Page 9 of Was I Ever Real

Itiscoldtoday.The wind cuts through my thin cotton dress while the metal mouthpiece lodged atop my tongue tastes like rust and sin.

What I have locked around my face and head resembles a horse’s bridle, and I am ashamed to admit that this is not the first time I have been forced into it. I have a hard time keeping quiet. I’m too loud, my laughter too shrill. It might have been distressing at first, but now I just bide my time and try not to let the drool slip down my chin. Shifting on the wooden bench, I try to keep my eyes on the ground, forced to sit in the town square for everyone to see.

I was caught gossiping by one of the elders. Brother Evans.

I hate him.

There I said it. I know I should not think ill of the elders but I cannot help it.

I hate him, I hate him, I hate him.

My lips quirk an inch around the device keeping me from speaking, proud of my internal defiance when I should be lost in thought, deep in repentance, asking for forgiveness.

The bridle is for my own good. That is what the elders told me when they locked me in it. A reminder to submit. To listen and emulate the demure nature of my sisters. But all the while it feels like something is missing. It continues to rattle inside me, especially when I am left mute like this. It shakes and groans but it has no name, just a feeling. This unknown essence of just knowing that something is wrong with this place.

But I would never dare to accuse.

Never dare to question.

From sunup to sundown, I am forced to sit here, and I count the hours by the slow drag of it against the blue sky.

The commune’s chosen sinner. If only for the day.

I’m sure in less than a week, I will find one of our mothers or maybe a fellow sister sitting where I am now. It is not uncommon. We are sinners, every single one of us. It does not efface the shame I feel when I have been found at fault. Only my father, our savior, can save us from ourselves.

Sometimes, I wish there was another way.

Another path to redemption.

Trying to apply mascara, my hand shakes while my mind lingers inside memories I wish I could forget. My eyes are welling up with tears but I absolutely refuse to ruin my makeup, so I widen them and flap my free hand trying to dry up the water threatening to fall. It doesn’t stop my lower lip from trembling and my body’s reaction to the heightened emotions. It’s seriously cramping my style. I need to get it together.

Twisting the mascara closed, I take a step back from the bathroom mirror, my bare feet sinking into the white shaggy carpet. Ewan quietly purrs against me, curling himself at my feet, pawing my calf, vying for my attention.

Remembering that the brain can’t differentiate between fake or real smiles, I grasp at straws and force myself to smile. Trying desperately to offshoot the sinking feeling currently residing in my chest.

It’s not working.

I’m usually so good at repressing this shit. My skin crawls at the thought of even having to come close to the memory I’m trying to ignore. But I need to if I want the foul thing to sink back into the darkest depths of the unclassified part of my brain. I do it anyway—with the help of an imaginary ten foot pole, unwilling to get any closer than necessary.

My car idles while I stew in mind-numbing morning downtown traffic. Sunny is going to ring my neck again. I was already running late but may have taken another extra ten minutes at the drive-through ordering a large latte. Hopefully buying her coffee will help assuage my lateness. Or is she still in her tea phase? Either way, I’ll apologize profusely to the only person I would ever apologize to because I can’t handle her being upset with me.

Eager to get there I drum my fingers to the beat of the pop song blaring out of the car speakers. I’m either antsy or just straight up anxious, I’m not really sure. I bite my lip, humming a bit too loudly, distracted and impatient.

Glimpsing out of the open car window, my eyes lock with a person standing on the sidewalk only a few feet away from me. My body reacts, doing a few things at once. First, my body locks up with a surge of adrenaline so intense that it convinces me I might be having a heart attack while simultaneously trying to scooch down in my car seat. Second, my arm shoots forward, the car horn blaring.

“Fuck,” I choke out, trying to signal to the other drivers around me that this small freak out was a total accident and not me trying to be an asshole. My forehead is prickling with sweat, my body shaking much too aggressively as I turn my attention back to who I think I just saw. But they're gone.

Did I just imagine that?

Was that what it was? A figment of my imagination? I’m having trouble even swallowing as the cars in front of me begin to move and I drive away from the near-fatal embolism I just experienced.

There’s no way I just saw who I think I just saw. My mind is trying to find every excuse to convince me it wasn’t them.

And if it was them, they wouldn’t have recognized me.

How could they?

I look nothing like the child who ran away.

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