“What do you care?” I snapped. I stared down at her legs, haphazardly folded over each other like she didn’t know where they should go. She put her head down and stared at her hands. They shook, and she placed one over the other to still them.

“I care because I was told to care,” she whispered at her lap. “I’m supposed to make friends with you.” She tucked some of her golden brown hair behind her ears, and it fell forward again anyway.

She reached out to pat my leg awkwardly, and I sharply withdrew. I didn’t want her to touch me.

“Please,” she pleaded.

Her eyes were wide, blue discs of fear. A tear slid down her cheek like it didn’t want to be there anymore. Don’t feel sorry for her, I told myself. Look at her. She has everything. Even as I thought it, I knew it wasn’t true, but I couldn’t let this girl in. It was too dangerous.

Judith withdrew her hand, put her orange-tipped finger to her mouth, and started chewing at her cuticles.

“Dad says you won’t break easily,” she said with a mouthful of picked-off skin. I suppressed my gag reflex.

“He can’t break me,” I whispered, searching her eyes for something other than preened, parrot-like features. “I’m already broken.”

She was so anxious, shaky… but there was something in there, maybe something I could use. Her face changed like someone was arranging her facial figures for her, from sad, to amused, and my hopes dashed against the wall and shattered.

She lulled me. I bought into her delicate, scared routine, then she said, “He will enjoy trying though,” and I saw her father in her.

“Get out of my room,” I said, glaring, willing her to move. She didn’t. “Get out!” I said louder.

She went back to nervous, flustered by my temper. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice sawing my nerves as her eyes fluttered up at the camera purposefully.

I got to my knees, shuffled towards her, and shoved her shoulders. She flew backwards, her flannel-clad legs pointed to the ceiling, and she landed on her butt.

She sat there, propped on her elbows, breathing hard for a second. She shot me a disapproving stare, her face tight, her lips pouting. I growled like a feral animal, leaning over her from the top of the bed.

“You don’t get it,” she said, her voice snapped, full of haughtiness as she got to her feet. “You do as you’re told. I do as I’m told. You don’t have a choice!” She stormed away from me, her arms folded across her chest like she thought that was what you should look like when you were angry. She was as unreal as a mirage. As any vision I had of Joseph breaking this door down and taking me away from this place.

The problem was I knew she was right about doing as I was told. As she padded out of my room and closed the door with a clap, I whispered to the depressing air, to my prison, my words coming out like a thin stream of vapor, “I don’t know how.”

ROSA

Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow morning with Joseph’s arms around me. He’ll nuzzle into my neck and kiss me. I’ll swat him away half-heartedly because I want him just as much as I pretend not to… no… much more.

Orry will be asleep in his cot. His curls falling around his face like a lazy crown. He’ll snore, stir, and smile in his dreams.

I’ll be whole. Broken, but whole. Pieced together from heartbreak, from torture and love.

This mattress wanted to swallow me, its comfort of no comfort at all. I wouldn’t know it was morning. When I swept back the curtains, I was staring at another manufactured view. The only way I knew was by the sound of Red, pushing her way through the doorway and screaming at me for—

“How could you treat Miss Judith that way?” she yelled, her eyes as red as her roots. She stomped her foot like a bull and charged at me. Taking one look at the pajamas on the floor, her nostrils flared. She grabbed my arm and wrenched me out of bed. I tried to pull away from her grip, but she was too strong. She pulled my cardigan from my body, ripping it, and threw it on the floor, dragging me to the bathroom.

“She was in tears when she came to me. She has a bruised… a bruised…” Red’s lipstick clotted in the corners of her growling mouth.

“Butt?” I said through a wide grin before I could stop myself.

Red made a high-pitched noise, gasping in shock, and I knew I’d said the wrong thing.

She grabbed at me with chubby fingers trying to pull my shirt off, but I hugged it tight to my body. Each grab was like a punch. She was as strong as the ox she was acting like. Her curves were so tightly bandaged in her tight suit that she resembled a chunky, carved table leg. She kept hold of me with one hand while she turned the knob on the shower. There was no steam pluming off the tiles. I shivered and braced myself.

She kept pecking at my clothes like a nervous, lead-beaked bird, but I wasn’t giving her my shirt. When she realized this, she threw me under the water, my back crashing into the tiles, my body making a hollow thud like a lonely drum. My muscles tensed at the shock of ice-cold water, and I spat as it ran down my face and over my lips.

“Clean yourself and change for breakfast!” she snapped. I heard the bathroom, then the bedroom door close and lock.

When I was sure she was gone, I turned the hot water tap on and removed my clothes, letting the hot water attempt to thaw my frozen body, inside and out. I tried really hard not to think of my last shower, with Joseph, in Este’s house, but the memory was there, inside of me, and my body remembered before my brain caught up. My cheeks flushed red and I ran my finger over my lips, trying to bring back that last kiss. His arms wrapping me so tight because we knew it could be the last time. I turned off the taps. Drips of water ran down my nose and over my mouth as I let out a small cry. It couldn’t be the last time.

He ruined my heart. But in a good way.

I was a patchwork of wounds and scars. He was the glue that held me together. And now, he was gone.

I pressed my palm to the tiles and waited to wake up from this nightmare.

When I got out of the bathroom, another hideous outfit lay on the bed. I put it on this time, grimacing at the purple blouse with diamanté buttons and the black skirt that flared at the knees. The sleeves were puffed and when I saw myself in the mirror, I couldn’t help but laugh. A pair of blue contacts sat on the bedside table. I ignored them and sat down to wait for the guard. My hands were clasped neatly in my lap, mostly to stop me from throwing stuff.

The knock on the door still startled me. The politeness seemed so out of place.

“Come in,” I yelled through the solid timber door.

The guard stepped in, giving me a nervous smile as he looked down at me through the light brown hair hanging over his eyes like vines over a cave entrance.

“Your presence is requested at breakfast,” he said eagerly.

I rolled my eyes. “Faaantastic!”

The guard frowned. “You’re lucky.”

I shook my head. “No. I’m about the unluckiest person you’ll ever meet. Don’t get too close. I’m pretty sure it’s contagious,” I said, scratching my arms like I had a rash.

His eyebrows rose in confusion but he didn’t say anything except, “Follow me,” smiling with his arm extended.

I followed him down the long, curved hall. Large rectangles of light poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows, stretching across the carpet and creeping halfway up the walls. The timber glowed like amber honey under the sun. I paused to watch the tiny dust motes flying through the air in the clean-cut rays. They swirled and danced, landing on my arms. The air was thick and warm in here, artificial.