Page 98 of A Ballad of Betrayal and Beauty

His eyes are on me and, when I glance up at him, I can see it. There, deep down beneath the betrayal and the lies, he felt cut out—pushed aside. Hurt. Even though that’s never how we meant it—it’s what he felt.

“They even decided on the name for the band without me. I was sure they were going to cut me out. So, one afternoon, I decided to confront Keith about it. Told him that if they didn’t want me in the band anymore, it was fine, but that I wouldn’t let him keep the songs we wrote together. There was a scuffle, and he tore open my trunk of belongings where I kept the pages of written songs. He tried to take them. He said he was going to burn them. He even managed to set fire to a few I had been working on solo. We got into a fight, and next thing I know, Mr. Thanger was there. He attacked me, and I can’t remember much after that besides waking up in the infirmary.”

My hands and teeth are clenched so hard I fear they might break. I remember the smell of paper burning, the curling charred scraps smoking on the floor as I leapt across the bunks to tackle Logan. I remember Key with tears streaming down his face as he clutched at the ashes.

This is at least partially true. But also all wrong.

“I didn’t go back to the Academy after that. When my parents visited me in the hospital and learned about the abuse I had suffered, they took me home. For a long time, I chose to forget about it all. I knew about the success of the band, of course. How could I not? It was devastating to learn that Keith had taken the songs we’d written together and pawned them off as his own. But I had nothing. No proof except my word against his.

“Until . . . I visited my parents a few months ago, and came across the songs buried in the bottom of a box in their garage. I thought they had been lost between moving apartments over the years, but there they were, and I finally had hope.”

His lawyer speaks up from his right. “It’s not just that Mr. Samuels’s songs were recorded, but there was no songwriting credit given, no royalty share, no mention of his contribution to the band in the acknowledgements. It’s as if the rest of them simply tried to erase his existence. That is why we are here today. To make right a terrible injustice.”

“A terrible injustice?” It bursts out of my mouth without thought.

Logan sneers at me from across the table. “I have as much right to those songs as Keith does and I’ll be damned if you push me out again, Joel.”

Judge Horowath turns to me with a solemn expression. “Mr. Thanger, since Mr. Prentiss is not here to explain his version of the events and the other two members of your band were not present at the time in question, I will now ask for your perspective.”

I release the tension in my hands, and after a nod from our lawyer, I start.

CHAPTER25

Battery

KEY

Eight Years Ago

Logan wanted to know my secret. Wanted to know how I made it look so easy. How I could survive here in this hell. The truth is that I’m hardly even here. I’ve switched off. Tuned out. If I don’t think, it can’t hurt. If I don’t think, they can’t hurtme. So I turned back into Keith—the boy I was at eleven before I ever met Dusty. Before she bulldozed into my life and opened my eyes to a world of Technicolor.

Now, I’m in black and white, like when Dorothy wakes up back in Kansas. Maybe it never really happened. Maybe I never really knew her. Never met my best friend. Never fell in love. Never proposed. Never thought I was going to have a baby. Maybe it was just a dream.

Maybe I’ll wake up and I’ll be eleven years old again, and I just fell asleep in a stifling hot church pew.

There’s a crash of doors, and I jolt in my bunk as officers escort a boy into the room with tan skin and a fresh black buzz cut. The boy tries to fight, and I want to tell him it’s no use. That fighting back here will only make your life hell, and that you’ll eventually give in anyway, so why not skip ahead so you don’t suffer. But I suppose that’s part of why so many of us are here. We enjoy suffering on some level.

“Get off me!” he shouts, and I keep still even as I can tell the rest of the bunkhouse is up and watching the scene.

The bunk next to me is empty, the last one in the row, and I know that’s where he’s headed. I hear the squeak of the rusty springs as he’s tossed on the bed.

“You’re expected to be dressed and ready at oh-six hundred hours,” the officer says.

“Fuck you.” The words are followed by the sound of him spitting on the floor.

There’s a sharp smack, and the sound of skin slapping something wet, followed by a grunt of pain. “Don’t be late,” the officer continues. “Or there’ll be worse than that tomorrow.”

He’s quiet this time, and after a long moment of heavy breathing, the door locks behind the officers.

“Shit,” the boy murmurs, and I open my eyes again, turning to see him dabbing at his lip, which is split open and bloody. He collects himself and looks around. His jaw is sharp, but there’s still some baby fat in his cheeks and his dark eyes are alight—even after being beaten. Even after being sent here.

Then the most miraculous thing happens—he smiles. It’s not a full one, but it pulls at the corner of his mouth as he shakes his head, as though he thinks this is all a joke. Or maybe he’s smiling because he knows it’s not. That he can only cope with the reality of this through laughter, and that smile lights him up, even in the darkened room.

I stare up at the ceiling and take a deep breath. My eyes have been dead since that night at the bus station four months ago. The light they once carried died that day, and I haven’t been able to look at myself since. But this boy, he’s not broken, and I’m not sure why, but something makes me want to protect him.

Logan never had that light. He was still fighting when I came, but even then, he didn’t have this spirit. Maybe if I can keep this boy’s light alive, it’ll keep me alive too.

I look over at him again. He’s wrapped his arms around his knees protectively but I can still see the remnants of that smile on his face. For a few minutes, we’re quiet, and the rest of the guys seem to have gone back to sleep.

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