The cell doors didn’t open the next morning.
The guards usually came by around seven and seemed to relish in rolling the rusty cage open in a screech so it would wake us up traumatically but they were M.I.A. that morning.
I laid there for a couple hours in silence with the door still locked from the outside before Karl spoke up.
“What’s going on?”
“I’m sure it has something to do with last night. I don’t know if it’s safe out there.”
“No breakfast?”
“I’m hungry.”
I laid there for a few more moments.
“Should we say something?”
Just as Karl was finished, a guard strolled by and slid open the door.
Tall, probably near seven feet tall, with rolled up sleeves revealing inked up arms, I had never seen the guard before. It had been the same guards since the first day I arrived every day. The presence of the new guard seemed incredibly weird.
Karl was up out of bed and shaking the room before I could even get up. He rumbled out the cell. I heard him shake the stairs down to the dining hall when I walked to the cell door and took a apprehensive step out.
Things seemed somewhat normal outside of the cell. Karl and Stinky Junior as usual, were the first ones to breakfast and everyone else seemed to be milling out of their cells amongst the menacing guards.
The only thing that seemed to be different was the tardiness of the start of the day and the fact I didn’t recognize any of the guards. They appeared to be completely replaced in the night.
I skulked past another new guard like a sneaky cat and went down to breakfast.
Just as I was going to walk into the dining hall, I was snatched up by Bory. He threw an arm over me and walked me over to the bathroom in the corner of the hall.
“Come with me if you want to live,” I couldn’t tell if Bory was serious or joking, considering what my life had become.
Dark, damp and drafty, I rarely went into the dining hall bathroom, knowing it was a frequent hangout spot of the others who I had previously never interacted with. I still felt a bit nervous about it all when Bory walked me in.
The awkward glances Eric and Gil shot me unnerved me as soon as I walked in. My nerves wound themselves right up when I saw the face of a completely new boy about our age who like me, lacked the visible signs of deformity.
Bory stuck a silencing finger up to his lips and walked me over to the new boy while Eric, Gil and Griff’s eyes lingered upon me.
“This is Hugh. He’s going to save us,” Bory whispered into my ear.
I stuck my hand out for a shake with Hugh. He ignored it and gave me a hug.
“I’m sorry you’re here,” he whispered into my ear. “I’m going to get you out of here.”
A further look at Hugh didn’t suggest to me at all he would be capable of getting me out of our maximum-security hell. He looked to be all of 13 years-old at best and was built like a mathalete – short, shaggy-haired, with thin arms too long for his body and a baby face adorned with thick glasses – he was the opposite of intimidation.
“How the hell did you get in here?” I asked Hugh.
Bory shuffled over to one of the stalls, opened it up and bent down to the toilet. My mind created horrible images of someone crawling through the sewer until Bory went over to the toilet seat dispenser and snapped it off the wall, revealing a small little dark hole which barely looked like it could fit any of us.
“Seriously?”
“We make it a little bit bigger everyday,” Bory explained and then shut the cover right back. “We should have it big enough for all of us to get in and out in a few weeks. I just wanted to show you.”
Hugh tried to speak up again, but the sounds of approaching footsteps rattled everyone in the little bathroom. The sound of a howl from Stinky Junior outside the door sent Hugh on a sprint into the stall.
The towering guard with the tattoos I saw earlier literally ducked into the bathroom with an annoyed look upon his face.
“You guys gotta get breakfast before we close up the dining hall,” he said in a high-pitched voice which almost caused me to laugh – I chewed on the inside of my cheek.
What I saw when I returned to the dining hall actually made me feel worse than the fear of what I had seen the night before.
Sitting next to Karl in the dining hall, holding his hand, was Liz.
Liquid rushed to the back of my throat. I felt I could vomit. The girl whose thoughts of forever with in my head had kept me up all night was holding hands and splitting Pop Tarts with the hulking, retarded monster who slept right above me? Not possible.
I walked closer and confirmed. Liz’ soft, delicate, beautiful, wonderful, caring little hand was clasped tightly in Karl’s. The liquid bubbled at the back of my tongue now. Tasted awful.
I walked over to the breakfast line, grabbed the food I was required to take and walked it right over to the trash can to dump it.
The next hour or so was pure torture. I laid on my back in my bed staring at the bottom of Karl’s mattress cursing him.
Why didn’t he tell me he was with her? Why did she tell me she was with him? Why was she with him? What on Earth did she see in that retard? Had they kissed? Had they done more than that? Where did they do it? Did she like it or was she just trying to make him happy? Did he even know what it all meant? Why would she want to be with him and not with me?
Karl walked in. Oh man. What should I say? He walked right by me in silence and climbed up onto his bed. I didn’t say a thing. Coward.
Instead, I just laid there and stewed for hours. Tried to read books, but the printed words in front of my eyes just kept turning into the same questions about Karl and Liz.
It was a long day. I never left the cell. Ignored the lunch and dinner orders. Told everyone I was sick. Which was somewhat true. I did feel like I had to barf, but it wasn’t from a stomach bug of any sort. I was lovesick.
I would lay like that in pain until the fatigue of the previous sleepless night finally got the best of me and I drifted off to the painlessness of dreams.
