The Academy - Friends vs. Family (41 page)

M
any
T
hings,

B
ut
N
Ever
a
lone

The way the light under the door shifted, I understood that it
turned from morning to afternoon. I almost dozed off, but couldn’t allow myself
to sleep. I was listening and waiting.

Marie returned, stopping in to check with our mother. So I guessed
it was after school. It seemed kind of early for it. Did she skip?

She was told to go to her room and remain there. Marie obeyed
without question. I listened for her footsteps, giving myself something else to
do.

Marie turned her stereo on. I couldn’t make out the music type,
just the rhythmic beat. It was enough to mask some of her noise.

Mr. Blackbourne hadn’t returned. That told me a couple of things.
I couldn’t tell if he meant from his message that they saw what was in the
bathroom or they wanted me to go there. I hadn’t risked going to the bathroom
yet because I wasn’t sure she would let me or if it would be the wrong move.

As the hours drifted by and nothing was happening, I thought I
should try it just in case. Maybe there was a message for me or they could tell
me what to do from there.

I hesitated a little longer because I was naked.

I cracked the closet door open again. “Mom?”

“What?” she snapped.

“I need to use the bathroom.” I peeked around the edge of the door
into her room.

She was on her bed. A collection of mail nestled in her hands.
Marie must have delivered it. My mother glared over at me, contemplating.

“I don’t want to make a mess,” I said. I guessed that she didn’t
want me to pee in the closet.

She released a loud breath. Was this the same person I understood
her to be yesterday? She was so weak last night, sick from the cancer that ate
her inside. Now she looked so aware, and full of spite. The anger that radiated
from her didn’t seem like the illness, or like the usual drug induced paranoia
that I was familiar with. Instead, it was like she was fully awake for the
first time in years. “You’ve got five seconds.”

I raced to the bathroom, shutting the door. I was here. The heart
was still in the tub. Was the camera on?

I dashed to the small bathroom closet, finding a long towel to
wrap around myself. I clasped the towel, and stared up at the camera, asking
questions with my eyes to people I couldn’t see.
I’m here. Now what? What do
I do?

Maybe that’s all they needed. They needed to know I was there.

A tap at the window startled me. I spun on my heels.

Gabriel’s face, his beautiful crystal eyes, the blond locks
lifting against the breeze, mixing with the russet brown, his playful lips...
for a moment, I wondered if it was my own hopeful imagination.

Gabriel mouthed words that I didn’t catch. He pointed to the lock.

I sucked in some courage, clutched the towel around my body
tighter. I turned the lock on the window. Gabriel popped the screen out on the
other side, pushing the window up for me. “Come on, Trouble, let’s go,” he
whispered, urgency etched in his eyes and dripping from his voice. His hand stretched
to me, wrapping around my arm to pull me toward him.

Was that the plan? To get me to run away? I wanted to. I wanted to
run away with him. I knew I should trust them. They didn’t know what I knew.
They didn’t have all the information. “I can’t,” I said.

He started tugging stronger. “You can fit through the window. It’s
not that small.”

“No, I mean, I can’t leave,” I said.

“Don’t start this again,” he said. “You have to. We have to go.
Now.”

I shook my head, trying to wrestle my arm from his grasp. “No,” I
whispered, “she’s already told me she’d call the police. She’s waiting to do it
now.”

“Sang, we’re about ready to call the police on her. She’s crazy.”

I wrenched myself away. “I can’t. They’ll find us. They’ll put me
in some home somewhere. You guys will be arrested.”

“You can’t stay here.”

“I have to,” I said, and pouted, not meaning to but I wouldn’t let
Gabriel go to jail.

“No, Trouble,” he pleaded under his breath, “no, no, no. Sweetie,
don’t... you can’t. Please.” His eyes darkened, watered. “No, don’t you dare.”

“Tell them to call my father,” I said. “Find him. She’s determined
to find him. She wants me to go with him.”

Gabriel jerked his head back, looking back out toward the yard and
then inside at me. “I can’t leave you.”

“I’m fine,” I said.

“Sang!” My mother called. I quivered, worried she’d heard me.

Gabriel’s face steeled over. He grasped the edge of the window,
hauling himself up and over the side of the wall, sinking down onto the back of
the toilet as he stepped into the bathroom. Dark slacks, white shirt, red tie
swinging from his neck. Did he go straight from school to here?

“Get out,” I whispered to him.

Gabriel put his fingers to his mouth, indicating I shouldn’t talk
any more.

This was it. He was going to get caught. We’d all go to jail.

He lowered himself onto the carpet, stepping close to me until I
could breathe in fresh leaves and sweet fruit. Gabriel, the perfume maker,
always smelling different.

“Sang!” my mother called again from the bedroom.

Gabriel signaled with his hands for me to go toward the door. I
did, opening it slowly as he closed the window, leaving it unlocked.

I peeked my head out, looking toward the bedroom. My mother’s eyes
were expectant on me. I sighed, opened the door as Gabriel stood behind it, my
shadow.

I shuffled out, clinging to the towel. I opened the closet door,
holding it wide. From the angle, it blocked the view of the bathroom. Gabriel
slipped against the wall, sliding into the closet. I stepped in behind him, my
heart thundering, worried my mother would notice.

“Drop the towel,” she said.

Gabriel gazed back at me from the inside the corner of the closet.
He turned away, staring off at the opposite wall.

I dropped the towel at my feet, stepped into the closet and closed
the door.

When I was inside, I sank onto my butt on the floor, drawing in my
knees and surrounding my legs with my arms.

