A Year of Novembers

Chapter Eight

        The next time I see him, he seems determined, different. Adorned in another suit jacket, but this time with a grey tie, he sits across from me, leaning forward almost immediately.

            “I want you to tell me more about yourself.”

            “James,” I splutter, “This is all supposed to be about you-”

            He lifts a finger, telling me to quiet. “Once you tell me about yourself, I’ll tell you more,” he decides.

            I nod, watching him. He leans back, breathing out a held breath. He flicks his hand, saying, “Carry on with what you were saying last time.”

            “I went to an academy,” I begin, “for troubled girls.”

            James Augustus Rush cocks his head. “Troubled?”

            “Mad,” I clarify. “Insane.” He screws his face up into a confused expression, and I inhale before continuing.

            “When I was younger, I had these… tendencies…” I attempt, and he looks at me in this way that says you can stop, and I take in a shaky breath.

            “I don’t really talk about these things.” I laugh nervously. “But a deal’s a deal, right?”

            “I was sent to this academy in New York for mentally ill girls. They did well in teaching me, and I’m so grateful for it, but they- they didn’t like me, so they-”

            James eyebrows are furrowed together, and his face contorts into an emotion I can’t recognize. “They hurt you, didn’t they?”

            I brush my hand over my arm in an attempt to smooth down the goosebumps that have risen.

            He nods, pushing his hair away from his forehead. “Sophie, you can stop, sweetheart, it’s okay.”

            “No, no, you don’t understand; I deserved it. There was this information that they needed and I wouldn’t cooperate.” My voice is strong and definite, but there is a small part of me that hates what they’ve done to me, that they touched me, that I can always feel the scars on my back.

            “Sophia, no one deserves to be hurt.”

            No, no, a small part of me thinks. They deserve to hurt.

            “It’s okay, James.”

            He interrupts me, telling me how it isn’t, how it isn’t okay that I was hurt, that there wasn’t anything wrong with me, surely, and I shake my head. He leans forward, and I snap, my hands flying to the sides of my head. “James,” I hiss, “It doesn’t matter now.”

            He pulls his hand  back towards him,  and he nods slowly. “Okay. Okay.”

            “I went to the school, and they punished me and fixed me.” I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “A couple fostered me when I was sixteen, and as soon as I turned seventeen, I was placed in college. I studied until I got this job.”

            “How did they foster you? Why didn’t he put you in college?”

            “My father didn’t need me in his life,” I answer, looking down at my hands, and I pick at my nails.

            “He never took you back?” James asks in disbelief. “Did he ever contact you?”

            “No.” I glance up at him. “No.”