Chapter 22
Quill
Violet Bracelets
On My Own Time
Paul Leonard-Morgan
I should have followed him. I should have given him the same comfort he had given me. Instead, I had left him another message and run to the Richter estate with three bullets in my hand.
Too late, I had noticed the dishes flying. Something Father only did when the rest of the family was out of the house.
His words hadn't managed to penetrate my consciousness, so focused had I been on holding on to those three bullets. Yet they echoed in my head.
“How could you?!”
“You're ruining me!”
“You're ruining the whole family!”
“I'm going to lock the library!”
“Where are your goddamn scribblings, huh?!”
“I'll burn them all!”
Just in time, with my eyes wide open and my heart pounding, I had managed to lock my room.
“This is my house, you useless whore!”
“Open the fucking door, Gravia!”
BANG.
“Open up!”
BANG.
“Open up!”
BANG.
“Open up!”
BANG.
“Open the damn door, Miststück!”
CRACK.
I still bore the marks of his grip on my wrists in the form of purple bracelets.
And the crack in the wood of my bedroom door frightened me, because if he kicked it again with the same aggression, he would penetrate the place where I found refuge at night, even though my racing heart never allowed me to sleep.
The reason why I had moved my manuscripts to the large, abandoned attic at half past four in the morning, where I would from now on retreat to write late into the night.
Father had slept on the couch, shards of glass everywhere on the floor, which Lorette hadn’t left uncommented in the morning, arguing with him, and her vain daughter hadn’t held back her comments to me.
The two women had not only torn me apart with their glances, and Tony, who had given me a ride to the traffic light intersection near Maplecrest University in his car, had asked me “Is everything okay?” in such a meek tone because he was feeling guilty again for not having been there.
This wasn't his fault. I was entirely responsible for my behavior.
The same went for the four new cat scratches on my wrist, all of which I had dedicated to Davian. Three for the bullets. One for the gun he must have had lying around at home.
If I had been able to sleep peacefully until today, I definitely couldn't anymore.
Davian may have stood on that bridge for the last time almost twenty years ago, but yesterday's emotional reaction... just the fact that he had kept them in his top desk drawer, within reach...
I had chatted with Lara all night, trying to find out through subtle questions whether her father was at home, but I had had to stop when she had started asking counter-questions.
Beth’s Story
Carlos Rafael Rivera
My inner nervousness was eating away at me until the moment Davian entered his debate seminar – wearing a dull blue three-piece suit – even though our mutual searching eye contact spoke volumes.
Of course, we couldn't hold each other's gaze because Davian had to lead his seminar and neither of us could let on that we were now friends. Whatever that meant...
Once again, Davian was the calm, open-minded, charismatic man, without showing a single trace of yesterday's chaos, as he called on two students at a time and gave them ten minutes to prepare for spontaneous topics before giving them another fifteen minutes for the actual debate.
Every fifteen minutes, topics were drawn, such as:
“Should the death penalty be abolished?”
“Is it ethically acceptable to enforce laws that a majority rejects?”
“Should property always be inviolable, or are there legitimate reasons for expropriation?”
I already knew that I would fail miserably in my debate, because I was neither good at arguing in front of large crowds nor quick-witted.
At school, I had often stumbled over my words, gotten shaky knees, or thought too long about my next sentence without concentrating on the content of my words. Now, on top of that, Davian was watching the debaters engage in factual battles of argumentation while noting their mistakes.
What would he think when he saw me babbling about a topic up there and realized how intelligent I really was?
If I was lucky, it would be my turn next week or the week after. Maybe not at all, because Davian might have been so kind not to put my name in that jar, since he knew I was leaving soon anyway.
“The next debaters are...”
Davian pulled a piece of paper out of the jar, unfolded it, and, as always, there was an expectant silence. The only ones who glared at each other hostilely were the two debaters who had just paused. Two trained and eloquent fifth-semester students.
“Mr. Faber.”
Zach glanced around, ready for battle, and Lucas patted him on the shoulder as the tension in the room rose again, because everyone knew he was in the debate club.
