“He what?” she says, shocked, her cool demeanor completely gone. “In court, he distinctly said five.”
I make a decision whether to continue. It will probably come out sometime anyway, better that it’s from me. And even if she prints it, it’s true. Crevan can’t blame me for that. My heart pounds as I say it aloud. “He came to me in the Branding Chamber. He asked me to repent. I wouldn’t. So he ordered a sixth on my spine. Without anesthetic. Said I was Flawed to the very backbone.” I decide not to mention that it was him who branded me. Best to save my revelations.
“He … what?” She can barely speak. “But that’s not allow—I mean, it’s never been…”
She knows she can’t say much more about it. Question and doubt Judge Crevan? In the company of a Flawed? She’s not that foolish.
“Talk to your buddy Crevan about it.” I leave her standing in the doorway in shock.
It’s the first time I smile in almost a week. When the lows are so immense, the victories are small. But they are there despite it. You just have to know them when you see them, little pockets of light and hope hidden away in the darkness.
When I return to my bedroom, I find Mary May has been rummaging through my table beside my bed. I look around my bedroom in surprise. My wardrobes are open, clothes have been pulled off the hangers and left on the floor, and my shelves have been rooted through and left untidy. She’s sitting on my bed reading my journal, which is sitting on her lap, my private diary. I want to cry right there. I haven’t written in it since before the trial, I haven’t had the energy. It feels like a different life, but they are my private thoughts, silly things, embarrassing things, but things that were important to me at the time of writing them. My secret thoughts, and she’s sitting right there stealing them.
I open my mouth to protest, but as if sensing it, she holds up her gloved hand to silence me. She turns the page. Finally, she snaps the journal shut and looks at me up and down as if seeing right through to my soul.
“Rules state you are to expect random searches of your private possessions. If you’re going to continue writing this journal, for example, further thoughts on whether your thighs are fat and if you’ll be any good at sex”—she sneers, and I feel my whole face heat up with embarrassment—“I expect you to hand it over to me every Friday so that I can read it for myself. Is that clear?”
I swallow. And nod.
“What did I say about verbal communication?”
“Yes,” I say, and it comes out as a whisper. I clear my throat and repeat it, but she’s pleased by the effect she’s had on me.
She picks up the Highland Castle snow globe that she’s found in my bedside table and gives it a shake.
“Always good to have a reminder, isn’t it?” she says, dropping it into my hands as she passes, the red sparkling glitter falling down and coating the bottom like drops of blood. It feels like a warning.
I rush to the bed and throw the snow globe back into the drawer. I never want to see it again. I pick up the journal and start to rip the pages out, first one by one, then frantically as I start to sob. When I’ve torn all the pages out, they lie scattered on the floor.
Mom comes to the door and watches me, concerned.
“She was reading my journal,” I splutter.
Mom joins me on the floor and looks around at the pages. Then she picks them up and starts to rip them into little pieces, her face not as cool as usual, her eyes filling up. This gesture means more to me than anything she could have said. I join her, and we rip the pages of my handwriting, excited exclamation marks, stars and hearts around Art’s name, doodles and words that came from my heart, concerns I ached over, stories I giggled over, private thoughts that were once only mine. I watch the hearts be ripped to pieces.
Angelina Tinder was right. They want to be in our heads. I will never let them in my head again.
THIRTY-FOUR
JUNIPER AND I barely speak.