but I wasn’t too sure about it.
I looked at the television. The boys huddled on the couch were lazily viewing a cooking show of some type. It seemed like something that I’d have on in the background while I surfed the internet, something like Chopped or one of those myriad of celebrity cooking reality shows that aired on the Food Network or the Cooking Channel. I shrugged; it seemed like a decent way to spend the time.
But as I moved towards the couch, I felt a hand tap me on the back. I turned to see Leigh, who said, with an aggressive tone, “You’ll get some more time with them a bit later. You got introduced to them, and right now, we’re gonna go talk about it.” I noticed that Bethany was doing the same to Tyler.
I bristled against it, but held down my lesser nature. “Alright.” I followed her out of the room, shuffling out a few moments after Tyler and Beth did. As we heard a door close up the hall, and as we got further away from the common room, Leigh whispered to me with a much kinder voice.
“Time to listen to the new album. You ready?”
Leigh
“Have you heard it already?” Jace asked as the door shut behind us.
“Nope.” I finally dropped the strict sponsor act once we got inside, putting on a genuine-feeling smile. “Well, I mean, I’ve heard some of the songs in isolation. Kinda impossible to avoid them when you’re, well, surrounded by a bunch of Taylor Swift fanatics.”
“Fair enough.” Jace sat on their bed, curling up into a ball and fixing their eyes on me.
I moved towards my intake’s computer. “Do I… have permission to use this?” A lever. I grimaced internally when I saw Jace’s face light up briefly, before a pained look stretched across their face. “Or do you want to pull it up? It should already be able to be accessed.”
“I thought you were just… Well, going to use it. I mean, I don’t think I can really stop you, but…” I could tell that Jace was not feeling great about this. They were still smiling, but their eyes looked frenzied.
“Come on, you do it.” I backed away from the computer. “I’ve gotta watch you do it, but…” I saw them frown. “I’ll let you do it.”
“I guess this is… is this the trust we talked about? I don’t trust you fully; you don’t trust me fully?”
“Yeah. I guess it is.” God, if only I could tell Jace it would all be okay. If I could just look away from them, from her, for a brief moment. If I could tell her everything, if I could let her go, maybe it’d be alright. But she doesn’t even want to let herself out… if what she was back then still existed. I watched them move towards the computer, pulling up the music player. “In time, maybe you’ll view me as a friend. Maybe I’ll be able to turn my back on you.”
“What’s the album title?”
“Midnights. Just letting you know… if you want to talk about any of them, just ask me and I’ll pause, okay?”
“Okay.”
The first song started to fill the room through the subpar speakers, the first lyric, “Meet me at Midnight”, the sounds of pounding bass leading into nightclub vocals. This sounded like something that might play at Legend. I watched Jace close their eyes and sway to the beat of “Lavender Haze”. They actually smiled.
As the album moved further, they stayed in that sort of trance, only moving to feel the music. They didn’t ask to stop during “Maroon”, and as we drifted through “Anti-Hero”, I started to feel like I was the problem for this young person right here. I decided to kidnap someone and put them down in a basement, deluding myself that it was for their own safety. Getting them professional help may have been the better option, but I guess this was me just getting wiser as I experienced more things.
But with greater consequences than just staying up late. I changed the trajectory of someone’s life. While I saved it, too, it was just cold comfort to what came of them being saved.
But as "Snow on the Beach" drifted out and we started “You’re On Your Own, Kid”, I noticed Jace start to arise from their slumber. They straightened out their legs, moved towards the edge of the bed, resting their chin on their arms to hear it better. They looked genuinely enraptured at the song by the start of the second chorus. Rather than move, they rested still as a statue, waiting for further reaction.
We were stopping here, no matter what Jace said about it.
As the last bridge came on, I noticed Jace’s interest turn to a forlorn desolation. A thousand yard stare crept across their face the moment that its second stanza concluded. Their stillness wobbled, but not from an interest in the beat. They looked at me. I moved towards the computer, letting the music start to quiet before pausing it.
