Page 43 of Broken Pieces
“Where the hell did you get that?” she screeches, snatching it from his hands so fast the cardboard dents beneath her grip. “If you’ve gotten into that damn cupboard again, I swear to God!”
The boy’s lip trembles, his eyes wide as he stumbles back.
She doesn’t wait for an answer. She spins, storming off toward the kitchen, muttering curses under her breath about food and money and kids who don’t listen.
And just like that, I am dismissed.
I don’t care about the way she tosses me aside mid-argument. I welcome it. Every time she turns her rage on someone else, it gives me room to breathe.
I take off, pivot down the hall, chest still tight, her words clinging to me like smoke I can’t cough out.
My room stinks. The window only opens halfway, rusted into place. The mattress on the floor is mine. Beside it, the bunk bed rattles every time Johnny shifts underneath.
I won’t touch the top bunk.
It’s a hazard, it feels like it could give way at any moment. And when it does, it won’t matter that it’s old and falling apart. They’ll blame me. They always do.
In the corner, my clothes sit stacked, each pile neat, folded the exact way I learned back in the group home. Discipline drilled into me in a place where you survived by keeping your head down and your shit organized. I carry that habit with me, the laundromat trips, the clean stacks, because I don’t trust Dolores’ busted washer. The thing rattles so hard it sounds like it is going to explode. If it breaks on my watch, I will carry the blame for that too.
I drop my bag beside the mattress and yank the thin blanket from my bed, tossing it over the top. So no one will touch it.
The last kid stupid enough to go through my things walked around with a busted lip and swollen eye for a week. Word spread quick after that. Still, I don’t take chances. I cover the bag, tucking it away beneath folds of fabric.
I move into the bathroom and twist the tap until the pipes scream.
Cold water blasts over my knuckles, burning as it hits the open cuts. Blood blooms into the stream, clouding it pink, swirling down the drain as if it belongs there.
I grit my teeth and let it sting. I don’t bother wrapping them. What’s the fucking point? By tomorrow they’ll be split open again. There is always another fight waiting, always another asshole who wants me to prove I’m harder, meaner, willing to bleed just to shut them up.
I glance at the mirror and freeze.
The face staring back doesn’t feel like mine. The eyes are too dark, shadows carved so deep they may as well be permanent. My shoulders sag forward, my jaw clenched, hair hanging into my face. I look swallowed whole by this house, this system, this shit life. A boy who stopped fighting to be anything else.
I shut the bathroom light off and stand in the dark longer than I need to, breathing in the silence.
A cough sounds through the hall, heavy enough to crawl under my skin. It doesn’t sound right.
I push off the wall and follow the sound, another cough ripping through the silence. It drags me to a door halfway down the hall.
I stop and lean in, pushing it open just enough to look inside.
A kid is curled on the bottom bunk, pale, swallowed up by a blanket that does nothing to hide how small he looks. His eyestrack me as I step closer, wide and cautious, waiting to see if I’m trouble.
“You want me to tell Dolores you’re sick?” I ask,
Caleb shakes his head weakly. “She knows.”
My eyes catch on the empty glass on the floor beside his bed. I bend down, pick it up, and straighten.
“I’ll get you some water,” I mutter, already turning for the door.
I walk to the bathroom, carrying the glass.
The tap groans when I twist it, coughing out rust before the water finally runs clear. I hold the glass under, filling it to the rim.
The glass is cold as I carry it back down the hall.
The boy sits up when I step inside. His eyes look too big for his pale face. He takes the glass with both hands, his fingers shaking around it. He drinks fast, the water sliding down his throat as if it is the only good thing he has had all day.
