Breakout by Kevin Emerson

Axis?”
    “The what?” Mom shrugs. “Anthony, you weren’t able to make the right decision in the moment so—”
    “Whatever,” I mutter, and start out of the room.
    But Mom doesn’t let me go as easy as she did yesterday. “You can get started on it tonight because you won’t be leaving the house.”
    I spin around. “What? Come on! I’m grounded?”
    “No, you’re getting the work done that you should have done this afternoon. And you are not going to the Vera Project. We can talk later about whether there need to be more consequences for this.”
    I glare at her, all the feelings boiling over, like I hate her, like I hate Ms. Rosaz, everyone … but I don’t say anything else. Just storm out. I think about throwing my plate of stalag food across the room. But I don’t do that either. Just pound my feet on each step as I head for my room, and when I get there I slam the door and then I just sit on my bed.
    I stare at the wall. I make fists until my nails dig into my palms, and then I release them and make them again. I can’t move, don’t want to move, don’t want to think. And I feel like there is no way out for me, ever. Out of this house, this life.
    Nothing ever,
ever
works out.
Aftermath
    I hear Dad get home.
    I hear
them
talking.
    Mom calls up to me for dinner. I don’t go down. I figure she’ll call again, but she doesn’t bother.
    A little while later, there’s a knock and Dad opens my door. He’s got a plate of Thai stir-fry with tofu. He hands it to me, and as he’s stepping out he says, “Please just get that work done this evening so we can put this behind us.”
    “It’s dumb,” I say, almost wishing I could stop myself, but who even cares?
    “Anthony …”
    “Fine.”
    I eat in silence, all the lights off except for this one desk lamp that’s got a red lightbulb.
    I text Keenan and let him know I can’t go to Vera and I tell him to let Valerie know what happened when he sees her. He doesn’t text me back. He’s probably dealing with mad Skye or, knowing him, his battery is dead. Whatever.
    I am thinking about opening my window and climbing out, wondering like I have a bunch of times before about how much it would hurt to drop down onto the deck from my window. Probably a lot, but maybe I’d get lucky and just sprain an ankle, and that would be worth it. Or maybe I’d be too heavy and break a board on the deck and that would definitely give me away. Then I am thinking about just storming down the stairs, right past my parents and out to do what I want.
    But I don’t do any of those things. I don’t break plates. I don’t run out on my own. Because what would be the point? Anything I do is just going to get me in more trouble and more trapped in this stupid stalag that is my life.
    After a while I open the Rock Star app on my phone, the music-recording program that Keenan and I use. I plug in a headphone/​microphone splitter, then my earbuds and a Sure microphone (just an SM57, because Mr. Darren says if you can’t make it sound good on an SM57 it probably doesn’t sound good anyway). I hang the mic by its cord over my desk chair. Then I place the little HoneyTone right beneath it. I set up a preset drum loop in the program that sounds stupid but is just enough like what Valerie is playing on Killer G, and I sit on the floor against my bed and plug in Merle.
    I start the beat and then hit Record, playing Killer G to Flying Aces, looping the two parts a couple times. Playing calms me down, pushes away the angry walls, just my fingers and the pick and the strings snapping beneath it—
    There’s a knock at the door. Mom’s voice from the other side: “You should be working on your list.”
    My only answer is to kick Merle’s case. It slams into the chair. The microphone falls down with a thud. Great. Can’t even play guitar.
    I move to my bed and sit there. I lay Merle beside me and pull out my stupid writer’s notebook and look at the list assignment. There is