In this searing indictment of the juvenile justice system, one incarcerated teen weighs what she is willing to endure for forgiveness.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Jennifer Baker’s Forgive Me Not, which is out now!
All it took was one night and one bad decision for fifteen-year-old Violetta Chen-Samuels’ life to go off the rails. After driving drunk and causing the accident that kills her little sister, Violetta is incarcerated. As a juvenile offender, her fate is in the hands of those she’s wronged—her family. With their forgiveness, she could go home. But without it? Well…
Denied their forgiveness, Violetta is now left with two options, neither good—remain in juvenile detention for an uncertain sentence or participate in the Trials, potentially regaining her freedom and what she wants most of all, her family’s love. But the Trials are no easy feat and in the quest to prove her remorse, Violetta is forced to confront not only her family’s pain, but her own—and the question of whether their forgiveness is more important than forgiving herself.
CHAPTER 1
Violetta
Days in detention: 22
Right in front of me is a TV with my crying face on it. In the here and now, I’m pretty sure I’m all out of tears. I’m over my eyes itching and having a chapped nose after constantly wiping it with paper towels from the detention center bathroom. (Holding a tissue, I’m reminded how soft something can be.) I’m dried out, but the me on-screen isn’t. That Violetta’s covered in snot, salty tears, and guilt. I don’t turn away or move. I watch myself on the monitor because my family’s watching me too.
My counselor, Susan, grabs another tissue from the table on her side of the couch. She offers it to me and says under her breath, “If you need a break, I can turn this off for a moment.”
“I wish it were me!” screeches from the video. I force myself to keep my chin up. In the video, I make wishes out loud while more echo in my head: I wish I’d listened. I wish I’d stopped myself. I wish I hadn’t invited Pascal over that night. I wish . . . a lot.
I stop fiddling with the top of the jumpsuit Corrections gave me. The sports bra underneath pinches, and the pants irritate my skin from the starch. They don’t fold much when I move. I’m hoping I look better now. But for a second, I wonder if I should look like the messy Violetta.
Three weeks earlier, my mom and dad stared at me as the ER doctor revealed that their number of kids had gone from three to two. I was okay. Scratches, a sore chest, and a mild concussion were my only injuries from the impact of the steering wheel before the airbag inflated. But my little sister was dead. Because of me.
On the TV, Violetta rubs her sleeve across her eyes, swelling the skin around them even more. My own brown eyes bore into me. She’s sincere. Violetta on-screen clutches her hands together. She, me, asks to be forgiven for everything, not just the night of the accident, but the months before it. I regret my entire freshman year of high school, including the evening I woke up in the hospital. The Violetta in front of me apologizes for all of it.
In a way, this video is me fighting for my place in my family. Do I get to be forgiven and go home without a criminal record? Or do I serve time in confinement or . . . the other option?
Every night that I’ve been at the facility, I’ve practiced how to explain to my family what had happened. Two weeks ago, a guard sat me down and Counselor Susan explained that this was my last chance to make my case before sentencing. Just me in a room—really, a gray box— begging for forgiveness from the victims of my crime: my family. They would get to see my video, then “bestow judgment”— Counselor Susan’s words, not mine. After explaining, she set up a camera as little as a match-book and said, “You may begin your plea.”
I was going to be calm in the video. It was time for a plan, not a meltdown. There wasn’t much else to do in detention, so why not mull over and over how to ask your family to forgive you for being a horrible daughter. A couple other detained girls gave me advice during meals: Don’t be too serious, one said. Be super serious, someone else said. Bring up stories to remind your family how much they love you. Show you learned your lesson, that you don’t need to be taught one. Be funny. Be remorseful. No matter what: Don’t lose it!
But as soon as the camera beeped and the blinking light turned solid to record my plea, I dissolved into the screaming girl on display right now.
I can’t take my eyes off the Violetta on-screen. How different she is from me now: She had hope.
“I’m sorry—sorry for everything. And I swear I’ll listen and make better decisions. I promise.” On the TV, I finish my plea. “Please let me come home” is the last thing I say, through sniffles and more snot.
The screen darkens as the fluorescents come back to life. I blink to adjust to the light. The sentencing room is stifling. One wall has a window with black glass while the others are painted indigo. A light bulb is above the TV. And the door next to the screen makes a horrible ca-chink when the bar to unlock it opens. My reflection reveals nothing once my face fades from the screen. My eyes look shrunken and dim, as if there’s nothing behind them. Who could forgive me?
Because of the lights and the itchiness of my clothes, it’s tough to keep my shoulders back or my head lifted. All I want to do is curl into a ball and rest.
