Twelve
One of my father’s men is waiting for me outside my door.
I glance in his direction, but not long enough to discern his features. “State your business, soldier.”
“Sir,” he says, “I’ve been instructed to inform you that the supreme commander requests your presence in his quarters for dinner at twenty-hundred hours.”
“Consider your message received.” I move to unlock my door.
He steps forward, blocking my path.
I turn to face him.
He’s standing less than a foot away from me: an implicit act of disrespect; a level of comfort even Delalieu does not allow himself. But unlike my men, the sycophants who surround my father consider themselves lucky. Being a member of the supreme commander’s elite guard is considered a privilege and an honor. They answer to no one but him.
And right now, this soldier is trying to prove he outranks me.
He’s jealous of me. He thinks I’m unworthy of being the son of the supreme commander of The Reestablishment. It’s practically written on his face.
I have to stifle my impulse to laugh as I take in his cold gray eyes and the black pit that is his soul. He wears his sleeves rolled up above his elbows, his military tattoos clearly defined and on display. The concentric black bands of ink around his forearms are accented in red, green, and blue, the only sign on his person to indicate that he is a soldier highly elevated in rank. It’s a sick branding ritual I’ve always refused to be a part of.
The soldier is still staring at me.
I incline my head in his direction, raise my eyebrows.
“I am required,” he says, “to wait for verbal acceptance of this invitation.”
I take a moment to consider my choices, which are none.
I, like the rest of the puppets in this world, am entirely subservient to my father’s will. It’s a truth I’m forced to contend with every day: that I’ve never been able to stand up to the man who has his fist clenched around my spine.
It makes me hate myself.
I meet the soldier’s eyes again and wonder, for a fleeting moment, if he has a name, before I realize I couldn’t possibly care less. “Consider it accepted.”
“Yes, s—”
“And next time, soldier, you will not step within five feet of me without first asking permission.”
He blinks, stunned. “Sir, I—”
“You are confused.” I cut him off. “You assume your work with the supreme commander grants you immunity from rules that govern the lives of other soldiers. Here, you are mistaken.”
His jaw tenses.
“Never forget,” I say, quietly now, “that if I wanted your job, I could have it. And never forget that the man you so eagerly serve is the same man who taught me how to fire a gun when I was nine years old.”
His nostrils flare. He stares straight ahead.
“Deliver your message, soldier. And then memorize this one: do not ever speak to me again.”
His eyes are focused on a point directly behind me now, his shoulders rigid.
I wait.
His jaw is still tight. He slowly lifts his hand in salute.
“You are dismissed,” I say.
I lock my bedroom door behind me and lean against it. I need just a moment. I reach for the bottle I left on my nightstand and shake out two of the square pills; I toss them into my mouth, closing my eyes as they dissolve. The darkness behind my eyelids is a welcome relief.
Until the memory of her face forces itself into my consciousness.
I sit down on my bed and drop my head into my hand. I shouldn’t be thinking about her right now. I have hours of paperwork to sort through and the additional stress of my father’s presence to contend with. Dinner with him should be a spectacle. A soul-crushing spectacle.
I squeeze my eyes shut tighter and make a weak effort to build the walls that would surely clear my mind. But this time, they don’t work. Her face keeps cropping up, her journal taunting me from its place in my pocket. And I begin to realize that some small part of me doesn’t want to wish away the thoughts of her. Some part of me enjoys the torture.
This girl is destroying me.
A girl who has spent the last year in an insane asylum. A girl who would try to shoot me dead for kissing her. A girl who ran off with another man just to get away from me.
Of course this is the girl I would fall for.
I close a hand over my mouth.
I am losing my mind.
I tug off my boots. Pull myself up onto my bed and allow my head to hit the pillows behind me.
She slept here, I think. She slept in my bed. She woke up in my bed. She was here and I let her get away.
I failed.
I lost her.
I don’t even realize I’ve tugged her notebook out of my pocket until I’m holding it in front of my face. Staring at it. Studying the faded cover in an attempt to understand where she might’ve acquired such a thing. She must’ve stolen it from somewhere, though I can’t imagine where.
There are so many things I want to ask her. So many things I wish I could say to her.
Instead, I open her journal, and read.
Sometimes I close my eyes and paint these walls a different color.
