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They’re men. Who killed a woman.
There would have been no pleasure in killing a man.
Any glee behind it, any relish and savoring of it…
It’s not because she’s a queen or because she’s an enemy. But because she’s a woman.
And any woman could have been her.
A hand strokes down my back and I jolt. Finlay and Rory glance uneasily at me, and I turn to see Danny quickly retracting his hand. “Are you okay?” Danny asks in concern, his kind brown eyes peering deeply at me.
I shake my head, tugging out a chair and collapsing into it, shielding my face from view. The others… they don’t see it the same way. They see a murder case — cold, clinical, political. Something to be solved. Something to be outraged about, sad about, but not on a personal, instinctual level.
They won’t see it as a feminist issue until it’s pointed out. They won’t see it as the attack on womenkind that it is. That these men will never be behind bars. They’ll be lauded in the new order for killing a woman, and women will never be safe when they roam free with their celebrated bloodlust.
That when one woman is killed, a light of hope within every woman dies as they see for the first time the failing system under which they’re living.
When they find out, as murderers go unpunished, just how much men can hate them.
When they come face to face with the inherent unfairness of the patriarchy like the big boss at the end of a game level.
Hope dies.
In the library, I rub my eyes until they feel raw. I blink, seeing nothing but blurring streaks.
“Maybe keep the grisly details to a minimum for the saint’s sake,” Rory tells Finlay quietly, his tone one of minor concern. I don’t have the effort in me to say that’s not the point, that it’s not about details — the opposite in fact: that men murdering women is so prevalent in this wretched society that not even a queen can escape it. But all energy within me is extinguished and all I want to do is crawl back into bed with Luke.
“Where’s Becca?” I ask numbly, a strand of my fear suddenly taut with tension.
Finlay glances down at the newspapers. “I’ve seen no mention o’ her.”
I nod to myself, wondering if this is a good thing or bad. But I’m so tired, so drained. There’s no way I can go to class today — I just can’t.
“I’m going back to bed,” I mumble, picking myself up from the chair. The chiefs glance between themselves, still looking uneasy.
“But the exams—”
I tune out Finlay. I know he means well, and I know important exams are coming up soon but there’s no way I have the strength to even hold a pen at this point. Rory follows me, taking my arm and leading me gently upstairs to their dorm again.
At the door, he strokes my face. His gray eyes look like warm stones and he kisses my cheeks. “I’ll check in on you later. Both of you.”
I open the door and make my way lethargically over to the bed we’d all shared, the one where Luke remains sleeping peacefully, the edge of the blanket grasped tight between his curled fist. I shed my school uniform, feeling instantly relieved the moment I slide into bed naked. He looks so beautiful, so calm. How could anyone want to hurt him and his family? Despite myself, I find the tears I’d been hiding downstairs rising into my eyes the longer I watch Luke’s serene, sleeping face. I wipe them with the pillow but it’s ceaseless. It’s a combination of shock and exhaustion and likely the after-effects of the ritual, and as I wind my arm across Luke’s broad chest, my tears fall openly across his smooth skin.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, choked up and impacted with peculiar, heavy grief. “I’m so sorry.”
Grief is love.
Luke doesn’t say anything and his eyes don’t open, but he shifts slightly underneath me. His head moves slowly, his lips grazing my hair, soft kisses falling like rain across my head.
He takes his thumb and gently brushes the wetness from my eyes. Once dry, he nuzzles his forehead against mine and in a soothing tone murmurs, “My love for you means you don’t have to apologize for a single thing, Jessa Weir.”
* * *
Together with Luke, it feels like we sleep for a year — deep and dreamless and necessary. Eventually, I wake to darkness in the dorm, barely able to see the hand in front of my face. All I’m aware of are the cozy blankets containing myself and Luke, and the warmth of Luke’s muscular shoulder which I’ve seemingly claimed as my pillow. Today I’ve decided that the sound of Luke’s gentle breath is my favorite background music, a much-needed indicator that he’s safe and here with me. While we’re in this little enclave, I wonder what’s happening downstairs. What the chiefs are firefighting. If it’s selfish to have left them to it. But as I breathe in Luke and the comforting warmth of his body, I’m grateful for this chance of silence, this comma within a never-ending sentence. I’m grateful I get to share it with him.
He moans lightly in his sleep. In low tones, I sing a melody that my mom always used on me as a lullaby when I’d been much younger. “Little Baby Hush-a-Bye.” It had been her creation, a song that had evolved nightly until she’d written it down as a memento, capturing its beauty and fragility on paper forever, as an aid to help Dad sing it. Mom had been creative, once, a long time ago, before she’d used that creativity to figure out the best way to steal alcohol from the local store.
Thinking back on it, on my happy life all those years ago, it’s as if it happened to another girl.
