What I thought then and will always believe is this: I am all the colours of the sunrise and sunset, painted by a dark demon spirit who dwells in a stone tower on a cliff which looks out over a dark blue sea where only mermaids who have betrayed their kind now swim with sharks and strange monsters of the deep who never come to the surface. But I didn’t say that. I just smiled and looked down. When I looked up, she was staring at me, her eyes these pale green pools, the pupils dark lilies.

“You can always talk to me, Isabella. About anything. I know you don’t talk to the other girls and you’ve had some trouble with the youth workers. It’s hard having to be polite all the time. You must feel very alone.” She smiled all friendly.

I could feel the panic crawling up my throat then, like some sort of horrible lizard. My eyes filled up with tears, but I didn’t say anything because I learned long ago people don’t really care, and I wasn’t about to trust her even though she seemed like she really felt bad for me — but it’s all pretend, just like the rotten tooth fairy and that sort of shit. This is what growing up is about, learning how adults just lie their heads off.

And it’s not just the lies. It’s something beneath that, something flat and insubstantial about how they are inside. It’s like they aren’t real. It’s pretend how humans grow up and mature, have meaning in their lives. It makes me want to barf. This morning when I woke up I imagined a shelf running along the top of the cell with the head of every adult who has ever caused me a problem sitting on it like a vase.

Sergei always said he was a tough guy, I told the police. Talking about beating up losers. He was in court once for uttering death threats, so I know they’ll believe me.

Sergei’s grandfather was Russian, born and raised in Moscow when it was the Soviet Union. Sergei told me that if his grandfather hadn’t defected, Sergei could have been a Russian hockey star, because they have a better hockey program over there. At first I thought Sergei was telling the truth. He is so big, so strong. But he doesn’t even speak Russian. And then I found out his grandfather wasn’t a Russian spy. He was a janitor at the American embassy in Moscow. Apparently the embassy even let janitors defect. But I suppose everybody has secrets, even janitors.

The truth is, Sergei smoked away his hockey career. They told stories about him when I started high school last year. My father kept asking why I couldn’t find a boy my own age. You’re only fifteen, and he’s nineteen. He can’t even get out of high school. My father didn’t understand how boys my own age are tedious. He told me he didn’t want to see him anymore.