“Morpheus Calloway has contacted me with some deep concerns that he has for you and your well-being.”
“My well-being is none of his fucking business,” I snap. “He’s not my father and he’s not even my real uncle!”
Principal Long’s eyes harden. “Watch your language, please.”
My breaths come faster. In and out. In and out. The walls lean inward, growing closer. Like a trapped mouse locked in a labyrinth, I can picture Morpheus Calloway standing over this room in a white lab coat and a cruel cartoonish smile on his face. He might be gone, but his presence remains behind, cloaking everything around me in his scent, hispower.
“Juliet.”I can’t breathe.
“Juliet.”Is the ceiling lower? It looks lower. It’s coming down on top of me.
He’s going to get what he wants. He’ll get everything he fucking wants. Healwaysdoes.
“Juliet!” I jolt, nearly toppling out of my chair as twin hands latch on to my shoulders and shake me back into the present.
Principal Long’s wide, brown eyes and fuzzy curls swaying out of the bun she has at the back of her head come back into view as she stands before me. A whimper builds in the back of my throat and by force of will alone, I shove it down, burying it where I do everything that hurts me. Deep.
“Are you all right?” she asks. “Should I call the nurse?”
“No.” Panting, I bend over, waving away her hands as I suck in air through my nose and slowly release it through my mouth. “No, I’m okay.” I hope the words aren’t a lie, but even if they are, I’m not going to admit it. Not here. Silverwood Public is enemy territory. No one here will see my weaknesses. I can’t let them.
Sitting back against the seat, I repeat the breathing routine until Principal Long seems to think I’m a bit better. Enough, at least, to retake her own chair across from me. She slides a box of tissues closer and I eye them dubiously before pointedly ignoring their presence and returning my attention to her.
“You said you called me here to ask me some questions.” Not a question, but she answers it as if it is.
“I did.”
“Ask them.”
The two of us stare at each other for a beat, but to my surprise, she doesn’t immediately dive into a set of clinical inquiries that might tell her whether or not those words in Ms. Beck’sreport—the word is foul even in my head—have any substance. Instead, she lays a palm flat on the folder and watches me. The clock on the wall ticks past the next period and the bell rings.
Distantly, the sound of doors opening and students spilling out into the main hall a few feet away from her door on the otherside of the front office waiting area echo back to us. When those noises have drifted off into nothing, and still she hasn’t said a thing, I give up the pretense of waiting for her any longer.
“Please.” I urge as much respect as I can into my tone. Principal Long has never been anything but professional with me. She does her job regardless of the scandal staining my family. She’s never given me worse treatment and has, in fact, stood up to other teachers who haven’t been able to keep their opinions to themselves.
Respect is earned, and this woman has done everything to earn mine. I find it’s not hard to give when the other person deserves it.
“Please just tell me what he wants.” My words are quiet, but it’s clear I’m not talking about Ms. Beck or her report. Whatever power or authority those papers might bestow upon Morpheus Calloway, I know that Principal Long might be the only thing standing between me and freedom.
I’m not stupid. Morpheus has been trying to get me back for months. The calls and then the emails when I no longer had my phone. Then, showing up at the football games. Last Friday night. Now, this. It was a foolish notion to think I had more time to plan against him, to protect myself.
Before, my family and their money had given me some semblance of safety. I’d had excuses for why I no longer wanted to visit my ‘Uncle Morpheus’. Why going to my parents’ charity galas and parties no longer interested me. My mother told people it was because of a disagreement that night, but she had to have known it was more. She’d been the one to offer me those pills, the ones that made me forget, that let me sleep.
There is security in money, a power that goes beyond that of what you can or can’t have. Money means you have the ability to fight monsters in other ways. Now, I don’t have any of that. I don’t have anything but my body and the Scorpion Kings.
Principal Long looks down at the surface of her desk. Each second that ticks by is another invisible cut to the surface of my skin, shredding my outsides, and no one will ever notice how the secrets I keep are painted right there on the surface. I wear them not with pride, but with the inevitability of someone who has lost control once and refuses to let it happen ever again.
She speaks without looking up. “Mr. Calloway is concerned for your physical and mental wellbeing.” My chest seizes, but she’s not done. “With Ms. Beck’s report and on the advice of his lawyer, he believes it would be beneficial if you were to be placed in his care.”
“But I’m?—”
“Yes, you’re eighteen.” Principal Long guesses my next words; I’ve repeated them enough by now it simply feels like my immediate defense mechanism. She raises her gaze. “However, if Mr. Calloway were to suggest to the courts that you are unable to care for yourself due to a mental illness, it is possible for the court to award him legal guardianship.”
Legal guardianship.The words slam into my head with all of the sweet gentleness of a runaway eighteen-wheeler big oil tank. It tears through all of my defenses and skids onto its side before exploding in a fiery blaze.
“He would have… guardianship?” Numb. I’m numb. Tingles dance up and down my arms.
She nods.