“Am I… Am I on my own, Leigh?” They had quickly softened after the song went away, but it looked like Jace was catching their breath after a punch in the gut.
I shook my head. “No. If you were alone before, you aren’t now.”
“You can continue.”
“No. I think you should sit with this feeling.”
“I hate it.”
“Hatred implies that you care about it. You look like you just got shot in the heart, Jace.”
“I want to forget it.”
“I’m not going to let you.”
“Fucking bitch.”
“Watch your tongue, Jace. I trust that you’re not going to do anything violent, but there are consequences for saying things like that.”
“Why do you put so much into me? What makes me so damn special?”
“I’m your sponsor. I have to care about you.”
“So you’re required to care for me? Really says a lot about you right now.”
“I chose you because I thought you could benefit from the programme. Because you needed help.”
“I didn’t want help! I wanted to die, and you made sure I couldn’t! You don’t understand how painful it is just being me, Leigh. I wanted to get away from it. I didn’t want to be me anymore. I… never did.”
I sighed. “How do you think your older sister would feel if they found your body washed up on the damn shore, Jace? How do you think she feels right now, not knowing where you are?”
They blanched.
“Jace. Would you rather see your sister again as a corpse in a box, or would you like to see her as a changed person? We can help you be someone you want to be, someone who could meet her proudly.”
“No, you couldn’t. Who I would want to be is impossible, anyways.”
“What do you mean, Jace?”
They turned their body away from me, towards the wall they shared with Christian. “Forget it. It’s impossible. Maybe when I’m older, maybe when they’re gone.”
“Maybe when who’s gone?”
“My parents. When they’re gone, I’m free. No matter where I go, no matter who I tried to be, they’d know who I was before.”
“I’ve… I’ve told you before. You don’t have to see them again. You’re dead to them.”
“How do you know that?” They growled. They flipped the hood on their hoodie up to hide themselves further. “They’ve found me before. They’ll find me again. And if I see my sister again… maybe they’ll figure out I’m alive.”
“Jace,” I started.
“No. I won’t fucking take it, Leigh! They will always know where I am. They watched my every movement. I had to stop therapy in college because I kept getting asked if something was wrong whenever I was at the doctor’s office. I still feel the urge to check in with them every night as I sleep, feeling wrong that I haven’t called them yet. There’s still that craving, a sense of release, that comes from getting assurance that they aren’t gonna come after me. If there’s no body, they’re gonna hold out hope.” I watched them shudder. “And the worst part? I miss it.”
“I think I understand.”
“Do you?” Jace asked, eyes of fury bearing into my soul. Their voice dripped with sarcasm. “I’m sorry, Leigh. I didn’t know you understood.”
“It’s hard holding yourself to an impossible standard.” I thought of the role I had to play, so very long ago. “My father… also put me into a situation where I felt controlled. A situation where, when I felt as if I had made a disgrace of myself, he felt so proud of his daughter.” Doctor the truth, make it amenable to the intake, pull the lever. It made my stomach churn, but… “I spent years having to unlearn the thinking that made me okay with that. And I think you’re going to need it, as well.”
Jace’s fury softened into embarrassment. They sat back, putting distance from me. “I… I’m sorry, Leigh. I didn’t mean to dig up old memories.”
“No, no,” I replied. “The wounds have long since scarred. It’s a dull ache compared to what you must experience right now.”
“It’s not logical, but…”
“There you go, saying it’s not logical,” I interrupted, a bit annoyed with that returning. “Is that like a nervous tic or something? Just say what feels right.”
