Private School Kings

Coups and Castles

I do a lot of things badly. Emotions, important conversations, homework, but there's one thing I do well. I do it very well actually. That one thing is survive. Whenever my Mom lost her shit, I survived. When she finally left, I survived. And when Charlie went to jail, I survived. It was the only thing I did for a long time. All that there was to do. But at Pruitt I had gotten a chance to do more than just survive. I was able to do something good for somebody else. At least, I'd thought it had been good.

Everything was falling apart. I could see that now. The seams of the world as I knew it had been stretched tight, and now the messy, ugly parts were pushing through the holes in the fabric.

Five days had passed since the night I'd found out the truth about Fletcher, five days since I'd kissed Tim, five days since I'd seen any of them. It was easy, I just reverted to the version of myself I'd been when I started at Pruitt. This Murphy was almost unrecognizable from the girl I'd become. No makeup, hair in a ponytail, eyes on the ground. This Murphy was quiet. She was invisible. She survived and nothing more.

I sat in the library, working on my Gatsby English essay. The letters on the page blurred and blended into an ugly mass, and the elaborate chandelier above my head shone with upsetting intensity. It was tearing me apart. Everything had been tearing me apart recently. Before Fletcher, I hadn't been like that. Things used to just bounce off me. I was iron skinned and invincible, but now the slightest thing could set me off. A wrong word from a random teacher or tripping on my shoe lace sent my heart skipping and my hands shaking. It was terrible. Fletcher had let me feel again, but he'd let me feel everything, the good and the bad. Right then, it was all bad, and I didn't know how to stop it.

I took a deep breath, pushing back my seat. One lap around the library might calm me down. I walked slowly, taking another deep breath with each step, rounding the aisle when-

Tim and his lords --just the seniors-- sat at a table in the center of the library, deep in conversation. They were planning something. I could tell. The discussion was all flushed faces and dramatic gestures. I should've just walked past. I'd decided after that night I was done, with all of it. They were all bad, Tim, Heather, and Fletcher too. There was no winning. No matter what side I chose. The answer was easy. Don't choose. Don't do anything.

But now I couldn't stop thinking of how well I could picture these boys in thirty years. There were senators, CEOs, and judges here. I was sure. No matter what pain they'd caused -or would cause- they were going to grow up to go to Ivy League colleges and become the leaders of tomorrow. It struck me how unfair it was. These boys would never have to learn. They would never have to answer for their mistakes. Not in this world... Not unless someone made them. Not unless I made them.

I looked down. My hands weren't shaking anymore.

That terrible feeling, the one that hadn't left me since I'd stormed away from Fletcher, it was replaced by pure rage.

They were all criminals.

They were all liars.

They were all exalted.

I was no one. Just a girl, just a pawn, just a shadow. Even if my time at Pruitt ended in a high school degree and college scholarships I would be stamped as an outsider for the rest of my life. There was something stuck to me, a certain smell, and invisible grime. Even if I worked hard and got lucky I couldn't erase that. I couldn't undo the things that had already happened. Not Charlie's record, or my mothers damage and everything she'd done because of it. I could never make myself whole again.

Maybe I was supposed to be grateful for the chance I'd been given. Maybe someone better than I would have been. They would accept all the unfair things with grace and hope. Maybe. But that wasn't me. I wasn't hopeful, and I definitely wasn't grateful. I was angry. I wanted them all to feel the way I did. I wanted to drag those gilded boys back down to earth and make them feel gravity in the same way as everyone else, with all the weight of the world trying to crush us underneath it.