The Emperor

17

ADELINE
AGE SIXTEEN

When I was little, I always thought the basement was only a nightmare from my darkest nights.

I always thought that I had imagined it, that I made it all up to make my mother the bad guy in my head to minimize my own bad behavior.

I thought that for a while until I understood that the nightmares never stopped, that it wasn't my silly little brain that invented it all, that she did lock me up down there until I couldn't take it anymore. I think I didn't want to believe it anyway, Mom is all I have. All I ever had. She's my only family, how can one's family treat them so badly? How can one's family torture them hours on end? How can a mother cut her own child open?

My mom did a lot of bad things to me, things she never should've even thought about.

Yet, I can't blame her.

She wants what's best for me.
She wants my future to be bright.
She wants my soul to be high.

What better way to cleanse my heart than making it bleed?

       The basement became my second bedroom, if not my first. I slept against a wall more than I did on a mattress.
The funny thing about the basement is that I never actually saw it. There is only ever little light, just enough for me to see my mother but not my surroundings. I feel the wall against me, the chains around my limbs, the coldness surrounding me, but I don't see any of it.

I can't remember why she put me in there this time though, I think it has to do with Mare. My Mare. My best friend, Mare. I don't have a family but I have Mare.

Mom says she's no good, I say she's the best thing that has ever happened to me.

She has this way about her, she makes the whole room light up with her laughter and the sun gets jealous of her when she smiles. She is so alive, it makes everything seem so dull. I don't understand how Mom doesn't like her, I love Mare.

Mare is so free, so reckless, so selfish.

I wish I could be like Mare. Her mother doesn't really care about what she does or how she spends the day, who she hangs out with and what are their beliefs, she doesn't care at all. Mare can do whatever she wants. She doesn't have to bend to rules and earn forgiveness for every minor sin she might commit.

Mom only wants me to be friends with the other girls from church but even them thought of me as weird, they don't want to be around me or my wack mother. They don't see us as good people, and they don't even know the half of it. Only the priest thinks we're doing something good. "Hard believers like the Mayers are rare these days." Father David said to the church one day. Mom and I went to get ice-cream after that. 

I don't think I ever saw my mother as happy as she was that day, her smile could have made the sun jealous, she couldn't stop laughing and giggling. We raced home and she let me win, she tucked me in bed that night and kissed me goodnight.

Mom doesn't love me as much as she does when she thinks He is rewarding us.

My best friend doesn't need God's approval to hang out with me, she doesn't need the priest's praise to be happy to be with me.