I imagine I’m wearing warm socks and sitting by a fire. I imagine someone’s given me a book to read, a story to take me away from the torture of my own mind. I want to be someone else somewhere else with something else to fill my mind. I want to run, to feel the wind tug at my hair. I want to pretend that this is just a story within a story. That this cell is just a scene, that these hands don’t belong to me, that this window leads to somewhere beautiful if only I could break it. I pretend this pillow is clean, I pretend this bed is soft. I pretend and pretend and pretend until the world becomes so breathtaking behind my eyelids that I can no longer contain it. But then my eyes fly open and I’m caught around the throat by a pair of hands that won’t stop suffocating suffocating suffocating My thoughts, I think, will soon be sound.
My mind, I hope, will soon be found.
The journal drops out of my hand and onto my chest. I run my only free hand across my face, through my hair. I rub the back of my neck and haul myself up so fast that my head hits the headboard and I’m actually grateful. I take a moment to appreciate the pain.
And then I pick up the book.
And turn the page.
I wonder what they’re thinking. My parents. I wonder where they are. I wonder if they’re okay now, if they’re happy now, if they finally got what they wanted. I wonder if my mother will ever have another child. I wonder if someone will ever be kind enough to kill me, and I wonder if hell is better than here. I wonder what my face looks like now. I wonder if I’ll ever breathe fresh air again.
I wonder about so many things.
Sometimes I’ll stay awake for days just counting everything I can find. I count the walls, the cracks in the walls, my fingers and toes. I count the springs in the bed, the threads in the blanket, the steps it takes to cross the room and back. I count my teeth and the individual hairs on my head and the number of seconds I can hold my breath.
But sometimes I get so tired that I forget I’m not allowed to wish for things anymore, and I find myself wishing for the one thing I’ve always wanted. The only thing I’ve always dreamt about.
I wish all the time for a friend.
I dream about it. I imagine what it would be like. To smile and be smiled upon. To have a person to confide in; someone who wouldn’t throw things at me or stick my hands in the fire or beat me for being born. Someone who would hear that I’d been thrown away and would try to find me, who would never be afraid of me.
Someone who’d know I’d never try to hurt them.
I fold myself into a corner of this room and bury my head in my knees and rock back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and I wish and I wish and I wish and I dream of impossible things until I’ve cried myself to sleep.
I wonder what it would be like to have a friend.
And then I wonder who else is locked in this asylum. I wonder where the other screams are coming from.
I wonder if they’re coming from me.
I’m trying to focus, telling myself these are just empty words, but I’m lying. Because somehow, just reading these words is too much; and the thought of her in pain is causing me an unbearable amount of agony.
To know that she experienced this.
She was thrown into this by her own parents, cast off and abused her entire life. Empathy is not an emotion I’ve ever known, but now it’s drowning me, pulling me into a world I never knew I could enter. And though I’ve always believed she and I shared many things in common, I did not know how deeply I could feel it.
It’s killing me.
I stand up. Start pacing the length of my bedroom until I’ve finally worked up the nerve to keep reading. Then I take a deep breath.
And turn the page.
There’s something simmering inside of me.
Something I’ve never dared to tap into, something I’m afraid to acknowledge. There’s a part of me clawing to break free from the cage I’ve trapped it in, banging on the doors of my heart, begging to be free.
Begging to let go.
Every day I feel like I’m reliving the same nightmare. I open my mouth to shout, to fight, to swing my fists, but my vocal cords are cut, my arms are heavy and weighted down as if trapped in wet cement and I’m screaming but no one can hear me, no one can reach me and I’m caught. And it’s killing me.
I’ve always had to make myself submissive, subservient, twisted into a pleading, passive mop just to make everyone else feel safe and comfortable. My existence has become a fight to prove I’m harmless, that I’m not a threat, that I’m capable of living among other human beings without hurting them.
And I’m so tired I’m so tired I’m so tired I’m so tired and sometimes I get so angry I don’t know what’s happening to me.
“God, Juliette,” I gasp.
And fall to my knees.
“Call for transport immediately.” I need to get out. I need to get out right now.
“Sir? I mean, yes, sir, of course—but where—”
“I have to visit the compounds,” I say. “I should make my rounds before my meeting this evening.” This is both true and false. But I’m willing to do anything right now that might get my mind off this journal.
“Oh, certainly, sir. Would you like me to accompany you?”
“That won’t be necessary, Lieutenant, but thank you for the offer.”
“I—s-sir,” he stammers. “Of course, it’s m-my pleasure, sir, to assist you—”
Good God, I have taken leave of my senses. I never thank Delalieu. I’ve likely given the poor man a heart attack.
“I will be ready to go in ten minutes.” I cut him off.
He stutters to a stop. Then, “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
I’m pressing my fist to my mouth as the call disconnects.