Unmask

Chapter 2

The week passes in a blur as my days turn into a repetitive cycle of non-ending work. My days are spent in the house and I barely go outside or anywhere for that matter. My nights are spent in the office reading books and I start to feel that I am about to start ripping my hair off from missing home. It's not that I'm complaining about being here, but an inner part of me aches to be outside surrounded people and moving cars. Just to feel the world and feel alive for a moment.

Living in Ballington gives you a sense of security. You create a schedule and you know the flow of your day and you don't have to worry about anything. It is almost like being in a comfort zone. There is no bothering about what the outside world has to offer because you barely go out and time goes by until being around people feels foreign. You are almost secluded from everyone else and it makes me wonder how everyone here survives doing the same things for years and not wanting to explore the world like any normal person. The thought of being tied down in one place suffocates me and I am only grateful that this isn't my real home or I would have died years ago.

I walk into the kitchen to help prepare for the day, and I find that it is already busy with everyone preparing their food and the pots are already on the stove. Everyone seems to be in a hurry to go somewhere and I have to remind myself that there is always something to do and I should also be hurrying to do something as well. I decide to make myself coffee and I take more time than needed as I wait for the commotion to die down. It's easier to clean the kitchen when you're not bumping into everyone in every direction, and the fewer the people, the more comfortable I am.

"I heard someone walk in the passage around midnight. Was it you?" I ask Lunette.

Ever since my second day of visiting, me and Lunette have been talking every time we are in the same room. Which is the kitchen. Always. I'm finally starting to get to know the old her again and a part of me hopes we are creating a friendship. She'll basically be my first and only friend at this place and that seems to say a lot about the company I choose to keep. We talk about the most random things and I sometimes see her holding back as if to remind herself to keep her mouth shut. It makes me wonder if its because she knows what we were being told about her.

"It was me," she says as she continues preparing food for Max and I snort at the thought of me preparing food for a man. Over my dead body. The prospect of marriage was never one I admired from a young age. It is like being tied down to a place or by someone, suffocating and killing your freedom. And although I know that I would never be allowed to move far away from home because I would be alone with no one to guide me, which means then I would fall deeply into sin, but I know I will find a way. I always do. The only thing a boy can give a girl is captivity and that goes against everything I've dreamed of. I've always seen myself go places, travel the world and making something big of myself. And that sounds like every child's dream, but I refuse to believe that I will be among the ones who only end with dreaming. Mama would often kiss me on the cheek whenever I would go on about the big future that awaits me and tell me with sadness in her eyes that "You my baby, are going to be your own downfall."

"What were you doing?"

"Preparing food for my husband," she says with a smile that doesn't reach her ears.

"Oh" I say and bite my tongue from asking why he would be wanting food that late, especially when he always has huge meals before bed.

"I don't know if I would be able to do that you know. I can barely wake up to feed my own stomach," I smile hoping she doesn't take offense.

"That's what you think, until you have to do it because no one else will."

"I suppose that's true. You were chosen for a reason. I wouldn't survive a day doing all the things you do. I know that for sure."