I look around the room that I’ll now call home: it has a queen-sized bed with white bedding that looks so soft, just the thought of wrapping myself in that instead of the scratchy things I’ve been so used to for the last five h
as me feeling giddy.
Once we were inside, Jake explained everything to me. That the program wouldn’t be possible without volunteers like Livvy. They take in young people like me and set them up with a safe place to stay, helping them adjust to outside life while offering support and a caring environment. It’s meant to be a stepping stone; to help me save up enough money to get my own place and become fully independent and able to live a normal life—but what is normal anyway?
I have two days to settle in before I start my new job: a job that I never thought I’d have. It’s all so surreal that I don’t even know where to start; I don’t know what to think or what to do.
I step forward, looking at the little knickknacks that are on top of the set of drawers that sits under the window before my gaze wanders outside to the backyard that is in much the same condition as the front.
“It’s so green,” I blurt out.
“What’s that, lovely?” Livvy asks.
I point out of the window, my gaze not moving from the grass. “I’ve never seen grass that green before.”
She walks toward me, standing at my side and looking out of the window in much the same way that I am. “I suppose it is, isn’t it?”
I nod in reply and continue to stare. I’ve only been here an hour but already I feel at ease around Livvy. I’m usually closed off, but there’s something in her eyes that has me relaxing.
“You ready to go?” Jake asks, startling me as he knocks on the door.
I jump, my hand landing on my chest as I spin around. “I—erm…” I shake my head, trying to collect myself before I look down at the clothes that were given to me from the prison to come out in. They’re too big and not exactly “meeting the boss” material.
“Don’t worry about them,” he says, as if he'd read my mind. “He knows you’ve only just got out, the job is already yours. You can get new clothes with your money afterward.”
“Wait… what?” I shake my head, trying to take all of this information in. I woke up this morning in a small bed, surrounded in scratchy sheets, not fully prepared to be on the other side of the locked gates and in this beautiful home, around people who are willing to help.
“Money?” I ask, confused by what he’s saying.
“Yeah,” he says, leaning against the side of the doorframe. “You worked jobs while you were inside. ” He reaches into the pocket of his pants and pulls out a piece of paper. “What you used for commissary has been taken out and this is what you have left.”
My eyes widen as he then pulls out an envelope and hands it out to me. “I…” I step forward, taking it out of his hand and opening it up, seeing a cashier’s check made out to me for eight hundred dollars.
For five years I’ve worked the jobs that pay only a few cents an hour, but it builds up, and I never really spent much anyway, only getting the essentials when I needed them. When you’re inside with nothing else to do, all you want to do is keep busy, so working all the hours I could was all that mattered. Not only that but to keep out of the firing line too.
Being around that many women, a lot of them dangerous, is a precarious place to be, and more than once I’ve taken the brunt of their anger. At times, I felt like I had a big red arrow above my head; begging them to say something to me, to do something, to take advantage of me and remove my choices without me being able to do anything about it.
“You need to pay Livvy your first month’s rent and that way you’ll be ahead before you start your job.”
“Of course,” I murmur, nodding my head, still shocked by the amount of money that I have.
“We’ll sort all that out when you come back, lovely,” Livvy interjects, stepping forward and placing her hand on my shoulder before patting it gently. “You just go and meet your boss and then we can plan the next few days and get you settled in properly.”
I lift my head, my eyes meeting her dark-blue ones before they flit over her light gray hair that’s styled into a stylish bob. “Okay.”
She smiles softly at me and I clear my throat, dropping my clear plastic bag on the end of the bed with the envelope before pushing my shoulders back and meeting Jake’s eyes. “Let’s do this.”
I reach my arms high above my head, stretching out the aching muscles in my back. I’ve been sitting at my computer now for six hours straight. I say computer, what I really mean is two keyboards hooked up to four screens, and this is just my home computer. The one in the warehouse has even more screens.
I tend to get lost when I press my finger on the space bar and bring it to life, the LCD screens drawing me into their web and not letting me go for many hours at a time. Whether I’m playing a game, writing code, or making a new device; I like to drift to that place in my mind where everything is quiet and nothing else but what is in front of me matters.
“Evan?” I jump at the voice and spin around in my chair, almost slipping off it at how fast I turn.
I grab the edge of my desk to stop myself from falling, my eyes connecting with Geena’s dark-blue ones before scanning the rest of her face. Her lips are pulled into a grim line and her foot is tapping against the floor where she sits on my couch that also pulls out into a bed.
“Hey,” I say, my voice small and betraying me, but I really don’t want to rile her up by talking too loud. “I didn’t realize you were—”
“Here?” she interrupts.