Contained by Love

Chapter 7 - Panic Attacks

  Most of the girls in Madame’s class were sleeping or resting their head on the desk on Wednesday morning. As she droned on about constructing a pattern of material before sewing it together, I fiddled with my fingers and yawned lazily, mentally counting down the minutes until I could go back to my room and sulk.

  It had been exactly one week and three days since Aimee’s disappearance, since Gwen broke down; since Eli told me he loved me back. Since then, I showed no sign of disobedience to Madame and her henchmen. I was even starting to pay attention in her classes.

   If I thought about it, they weren’t all that bad, excluding Friday’s class, of course. An involuntary shudder runs through my back as I remember the last fornication lesson. Madame’s voice talking about something so private, lecturing it to us, forcing everyone to copy it into their notebooks; it was a sick thing she was doing. But then again, so was everything else.

  But silently, in my head, I was plotting endlessly.

  In the back of my notebook, I casually doodled some deformed hearts and flowers, not really paying attention. The margins of my loose-leaf were completely covered in blue inked patterns, so I turn the page and restart it.

  At first, I thought I could convince some of the Fishermen to help break us out. I had actually counted how many there were of them. If we had fifteen of them with the forty of us against one insane woman, how could we lose?

   This was ruled out the second I saw them Taser a young girl for kissing a boy in the hallway. And it wasn’t even a full on make out, it was just a peck on the lips. The girl had burst into tears and ran away, leaving the boy watching her go with his hands in his pockets.  I had pictured myself and Eli in that position, and trembled at the thought of someone tasering him.

 My thoughts bounced back to the Fishermen. I wasn’t sure if Madame had them personally brainwashed or not, but I decided I would rather not cross them.

  I look up for a moment when I hear someone cough lightly, but my attention is diverted to one of the girls in the class. She is fidgeting in her seat, like she has to go to the bathroom. Her eyes were fixed on the floor. The way she was so nervous bothered me.

  A few beads of sweat drop from her face as she starts to breathe heavily. A few other girls stare at her as well, and even more look up when her fingers start to twitch.

  Madame was writing on the chalkboard, unaware of the scene behind her. The chalk made slight squeaking sounds as it made contact with the board, and the girl put her hands over her ears as if someone just blew an air horn into her ear.

 I look around me in disbelief. The other girls looked too frightened to say anything. How could they just sit here when clearly something was wrong with her?

  You know that little filter in your head? The one that’s supposed to prevent you from doing the wrong thing?

 Yeah, I’ve never heard of it either.

 My mind was made up before I even formed my next coherent thought.

  I shoot my hand into the air, but Madame’s back was still turned. I wave my hands around and clear my throat loudly. Madame spins on her heel and sees me. Her eyes narrow but she keeps a smile plastered onto her face.

“Yes, Vivienne?” She asks, her eyes locking with mine, daring me to make a wrong move.

“I would just like to point out that there is something wrong with that girl sitting in the second row, third seat.” I state, keeping my poker face to a maximum. Madame’s eyes flicker to the poor girl, who is gripping her seat so tightly I was surprised the chair didn’t break.