Page 68 of Wicked Vile King
I am Willow Mae Cadelle, the only child of the multi-millionaire, James Brighton Cadelle and his dead wife, the one they called Ms. South Carolina for decades after she held the crown.
I am more than this piece of cobbled leather around my neck, but yet . . . I don't want to take it off.
Saint demands even more from me too, wanting me to admit to the worst thing I ever did, but what happens if I do? What happens when I lose the only thing, that little innocuous half-truth, that's kept me breathing since that night? Sometimes the lies we tell ourselves aren't just to protect our feelings. They keep us alive.
My father called to check on me a week prior, another unexpected yet brief occurrence. It should have made me feel better. Weeks ago, I think it would have, but talking to Papa just made me even more confused.
"You are strong," he'd told me, coughing a little on the other side of the phone and filling the silence. "You are my daughter, Willow. You have my blood. You will persevere and endure. By God's name, you'll come out of this stronger."
He'd said it like it was already decided, like my genes determined who I was. Maybe in his fucked-up brain he thinks that sending me here will purge me of weakness and make me something worthy of his name.
Papa didn't listen though. Heck, maybe he stopped listening years before or maybe he never did. If he had, he would have known Mama was unhappy. He would've seen the signs. He would've seen me struggle after her death and noticed that the countless therapists weren't enough, especially not when he couldn't even say her damned name in front of me.
I was strong, yet I broke before, when I cut my wrists in the bathtub just like she did.
I am strong now, yet I wear his collar.
My thoughts go round and round, circling a drain that never actually clears. It starts a headache between my ears.
I lift my hand from the bed and play with the shadows again.
The students see me as his property. It's degrading and humiliating, but I don't want to stop. Instead, I want more.
What is wrong with me?
I fake an illness that gets me out of roll call and breakfast at the cafeteria. Thanks to Trixie fixing the locks on the window, I don't even see Saint, thank God. I know I'll pay for it later, but later isn't right now. And right now, I need time to clear my head and remember who I am.
I lay in the dim light of our shared room, where there's just enough sunlight from the window to reach the edge of my bed at this time of day. Normally, the encroaching darkness would send me catapulting across the room to the light, but in the shadows, I play with the sunlight that dances across my fingertips, slowly changing with each flick of my hand. My heart pounds, but I don't move out of my bed. I think I hear the screams of the ghosts that haunt this place. When I blink, I don't see my mother's body though.
Instead, I see him.
The nurse comes and visits me a couple of hours later.
"Willow," she says, knocking on the door as she steps inside, "I'm Nurse Harding. Your roommate asked that I come to check on you. She said you weren't feeling well."
She steps inside and closes the door behind her before she walks over, depositing her black medical bag on the bed beside me.
"How are you feeling?" she asks, pulling up my sleeve, her gaze lingering on the scar there, before she takes my pulse, watching her stopwatch.
"Not great," I murmur, which is the truth.
She takes her stethoscope and listens to the front of me before reaching around my side and behind me to listen at my back.
"Your pulse is fine, and your breathing is clear," she remarks, reaching into her leather bag and grabbing a thermometer. She puts it in my ear, and it beeps a moment later. "No fever either." She raises an eyebrow at me. "What's bothering you, Ms. Cadelle?"
I look at her and then at the wall and then back at her again before I swallow hard.
She sighs and drops the thermometer back into her medical bag.
"Look, I get it," she says, taking a seat on the edge of the bed beside me. She smells like coffee and lavender, and it reminds me of Mama.
"Everyone needs a break now and again," she says to me. "Between you and me, I think the way they treat you kids is just . . . well, unfair. Honestly, I'm surprised it took you this long to fake a cold. Most of your fellow students are down with the sniffles by the first week." She smiles kindly at me. "How about this? I'll write you off for the rest of the weekend but that's it, otherwise, Headmistress will ask questions. How's that sound?"
My voice is stuck, buried beneath the rock caught in my throat. I nod as she grabs my hand and squeezes tight before she winks at me.
"This'll be our secret, okay?"
"Okay," I whisper with a cough.
