Chapter 57

Just in case… That phrase kept echoing in his head: Just in case. That was all he’d been able to say. They kept asking him for a reason and that’s all he could say. Just in case.

In case what? they asked him.

He remembered when he’d taken them. That morning, right after his mom had died, when he’d felt like his heart had been ripped out of his chest. He’d taken them because her name was on the bottles. He’d taken them because he thought they might make his pain go away.

Just in case.

“In case I couldn’t do this anymore,” he had told them finally.

Do what? they asked him.

“Do this,” he’d said, gesturing around him. “Do any of this. Be here. Be… alive.”

Even as he said the words he knew it was the exact wrong thing to say. And just like that, he knew what was going to happen.

He was put on suicide watch. This meant they went through his things with more vigor, removing the shoelaces from his shoes and his belts and ties and anything metal, which meant his school bag was staying in the staff office. His room upstairs already didn’t have a door, this was standard, everyone changed in the bathrooms, which didn’t have locks. A staff person would knock on the door every five minutes while he was in there, and he had to answer or they would come in to make sure he wasn’t trying to kill himself. Suicide watch would last twenty-four hours, and then he would talk to a counselor, and if all went well, he would sign something called a safety contract and have his normal privileges.

If things didn’t go well, they would bring him to the hospital to be evaluated.

They also took his phone. Phones were generally allowed during the day, but at night all the residents had to relinquish their connections to the outside world. There was a “charging station” in the staff office. “If someone needs to contact you in an emergency, they’ll have to call the house number.” Ryan didn’t know the house number, and now he didn’t even have the opportunity to give that number to anyone else.

Not that there was really anyone else who would need to contact him for an emergency. It was yet another reminder that it was just him, alone in the world.

He spent the rest of that night, after sitting at the dinner table eating nothing, lying on his new bed. The mattress was thin and the sheets smelled funny. His side of the room was bare. He hadn’t thought about bringing posters to hang up, and the only picture he’d brought was in a metal frame so that was locked up in the staff office. His roommate, Pete, had made a wallpaper out of posters: Star Wars seemed to be his favorite thing. Ryan supposed posters of anything would at least hide the scuff marks on the white paint and make it look less like a prison cell.

At least Pete spent most of his time with a pair of big headphones over his ears, so Ryan didn’t have to try to talk to him. It made Ryan wonder how many roommates Pete had gone through, if he wasn’t at all curious about Ryan. Then again, Ryan wasn’t especially curious about Pete.

It was easier not to care.

***

Sunday morning brought another meal Ryan didn’t want to eat. The Hispanic kid he’d seen in the kitchen yesterday filled Ryan’s plate and then sat down beside him. “You should eat something,” he said quietly, glancing over at the two staff people – different staff than yesterday. “I know they got you on watch. You don’t eat, they think you’re trying to starve yourself.”

Ryan picked up his fork and stared at his plate. The mound of eggs and hash browns and bacon glistened with grease.

“It’s real good. I made it.” The kid looked proud of himself. “I’m Ricky, by the way.” He leaned in and whispered, “I’m the only one here who can cook.”

“I heard that,” said a dark-skinned boy from across the table.

“And what?” Ricky said.

Ryan managed to choke down a few bites, then had to cover his mouth with his fist so it didn’t all come back up.

“Here’s the plan for today, boys,” said one of the staff, a middle-aged woman with short brown hair. “Dave, you’re working at noon, Peter – Pete, headphones off at mealtime. Pete.” The male staff walked over and tapped one of the big earpieces. Pete looked up and immediately removed them. “Pete, you’re working from three to six. Sean and Ricky, you two have community service this afternoon for that little stunt you pulled last week.”

“Why doesn’t Dave have community service?” Ricky demanded.

“He will, but not today. Because he has a job.”

Ricky muttered something that sounded like, “No fair.”

“So you all will be staying back at the house, along with Ryan, our newest resident. Has everybody met Ryan?”

They hadn’t, but no one said that. Ryan was still trying to swallow back vomit but he gave everyone a grim smile.

“The rest of you have the choice to stay back and help with cleaning and then have free time, or go on a hike with Darren. Or, you can try to convince Darren to take you to the mall or something.”

“Unlikely,” said Darren.

Ryan wondered if he would be required to help clean. Turned out the answer was yes. He attempted to disappear into the wall after breakfast, to sneak away upstairs, but Hope called him out. “Ryan, you’re on breakfast clean up. Then you’re vacuuming.”

