When we walk out the front door, I make sure the “Closed Indefinitely” sign is still hanging right in the middle of it. I put it there the first day my father locked himself away and refused to deal with anything, including the running of this prison. After one hour of dealing with annoying, nosy tourists, I wrote the words in big, bold letters and taped the sign prominently to the door. I’m not sure what will happen if the state finds out how long my father has been ignoring the business, since this is a historical building and they fund everything, as well as give us a place to live free of charge. Frankly, I don’t really care.
After I woke up from my accident, every morning my mother would braid my hair, and repeatedly tell me all the facts about the girl I supposedly was, but there was only one I liked to hear: I had a full scholarship waiting for me at a very nice college a few hours away, and that scholarship included room and board, as well as all of my meals. Even if I never figure everything out or regain all of my memories, at least I’ll be able to get the hell away from this place that seems to be the root of everything that has gone wrong in my life, leave my father far behind, and never look back ever again.
Nolan opens the passenger door of my father’s car like the perfect gentleman he is, closing it when he’s sure I’m all the way inside. I watch as he walks around the front of the vehicle and I whisper my mantra that is constantly evolving.
“My name is Ravenna Duskin. I’m eighteen years old, I live in a prison, and I’m going to meet my real father.”
Chapter 18
I tried to spend the hour-long car ride to Strongfield State Penitentiary in silence, so I could plan what I would say to Tobias Duskin, but Nolan wanted to talk, as usual. Since I couldn’t force him to shut up by grabbing the steering wheel and swerving us into a tree without injuring myself as well, I gave up my desire for quiet time so we could go over the list of things I knew versus things that were still questionable.
“Okay, the first thing that felt off to you was the way you wore your hair and the clothes in your closet, both of which your mother insisted were your style and your daily uniform, correct?” Nolan asks as I look out the window watching the scenery fly by.
“Correct,” I reply. “Both of those things felt completely wrong the very first day I woke up after the accident.”
Nolan nods, flipping on the wipers when a few drops of rain splatter against the windshield. “You felt better when you took a pair of scissors to your clothes and let down your hair, and we found an entire suitcase of clothes that you somehow knew were yours.”
“Yes,” I quickly answer, turning my head to look at his profile. “But even though I feel more like myself now, you confirmed what my mother told me about my clothes and hair—that the entire two years you worked at the prison, excluding the few days leading up to my night in the woods, I did in fact always wear those ugly dresses with tightly braided hair. So that’s still a little weird.”
Nolan shrugs as he concentrates on the road in front of us when the rain picks up. “Still, you had dreams and a few flashes of memory about you looking different and about the suitcase of clothes. So for right now, we’re going to put that in the positive column and consider it a memory successfully retrieved.”
We continued going back and forth, having plenty of time to rehash everything. The drive took longer than expected due to the summer shower turning into a downpour, making it harder to see while driving.
In the memories retrieved column I have:
– Feeling uncomfortable with my father’s affection, almost as if he’d never shown me any before. That affection quickly turned into his avoidance and then downright hostility toward me. I might not have confirmed with one-hundred-percent certainty that the cause for all of this is that he’s not my father, but it’s going into the positive column for now.
– The feelings of hatred toward Trudy, my supposed best friend, as well as memories of the two of us fighting, and the suspicious scratches on her neck that I knew she was lying about. This was confirmed as something real and part of my missing memories when I finally remembered our entire fight and confronted her about it. Being stuck in a small, confined space and forced to talk to Nolan this entire trip suddenly became enjoyable when I got to stare at his profile as I relived all of this for him. I got to witness his face turn a bright shade of red, followed by repeated apologies, and pathetic begging, ending with pitiful assurances that Trudy kissed him, not the other way around, and he made it clear to her that he didn’t like her that way.