Beautiful Survivors Read online

  I slip inside and change into my pajamas, pausing in front of the faded old mirror to examine my face. I look better after my skinny dipping session, more alive, like my pale eyes have risen to the surface of my face, sparkling and shimmering like a winter sky.

  The other girls—ages sixteen, fourteen, and twelve—sleep soundly as I crawl into the right bottom bunk and tug the threadbare blankets up around me, crossing my arms behind my head and staring up at the wood rungs above me.

  A few minutes later, the door opens and I shut my eyes quick, assuming it's Mrs. Freeman popping in to check up on us. She does night checks so erratically, it's almost more effective than if she did it regularly.

  “Merit?”

  My eyes snap open and I sit up to find Nash squeezing in the door and pushing it closed with his back, leaning against it as he looks over at me.

  “You awake?”

  “Yeah,” I say and my heart starts to thunder as he makes his way over to me, lifting the covers and sliding his shirtless body in beside me. His dark hair is still slightly damp when he lays his head on my chest and I run my fingers through his hair, just like we used to. The way my heart soars, it's almost criminal. “What did Clea want?” I ask, my voice low enough that the other girls shouldn't wake. When you spend a good portion of your life in foster care and group homes, you learn to ignore the noise. There's always somebody up and doing something, snoring or murmuring in their sleep, tossing and turning.

  “She …” Nash starts, putting his palm flat on my belly. “She wants us to sleep together.”

  My chest gets tight; my throat goes dry.

  “Oh?” I ask, trying to play the childhood friend, the bestie, one of the guys. “What did you say?”

  “I'm not ready,” he tells me and then reaches into the pocket of his sweats, lifting out a string of condoms. “She gave me these and told me to think about it.”

  “Do you … Are you tempted?” I whisper, my voice hoarse and faraway. I practice keeping my breathing slow and even, certain that Nash can hear the beating of my heart.

  He sits up a little, propping himself on his forearm. The way the moon leaks through the curtains of the single window, it limns his face in silver and casts his eyes in dark shadows. I wish I could see them though, try to discern what he might be thinking.

  “I think you don't like Clea very much,” Nash says cryptically. I reach up a hand and put it on his face, feel his lips twisting into a smile.

  “Not really.”

  Nash reaches up and pulls my hand away, curling his fingers through mine. He gives my hand a squeeze and then lets go, pulling the condoms from his pocket and laying them on my chest.

  “Here,” he tells me, voice deadly serious. “You keep these for now.”

  I grab the string of foil squares and jam them in my own pocket as Nash curls his body around me, tossing one leg over mine and burying his face against my neck, exactly the way we used to cuddle as kids.

  It's horribly uncomfortable, but I don't move.

  I don't want to move.

  For the first time in a long time, Hell seems a little more like Heaven.

  School is always a relief, a home away from home with walls that are covered in murals and old cracked floors and teachers that actually seem to give a shit about me. I like it there. Some of the other kids from the home aren't as into it, but it's mostly because they act like little shits and give lip. I won't take crap from anyone, but I do show respect where respect is due.

  Unfortunately, if the teachers are saints at Monterey-Cruz High, then the students are devils.

  “Want to skip fourth and do some blow?” Barrett Marshall asks me, and I lift my eyes from my locker to find him standing too close and grinning that cocky grin of his at me.

  “First of all, there's no way you have blow,” I say, slamming the mossy green metal door of my locker closed and leaning my shoulder against it. “It's probably crack. And second, no. I'd rather not.”

  “Come on, Merit,” he says, reaching out to touch a loose strand of hair. I smack his hand away and raise my eyebrows.

  “You don't have a right to touch me whenever you feel like,” I say and he scowls, shaking his head and giving me a disapproving once-over, like he wasn't just trying to get me to sneak off campus so he could get in my pants.

  “Why not? Don't you have, like, three boyfriends already?” he asks, his eyes as dark as mud and his hair the color of the old tile floors in the school restrooms, this light brown beige streaked through with blonde. “You're always all the hell over them. Clearly it can't be that hard to get in your fucking pants.”