Beside me on the couch, Counselor Susan looks like a professional in a blazer and heels, her hair in a bun, her super-thin legs crossed. She smiles at me, with ruby lips and blushed cheeks, as if there may be good news on the way. She didn’t see my parents after my sister’s death three weeks ago, the disgust that clouded their faces, how quickly they turned away from me. I shiver and mumble how cold it is, even though it’s not with the lights beaming down on me.
I jump at her hand on my shoulder.
“Violetta,” my counselor says, “I asked if you were ready.”
I stare at her for a moment before it hits me. My trimmed nails dig into my skin. I think I nod.
“Okay.” She smiles again, but it’s strained. “Would you like me to explain things once more? About what will happen next?”
I think I shake my head no. I think I blink. I think I breathe. But I have no idea, because all of this feels unreal, like I’m watching myself again. My little sister is dead. I’m here waiting to know if I’ll be forgiven or not, under juvenile law. I’m one of those kids. The type who needs to face justice before they can rejoin society.
I’ve heard about juvenile offenders. My parents tsk-tsked whenever news about them came on. “Don’t be like them. Be better,” Mom or Dad said before changing the channel from the news to a cooking show or a sitcom. A click of the remote erased someone else’s reality in favor of something with a happier ending. Always “be better,” they encouraged. Be better than the terrified teen who didn’t want their parents to find out they were pregnant, so they hid their growing belly, then threw the newborn out like trash. The ones who got in fights that went wrong way too fast, resulting in casualties. The ones who carried weapons that accidentally went off in school or in someone’s hands at home—or, worse, those who used them purposely on others. Supposedly, those teens were a whole other group. Not me. Not my family. Yet here I am. One of “those kids” who screwed up so badly I need to be made an example of.
I must have given her some kind of signal, because Counselor Susan says, “If the light is blue, you’re forgiven and you can go back to your family. If it’s red . . .” She lowers her head to indicate what I should and do already know.
My chest swells, and my heart beats faster. I grip the armrest because I can almost see a flicker of blue in the bulb. I could be forgiven. We could start over. I can be better, because I’m their daughter. I could be pardoned. I—
Red.
My hand flies to my mouth. I suck in air, needing to cough it out at the same time.
The screen crackles, and a new face blinks into view. I expect to see my parents, hear them say I’ll be sent away and locked up forever, that I can go to hell, for all they care. Instead, it’s my older brother, Vin, who has the same eyes as me, Mom, and my sister. His tawny skin is shiny, and he bites the corner of his lip, a gesture he makes before he says something I don’t want to hear. He did the same when I asked him if he liked my boyfriend, Pascal, or if he’d please take me to one of his junior hangouts. He’d chew the corner of his lip, and right away I knew I wouldn’t like his answer.
“Letta,” my brother begins, “I’m sure you saw the red light.” His words come in quick bursts, all jumbled, like he wants to toss them out as fast as he can. “You know what that means. However, while we as a family don’t yet forgive you . . .” He hesitates. “While as a family we don’t yet forgive you, we want to give you the opportunity to learn from this incident. We don’t want Viv’s death to be for nothing. We need you to”—he clears his throat—“repent.”
These aren’t his words. He’d never say repent.
“So . . .” He stops. My brother swallows hard. When he opens his mouth, he doesn’t speak.
Just say it, Vin. Say it!
“We think it best that you participate in the Trials so that you may understand the severity of this matter. But you know you don’t have to take this option.”
Of course I don’t have to, but the other option for no forgiveness—confinement at an upstate juvenile facility—isn’t any better. Is it, Vin?
“Should you take this option, your first Trial will occur in the next week.” Vin leans in, his face large and imposing. His eyes reflect as much pain as I feel right now. All kinds of rumbling moves through me as he speaks. “We do love you. You know that, right?”
The video cuts off, and my brother disappears.
I push my palms into my eyelids. I want to undo everything that’s happened. But there’s no going back.
We do love you. You know that, right? is the only part of the message that sounded like Vin. The only part where I could feel him pull me into a side hug after a fight, after I’d stomped away from his questions about why I was acting differently now that I was in high school. Why did I laugh at everything Pascal and his friends said, even when it wasn’t funny? (Because my brother knew what made me laugh, and making fun of other people wasn’t it.) He’d say this after catching me stumbling into my room after a night with Pascal. After I had my first, then second, then third tastes of hard lemonades or beer. After splashing water on my face and putting me to bed, Vin would say, “You know I still love you, right? Even though you’re acting like an idiot.”
It would’ve been a little better if he hadn’t been the one on the video. If he hadn’t had that disappointed look I can’t erase, reminding me of my parents’ faces after the accident.
My counselor is speaking. Her words seep in slowly as she asks the question I dread: “Violetta Chen-Samuels, do you accept participation in the Trials?”
My hands are wet. Guess I wasn’t done crying after all.
