Free The Girls of No Return by Erin Saldin

“She must have a beautiful mother.”
    â€œWhy?” asked Gwen.
    â€œI think beautiful people pick better names for their kids,” Jules said. “They want their names to match how they look.” She nodded, as if confirming this fact to herself.
    â€œJules,” said Boone, “I swear to God. Sometimes you are just so full of shit.”
    Jules just speared another piece of broccoli and brought it to her mouth. “Ishchrue,” she said as she chewed.
    â€œWhere was she before coming here?” asked Karen.
    â€œUnclear,” said Gwen, who had bribed a Seventeen with a couple of American Spirits to get the little information she had. “I think somewhere abroad. Boarding school? Her cabinmates don’t seem to know the whole story.”
    â€œHard to keep a secret at this place,” Boone said.
    I had been cutting some butter for my baked potato and I paused, the clear plastic knife in my hand. Had Boone just glanced at me? I stared at my potato.
    I think everyone was wondering how Gia would be welcomed — what Boone would do to her to make her enrollment at Alice Marshall unofficially official. Gia already seemed somehow exempt, but I knew Boone didn’t see it that way.
    We got our answer the next morning during Circle Share. It was another hot day, but the sky was pocked with dark clouds. The Frank’s weather patterns were as comprehensible as Sanskrit. I was getting great use out of my hoodies, carrying one with me everywhere I went in case the clouds won and it started to rain, but I was tired of it. Even though I wouldn’t be caught dead in a bikini or a wraparound sari on the beach, I still longed for direct, unfiltered sunlight.
    We filed into the Rec Lodge once again. While I still didn’t want to participate in Circle Share, it had proven to be an innocent form of gossip. Sure, the things you heard around the circle couldn’t be spoken of outside of the Rec Lodge, but while we were in there, it was open season on the deliciously terrible Things we had done.
    I got my coffee and sat down, careful not to look around. Eye contact meant an invitation for a smile, a joke, a brief conversation. From there, it was just a short jump to “And why don’t you tell us a little about yourself, Lida?” I still wasn’t in the mood for self-disclosure, so I stared at the ground.
    Which is why I didn’t see Gia come in. She was already sitting down by the time I even noticed that the chatter in the Rec Lodge was more subdued than usual. When I looked up, she was directly across from me in the semicircle, and she was looking straight at me. She wasn’t smiling, exactly, but she had this . . . questioning . . . look on her face. Her eyes were soft and kind. It was the strangest thing — I felt as though her gaze was touching me with feathery fingertips. I blushed and looked at my lap.
    â€œWelcome back, everyone.” Amanda glanced around the circle, trying to make eye contact with each girl. She did this every week. When she got to Gia, she smiled and nodded but didn’t say anything.
    I mumbled as the other girls’ voices marched through the incantation, and then we all waited for Amanda to speak again.
    â€œI see you’ve all gotten comfortable,” she said. “Anyone have anything to share? Any thoughts come up in the past week?”
    There were some nods. A few girls shifted around in their seats and glanced at one another, wondering who would go first. There was a long pause, and then a girl with dark hair cleared her throat. Her name was Katia. I’d seen her eating sullenly with the other Fifteens. She always looked like she was about to slap someone.
    â€œI, uh, I heard from my boyfriend,” she said, smiling sadly. “His parents are moving him to Pittsburgh. So he, well, he said not to wait, you know? He said . . .” She stopped, and I could see that she was picturing the letter in her