In a way, it was better to have some mindless task to do instead of lying on his bed doing nothing. “Don’t worry, man,” said Ricky as Ryan loaded the dishwasher. “Weekends are chore days. During the week we each have a night to do laundry and meals, but most of the time we can just kick back. Watch TV and whatever. You know?”

Ryan knew. He already saw the days and weeks of organized activities marching ahead of him with no escape. “Can I have my laptop so I can do my homework?” he asked Hope, after all his chores were done and everyone else had gone off to do whatever they did: Ricky, Sean, and Dave were out in the driveway playing basketball, Pete was in his room listening to music and reading comic books.

“You can use it downstairs,” she told him.

But of course there was no wireless. He sighed, wondering if he cared to ask if the group home had internet at all. He didn’t ask. He just started typing up an essay for history class and finished the rest of his homework.

“Nice computer.” Sean and Ricky had come in for lunch. Lunch was a do-it-yourself meal, and Ryan watched the two boys make themselves enormous sandwiches and fill the rest of their plates with chips. “How much did it cost?”

“I don’t know,” Ryan said. His mother had bought it for him a couple of years ago as his big Christmas present. That had been during her first remission.

“Must be nice, having your own computer,” Sean said. “If I wanna go online, I have to go down to the library or use my phone.”

“They let you go to the library?” Ryan asked.

“Yeah, if you’re not a delinquent or whatever.” Ryan wasn’t sure if by whatever, Sean meant suicide watch. “Like, you have to tell the staff where you’re going and you have to be back by a certain time, but yeah.”

“This place is way better than the last place I was at,” said Ricky. “They were fucking Nazis there.”

“Dude, you were in lockdown,” Sean said.

Ryan tried to focus on his textbooks. He had thought that most of the kids in a group home would be like him. He’d sometimes thought of the group home as an orphanage. He didn’t want to think about how the kids had criminal records and thought his computer was “nice.”

“You a nerd or something?” Ricky asked.

With his computer and open textbooks and notebook, Ryan supposed he did look like a nerd. He shrugged, wishing these guys would just go away. Unlikely, since he was doing his schoolwork at the dining room table, and that’s where they were eating.

“‘Cuz you don’t look like a nerd,” Ricky said. “You’re big.”

“I’m on the football team,” Ryan answered.

“You play basketball? You should come shoot hoops with us.”

“I have a lot of homework,” he said.

“And you two have community service.” Hope stood in the door to the staff office. “Your social worker’s picking you up in twenty minutes, so eat fast.”

“Aw, man,” said Sean.

They finally left Ryan alone so they could finish eating. While they were cleaning up after themselves, Pete wandered downstairs to get himself something to eat.

“Ryan, can you come into the office for a second?” Hope called.

He hesitated at leaving his computer out and unguarded. Just a second, she said. So he left it and went in. She gestured for him to have a seat. “How are you doing?” she asked.

That was a loaded question. “Okay.”

She watched him, her fingers busying playing with a pen – clicking it, twirling it between her fingers. He was sure she wanted more of an answer than that, but with a question like, How are you doing? she wasn’t going to get more.

“Have you had any thoughts about harming yourself today?” she asked finally.

“No.”

“Good.” She nodded. “That’s good. Now, I noticed you didn’t eat much at breakfast. Are you feeling hungry at all for lunch?”

“Not really.”

“Okay. I’d like for you to try to eat something. I have to report it if you don’t. Come with me.”

He followed her into the kitchen, where Pete was spreading peanut butter on bread and grooving to his music.

“There’s peanut butter, jelly, sandwich meat, tuna, all kinds of stuff. And all these Tupperware have leftovers, you can eat any of those. Meatballs from dinner Friday, you could make a meatball sub. Chicken, everything’s labelled. We throw out anything a week old.” Hope closed the fridge and looked at him. “Are you in the mood for anything special?”

Ryan still hadn’t recovered from the three bites of breakfast. He sighed. “Maybe soup?”

Hope pulled down some ramen from the cabinet and showed him how to make it. He’d been thinking more like chicken noodle, but he let her make it and then sat at the table with Pete and ate a few spoonfuls of broth while she watched.

“Your social worker will be here around four,” Hope told him. “Then we’ll do your safety contract and everything will be good. Okay?”

He nodded. He was pretty sure a safety contract wasn’t going to make anything all good.