Page 18 of My Family

After lunch, Griff catches me in the hallway with a look that means follow me, so I do.

His office smells like coffee and the particular staleness of a room that's been heated all winter. He doesn't make me sit before he starts talking, which means it's not a punishment. Punishments always start with him telling me to sit.

"You've been doing well in your coursework," he says. "The nursing program specifically. Ms. Okafor's been sending me updates."

"Yes, sir." I keep my voice flat. I don't know where this is going. Ms. Okafor is my nursing counselor.

"There's a hospital an hour from here. St. Agnes. They have a partnership with a couple of facilities like ours. Take on a small number of residents for supervised clinical hours. Real hospital, real patients, under a nurse's direct supervision the whole time. It's competitive. Most kids who apply don't get in." He closes the folder on his desk, looks at me over it. "Ms. Okafor put your name forward. I signed off on it."

For a second I don't say anything. I'm waiting for the catch. There's always a catch here.

"You'd go two days a week, a full day each time," Griff continues. "Transport supervised. You'd be doing real clinical work, not just observing. It looks good on paper when the time comes for review boards. You need clinical hours for your degree. Looks even better if you're serious about doing this for real once you're out."

"Once I'm out," I repeat, like the words are in a language I don't quite speak.

"That's the idea." He smiles. "Don't get ahead of yourself. You screw around out there, you embarrass this program, you're back here scrubbing toilets for the rest of the year. Understood?"

"Understood, sir." I stand up straighter without meaning to. "Thank you."

"Thank Ms. Okafor. She's the one who thinks you're worth the paperwork." He waves a hand toward the door, already reaching for the next folder on his desk. "You start after everything is arranged. Details will come through her."

I walk out and the hallway looks the same as it always does, gray and cold and lined with the same doors, but something in my chest has shifted half an inch to the left. Jack's future crumbled this morning. Mine just quietly cracked open. I don't know what to do with either of those things yet, so I just walk, and let the feeling settle somewhere.

I walk faster. My chest is doing something I don't have a word for. I need to sit down. I need to run. I need to tell someone, except I can't tell anyone yet, especially not Liam, as I don’t want him to freak out, even though I know he’d support me, so I just keep walking, faster, until I'm almost at a run down a hallway where running is not allowed, and I don't even care.

Chapter 7. Liam

News travels fast at Aspire. Today, the news is "new goth hot art teacher, young as fuck, but maybe a MILF."

She's late. Ten minutes past the bell, and the classroom is already a riot. The room used to be a gym, or a storage shed, now an art room, the largest room we have, as art is mandatory for every degree as a form of therapy. It has long wooden tables and benches. Smells of paint and glue. I love that, actually. For some reason I'm obsessed with the smell of glue and paint. The supply caddy is full of blunt pencils, chewed-up erasers, ancient watercolors, and mismatched markers.

Jack is already drawing on the table. Not paper. He is such a badass for that, and Ethan would have his ass for it too. He's sketching a perfect rendering of a cock and balls, except the balls are shaped like the planet Saturn. I'm already giggling. Miles, beside him, is reading an ancient biology textbook that's been rebound with silver duct tape. Harry is using scissors to cut an eraser into the shape of a tiny gun. Ethan sits at the back, arms folded, that green-eyed flatline of disapproval radiating at all of us.

I should be hyped. I love art. I love any class where they let you use your hands, and the expectations are so low that breathing in the right direction gets you a passing grade. But instead, I'm jumpy. She was hired after Mr. Pearson, Shadow, got transferred, eventually being revealed that the reason was for "inappropriate conduct," which is a hilarious understatement for what actually happened. They said he got transferred but we know what really happened. And now we get a new totally punk rock teacher in his place. It's weird, I don't usually expect good things to happen, so I'm nervous. Word is, she has purple hair.

This is how a facility full of boys acts before a new teacher comes in: like hyenas at a petting zoo.

The door swings open. Everyone goes silent for one beat.

She walks in, clutching a battered canvas bag and a stack of portfolios. And it's immediately obvious that the rumors didn’t even do her justice, she's exactly what people have been saying, and more.

She's short, her jeans are the color of blood, absolutely coated in dried paint. Her t-shirt is ancient and soft, black with a faded vintage Joy Division cover screen-printed on it. Her boots are scuffed black. And her hair, holy shit, it's true. Not just purple, but a hyper-saturated grape, short and chopped in all directions. Her eyes are ringed in black. Her ears have tiny, mismatched earrings. She radiates energy.

"Good morning," she says, like the fact that it's 10:13 AM and we're all off the rails doesn't even register. "Sorry I'm late. Two things: one, you can call me Vikki, Victoria, or Ms. Sparks, whichever is easier. Two, if you ever have to wait on me again, feel free to start without me. Art is free. Unlike you all." She grins at her own joke and I laugh, loud. I can't believe she said that.

It is an absolutely legendary opening. The whole room erupts. We're not used to teachers with a sense of humor.

Harry, of course, is first to test her. "Do we get extra credit for making something about you, Ms. Sparks?" His eyebrows bounce up. "Because I think I could do a pretty sick portrait of your…"

He doesn't finish. Vikki drops her bag on the table and walks straight to where he's sitting. "If it's a sketch of my boobs, make sure you get the left one a little bigger," she says, tapping the breast in question through the thin band tee, then leans down and looks him dead in the eye. "That's the one with the piercing." She turns to the room. "Anyone else want to check, or are we good?"

Some of the boys snicker. Some are genuinely floored. Harry is not used to being outmaneuvered. He recovers quick. "No further questions, ma'am."

"Excellent." She slides a box of colored pencils down the table with more force than necessary. "Color something that isn't a penis. Unless you have some deep, unresolved feelings about them. In which case, let's unpack that together."

Jack's head is on the desk, snorting. I can't stop grinning.

She addresses the class: "Alright, today is a free period. Draw something. Paint something. If you have a project going, finish it. If you want to start over, do that. I'll come around and see what you're working on." She sets herself at the front, but walks the aisles as she says it, peeking at what's going down on paper.