Chapter Text
Lark blinked awake, warm in his bed. He put this hand out expecting it to meet the course, curly fur of his childhood dog. Instead, it connected with his brother Sparrow’s bedhead. He must have crawled in sometime in the night. They used to do this all the time when they were kids. Even now that they'd both entered their freshman year of high school it still happened occasionally, but it had been a while. It was so nice to be sleeping next to the person who understood all his experiences so fully. They’d grown together their whole lives and had gone out of their way to become inseparable even with age. Lark puffed out a small breath and let himself turn over to get more sleep on a lazy weekend morning.
Before he could settle back into dreams, his door creaked open. Obviously, his parents were checking to make sure he and Sparrow were both in the house. Lark didn’t feel the need to even turn over to acknowledge their presence. Until he heard his dad hiss his name.
“Lark!”
Lark turned over and stuck his head up from the covers, blinking drowsily.
“Come downstairs.” His dad’s tone was cold and harsh before disappearing from the doorway. Lark couldn’t even remember if he’d done something that would have pissed him off recently. Ever since he’d hit junior-high it felt like he couldn’t do anything that wouldn’t piss his parents off. So he’d just stopped trying. Stopped keeping track. Lark let out a tired groan but slipped over his brother and out of the bedroom sparing a glance back over his shoulder to ensure he hadn’t woken up Sparrow. Nothing short of the end of the world could wake Sparrow.
Lark made his way down the hall, down the stairs, and into the living room where he found his parents, but they were sitting with a man he didn’t recognize. Suddenly, he was self-conscious about being only in his pajamas with bedhead and morning breath. He slowed his gait and looked hesitantly around the trio of faces staring at him expectantly. His mother and father couldn't hold his gaze and dropped their eyes to the carpet by their feet. The mysterious man he didn’t know was smiling in a way that could be interpreted as friendly, but Lark sensed something disingenuous within it.
“What’s going on?” Lark was so taken off guard that he really didn’t know what more to say. Had somebody died? How were people informed that someone had died?
“Sit down, Lark.” His dad motioned to the easy chair across from the couch the three adults were already filling. Lark obliged but his heart rate immediately picked up when he noticed a filled duffel bag on the floor to his right. He still wasn’t sure what all this meant and, while he hadn’t thought for a second it was anything good, he was beginning to surmise that it was going to be very very bad.
“Hello, Lark. I’m Barry from Cornerstone Teens.” The blond stranger in Lark’s living room offered out his hand cordially for a shake. Lark was not in a cordial mood and just stared blankly back. The man didn’t seem to care and just brought his hand back into his lap. “I’ve been in contact with your parents for a while now and understand you’ve been having some problems behaviorally in school and out. Is that correct?”
Lark felt his face flush. Between him and his brother, Lark had never been the one to stand out academically nor did he seem capable of keeping himself away from disciplinary corrections for more than a week at a time. That was the only thing he couldn’t stand about having a brother this close- everything was a competition between them in the eyes of their parents and Lark was losing in every category. But still, why were his parents talking to someone from whatever ‘Cornerstone Teens’ was about it?
Lark settled for a silent shrug.
“At Cornerstone, we hold programs to build character in troubled young men who aren’t living up to their full potential, such as yourself. You’ll find yourself surrounded by other boys your age striving to reach greatness of character together.”
Nope. Alarm bells were screaming in Lark’s head. His parents had threatened in the heat of arguments all the time to send him away to nature camps or abandon him at a police station, but he really thought they would remain threats. In the decade they’d spent throwing out these scenarios they’d never once made true on them. Until now. Lark’s heart was pounding so hard in his chest that it felt like there was no energy left to breathe. Thankfully, Barry wasn’t finished.
“We hike and camp and do all the activities that come with it. You will build character through the hardships of survival in nature.” Barry’s unsettling youth pastor smile hadn’t wavered once. Lark couldn’t stand to look at it a minute more; it was making his stomach turn. He placed his gaze on his parents. Silently begging them not to actually send him away. His mother wouldn’t even look up to meet his gaze, but his dad spoke up. The cold, uncaring edge Lark found in his voice was so alien.
“It’s only for a month, Lark.”
“You’re sending me away?” As established as it was, Lark still couldn’t believe it.
“Just for a month, so you can-”
“I don’t want to go! You can’t just kidnap me and throw me in the woods!”
“Well,” Barry spoke up once again, “You’re only a child so if your parents say it’s okay… you really don’t get any further say.” Lark could see just how much he liked delivering that line. How gleeful it made him to let Lark know just how completely helpless he was to the whims of the adults in his life. Barry spent another second smiling before standing up.
“We had better get going. We wouldn’t want to stretch this on for any longer than need be.”
Lark was trying so desperately to get his mother to look at him. His dad thought Lark was awful to his core, he knew, but he also knew somewhere inside, his mom understood he didn’t mean to always ruin everything. He knew she knew he tried. A lot. She wouldn’t look at him though. Lark felt the threat of tears solidify in his throat. Should he cry? Try to get his parents to see him as their scared child? Would that even change anything at this point?
He decided to keep tears at bay for as long as he could. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew Barry would find too much satisfaction in the charade of begging just for Lark to inevitably lose in the end.
Barry firmly grabbed Lark’s arm and duffel bag and began to lead him toward the front door of the house. Lark had no choice but to let himself be pulled along. His parents stood from their seats and followed them at a distance. The early morning sun warmed Lark’s face and he had to squint to make out the van he was being pushed towards. Cornerstone Teens was painted on the side in a curly script next to a clip-art cross.
“You’re sending me to church camp? Seriously?” Lark rolled his head over his shoulder to glare at his parents one final time. Lark and Sparrow hadn’t been raised around religion so this was maybe the most surprising part of this whole ordeal.
Henry once again just shrugged and uttered with no conviction, “It’s only a month.”
Barry had thrown Lark’s bag into the trunk and motioned for him to hop in himself.
Lark took one final breath of his hometown air, “Bye, I guess.” His parents didn’t answer. Lark made to open the front passenger door, but Barry dragged him back by the wrist and chuckled.
“Participants in the program are required to sit in the back. Prioritizing safety and whatnot. I’m sure you understand.” Barry opened the sliding door and revealed that the front and back of the car were separated by a sturdy, clear plastic panel. Lark knew when he was being treated like a volatile criminal and rolled his eyes but complied and buckled himself into the backseat of the car. Barry slid the van door shut and Lark felt an icy freeze of terror creep across his entire body.
It’s only a month. Lark tried to comfort himself. Four weeks of anything shitty was survivable. At least he knew there was an end.
Barry had climbed into the driver's seat by now and was pulling into the street. Lark glanced around the back and realized he had no windows to stare out as his house slid away into a past life.