"Pretty much. I think it's a requirement for admittance, honestly. And if we get kicked out, our parents financially cut us off. It's in the agreement they make with the school. That way everyone has something to lose. And, trust me, no one here wants to give up their designer handbags or private jets. So, we're forced to actually succeed. The rest of the world believes the school's respectable, graduating top collegiate contenders. But it's not like we have a choice."
"I know about that," I mutter.
"What?"
"Not being given a choice."
"So they really didn't tell you anything?" This seems to be a point of fascination for her, that I walked through the doors completely blind.
"Nope. Only that I was being sent somewhere better. But I don't come from money."
"So what do you have to lose?"
I stop to think about that for a minute. It's either here or juvie, and if they think that juvie is "losing," then they don't know me very well. Granted, I don't want to spend the next six months in a red jumpsuit, going to group sessions where we're taught life skills, anger management or whatever bullshit the counselor reads from a workbook. But it could be worse.
"Nothing."
"Then you're going to be fun to have around," Ashton says with her enigmatic Cheshire smile. She pulls her vape out of her pocket. "Want some?"
I smile back. "Desperately."
Ashton walks over to the windows and slides them open all the way. "They have super sensitive smoke detectors."
"Blackwood goes through all of this trouble to know where we are, how do they not know you left your room? Don't they have sensors or something?"
"They used to have motion detectors in the halls and sensors on the doors and windows. But that was a nightmare because no one stays in their rooms and someone always has a window open. So, they decided to focus on keeping us in the buildings with security patrolling the outside. Without our phones, they can't detect where we are, but that's why they have Ms. See-er lurking the halls at all hours. It makes it harder to sneak around after curfew." With a mischievous quirk of her eyebrow, she adds, "But not impossible.
Ashton inhales from the vape before offering it to me. I breathe in the contents and hold it in my lungs for a moment, craving the escape I've needed all day. We each blow out through the screen, our smoke drifting like a cloud into the dark.
"What else do you want to know?" she asks, leaning on her elbows. I take another hit.
"How long have you been here?"
"This is my third year. I'm supposed to graduate in June. Although I have no idea how."
"Not into school?"
"Not into being who I'm not. And I'm an artist. I don't give a shit about any of this."
"I can help you, if you want."
"With school?"
"Yeah. It doesn't bother me, really. It's not like I try, but it's not that hard either. I did my best friend's work for her all the time."
"Thanks," she says sincerely. "But they have tutors, life advisors, and other ways to make sure the work is ours. They're not really grade driven here as much as choice driven."
I shake my head, still trying to understand what the hell that means. "So you can fail a test, but as long as you made the choice not to cheat, you're okay?"
Ashton laughs. "No. Failing is not an option. But they provide you with whatever help you need to pass. It's not a huge school. There's only like three hundred students here during the school year, and barely fifty during the summer. They have a ton of staff, and they get paid a shit-ton to make sure we understand what they teach us. Most of them live on campus during the school year so we have access to them whenever."
"Explain this
choice thing they keep preaching about."
Ashton inhales from the vape, her eyes flicker as she tries to put words around her thoughts. "We're here because our parents couldn't be parents, and I guess we failed at being us.
"Blackwood's life advisors customize a plan that forces us to make better choices, whether it's random drug tests, therapy, meditation, or tracking our caloric intake at each meal."