95. Rage
Hope and happiness are beginning to look a lot like big bubbles blown by some kid. They drift by and then pop and disappear, leaving only sticky drops on the ground behind.
I can still hear the song that played to my dance with Kelsey when I get out of my mom’s car and walk up to Poe’s door.
It seems like every light in the house is on. I’ve never been here before, but it’s pretty much what I expected. A nice, traditional two-story home in a nice little subdivision about twenty minutes away from Solitary.
I’m still in my tux and feel weird that I’m knocking on this door after the prom.
Poe answers, and I instantly know things aren’t good. She looks behind her and then walks out, almost into me, as she shuts the door behind her.
Then she grabs me and hugs me and starts to cry into my chest.
“What’s wrong? What happened? Poe?”
She sounds like she’s talking with a sock in her mouth. When she looks back at me, I can hear her say sorry.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there, that I couldn’t go. I was going to, I really was. I was going to force them to have to send me home.”
“What?”
“I was going to do it, but then my parents—my dad—Chris, it’s awful.”
“What?”
“They got to him. I know that’s what happened.”
“What are you talking about? Poe?”
She clears her throat and looks up at me with sad eyes. “I got expelled from school.”
I try to make sense of what she just said.
“They found drugs in my locker. And this isn’t the first time. They’d found pot on me before.”
“What?”
“The first time was legit—it was my sophomore year and—yeah, long story. But this—they’re saying they found heroin in my locker. Heroin. I mean—really? Look at me. Come on. It’s such a joke.”
“Who—when’d you find out?”
“They told me Friday afternoon. That’s why you didn’t see me at the end of the day.”
“I usually don’t anyway.”
“They got my stuff and I was escorted out by Sheriff Wells.”
“What?”
“Yeah. So much for that, huh? So much for alliances.”
“Did you tell them that it wasn’t—”
“Of course. But no. Then today my father got fired from his job. Works as a marketing something-or-other for a company that—well, basically it’s Mr. Staunch. That’s what happened.”
“Do your parents know?”
“Know what? They don’t know anything.”
Save a prayer, Kelsey. Save a prayer for the morning after. Or maybe don’t wait that long.
“Poe …”
She curses. “This is what they do, Chris. They make people disappear. They did it to Jocelyn and to Rachel. I was afraid this would happen.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know. I don’t. But I know too much.”
“We have to tell your parents everything.”
“No.” She looks around, since her voice echoed off the walls. “No, we can’t,” she says in a softer voice. “They don’t believe the drugs. They know that I didn’t do that.”
“Then you can tell them what’s going on.”
“No. Because I don’t want anything happening to them.”
“And your expulsion? I mean—what does that mean?”
“It means that they’ll be willing to go easy on me if I go to another school and am placed on probation.”
“Another school?”
She nods.
“I’m—I don’t know what to say.”
“We should never have come up to you in the first place,” Poe says. “Even if you were the new cute guy. Your life would’ve been a lot easier.”
“Sometimes I think it’s the other way around. That this is all because of—that it’s all my fault.”
“It’s not anybody’s fault except the monsters doing this.” Poe looks out to the street as a car passes. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Why?”
“Just—it’s not good for you to be here. I don’t want—you need to give me some space, Chris. For now.”
“I’ve been giving you space.”
She finally notices the tuxedo I’m in. “You look handsome.”
“I’m sorry you couldn’t come.”
“How was it?”
“Surreal.” I’m not lying to her. It was surreal. In a good and a bad way.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“Don’t disappear on me,” I tell her. “Don’t move in the middle of the night or anything like that.”
“We just have to get through tonight. My parents are pretty shaken up.”
I give her a hug and then watch her as she goes back inside.
I feel something that’s been growing and mutating inside of me for some time.
It’s rage.
Rage that I’m stuck inside some invisible cell. Rage that I’m being constantly watched. Rage that every good person who comes across my path gets taken away or hurt or worse.
A rage that needs revenge.
I turn up the music as loud as it can go as I drive home.
I tell myself that I’m going to find the people who did this.
I’m going to find the reason they’re doing this and then show it to the world.