Gabriel’s arms found me in the dark, encircling my body. His
breath heated my face. Silent, he collected me into his lap. I wanted to push
him away, to tell him to go or hide but his scent, his warmth, the feel of his
body made me weak. I was done fighting him.

He held me as he sat cross legged on the floor. He stripped off
his tie, his shirt. He quietly fluffed the shirt out and wrapped it around me.
He dressed me, putting my arms through the sleeves and buttoning the front.
“Trouble,” he whispered against my hair at my cheek. “I swear to fucking god,
I’ll hate you forever if you ever do that to me again.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” I whispered back, not meaning it at all.

“Like I’m going to leave you alone.” He finished the last button
and his hand sought out my cheek, bringing my head to his shoulder as he
embraced me. “Can’t spend the night on her own in her own fucking bedroom and
wants me to leave her naked in the dark closet.”

“It’s my fault.”

He stiffened against me. “Don’t you say that.”

Shuffling noises started in the bedroom. I clutched to Gabriel, my
fingers gripping at the ribbed undershirt he’d worn underneath. Now that I had
someone with me, I was desperate to hold on to him.

My mother was dialing on the phone again. Beeps sounded as she
pressed the buttons.

Gabriel and I waited, listening. I was so sure she’d heard him and
called the police.

My mother was up, shuffling around the bedroom, sounding like she
was marching between the window and her bed. She started talking like she was
leaving a message. “I have been trying to reach you all day. I know you’re
there. Did you think you could run off? Did you think I wouldn’t figure out
what you’ve done to me?” Her tone rose. “I don’t care. I know you’ve left
money. What I don’t want is her. She’s your responsibility, not mine. She stole
money to buy a cell phone and now she’s sleeping with boys. She’ll poison
Marie. She’s just like her mother.”

A rattle swept through me, causing me to miss whatever she said
next.

She’s just like her mother.

The meaning behind it caused a wash of color to slosh over my
eyes. My breath filtered out of me and I couldn’t figure out how to get more,
and part of me didn’t want to. My body slumped against Gabriel. The courage I’d
managed to collect, to hold myself together through this crazy ordeal, was
taken away with one short sentence.

She continued on the phone. “If you want to leave me, fine. I’ll
take the house. Thanks,” she spat into the phone, “for being so thoughtful as
to leave us what we needed. Now come back and get her or I swear I’ll call the
police and I’ll tell them exactly who she is. I’ll give you until nine. I know
you have other important things to do.”

There was a click as she hung up the phone. The television volume
was turned up, the murmur of news reporter voices filled the air.

I stared after the light under the door.

She’s just like her mother. … I’ll tell them exactly who she is.

“Who am I?” I whispered, the words floating away from me.

Gabriel’s arms shifted around me, but it was like he wasn’t there
at all. Not his sweet scent, not his caring whispers to calm down, not his
gentle caresses at my back could break through as I felt myself slipping down,
drowning in a single question that forced me under.

The connection was made in my head, but the connection didn’t seem
real. It was like I was looking at someone else, some other girl’s truth was
revealed and I was watching, sorry for her, sadden she had to learn it,
desperate to know just as much as she wanted to know.

The mother I thought was mine, wasn’t. Was my father? Who was
Sang?

I was a secret, secret enough that the police would be interested
if they found out. Was that why I was in the closet? All I’d ever known was
them, my mother, or the person I thought was my mother, getting ill when I was
nine. There was my sister and I who used to play together, and eventually we
drifted apart, but were we still sisters? Our father came home on occasion and never
talked to us. He disappeared so often.

The years of stress and worry when the punishments started
confused me now. The way she never allowed me to have friends, to warn me about
going out to get raped or killed… what was that? She warned me about bad guys.
I’d always thought maybe it was misguided attempts to keep me safe from harm. I
thought it was wrong what she was doing, but some small portion of me
understood. She feared for me. I sympathized. I didn’t like it, but I was her
daughter, and children listened to their parents.

But was it really keeping me safe? Or was it keeping me a secret?
If I’d gotten into trouble and had gotten raped or kidnapped, the police would
find me or find out the truth. If I had been allowed to have friends like
normal kids, maybe this secret would have been exposed. So why send me to
school?

Then it hit me. Because home school students are examined closer
by the board. If I was registered in public school, I was just a number.
Unnoticed.

She controlled me through fear. If someone became my friend and
looked too closely, would they see the truth in me? Would they be able to see
who I was, even though all this time, I never knew?

Who am I?

“Sang,” Gabriel cooed to me under his breath in the dark. “Sang,”
he whispered, calling me back. “Trouble. Sweetheart. Sang. Don’t. Don’t slip
away.” He sniffed.

I felt a droplet meeting my forehead.

Gabriel was crying.

“I need you,” he whispered. “Come back to me. I need you.”

It was like when North shook me after the nightmare, and I felt
myself rising to the surface and waking. My lungs opened up. I gasped, choking
on the air, discovering I could breathe again. Gabriel’s tears met mine on my
cheeks. Trailing together.

I was awake now. My own need for answers had to wait. He was
breaking down. I needed to be there for him.

It was the only thing that pulled me from the depths. I needed to
protect my family, the only people that I knew wanted me. My father abandoned
me. The person I thought of as my mother didn’t want me, wanted to shove me off
on someone who had already let go. Marie reveled in this for an unknown reason.

Gabriel, Kota, this tender family that had sought me out, they
were still in danger. Because of me.

“Meanie. Gabriel,” I gasped, as I tried to stop shaking. My
fingers found the back of his head, intertwining into the longer parts of his
hair. I pressed my cheek to his. How did he know? How did he know I needed to
feel needed? “Gabriel.”