  “Back the hell off, Barrett,” Maddox says, appearing behind me like he always does. I swear, he has a built-in radar for when I'm trouble. I can handle myself—I've had to learn how to over the years—but it always feels good to have back up.

  “Damn,” Barrett says, shaking his head and slicking his hand over his smooth, shiny hair, “she must be killer in the sack if you're willing to share her with two other dudes.”

  Maddox moves forward, but I turn and put my back to Barrett, placing my hands on his shoulders.

  “One more incident and you're off to Purgatory,” I whisper, putting my cheek against his chest. “You can't leave us in Hell without you.”

  That calms him down, even if he has to close his eyes and take a deep breath. It's been getting harder and harder for Maddox over the years as his vision starts to fade. At this point, he's lost most of his peripheral vision. When he was four, he was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa; the doctors say he'll be legally blind by age forty.

  “Who does that asshole think he is?” he asks, stepping back and blinking down at me. Knowing that deep brown gaze of his might lose the ability to see my face one day scares the shit out of me. I've been looking up cures for Maddox's disorder online, but without a phone, tablet, or computer of my own it isn't easy.

  Internet access is a luxury for the denizens of Hell. We have one shitty old computer in the common room that everyone's always fighting for. Not sure why since it uses freaking dial-up and has the worst parental controls known to man. Once, I tried to Google something about chickens for a school report and ended up getting kicked off because the word 'cock' came up in the search.

  I hate my life.

  “Screw him,” I say, stepping back and letting my hands slip off of Maddox's shoulder. My fingertips trail down the front of his tight white t-shirt, sending a little sizzle down my arms, like I've just cast a spell and felt the magic wash over me. Abracadabra, right? “Barrett thinks he's a big shot because he drives a Mercedes and scores crack off some dude near the bus stop.”

  Maddox stares at me for another few seconds, like he's trying to memorize my face. The expression bothers me so much that I end up shoving my fingers in my jeans and banishing the tingly feeling in my limbs.

  “All of that shit he was saying about you, Mer,” Maddox starts, but I wave it off like it's nothing. Hell, it is nothing. Barrett doesn't know shit about me and the boys, doesn't know all the horrible, awful things we've suffered through together. He has a mom that loves him, that brings trays of freshly baked cookies to school bake sales, and a dad that shows up to as many games as he can. Of course, I've heard Barrett complaining about what an asshole his dad is because he doesn't come to every game, but fuck him.

  Kid has no idea how good he's got it.

  “It doesn't matter, Mad,” I tell him, looking up into his face and giving a tight smile. I have a twenty in my pocket that Gunner gave me on the bus this morning. I'm supposed to talk to this guy from my PE class about getting his cousin to buy us a bottle of vodka from the grocery store on the corner. Normally, we wouldn't be spending what little money we have on booze, but whatever. Not complaining over here. “Barrett can say whatever the hell he wants, doesn't matter. Without you guys … I'm nothing.”

  “That's not true at all, Mer,” Maddox says, but I don't believe him. I step to the side where I know his peripheral vis
ion is a little questionable and make a face. I'm glad he can't see it.

  “Stay sharp, okay?” I say, tugging on the sleeve of his brown leather jacket and disappearing down the hall.

  Without the guys, I think I'd be too broken to fix. With them around, I might have a few cracks but I'm in no way shattered.

  After school, I give the twenty to that random guy I know from class and end up with a few cheap bottles of watermelon vodka.

  “S'all they had,” is what he tells me, pocketing five bucks and disappearing around the back of the gym to make out with his new boyfriend, some emo kid that transferred here last month from the art school downtown.

  The boys and I miss the bus—we're definitely getting fucking infraction slips—and walk as slow as we can back to Hell, taking turns chugging mouthfuls of the rancid alcohol.

  “This tastes like nail polish remover,” Nash says, making this gagging motion that actually manages to turn my stomach, too. “I mean, could we just drink nail polish remover? It'd probably taste better than this crap. Hey, Barrett says he has some blow. Should we try it?”