“I feel controlled by these impulses, Leigh. I’m a slave to them. The impulse that makes me want to send a message to my family, to affirm my love to them. The ones that make me want to yell at you, at everyone, to get the hell away from me. The impulse to do whatever it takes to deal with this pit in my stomach. The impulse to listen to music that makes me feel unproductive but pleasurable pain. To look at porn whenever I’m left alone for more than a few minutes. To chase any hit of dopamine no matter what thorny side effects it comes with. They’re addictions. I can’t help but fall prey to them. If I don’t… What happiness can I hope for, Leigh? I don’t know how else to feel even a fleeting sense of joy in life.”
“I think you’re already doing better.” The kid was fiddling with their hands, but they had calmed down significantly. I opened up a bit of myself, to let their mind free. “I needed my own mentors to help guide me away from my own self-destruction.”
“And you decided to come into this torture chamber of your own free will? Is this where you find your happiness? In working your magic on people you view as ‘toxic’?” Jace’s eyes didn’t hold anger at me, but they held despair.
“I got kicked out of my father’s house as a teenager, when I was 17. I couldn’t take the shame anymore. I spent a couple of years as a homeless person.” I sighed. The story I had made for myself. Bits of truth, mixed in with the falsehoods to make the whole story believable. “I first met Tabby when I was 19, at a food kitchen she sometimes volunteers at. We became fast friends. She and her husband let me stay with them so I could finish my A-levels. She began treating me like I was her little sister. I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to adopt me as their kid at this point.”
“Did you find your happiness in her home?” Their words were barely a whisper at this point. They had petered out. The energy that powered their words before had fizzled out. They probably would need a water bottle at some point soon. I hit a nerve. The comparisons to Autumn were palpable.
“You could say that. I found happiness there; I found it here, and I found it everywhere. When you’re finally out of the rat race for a bit, Jace… it’s anywhere you look. You’re out of it physically now, but I can tell that you’re struggling with it emotionally. I’m here to help you with some of that.” I thought of how long it took for me to get out of it. How long it took my entire cohort. And I thought about watching the two intakes following us suffer in becoming themselves, in leaving the basement as those before us left the nest. How the rest of mine left the nest, so to speak, leaving only Olivia and I behind. “I think you’ve been so wrapped up in who your family wanted you to be, in the expectations of toxic masculinity and trying to be that ‘perfect person’, that you lost sight of who you want to be. Who you need to be. And we want to help you, and all of you, unravel that and to leave as better people.”
“I… guess. I fucking guess.” Jace seemed incredibly bewildered. Disoriented. “That makes as much sense as anything else here. How’d you end up here, anyways?”
“Dorley Hall serves underprivileged youth, Jace. You think they don’t sometimes just house people preparing for uni?” I grinned, before parting my teeth to stick out my tongue. “I did well enough on my A-Levels that they wanted to help fund my education, so here I am. And this is one of the odd jobs I took up to repay some debts that I owe: Help with a relatively new program to help people like you work through your problems.”
“How’d you rack up debt, Leigh? You’re not an American.” By this point, Jace was starting to get cheeky again.
“Uni still costs money and effort, Jace. My program has some extra requirements, and helping out with the maintenance of the institution is one of them.” I relaxed into the wall between the table and the closet, crossing my arms over my chest. “My friends saved you from death, and I chose to make you my responsibility.”
“But they think I’m dead up there. How do you square that, Leigh?”
“That’s above my head, Jace. I’m not paid to think about that.” I shrugged, shoving down the guilt of not spilling the beans. “My thoughts are on helping you right now. What do you need right now?”
Jace wrapped themselves in the blanket that they had kept under them. Mary’s blanket. “I think I’m a bit dehydrated, but I’d be otherwise ready to continue the album, Leigh.”
“You’re not on your own, kid. You won’t be again.” I giggled at what I tried to make work. Jace gave me a pained smile, tinged by the recoiling of his cringing. “I can get you some water, and then you can snuggle up in your blanket and we’ll finish it. If any other songs get you like this, just let me know and we can stop.”
“Sure. I don’t think I’d mind that.”
“Great.” I walked to the door to go fetch some water. “I’m a bit parched, too. I’ll be back in a bit, Jace. Then we’ll continue the album. Okay?”
