Page 1 of Inferno

ONE

HENRY

My skin prickles,and all of my hairs stand on end. I can feel eyes on me, but it’s more than a passing gaze. This is the way it feels when you realize a predator is watching you, and I’m not unfamiliar with the feeling. I’ve lived my entire life as prey.

I’d assumed that as an adult, living alone, I wouldn’t feel that same fear, but I still do. Bozeman isn’t a hot spot for high crime, but the only apartment I could afford when I moved here isn’t in a great area, and when the sunlight fades to darkness, the dirty, neglected streets go from daunting to downright terrifying.

Only I’m not in Bozeman right now, where I’m used to dealing with a constant low-level fear. I’m sitting in Granny Annie’s diner in Rockhead Point, and this quaint small town where the garage I work in is situated is touristy, small, and safe.

Everyone who lives or works here knows each other. Despite the tourists that visit in droves for the snow, the cute town festivals, or the mountain lakes, the core occupants of this town are a tight-knit community.

Since I got the assignment at Barnett Auto Shop from the temp agency that I work for, I’ve walked the route through town from the garage to the bus stop twice daily. I’ve never felt theurge to check my surroundings like I usually do on the walk from the bus station to my apartment in Bozeman. Maybe that’s naive and stupid, because nowhere is truly safe, but this town is as close to it as I’ve ever experienced.

Parker—the new female mechanic who started at the garage today—is happily chatting away to me from her seat on the opposite side of the table. I don’t want her to realize I’m distracted and not paying attention, so I try to stay attuned to her words, nodding every now and then. But honestly, I’m not listening to what she’s saying, because the sensation of being watched is overwhelming.

When Penn Barnett told me that a new mechanic was starting today, I pretended to be happy, but inside I was dreading it. The two mechanics who used to work in the shop before Parker were assholes. I don’t broadcast my sexuality, but when they realized that I wasn’t working at the shop to find sex, they assumed I wasn’t interested in women and went out of their way to be as homophobic and verbally abusive as they could, every time they had an opportunity.

I’m used to being treated like shit, it’s kind of the story of my life, but even I can reach a point when it’s more than I can take. And honestly, if they hadn’t both left—despite the job at the garage being ongoing, and the Barnetts being great bosses—I’d been planning to ask the temp agency to find me another placement.

But Parker seems nice. I don’t consider myself a great judge of character, I’ve never really had a friend. But given my history, I’ve gotten pretty good at being able to pick out the wolves in a flock full of sheep.

I entered the foster care system at one week old, when CPS removed me from my bio mom’s care because she forgot I existed and left me alone in the apartment she was being evicted from.

According to one of my old social workers, the neighbors called the cops after they’d been listening to me screaming and crying for days because they were pissed that my wails were keeping them awake. When the cops smashed through the front door, I was lying on the floor on a blanket, and the rest of the apartment was empty.

My bio mom never came back for me; the space on my birth certificate where my dad’s name should have been was left empty, and no one ever called the police or searched for the baby they left behind. Unfortunately, due to some weird fuckup in my file, the state never severed my bio mom’s parental rights. So instead of being adopted by some loving family who were desperate for a child, I spent the years until I turned eighteen being shuffled from foster home to foster home, living out of trash bags with whatever awful family I was given to.

I’m sure there are some people in the world who haven’t had a bad experience with foster parents, but I’m not one of them. I think I managed to end up with some of the worst ones, because if the families I lived with were classed as good, I honestly hope never to find out what the bad ones were like.

Over the years, I’ve been starved, beaten, touched, ignored, used like a servant, a babysitter, and a cash cow. The day I turned eighteen and stopped being a ward of the state, I was jubilant but also homeless, because the moment the checks for me stopped coming, the family I was living with at the time threw my stuff onto the lawn and locked me out.

The only reason I didn’t end up as a statistic was the great guidance counselor at the high school I was enrolled in at the time. She knew about my situation, and instead of allowing me to end up on the streets, she helped me find a bed at a youth shelter, and I managed to stay there until I graduated.

I know I’m one of the lucky ones. So many foster kids end up as junkies or criminals, but I was determined that wouldn’tbe my fate, and I’m grateful to have made it out of the system relatively unscathed.

Growing up knowing that no one wants you, that you’re an unwanted child, shapes you. Normal people dream about college, a great job, a partner, kids, and a future. But most of the kids I met in foster homes either assumed they were guaranteed to fail no matter what they did or were hoping that a twist of fate or a lonely billionaire would be the key to a better future for themselves.

I was really young when I realized that my only hope of changing my life was by getting a decent education. While the other kids I lived with were fighting, drinking, smoking, and pushing back at their shitty lot in life, I was studying.

I wasn’t the smartest kid, but I was the one with the most to gain from getting good grades and getting into college. I spent my weekends at the library and my evenings hidden somewhere quiet doing my homework. Then I applied to every college that waived the application fee for foster kids. When I got offered an academic scholarship to Montana State, I thought my future was set until I read the small print and realized that my scholarship didn’t cover housing.

With the help of the shelter staff, I applied for financial aid, found a shitty, tiny apartment in a scary part of Bozeman, and got three jobs to pay for food, books, and anything else I might need.

The past four years haven’t been easy, but I did it. I graduated with a degree in business administration last year. I’m a survivor. A success story, and I refuse to think of myself as anything else.

But I’m also alone.

Truthfully, I’ve always been alone. As a foster kid, you learn early on not to allow yourself to get too attached to people, because you never know when you’ll come home from schoolto find your trash bags sitting on the stoop next to a faux sympathetic social worker.

My entire life has been transient. Every place I stayed was simply a stopgap until my stuff was bagged up again and I was shipped to a new house, with a new family and new dangers to navigate.

I’m sure when I was really small I probably hoped that one of the families I lived with would keep me, but I was barely five, with a broken arm—because I was so thirsty that I took a juice box from the refrigerator and my foster father punished me for stealing with a bat—when I realized that people like me rarely get a happily ever after. I learned that instead of hoping someone would love me and keep me, my hope would be better spent on hoping that the next family I moved to wasn’t worse than the one before.

The four years I’ve spent in Bozeman since I moved here for school have been the longest I’ve stayed in one place in my entire life. But I’ve never gotten over the ingrained fear that this new life I’ve created for myself could all come to an end at any minute.

When I started at Montana State, I thought about trying to make friends. I tried to get involved in college life, to put down roots. But in the end, old habits die hard, and the fear of allowing myself to settle, to call Bozeman home, became too much. I’d gotten so used to being unwanted that the thought of being rejected was too terrifying.

I decided that being alone is safer, easier, and pain-free. I’m not a complete recluse; I speak to people—sometimes. Mrs. Barraclough, in the apartment above me, regularly invites me to watch Wheel of Fortune with her. She’s seventy-eight, and I rarely if ever go, but still, I have the option of company if I want it.

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