Forgive Me Not

In this searing indictment of the juvenile justice system, one incarcerated teen weighs what she is willing to endure for forgiveness. 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. Under the juvenile justice system, her fate lies 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. The Trials are no easy feat, but if she succeeds, she could regain both her freedom and what she wants most of all: her family’s love. In her quest to prove her remorse, Violetta is forced to confront not only her family’s grief, but her own--and the question of whether their forgiveness is more important than forgiving herself.

Autorentext

Jennifer Baker is a publishing professional of almost 20 years, creator/host of the Minorities in Publishing podcast, and faculty member of the MFA program in Creative Nonfiction at Bay Path University. Formerly a contributing editor to Electric Literature, she received a 2017 NYSCA/NYFA Fellowship and a Queens Council on the Arts New Work Grant for Nonfiction Literature. In 2019, she was named Publishers Weekly Superstar for her contributions to inclusion and representation in publishing. She has volunteered with organizations such as We Need Diverse Books and I, Too Arts Collective, and spoken widely on topics of inclusion, the craft of writing/editing, podcasting, and the inner-workings of the publishing industry. Her fiction, nonfiction, and criticism have appeared in various print and online publications.

Klappentext

After driving drunk and causing the accident that kills her little sister, fifteen-year-old Violetta is incarcerated and must prove her remorse through a system of Trials. A searing indictment of the juvenile justice system.

Leseprobe
The day after sentencing, I get a crash course in the Trials—the beginning, the triumphs, the expected outcomes. Me, Serena, and another girl newly sentenced to Trials listen to my counselor give us the rundown. We’re in the room used for our mandatory schooling during the week. Counselor Susan stands at the front. A whiteboard is behind her, with a projection of her presentation: “What You Need to Know about the Trials.” My eyes dart from the board to the notebook Counselor Susan gifted me at our first meeting. We’re not allowed to bring the study books to our cells. This offering from Counselor Susan is the only extra thing I have since I haven’t received commissary funds. Petra gave me a couple of her colored golf pencils—one blue and one red. Combined they make purple, my favorite color. This helped me color-code my thoughts, including what my counselor will say about the Trials.
 
I was always good at taking notes in school. Only this time it’s my life, not a quiz. I want to make sure I remember everything she tells us. Apparently, I’m the only one writing all this down. The girl sitting up front and Serena stare ahead, waiting for this to be over.
 
This room is pretty tight for instruction, not like Claremont High School, where desks are spaced out and the walls are painted beige so it feels roomier. Here, three wide bookcases line dull green walls and block all except for a sliver of the windows. Tattered textbooks and donated paperbacks, some worn and some in pretty good condition, fill the shelves, along with student workbooks. Our school notebooks are stacked based on the group we’re in. Detention holds two sets of classes Monday through Friday, where our instructor stuffs math, history, composition, and earth science into three and a half hours. Serena is part of the morning group, from nine to twelve thirty, before lunch. I’m in the afternoon batch with Petra and Eve, from one thirty to five, before dinner, at six.
 
If I thought the moldy smell was a lot in my dorm, it’s nothing compared to how musty this room is. A ceiling fan barely circulates the air, plus the lone radiator near the door is covered in cobwebs; every so often it clangs to signal its attempt to work. I rarely feel any heat in class, so I make sure to wear a thicker undershirt beneath my jumpsuit. We sit at slim, unsteady picnic tables and on dusty fold-out chairs. There are four rows with three tables, each with scratches, markings, and old gum decorating them. During class, all the seats are filled, but today the three of us are spread out. The table I’m at jiggles when you lean on it. After it threatens to tilt over one too many times, I stuff a folded page from my notebook under a leg.
 
Counselor Susan raises her voice in an attempt to make her presentation interesting. With a laser pointer in hand, she moves from one side of the board to the other, letting the dot emphasize what she’s saying. She seems nervous. She keeps tugging at her pencil skirt or the edge of her black blazer when she talks. I’m not a fan of public speaking either. Yet another strike against me whenever I’m compared to my older brother. The world is Vin’s stage, for track, for debate, for lacrosse. You name it. But Counselor Susan’s cheeks flush when she stumbles or when she clicks on the computer to move the slide forward but it goes backward. It reminds me of how much I fidget when called up to read a report in class or when I had to be onstage for more than a second to pick up a certificate. Her fear makes her more real and less like an authority figure.
 
Serena sits at the end of my row and raises her hand a few minutes in. I try not to stare at her. The lilac tattoo peeking out from under her jumpsuit top always catches my eye. How bright the purple and white flowers are on her freckled skin. She’s chewing gum, a luxury in here, and each smack punctuates her question. “Sooo what you’re saying is this all started because someone killed a kid by accident? That’s why I gotta deal with this bullcrap?”
 
“Well,” Counselor Susan begins, “yes and no. It started with an understanding that something more needed to happen to encourage a decline in recidivism for offending youths.”
 
“Resida-what?” the girl in the front row, biting her nails, asks. From the traces of blood I see on her pale fingers, she’s chewing them raw.
 
“Recidivism,” my counselor says. “It means repeat offenses. We want to limit that.”
 
An index finger in her mouth, the girl is a little hard to understand when she responds, “So why not just say ‘repeat offenses,’ then?”
 
“How about I get through this and then you can ask questions, all right?” Counselor Susan smiles so wide it takes up her whole face.
 
Counselor Susan brings up a slide with a timeline of the history. The Trials started twenty-five years ago because a seven-year-old Black girl was killed by her thirteen-year-old cousin when he wrestled with her. I almost drop my pencil and have to hold back a sob hearing how a kid younger than me also hurt someone in his family. And my sister is, was, seven too.
 
The boy’s name is LeVaughn Harrison. Even at his age, he was considered developmentally sound enough to understand what he did was wrong, and a grand jury decided he should be tried for murder. This caused an uproar. Some argued he hadn’t been vindictive, that it was an accident, while others insisted the girl’s medical examination revealed injuries…