“Okay.”
September 11, 2015
“Hey, Jace, you’ve been awfully quiet lately. Everything going okay?” Hannah said to me after Coach Davis dismissed us for the weekend. The crowd started to float away into the cool autumn breeze, where it was still pleasant enough for shorts at any time of day but where days began to have that slight chill pick up whenever it got windy.
“I’m fine, Hannah.” I sighed, balling up the emotions that were bubbling up to the surface, bit by bit, from that sensation that seemed to grow from inside me for a while. “I’m just tired after the runs.”
“I think that’s a lie,” Janice, the freshman, added on, spooking me from behind. “You seemed a lot happier during the summer. Something seems to have changed.”
“I started 8th grade, Janice. It’s just sucked so far. Harder to focus; people just seem like they’re different now.”
Janice giggled and rested her arm on my head. “That’s just what happens. Imagine when you get to high school, Jace. All these people, so much older and bigger than you, and they’re so intimidating. What is a poor boy like you to do?”
“I’m serious, Jan. I just… I feel like I have to do well. In everything. Cross country. School. Social life. My parents feel like they’re breathing down my neck about it all. But that latter one’s falling apart, you know? And I’m scared that the rest of it will, too.”
“Social life, Jace? Is that what you’re worried about?” Hannah asked, squinting her eyes at me and looking as if I’d just grown a second head. “You know, if you want to hang out with us, you can just ask!”
“I mean, yeah, I could…”
“Okay, stop, Jace. You know those boys are never gonna give you the time of day. They’ve been running together since they were younger than you. They’re so cliquey!” Janice stuck out her tongue in disgust. “What you’re going to do, is you’re going to come to our house on Saturday night. You’re going to have a good time with us and some of our friends. And you’re going to make them your friends.”
“I…” I felt the phone buzzing. It was my sister.
“Pick it up!”
“H-hey S-… Autumn.”
“Hey, Jace! Where are you? I gotta drop you off before I head to the game, and I’m not waiting too much longer.”
Hannah grabbed my phone and pressed the speaker feature. I felt my emotions sinking within me at the possibilities of what was going to happen. “Hey, Autie, this is Hannah. Would you mind giving Jace here a ride to our house tomorrow afternoon?”
“I’ve got work, so it’d have to be the morning. Is anyone able to house him for that?”
“Oh, yeah, my mom loves Jace,” Hannah responded in kind, her bubbly smile melting my heart. “She’s gonna be all over that plan.”
“Alright, that’s settled. Jace, I’m gonna drop you off… 10:30 sound good?”
“Make it 11.”
“Eh… I think I can do that. 11 it is.”
Hannah gave the phone back to me, a large grin on her face. “See how easy that was?”
“Yeah, Jace. Let the girls acclimate you to socialization outside of sports. You’ll learn how good it is. Now come on. It’s like 5:30. I gotta be there by 6:30 for the 8 pm game. Get your butt in gear and get in the car.”
“We’ll see you tomorrow, Jace!” The girls called out to me as I walked up to my sister’s old Camry to take the trip home. Suddenly, I felt an awkward sensation, the anticipation of the girls on the team wanting my presence at whatever event they had become palpable. My heart started to race as I picked up my backpack from the pile they locked inside the shed before every practice.
As I walked towards the parking lot, I saw my sister leaning against the car with a shit-eating grin on her face.
“Someone’s got friends!” She beamed at me. “I’m sure the family’s gonna be pissed.”
“Yeah…” Dad had already asked me if I was gay with such derision in his voice. Hearing the fact that his little boy was going to be hanging out with a gaggle of girls over the weekend was probably only going to make the allegations worse. Either his child was a player, or the girls on the track team saw him as one of them. The thoughts hurt.
