The floor is white hexagonal tiles and there’s steel webbing stretched so tightly over the windows it looks like it will snap. The hospital is attached to the juvenile detention center through a series of locked doors and elevators. They brought me here after Mr. Gracie stopped coming to work, leaving me unprotected, and Larry broke my leg. “Where’s your boyfriend now?” Larry asked, while two other boys held me between the sinks by my throat and elbows. Larry kicked at my knee until there was a pop and all three of them ran out. My leg healed but I’ve been kept on the hospital ward instead of the detention center. Staff didn’t want me to break my leg again. I stopped speaking for a month but nobody seemed to notice. Time passes slowly without school classes or fights or games. Sometimes I play checkers with whoever’s in the bed next to mine. Sometimes we play gin rummy. The lights swing on green chains from ceiling beams inside broken plaster. The kid on the end is cuffed to his bed and talks loudly about how dangerous he is and during lunch people throw butter packets at him.