  “It's not blow, it's crack,” I say, tipping the glass bottle to my lips and trying to think of better places, happier things. Nash is right: this stuff is gross. But for an afternoon, it'll get us buzzed and that's all we can really ask for.

  An escape. A moment. A chance to feel free.

  Seems silly that we'd need to smoke or drink or swim naked to feel that way, right? But I swear, there must be something embedded in the walls of Hell that breeds despair. I've seen kids turn to dust in there, lose every good part of who they are, float away until they're nothing. They go to Purgatory and they never come back. That's what happens to kids who come in here alone.

  “Hand that to me,” Gunner says, grabbing the bottle and taking a swig. I notice as he's drinking it that he's eyeing me, this little wrinkle in his brow that makes my hackles go up. He pretends like it's nothing, flicking his eyes away as we come up to the house—this imposing two story brick building with faded navy blue shutters, bars over the front windows (more to keep us in than keep people out), and a sagging gray porch.

  We sneak around the side and Clea opens the side gate, making my lips purse.

  “Hurry and get in here. The Buzzard still hasn't checked us in yet.”

  Clea steps aside and bites her lower lip in Nash's direction, making my own curl in response.

  “Hey,” she says as he moves into the yard, handing her the watermelon vodka and grinning as she takes a swig. The way her hot pink nails pick at the sleeve of his jacket seriously makes my vision go red.

  But Nash gave me the condoms, right? He gave them to fucking me. If he were planning on screwing Clea, we wouldn't have had that conversation, would we? Ugh. There are so many days where I wake up wishing I'd been born either gay or straight with a penis so I could deal with the boys without all these … fucking feelings getting in the way.

  “Have you thought about what I said?” she's asking as I storm past her and throw my book bag onto the grass, taking a cross-legged seat in front of one of the crooked gravestones. Hot sunshine slants across my face, but I ignore it, gesturing at Maddox to hand me his bottle.

  He can't see me from where he's sitting on a cracked white marble slab, and that makes me sad. Really sad.

  “Bottle, Mad,” I say as he glances over at the house and surreptitiously passes the drink to me. “So, Gunner,” I continue after another swig. Goose bumps prickle across my skin and then suddenly I'm just dying for a cigarette. “What're you freaking out about?”

  “Who says I'm freaking out about anything?” he asks cryptically, his icy blonde hair, sea green eyes, and towering height making him look like a viking extra in a movie. I always thought he looked a little like a young Alexander Skarsgård.

  “Um, because you splurged on liquor which you never do, and because you're holding all of your stress up here.” I pinch the bridge of my nose and try to ignore the interaction between Clea and Nash over by the orange tree on the other side of the yard. She's got her back to it and he's leaning in to talk to her.

  The whole thing infuriates me.

  I want to punch Clea in the tit. And Nash in the balls.

  Gunner takes a spot on the stone bench against the house.

  His cheeks are slightly pink from chugging half a bottle of vodka, but his expression … it's all serious.

  “They're sending you back to the Kennedys,” he tells me, and I swear, I swallow the burning liquid down the wrong side of my throat. As I choke and sputter my way through it, I climb to my feet and feel a rush of fear and panic surge through me. Happens every fucking time we get the news that one of us is leaving, we're being sent away, that we might never see each other again.

  Obviously, we're in our teens now and capable of making phone calls, writing letters, sneaking out. But back in the day, when we were kids, it felt like each time we left the home, we were being spirited away to another world. That, and the threat of abuse was so much more present, being small and helpless in a stranger's home.

  But I'm sixteen now and I know the Kennedys; they're the voucher thieves.

  “Why the hell would they want me back?” I ask, as soon as I can breathe again. Now it feels like cheap vodka is not only searing my throat and belly, but my lungs, too. At least the buzz is worth it. If I wasn't at least slightly under the influence right now, I'd probably be in the middle of a meltdown.

  “I don't know. But this morning, I heard the Buzzard chatting with the house manager outside before we left for school. They're coming to pick you up on Friday after school.”

