AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Uh huh.”
I tried to think of something I could tell her that I hadn’t already talked about. I hoped if I just stalled long enough, Raine would fall asleep again.
“Tell me about Jillian,” Raine said.
“No,” I snapped. “I told you before, don’t say that name.”
“I told you about Andrew.”
“I don’t fucking care,” I snapped again. “Don’t say her name.”
“Well, what will you tell me about?” she growled right back at me, her voice suddenly steady again. I supposed I should have seen it as a good sign. She was annoyed, which meant she was more lucid than she had been a while ago. I also knew it was a fluke, and unless I found her water, it wasn’t going to last.
“How about telling me why you started drinking so much?”
“It helps me sleep.”
“Is it hard for you to sleep?”
I sighed and tried to relax the muscles across my shoulders and down my arms. I leaned back on my elbows and looked sideways at her.
“Can’t you just ask me something easy?” I asked. “Like my favorite food or something?”
“Okay, what’s your favorite food?”
“Pizza.”
“Okay, mine’s chocolate cream pie,” Raine said, smiling a little and looking up at me. “Now why do you have to drink in order to sleep?”
I growled and shook my head. She wasn’t going to give up. Stubborn bitch. At least I wasn’t calling her that out loud anymore.
“I have nightmares,” I admitted.
“I know,” Raine said. I looked over to her sharply, and she lifted her shoulders a little and dropped them again. “I could tell.”
It shouldn’t have come as a shock, but I guess I never thought about how it might look to someone else. I hadn’t had anyone with me when I slept for a very long time. I wondered what I had done or maybe even said. I decided I might not want to know.
“What are they about?” she asked. Her voice was soft and somehow warm as well. When I looked over at her, her eyes showed only concern, maybe curiosity, and a deep need for understanding, but no pity. If I had seen pity…well, I don’t know what I would have done.
“A lot of things,” I said quietly. “Sometimes fights, sometimes about stuff I saw in foster care or the group homes, sometimes I dream about being in jail. It kind of made me claustrophobic, being locked up all the time.”
“You were in jail?”
“Juvenile detention, really,” I corrected, “but it’s basically jail. All the same rules, just a little more free time and your record gets wiped when you turn twenty-one.”
“What did you do?”
“I beat up one of the counselors at the group home.”
“Why did you do that?”
“He fucking deserved it,” I heard myself snarl. “If they hadn’t pulled me off him, I would have smashed in his head and skull-fucked him.”
I couldn’t talk about this. I couldn’t. I squeezed my eyes shut, but I still saw it all again.
I turned around, suddenly realizing Theresa had been gone too long. I had lost track of time listening to the guy from the zoo talk about the owls, and she hadn’t come back outside. I looked around quickly, but she definitely wasn’t in the courtyard. I stalked off into the main building and down the hall - towards the girls’ bathrooms. Tony was walking the opposite way, a snarky smile on his face. He tilted his head to one side as he passed me and tossed a single word in my direction.
“Yummy.”
