Page 43 of Keeping My Girl

CHAPTER25

Selina

“TAKE AS MUCH time as you need, Selina. This is just a placement test. It will give me a better understanding of where we should begin with your studies for your GED test,” the teacher explains. She’s older with gray hair and kind, blue eyes. I swear every single person the Vitales hire are nice, amazing and patient. But considering the type of women and children who stay here and the horrific things they’ve been through, I’m sure most of them need people like that in their lives. I know I definitely do.

I sit at the desk and stare down at the paper, gripping a number two pencil in my hand. I’ve never had trouble reading. I’ve read enough books to fill a library in my lifetime. At times, books were my only escape from the real world, and I was happy that Constantine at least gave me that one solace. Although, taking my prized books away from me was one of the ways he was able to punish me or manipulate me into doing bad things for him.

Pushing those thoughts aside, I focus on the questions before me. They start out easy enough, and I think they’re going by grade level, getting harder as they go along. The first few I answer quickly. It’s very basic, identifying shapes and colors.

About ten questions down is a math question. My eyes squint as I try to understand the problem. I don’t even remember taking math in elementary school, and so the numbers just run together until they blur.

Feeling frustrated, I skip that question and continue on. But the complexity of the questions keeps growing. I can feel a hot blush creeping up my chest and cheeks as I skip question after question. Soon, there aren’t any I can answer. The words blur from the tears quickly filling my eyes, and I slam my pencil down on the desk in annoyance.

“Selina, are you all right?” the teacher asks.

“I don’t… I can’t…” My voice trails off as my mouth suddenly goes dry.

“It’s okay. It’s simply for placement, so that we have a starting point for you. A baseline.”

An angry tear leaks out of the corner of my eye and cascades down my burning cheek. God, I can’t even remember the last time I cried over something as stupid as this, and that makes me feel even worse.

I can’t even answer a simple math question…or most of these questions. Constantine stole my life from me. And I never went to school past the third grade, thanks to my mother, who only pretended to home school me when I was a little girl. They kept me from having a normal childhood.

I hate them both.

I hate what they’ve done to me.

And I hate who I’ve become because of it.

Standing quickly, the small room fills with the screeching sound of my chair scraping against the tile floor. I grip the test in my hands and begin tearing it apart into little pieces. I don’t remember being this angry before. I’ve been so numb for so many years thanks to the drugs. It’s hard to remember what real emotions, like anger, truly feel like.

A scream comes from somewhere in the room. It’s feral and deafening. And it takes me a moment to realize the sound is coming from my own mouth.

My vision darkens around the corners, and my hands grip the corner of the desk I was sitting at. Suddenly, I flip it over. A small sense of satisfaction comes from that. But it’s not enough.

It will never be enough.

Because I have so much repressed resentment inside of me that I’ll never be able to release all of it. And I’m afraid it will end up consuming me and swallowing me whole.

* * *

Nicholas

It’s late in the afternoon when I get an emergency alert on my phone. My stomach drops when I realize it’s about Selina. Racing out of my room and down the hall, I run to the other side of the compound in record time.

There’s a room that we use for a makeshift school when children are staying here in the compound so that they don’t fall behind in their classwork until they’re returned to their families or placed into foster care.

I can hear her angry screams filling the hallway before I even reach the door. Swinging the door open, I catch Selina just as she’s flipping over a desk. Numerous desks are flipped over, and I can only assume she did that to all of them.

The teacher stands at the front of the room, giving me a nervous glance when I barge in.

Running over to Selina, I grab her before she can flip another desk. She fights me at first, but I force her to stop. Then, I put my hand under her chin and force her to meet my eyes. “Hey, hey, hey,” I tell her. Her eyes are unfocused, and she looks so damn lost that it makes my chest ache for her. My thumb strokes her soft cheek as she slowly comes back to her senses, her eyes finally clearing as she focuses on me. “Talk to me, Lina. What’s going on?” I whisper to her.

“I can’t do it! I can’t. I can’t,” she says, shaking her head repeatedly.

I give her a nod that I understand her even though I truly don’t. She’s clearly angry about something and taking that anger out on whatever is nearby. I’ve never seen her this upset before, and clearly she needs to get some frustration out. Taking her by the hand, I pull her towards the door. “Come with me,” I tell her.

She digs in her heels and pulls her hand from mine. “Where are we going?” she asks warily.

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