Page 93 of Heathens
Lily
Present
The honest to God truth of it was, I liked revenge. I was a fucking ray of pitch black and bad intentions. Someone once described me like that. An ex in Boston, I think. I was a mess, a swirling, dark mess. But as I walk along the Seine with Evelyn, as I check my phone and find a text from Salem, I realize my life has somehow morphed into something cleaner—something lighter. It was as if I gleamed, sparkled, in the late summer light, the darknessalmostgone from the shadows of my soul.
Almost.
I know I’ll slip back into that shadowland every once in a while.
Our fire is not for them. It is for us.
So, when Evelyn and I are called to testify during a pretrial, when Salem watches me in the audience in that courtroom with that dark scowl, that intense expression—I cast my darkness, showing others that sometimes, it's okay to be flawed. It's okay to feel both light and dark, and it's okay to embrace both simultaneously. I tell Evelyn just this.
Don’t be afraid of your shadow, for it knows exactly where you’ve been.
And for a second, I see it burning behind her eyes. That fire, that wrath, that thirst for revenge. She stands erect and speaks loudly, clearly, as they ask her about those two and a half years.
She unleashes upon them.
Upon Auguste, whom she doesn’t look at once. Not even when they take him away, handcuffed, a fraction of the man he once was—not even when there are whispers of life in prison. Not even when his lawyer apologizes on his behalf, asking for forgiveness. That box of darkness she kept closed inside of her opens just a crack. And she smiles as she walks away, knowing that box is a gift, to be used for good.
It sounds oxymoronic, I know—bad and good, dark and light. But one cannot exist without the other. As Salem likes to say, everything is a choice.
Father Dormier—the priest at Saint Chapelle—steps in for Father Monsignor. It's a huge mess. A heaping, gaping wound for the church that will take years to heal. The videos are all over the Internet. More girls come forward from all over the world. More confessions. The trafficking ring circles the globe—from sex slavery in Europe and America to factory slavery in China and Taiwan. Millions of people.
We haven’t even scratched the surface. Our work isn’t done.
It’s beautiful here. You would love it.
Salem’s words fill me with a kind of warmth I never thought I’d be deserving of. He’s been in Rome for a month—a personal mission, a personal quest to heal his faith. He’s off to Jerusalem in a couple of days. I’m meeting him there.
Me: One day we’ll go together.
Salem: I can’t wait to see you.
“How’s Salem?” Evelyn smirks, her face pink and bright from being out in the sun. She looks better every day.
“Good. I miss him.“ I smile as we meander through the streets. People murmur as we pass, our faces all over the French news, as of late. They call us angels, secret guardians. For exposing Auguste. For bringing this awful industry to light—the industry that flourished right under their noses, right in the middle of the most romantic city in the world. In the last week alone, the police have made seven massive raids, freeing women, men, and children and reuniting them with their families. Evelyn herself called her parents, amused at their shock and dismay.
They’d have to pay the insurance companies back.
“How’s Benedict?” I ask, meeting her narrowed eyes with my own.
“I don’t want to talk about him, Lily.” Crossing her arms, she kicks the pebbles in front of her with her sneaker.
Benedict stops by the apartment every day. And every day, Evelyn refuses to speak with him.
“Give him a chance, okay?” I beg, linking my arm with hers.
She doesn’t respond.
* * *
A few hours later, we nurse our fresh ink with giant cones of ice cream and large glasses of wine. It's late September, but the summer lingered, heating the pavement beneath our feet and causing me to wake up sweating most mornings.
“I’m glad we did this,” I murmur, eyeing the bandage poking out from Evelyn’s shirt. We got matching tattoos again.
Burn it to the ground—across our ribs on the right side. In honor of that house, that era of our lives. I went on to get a small cross on my lower hip—so low that it’s only visible when I’m naked. I can’t wait to show Salem. Evelyn got a praying mantis on her left shoulder blade. It’s holding the bleeding, severed head of another praying mantis. She didn’t tell me the significance, but I know. I understand.