  I bite my lower lip and close my eyes for a moment before I lift the drink to my mouth and slug some back.

  Shit.

  The Kennedys live almost an hour away in some three bedroom seventies ranch home with Pottery Barn furniture they bought using money from the state, money that's supposed to be used on me so I don't have to wear shoes with holes and a hand-me-down hoodie that all three of my boys wore before it got to me.

  I don't want to go back there; I don't want to be separated from the only family I have.

  “I'm not going,” I announce as I throw back yet another drink and feel it hit me hard, making my brain feel like it's sloshing around inside my skull. “Not fucking happening.”

  “Merit,” Gunner starts as I glance over and notice Clea playing with the lapels on Nash's jean jacket. If I leave, he might … I can't even make myself think it. Nash is sixteen and he's had a hard life; I know he's more than capable of making his own decisions. Yet … the thought of him and Clea hooking up devastates me.

  “Thanks for telling me right away,” I say sarcastically, finishing off the bottle of vodka and then taking a few steps back so I have a better angle to chuck it up onto the roof. There are a good three dozen bottles up there, some of them cracked with faded labels from years ago, some of them fresh.

  I haul my arm back and add another to the pile.

  As soon as it lands, the Buzzard is peeking her head out the upstairs bedroom window and glaring down at me. She narrows her eyes one me—I swear to God, there's no distinction between her pupils and her irises; it's all black as pitch—and then gestures with her head for me to come inside.

  “Miss Burden, I'd like for you to meet me in the office.”

  The window slams shut, flaking white paint peeling it strips down the sides of its frame. Withering away. Decaying.

  Sort of like my heart.

  The system is seriously going to kill me.

  I take a deep breath, throw one last look at Maddox, Gunner, and Nash, and the head inside.

  “What the hell are we going to do?” Nash is asking, pacing around the threadbare carpet in the living room with his favorite white tank draped over the lean muscles in his chest and abs. It's so old that there are holes in all the right places: over his left nipple, near his belly button, a series of tears and rips that show off the almost 'V' that he's been working on for a year.


  I'm drunk enough that I don't really try to hide that I'm looking. Gunner notices, I know, but all he does is sigh. He has a crush on me, I think. Has for years. Maybe Maddox does, too? But if any one of us makes a move, what will happen to the other two? If I finally just broke down and told Nash how I feel, would I lose Maddox and Gunner?

  I don't want to think so—we are family, after all, but romantic and sexual relationships would definitely muddle things around here. Life is already fucked up enough as it is.

  “Keep your voice down, dude,” Maddox says, kicking Nash in the leg the next time he paces by, raking his fingers through his dark hair. Apparently after I left to talk to Mrs. Freeman, Nash and Clea parked themselves behind the half-crumbled mausoleum in the far corner of the yard to drink and make out.

  I had to climb through the clusters of blackberries to get back there and grab him by the shirt. He just now found out about this whole thing with the Kennedys.

  “Keep my voice down?” he asks, reaching out to finger the short white-blonde strands of my hair. “How am I supposed to keep my damn voice down? Do you remember what those people did to Merit? It was psychological torture. You should report Jen-whatever-her-name is.”

  “Jenna-Marie,” I say, referencing the bitch mom of the two other bitches that live in the Kennedy household. “And I did. But you know how the Buzzard is: if they grease her palms enough, no complaint ever makes it past her door.”

  “Then, like, email someone or something,” Nash says, sounding totally hysterical. He gets like that sometimes when he drinks, completely overemotional. “CPS or DHS or whatever.”

  Nash pauses and looks down at me, sniffling and running his tongue over his lower lip. The movement shouldn't be so sexy and yet … I can't stop staring at his mouth.

  I'm drunk, I think as I close my eyes and try to get my mind off of last night, off Nash's body curled up close to mine, off the string of condoms I stuffed into my pocket. I still have them, nestled in the front of this hoodie. It feels like if I keep them close, Nash won't be able to get them so he can fuck Clea. Illogical, sure, but I really am smashed. Smashed on watermelon effin' vodka from the grocery store.