AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Breath sticks in my lungs as I feel her physically peeling me apart.
“Darling,” Zylus murmurs, cautious.
“Hush. I’m wearing her down.”
I force my attention to the other half of my sandwich. Somehow, I know she isn’t wrong. I’m a teacher in a small town at a small school built upon Christian standards. Despite that, I’ve seen and heard so many horrible things in my sheltered bubble it’s depressing. What is the real reason making me feel like my entire world is coming to an end? I’m not scared. These feelings aren’t fear. There’s worry, and concern, and unsettle, and exhaustion, but not fear.
Concern and worry make you compassionate.
Fear is entirely unhelpful for others.
So I think…I think I got rid of it along with everything else that was inconvenient for those around me. It’s this sensation—this knowledge—that I’ve chipped pieces of myself that belonged to a different universe off that makes me feel subtly nauseated right now.
I have flushed so much of myself down the drain in an effort to appeal to strangers.
I have become a husk with the sole purpose of making others around me safe, and comfortable, and happy. I was taught living selflessly was the correct way. The right thing to do. I was taught that harmless parts of my character were wrong.
So now I’m tired, and my cup is empty, and I’m just angry. All. The. Time.
Whether I let myself show it or not.
Whatever I do now that has the appearance of kindness no longer comes from the heart.
It comes from my systems, and my standards, and the façade I use to portray whatever it is someone else wants to see.
I swallow the bitter taste of iron on the back of my tongue. “I don’t know how to handle this suggestion that everything I’ve been taught to believe is a lie.” I press my hand to my mouth and close my eyes. “I know I can’t have both the life I’ve put so much effort into, and this new one. But which do I choose when one is everything I’ve ever known, and the other…might be everything I wish I knew?”
Willow hums. “We’re not raised to be ourselves, Kass. You realize that, don’t you?”
As though it weighs a hundred pounds, I tilt my head forward in a nod.
“I’m not accusing you, but do you think a part of what’s messing you up so much is the fact you’ve been in a position that feeds that concept to kids? Parents and society want a certain type of child and they charge teachers with enforcing it. Feeling wrong sucks, but you can fix it. You can recognize that you are in control of your own self and get to the bottom of it with enough time and care. Feeling as though you’ve pushed the wrongness into others, though…”
My throat closes as I open my eyes and find Willow watching me. It hurts to swallow again, and the taste of iron has grown thicker.
“Know better; do better,” she says.
I swear I’ve heard those exact words somewhere else recently.
But what Willow doesn’t seem to understand is that I am not at liberty to do better without permission. Parents and society will continue to demand their children present themselves in a certain way. It’s the only way they’ll succeed in this messed up world. The truth doesn’t matter if it stands in the way of function.
This world does not value the truth.
The system is broken, but too many things would need to change in order for its destruction to lead to something better.
Knowledge is a burden because it charges us with doing better, even if we can’t.
“I’m exhausted,” I whisper, and my voice breaks. “Every day. I pretend not to be. Because I thought that was how it worked. I thought everyone felt like this. I thought it was normal. How many children have I taught to be exhausted, too? How many kids who are more fragile than Meda have I guided away from their beliefs because I didn’t share them? Because I’ve been taught not to share them? Because they weren’t what society told me was valued? What am I supposed to do with this information?” I look around the table, from Alana, to Willow, to Zylus. “How do you take responsibility for more power than you ever thought would be within your reach? How do you use it to make something better if it still isn’t enough to change the world? How do you find the balance between accountability and abuse?”
Alana and Willow glance at each other, then Willow clears her throat while Alana presses her lips together.
I search for answers in their expressions, and come up dry.
Zylus murmurs, “They won’t have the answer you’re looking for, Kass. They regularly abuse the powers they’ve been given access to.”
“Are we bad people?” Alana asks. “I feel like we might be bad people. Is struggling with a vast moral dilemma how we were supposed to encounter magic? Was replicating Barbie dress transformations instead…wrong?”
“No, no.” Willow plants a hand at her chin. “If Castor isn’t a bad person, we’re obviously delightful.”