“I feel like he’s a fuckin’ hypocrite. They both are,” she said, more quietly as I got next to the car. “They won’t let me hang out with Nathan and Peter. They suggested girls I hadn’t talked to since middle school! Middle school, Jace!”
“Y-yeah…” I stuttered, grabbing the opened door of the Camry and tossing my backpack into the back seat. “I just… they try their best, I guess?”
“‘Their best’ is bullshit, little bro. If they were trying their best, they’d be less shitty about all this.” Autumn pouted, her arms already crossed as she leaned on the side of the car. “You could always lie, say that you’re hanging out with the boys.”
“They’d call the parents of the boys to check. You know how they are about that… and you know how they are about lying.”
“Yeah, yeah, they talk a big game. They’ll take away your electronics for a week. You think the punishments will ever deter someone who’s determined enough to get around them?” She seethed, uncrossing her arms as she moved to get back into the car. “I’ve only got a year left, and then I’m only here for Christmas, if that.”
“Are you going to go straight to college, Autumn?” I followed in kind, getting into the passenger side and buckling in.
“Yeah. Anything that gets me out of this damn town. I’ve already gotten most of the way through a couple applications. I’m going to get a cheer scholarship, do it at some school that’ll pay for my education, and then I’m gonna be on my own as soon as I get out of college, Jace. I can’t fuckin’ take it anymore.” She slammed her fists on the sides of the steering wheel.
“What are you gonna study?”
“I don’t fuckin’ know. Computer science, maybe? Definitely got enough practice dodging the parents’ bullshit. I know they won’t approve, but who the fuck cares?”
“That… sounds like it’ll be good for you, Autumn. I’m scared about having to figure that out at some point.”
“They’re gonna grind you to dust if you let them, Jace. I know you’re still quite a long ways away from your freedom,” she said, starting the car and putting it in reverse. “I know that from experience. Gotta get out, as quick as you can, and as far away as you can.”
“But I can’t do that till college, sis,” I replied.
“I won’t be able to protect you much longer. I give it a 50/50 chance that they’ll figure out something’s up within a couple of years of me at college. I think I’m good enough at hiding things here, but once I get to a college a few states away, I feel like it’s gonna get a lot harder to keep it inside.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m a fuckin’ lesbian, Jace. I like pussy. Their plans for me to marry some god-damned boy, settle down, have biological children… fell apart the moment I realized that boys are gross… And that I want no part of whatever they’ve got down there.”
“Oh.” I blushed, realizing the ramifications of what my sister just told me. “Oh fuck.”
“Yeah. No, the parents are NOT going to want to know that. I DO NOT think they’ll take it very well. I fully expect to be thrown the hell out of the house for it. So, can I beg you to keep that a secret?”
“Of course! What do you take me for? Janice calls herself a lesbian already.”
“She does?! And her mom is okay with it?”
“Yeah. Ms. Sprecher does not give a single fuck about any of that. Hell, she doesn’t care that much about ME being at her house. She knows I’m chill.” I buzzed with a mixture of fear and excitement about the idea of being around all of them, being seen as one of them.
“Because one boy in a crowd of 10 girls is a recipe for disaster, even with a dutiful mom around,” Autumn said. “But I think you’ll be fine.”
“You really think so?”
“Yeah! I’m actually pretty happy for you. You’ll get some time with friends, enjoy whatever you’ll get up to with those crazy girls, and you’ll just… be yourself, okay? Because maybe these will be the friends you need. Maybe they’ll get mom and dad off your back. You never know til you try, okay?”
“I… yeah, you’re right. I’ll enjoy my time with them tomorrow. Thanks, big sis.”
“No problem, little bro.”
Sorry for the wait! I should maybe speed up some of these uploads, because honestly I am writing chapter 11 right now. Huge shoutout, as usual, to @Inadorable on AO3 and @Venus_Fogged on discord for being lovely betas that will make sure my work is a bit more polished, for making sure I don't consider silly ideas for my story, and for being huge motivators.
I hope you all enjoy!