your heart wears knight armor
or, three times josephine lewis packed a bag and left, and one time she didn’t.
she can still feel sam’s ashes stuck in her eyelashes,
clinging to the wild curls of her hair, clogging her throat.
the door to her bedroom slams open and smacks against
the wall hard enough to leave a mark and she stands there
in the narrow doorway with her chest heaving and her eyes
burning and she thinks the entire world is crashing down
around her, terrifying and broken.
she chokes on what might be a sob and what might be a
scream and digs the heels of her hands into her eyes, trying
to clear them. no matter what she looks at — her bed, unmade;
the window, blinds hanging crooked and curtains faded; the
closet, half-open and messy — she can still see sam’s frightened
face, the horrified pull of his mouth before he’d simply been
nothing at all.
with shaking hands, she pulls a suitcase from underneath her
bed. on her knees on the floor, she takes the time to suck in a
handful of deep breaths that do nothing but make her feel
dizzy and sick. she stands, knees knocking together, and bile
crawls up her throat in hot, acidic licks. she swallows, hand
pressed to her mouth, and there is one long moment where she
doesn’t know what she plans to do at all until she finds herself
throwing things into the suitcase, automatic and mechanical.
it is ten-thirty at night, which means her mother will be home by
eleven, which means she doesn’t have time to linger. the suitcase
snaps shut, the latches clasped with a finality that brings tears to
her eyes again. josephine swallows, chokes, and gasps, open-
mouthed, in the middle of her bedroom with a suitcase in her hand
and a dead boy’s ashes in her hair.
by the time the clock strikes ten-thirty-five, she’s out the window,
running.
she sits in one of the mansion’s many, many rooms, knees curled
to her chest like she needs to protect herself from something.
josh is there, hollow-eyed and distant, close but so, so far. she
could reach out and touch him if she wanted to, but her hands
stay in her lap, hidden; against the soft wool of her sweater, her
fingers curl until there are half-moon crescents in the skin of her
palms.
i hate it here, she wants to say. she feels like she’s screaming it
at him every time they look at one another and he still doesn’t
hear it. sometimes, i think i hate it here more than i’ve ever
hated it anywhere else.
giselle isn’t here. they don’t know where she is. apathy leaves
her feeling empty.
josh doesn’t say anything to her when she stands. she wonders
when they got like this, when they became these people who
resented each other as much as they cared for one another.
she needs him and he needs her and she hates him for it because
he is the tether and she is the bird trying to get out, to fly away; she
wants to be like giselle sometimes, envies her for her ability to
leave in the middle of the night without saying a word. a hand
reaches out before she catches herself and draws away.
she decides that neither will she.
that night, with the door shut tight and locked, she pulls another
suitcase from underneath her bed and lays it, open, on the quilt.
she has few possessions here; clothes and books, simple gifts
from elliot and josh and luz. a sweater, raven’s, that she should
never have kept but did. this time, she folds them neatly, sharp
corners and straight lines, and places them one by one into the
belly of the case before she closes it.
the next morning, she slips into the professor’s study and tells
him with wet eyes and a trembling voice that she is sorry but
she can’t stay. his eyes are too blue when he looks at her, too
sad, his mouth too thin. he understands. she wishes he didn’t.
it is harder to say goodbye to elliot. her suitcase hits the ground
and she throws her arms around his shoulders, squeezes him
tight. she hates it here, she hates feeling so trapped, but she
loves them. she loves him, with his summer sky eyes and his
aching kindness, and she can say goodbye to many things and
many people but she can’t bear doing it to him. i’m sorry, she
says, and it isn’t enough; it never will be and she knows it even
now, standing where they are. his arms tighten and she can’t
see his face because she has hidden hers, can’t stand to look
at him. i’ll miss you.
she doesn’t promise to come back. it would be too cruel.
she hugs josh once, tight. giselle still isn’t back but she can’t
be the girl he needs her to be, or the one he wants her to be;
the girl she never will be, regardless. they don’t speak.
josephine turns from them, this never quite right life,
and walks away.
(her heart breaks, and she’s glad none of them have to see.)
jack sleeps in the next room over, shoulders curled tight and
angry, mouth set. the silence of the apartment is smothering,
still electric; josephine, standing alone in the dim kitchen,
feels like she is suffocating. she drinks a glass of wine that
stains her mouth blood red and then another, hands shaking;
floors and floors below, she can hear the noise of the street,
cars and people and the wail of a police siren moving through
the heavy dark of night.
she hates him. she hates it here, hates the artificiality of it, of him.
his wolf smile and expensive suits and dinners at restaurants she
doesn’t care for, galas and benefits where he leads her around
with his hand heavy on the small of her back and his voice low
in her ear. she hates that she ever allowed herself to be dazzled
by something like this.
there is a familiar cagey feeling growing in the swell of her chest.
it’s been weeks since she found kes and although she hasn’t ever
really been alone, she’s felt it; it’s been lessened now, dulled by
the familiarity in his eyes, his face. they are not friends but there is
a certain amount of relief in just seeing him and knowing that he
knows westchester as she does, that there is a part of her past
now in her present.
her decision is surprisingly easy to come to. easier than it had
been last time, when she’d left another place; it is as simple as
turning a light switch on and off. one moment she is standing in
jack’s kitchen and the next she is packing her things, the few that
she has here. she doesn’t leave a note. she doesn’t look at him.
she thinks of leaving once, in the very beginning. homesickness
clogs her throat and settles in the empty space in her chest that
she will soon realize will always be there no matter how many times
she tries to fill it. she aches for westchester, for the people she knows,
even if it means going back to josh’s silence and giselle’s closed
door and elliot’s undeserved forgiveness.
she pulls the same suitcase out from the closet in her bedroom and
shoves as much as she can into it. it barely closes; her life is fuller
now, brimming with things that are hers and hers alone. standing in
the middle of her bedroom, josephine counts to ten, once and then
twice.
she can go back. she can.
the suitcase is heavier than it ever has been before. indecision
lengthens her steps. she can go back; she can catch a bus as she
did before, she can step through the gates and knock on the front
door and she can go back. it won’t be home, but it will be somewhere
and maybe that is where she belongs.
she makes it to the front door before she stops. the phone in her
pocket buzzes and she makes the mistake (a mistake which will,
later, not be a mistake at all) of looking at the screen and the name
displayed there, right over a photograph of her and kes and caleb.
ONE MESSAGE: LANCE ALVERS.
another tether keeping her here, in this new life; here, with this
new family.
josephine swallows thickly and realizes, in the front hallway of
her apartment, that she can’t go back.
this is where she’s supposed to be.
she puts the suitcase on the floor and turns away.
