your power || billie eilish

chapter two

The first day of school. 

I woke up tangled in my bedsheets, my body sticky with sweat. I'd had a nightmare. It wasn't a new one--I'd had it at least once a month ever since me and Henry started our...relationship. Technically it was more of an affair, but I hated that word. It implied bad things. 

In the nightmare, I was in class, sitting at my desk. The bell rang--except it wasn't actually the bell. It was a police car's siren. And suddenly the doors to the classroom were bust open, and police were flooding the space, their hands grabbing me and yanking me out into the hallway. Students ogled the whole scene from the shadows as I was thrust into a cop car. It stared to drive away, and I noticed Henry sitting beside me. Except he wasn't the Henry I knew. He was an unshaven, unkempt guy with yellowish teeth, crusted snot around his nostrils, and red eyes. He leaned in and whispered in my ear, "I love you so much, Juliette. I'll never stop loving you." Then he put his hands around my neck and strangled me.

Yeah. Weird.

Standing slowly, I opened my bedroom curtains and peered out my window. The glass was foggy with the early-morning humidity, but I could make out the blurry landmarks of our backyard--patio, pool, tennis court. I wasn't used to this life of wealth. Growing up, before the divorce, my family had lived in a tiny townhouse in Hartford. Then, when Mom and Dad split and Mom got full custody, she moved us out here to Rhode Island. This was where she had grown up, on the coast, with salty sea air and misty morning bus rides to school. We came here right before I started my freshman year. That was only two years ago. Twenty-four months. And still, somehow, in 730 days I'd managed to get involved in an illicit relationship with none other than my teacher. 

Dad always used to tell me I had a knack for doing stupid shit. I guess he was right.

I got ready for school fast. It was 7:15 am. First period began at nine o'clock, on the dot. 

By eight, I was ready to go. Mom was still sleeping, and I noticed that the calendar in the kitchen which, she so precariously marked with every single important date, didn't have my first day of school on it. Not that I was offended. Mom had a tendency to forget the important stuff regarding me. Want her to recall what day of the week it was on her birthday (Wednesday), or what time did she meet my dad (6:13 pm, at a dinner party, and he proposed at 8:34 pm two years later) and she can answer you immediately, no hesitation, no mistake. But the day that her youngest daughter starts school just totally slips her mind. 

I try not to feel disregarded by these things--she's a busy (jobless) person with tons of duties (she has a personal assistant and 4 maids) to fulfill. It's understandable. I'm sure that if I ever become a mom I'll make these same mistakes and suddenly feel sympathy for my own mother and all she's ever done for me. 

As I opened the fridge to get food, I made a mental list of all the great things Mom has done for me since the divorce: 

1. On my sweet 16, she called in the order for my birthday cake. She got the flavor totally wrong and asked for peanut butter icing, apparently forgetting that I've got a mild-to-severe allergy to peanuts. But still. It's the thought that counts!

2. When I started high school she packed my lunch for me on the first day. I was going through a vegetarian/vegan phase back then. She packed me old meatloaf and beef jerky. I came home and laughed, thinking she had done it as a joke. I asked her about it, and she told me she "thought you loved meat!" Minor mistake. I'd only been refusing to eat animals since I was 11. That's, like, what, two years? Barely any! I gave up my vegan/vegetarian beliefs soon after that mishap, though.

3. Um. I'm blanking. Oh--yeah--she always calls me to see where I am! See? That must prove that she cares for me. Even if she does forget about what causes my throat to swell up and block my airways, at least she's always checking my location!!