“They make the guards’ food here, too,” she said brightly, seemingly not at all bothered by this. “Sometimes, if they make too much of it, we get it for the next meal. The corn bread’s really good. You just have to be careful when you’re biting into it, else it could break your teeth.”
She sat down at an empty table in the corner of the room. Nearby, a handful of old men and women ate together quietly. Their hair was gray, their skin turned to leather in the sun, and their bodies curled in on themselves as if they’d spent their entire lives leaning over. I stared. Other than Augusta Hart, they were the oldest people I’d ever seen in my life.
“You should eat before it gets cold,” said Noelle. She had already taken three massive bites of her burger. Reluctantly I unwrapped mine and stared at the first cheeseburger I’d been allowed in months.
So this was what it took to have red meat, or whatever passed for it in Elsewhere. Would last night have turned out differently if I hadn’t argued with Knox over those stupid puff pastries? Would he have still turned on Benjy when he found out about the file? Would I have gone after them at all?
I took a bite. It tasted nothing like real meat, and only months of eating food I hated prevented me from spitting it out. Chewing slowly, I forced myself to swallow it, then set the rest of the cheeseburger down. I could put starving to death back on the list after all.
Noelle patted my hand sympathetically, and she pushed her stale brownie toward me. “Here, you can have mine.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled, and I broke off a corner. It was crunchy, but still edible, and though my stomach protested, I managed to keep it down without gagging. The smell of freshly baked bread and seasoned steak attacked my senses, and I began to breathe through my mouth. Of course they cooked the better meals where the prisoners could smell it. Why waste such a perfect opportunity to torture them?
Us, I reminded myself silently. I was one of them now.
My eyes watered, and my breaths came in short gasps. Benjy was dead. I was Elsewhere. Nothing would ever be the same again, and I was griping about the food. I bit my lip, fighting the urge to cry, but my cheeks grew hot. Hastily I rubbed my eyes. I wouldn’t break down in front of everyone like this. I couldn’t let them think I was weak. One wrong move, and—
“Hey,” said Noelle softly, and she set her hand over mine again. Her kindness only made a fresh wave of hopelessness wash over me, and I laced my fingers through hers and squeezed.
“I—I’m sorry—” I began, but I hiccupped before I could say anything more. Noelle handed me a rough napkin, and I dabbed my cheeks, flinching. They were still sore from Maya and her friends.
“No, I’m the one who’s sorry,” said Noelle. “I shouldn’t have dragged you to dinner if you weren’t hungry. I just thought...” She hesitated. “I just thought if you saw that it isn’t so bad here, you wouldn’t be so afraid. It isn’t all hopeless.”
“Isn’t it?” I said, unable to keep the bitterness from my cracking voice. “What’s the point to all this? You sleep. You eat shit. You work and do whatever they tell you, and then what? You get to do it all over again the next day? You get to live as long as they feel like?” I shook my head. Tears flowed freely down my cheeks now, and I caught several people staring at us, but I didn’t care anymore. “You don’t understand. This is all you’ve ever known. This isn’t a real life. You don’t get to—to have hobbies or fall in love or have a family or—or any of that. We’re slaves. We don’t matter to anyone anymore.”
Noelle stared at me, her eyes wide and her face drained of all color. “I matter,” she squeaked. “You matter, too. We’re all a family here—you just arrived, so you can’t see it yet, but you will. We love each other. We look out for each other. And—and I like to read,” she added. “We have a whole library, and they let you check books out if you’re good. And—and some people like to build things, or draw, or cook. Don’t you like to do any of those things?”
I couldn’t answer her even if I’d wanted to. My throat closed up, and I fought to breathe as my vision went blurry from the tears. It was over. It was all over. I hadn’t just lost Benjy—I’d lost everything.
Noelle stood and took my hand. “Come on,” she said again, and she pulled me to my feet and dragged me out of the dining hall. I stumbled after her, struggling to pull myself together, but the quicksand had me now, and I didn’t know how to find the surface.
The cold air hit my lungs like a fist to my gut, and I gasped, bending over in the middle of the street and dry heaving. Only that half-digested bite of burger and brownie came up, but my stomach tried, again and again and again, until I was a sobbing mess.
Noelle rubbed circles between my shoulders and pulled my hair back expertly, as if she’d done this a thousand times before. I couldn’t stand to think about how many girls had come before me—how many had relied upon her expertise of this place before they adjusted to their new lives. If they adjusted at all.
“I have an idea,” she said once I’d straightened. My knees felt weak, and suddenly the cold cut through my jumpsuit, making me painfully aware of the fact that I’d forgotten my coat. “I can trust you, Lila, can’t I?”
There was a strange tone in her voice—a question underneath her words I didn’t completely understand. Trust seemed like such a foreign concept in this place that for a long moment, I stared at her, wondering if I was as much of a question mark to her as she was to me.