Free

1. Control

Sadie

I turn on the taps and feel the warm running water hit my cold hands. I let out an exhale and start to relax my tense muscles as the water warms me up slowly.

Glancing up at the mirror in front of me I notice all of my imperfections and I sigh. I really wish we were allowed to wear makeup to school, though half of the girls do it anyways. They apply a light coat of mascara and go unnoticed.

I pull out the concealer I stashed away in my school bag and apply a subtle layer over the giant bags under my eyes.

The washroom door swings open suddenly, startling me into dropping the makeup. "Lookie here, Sadie's breaking the rules again" Anna chuckled to herself. I quickly picked the tube of very pale liquid up off the light blue tiled floor and hid it in my book-bag, out of sight for a teacher to find it. "Keep it down Anna, please" I said in a hushed manner as she watched in amusement.

"Why are you trying to get me in trouble?" I asked, fixing my hideous navy skirt, that was unfortunately part of the dress code.

"I'm just teasing, relax. No one will know" she reassured me. Anna is my closest friend but she is also a huge pain in my remarkably small butt. She's always getting herself into sticky situations and she has trouble following the rules. "So you coming to the meetup? I texted the location to the group chat" she drags her long fingernails across the empty stalls.

"I'll try to make it" I say.

"Come on, it'll be no fun without you".

"Okay," I sigh. "I'll be there, but I gotta get to class now" I hurry out the door and rush upstairs to room 305, Biology.

I walk in and notice the room is already full and the teacher is glaring at me as I walk over to my seat in the back. "Good morning class" she says angrily. She must be in a bad mood again.

"Good morning Ms. Willow" the class says in unison.

"Today we will be reviewing oxidative phosphorylation" she begins to scribble on the chalkboard and I start taking notes.

Just another mundane Monday rolling around again.

The class drags on for another hour and I'm just itching to get out of that seat and go to lunch. I tap my foot impatiently as I watch the last few minutes of the class pass by.

Finally the bell rings and the sweet sound of students chairs being pulled out is heard throughout the whole school. I'm so excited to be up and out of that seat. Not only was Bio a drag, but I personally hated sitting still. It was hard for me to stay in one spot for extended periods of time because I would get jittery.

I walk through the halls and see the same faces I always see and everyone looks the same. All girls must wear ponytails and always have their nails looking nice and clean. Our uniform consists of these ugly brown knee high socks and a skirt that goes down to our knees. We must wear a white blouse tucked in and over top our school cardigan, which is this dark green colour.

Guys must have short hair and it has to be tidy. They all wear the same navy blue pants and green pullovers with a white coloured shirt underneath as well.

To say our school is old fashioned would be an understatement. Unfortunately the whole world is like that. We are taught to obey and listen to our parents. They're in control of everything in our lives. From what we eat, down to our curfew.

But most importantly. They choose who we marry.

See, I was born in a world where the mother will arrange a marriage for her child and he or she has no say in it at all. This is the kind of system that has been put in place to better our 'evolution' and help with 'population control' or something like that. Truthfully I don't understand it, I just know I must go along with it.

Suffice it say, I hate it. I wasn't meant for this kind of world and I'm not the only one who thinks this.

Everyone else in school hates it too. Hence the group chats that are basically our means of survival and keeping our sanity. We use those to communicate with others on where we can meet up without the supervision of authority figures telling us how to live our lives.

People from school, of all genders, races and ages meet up. It's a time where we can be free, truly be our unique selves and actually have fun.

But it's a risk. If you get caught you face serious jail time or worse. You could lose your freedom completely and get taken away.

Here are the rules:
1. You must not associate with the opposite gender at all outside of school or work
2. Must only marry who the Mother of your household and immediate bloodline chooses
3. Must never participate in any public displays of affection or wear provocative clothing
4. You must never disobey your parents, teachers or any other authority figures

It's basically living life completely under your parents control. It's not meant to be this way.

But it's better not to question this, trust me I've tried but every time I brought it up, my mom would just shut me down. That's why I learned to just zip my mouth and do what I'm told.

I live in the small town of Marywood so word really travels fast with this kind of stuff.

After school I headed off to my usual 4:15 dance class. I sent a quick text to my mom because she always has to know where I am.

My coach, Julia, is the sweetest. She doesn't really believe in the system we have in place either. She started dancing when she was 4 and knew then and there that that's what she wanted to do. She has so much passion and commitment, it really inspires me.

It's always a blast when we work one on one together. Dance is my escape. It's the only time I feel truly free.

When it's just me and the dance floor, anything is possible. It's my stress reliever. My source of happiness.

After my lesson, I checked my phone that had about 100 messages all from Anna telling me to come to that group meet up after practice.

So I grab my water bottle and threw on my hoodie over my sweaty dance shirt and headed out.

"Bye Julia, see you on Friday!" I say waving to her as I exit the room. "Bye Sadie, keep practicing those moves".

I unlock my phone to see the location of the meetup as I walk, but it soon falls out of my hand after bumping into someone walking the opposite direction as me, clearly not paying attention to where they were going.

I look up from my phone that was flipped upside down on the floor and lock eyes with tall boy with ashy brown hair and piercing green eyes.

My heart stops for a moment as I realize I can't be caught with a boy so I pick up my phone and without even blinking run off to my car.

I could tell before I left, he wanted to say something, but it seems he was just as speechless as I was. As I sat in my car I processed what just happened and just examined his facial features in my head.

I know I'm not allowed to be thinking about boys until marriage, but I simply can't help it.

He was so attractive.