Set Alight

Chapter 5

In three days, I get home to see a pile of mail. On top of the stack is an envelope addressed to me. I pick it up, confused, and open it to find wads of paper about something legal...?

Montreegomery adoption. I laugh for so long my sides burn and my eyes water. Pages upon pages of co-adoption of our tree, and from what I can see, it's completely legitimate.

Snickering, I sign my name, slap a RETURN TO SENDER sticker on it, and put back in the mail box.

Did you get the adoption papers? Ashton texts later, when I'm sitting there, bored.

Yes... HAHA! You're so funny.

Are you mocking our bab-tree?

No, you. Anyway... what are you doing?

Reading. You?

Ha, I wish. My dad took away my book last week when I was late home from school.

What? How late?

Four minutes.

That's ridiculous! I'm hours late almost every day and the worst I ever get is an extra chore after dinner! And your dad takes away your BOOKS?! What the heck?

He says that we shouldn't mock intelligence by forcing more of it into our minds.

Okay. So, answer me this: Where does intelligence come from? Knowledge? If not from books?

Um... I don't have a reasonable answer for those questions. So instead, I answer another: The book made me late.

Have you met us teens? We ARE late. It's what we do best. It's what HUMANS do best. Besides loving, of course. And only a few of us have THAT advantage. Em, what's the point of living without a little freedom?

What Ashton is asking me to do is not to live, but to disobey my dad. The very prospect leaves me cold and pale. I have to go, Ashton.

I shove the phone away from me as if it's coated in acid, stand and refuse to check the sudden flurry of text messages Ashton is probably texting. Whatever favor Ashton thinks he's doing, whatever beliefs he's trying to pin on me is not what I need right now... or ever. I don't need someone controlling my life. Someone else, a traitor in my mind whispers. I growl and push it down.

Dad doesn't control me, does he? No. He teaches me. Two entirely different things. I groan and flop onto a couch downstairs. Dad would kill me if he came home right now, he doesn't believe couches are for laying on, but for sitting. With good posture.

I can't bring myself to sit, however. My strength seems to have left me. Not my strength, I realize as I bury my head into a pillow. My will. My will to do anything. I may have just broken my friendship with Ashton.

The secrets, the lying, the sneaking around, all piles on top of me at once. The tugging between loyalty to my dad and desire to continue a friendship with Ashton tugs and seems to pull my soul apart. I can't seem to breathe, and I turn over, refusing to move.

Hours later Benedict finds me-not that I was hiding- still on the couch, turned and staring at the wall. He doesn't ask, I don't answer, and he drapes a blanket over me and leaves again.

Night he brings a cup of my medicine and sets it beside the couch on the floor. He leaves it with me, and I swirl a finger in it. Its very feel seems to burn, and I withdraw my hand, pick up the cup and pour the lightly green frothy liquid out a nearby window. The very night I could die, but I don't care. I need to think and acidic pain in my stomach and heart are not what I need right now.