“And...” Davian looked as if he wanted to put the piece of paper back. But he couldn't do that in front of the seminar. So he raised his head. With an apologetic look. In my direction. “Miss Veritas.”
Playing Mr. Ganz
Carlos Rafael Rivera
My hope drowned somewhere in that ocean where sooner or later all hope drowned.
“Oh, shit,” Lucas blurted out, and his friends started laughing just as nastily as he did, while Zach looked at me with a contempt that only Brittany usually managed.
Other students looked at me with pity or patted Zach on the shoulder as if he had already won.
Great. Another humiliation for the helpless woman who had strayed into this university.
“You have ten minutes to prepare your arguments for your topic.” Davian looked first at Zach, who took a piece of paper from Davian’s teaching assistant, then at me, without letting on anything. Then he looked back at the debaters. “Mr. Johnson, Mr. Schneider? Please continue your debate.”
As I unfolded the piece of paper with my topic on it, I sighed in frustration and ignored the teaching assistant with the raised eyebrows.
“Should there be harsher legal consequences for parents who emotionally abuse their children?” (Pro)
Was this some kind of bad joke?
Zach was already writing like a madman, as if the arguments were just pouring out of him. And of course he had drawn the con side.
I should consider myself lucky that I didn't have to argue against my own opinion, but when I caught Davian's remorseful gaze, who, until now, had been focused solely on the debates but was now staring at me, I knew for sure that I wasn't going to win this fight and that in a few minutes I would make a fool of myself up there.
I avoided his gaze, began writing down arguments, and with every passing minute I wondered how hard I would cry on a scale of one to ten if this backfired.
When Davian called us up and handed the previous debaters their critique sheets, my knees began to shake.
“Good luck, Smudge,” Lucas laughed, but not quietly enough to avoid a withering glance from Davian.
“Mr. McMillan,” he admonished, and Lucas snorted morosely before winking at me and the expectant eyes of the lecture hall turned to Zach and me.
We positioned ourselves five feet apart. I had my notebook, he had his goddamn A6 index cards in his hands.
His expression spoke volumes. Zach was ready to show me how serious he was about what he had said yesterday. And something about that fact flipped a switch in me.
Davian looked around the room.
“The question is: Should there be harsher legal consequences for parents who emotionally abuse their children? Miss Veritas will argue the pro position, Mr. Faber the con position.”
Lucas grinned from the audience, and looking at Zach didn’t exactly give me hope either, so I looked at Davian.
“Miss Veritas. You may begin.”
He smiled encouragingly at me, but I didn’t want to get used to Miss Veritas, nor did I want to start giving a speech about domestic violence as if it didn’t affect me. Nevertheless, I cleared my throat, desperately searching for words.
When I wrote, the words flowed out of me. But when it came to speaking...
Come on, Quill. Block them out. Block them all out.
Playing Benny – Las Vegas 1966
Carlos Rafael Rivera
It only worked to a certain extent, but after I had made the floor my fixed point – which probably made me appear less self-confident – I was able to focus on the content of the debate again.
My nails dug into the sides of my fingertips, scratching into the skin.
Say all the things you never had the chance to say. This is your only chance.
“When parents decide to have a child, they decide to bring a descendant into this world who will carry the burden of the family legacy on their shoulders. This child is obligated to respect their parents, obey them, learn as much as possible, and know their place in the economic food chain as quickly as possible. Either they learn to walk in time, or they fall.”
Davian stared at me blankly, as if he had to process my words three times, and I looked back down at the floor to keep my train of thought.
“And parents who are concerned about their child's future have every right to do everything in their power to get that child on the right track.”
Some of my fellow students nodded in agreement.
“That... is the epitome of ignorant parents.”
My fellow students immediately looked at each other, while Zach snorted and Davian snapped out of his stupor.
“Because the only job children should have is to trust their parents to show them how to survive in this world in an understanding and patient way, raising them to be resilient, empathetic, and critical thinkers.”
No one said anything, and I knew that some of them had longed for such a childhood, that some of them didn't want my words to be true, because their parents' violence had shaped them into the people they were today, people their parents were probably proud of. Their perfect clay vases.