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He hates me. It’s why he does it.
I take a breath in and turn the page over, sitting on the bed to read it. The frame creaks but I’m too wrapped up to care.
It started the night I got my first period. He knew somehow and when everyone was asleep, he came to my room. I was asleep too when I felt him pull the blanket away. He said I was dirty now. Like my mother. He said I needed to pray. To beg forgiveness for my sins. He never said what those sins were. He gave me a special rosary then made me kneel to say my prayers. That happened for a full week. I had to kneel and pray while he watched until he was satisfied.
I was so tired everyone noticed but I never said a word and I hid the rosary between my mattress and the box spring.
Then when my period was over, he stopped coming and I thought that was it. But then my cycle repeated, and the punishment changed. He made me take off my clothes before I knelt. It was cold I remember that, and he opened the window and let in more cold air and told me to pray. For the full week while I bled, he would make me strip and kneel and pray and beg for forgiveness.
The next time I had my period again he said it wasn’t working. Said I was too dirty to pray and instead he would need to punish me as long as I bled. It was the rule he said. And every night that week he punished me. His punishment was wicked and hurt inside me. He hurt me so badly I had a hard time getting out of my bed those days.
I stop reading.
Oh my God.
Jesus.
No.
I turn to the last page and realize I’m crying when a tear falls on the sheet blotting the ink. I smear it away and make myself read.
It went on for a full year like this. A full year where for one week every month I was made to strip and kneel and pray and be punished. He changed the punishments sometimes, but they were all bad. They all hurt and made me feel bad especially when something happened while he was inside me. When for a few moments it felt good.
I feel sicker at the thought of that. Sicker than when he touched me. And I prayed on my own then after those nights. I knelt and prayed, my fingers running over bead after bead of that rosary. I prayed for it to stop. I prayed for forgiveness. Because he was right. I was a filthy girl and he always knew it.
The rope is ready. I’m ready. And before I have one more period, I have to finish this. Before he can come into my room one more time, I will end it.
I’ll miss Zeke the most. I wish I could tell him. I wish he could protect me like he promised he would. I’ll miss Jericho too. And mom. I will leave the letter where Zeke will find it in our hiding place. I hope he’ll understand. Hope they all will understand that I had no choice.
And that I’m sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong like them.
Tears stream down my face by the time I’m finished reading. I turn the page over but it’s empty. And I look at the rosary in my hand. It’s broken. I wonder if she did that.
The letter is unsigned, but I have no doubt it’s Zoë who wrote it. It’s her suicide note. That’s what he was searching for. He was trying to understand. Does Zeke know? Does Leontine? And what will I do with it now that I know?
I get to my feet feeling that strange calming of the air again. Like the ghost here was Zoë’s. Maybe she was waiting for someone to find her letter. For her mother and brothers to understand.
I wrap the rosary back around the pages and slip them into my pocket, then make my way back down the corridor to the stairs. I’m not afraid and I don’t hurry. And when I’m back upstairs I lock the steel door behind me, return the key to Jericho’s study and close the desk drawer.
The pages are burning a hole in my pocket and I’m about to stand when something on his desk catches my eye. I feel cold at the sight of it. It’s Jericho’s handwriting on a sheet of paper. I recognize it from the time he’d left me the note the morning after he tattooed me. That feels like ages ago. But this isn’t random scribbling. It’s the name of a prison. The prison Danny Gibson was transferred to part way into serving his sentence.
I pull the sheet close to see if there’s anything else but there isn’t.
