Reaping of the Wives

WHAT WAS REAL

"Ava, you awake?"

Silence was my answer and before I could beg Camilla to leave me alone, the eldest of the sisters spoke.

"Just think of your mom, Grace."

Her hoarse voice seeped through the thin walls and scratched at my ears. Ever since we were let outside, she'd been telling me that I was losing it. Every single night, for weeks, there was a relentless bombardment of how I was ensnared in their web of delusional lies. That I was seeing things that weren't there because I was simply willing them to false fruition in order to cope with reality.

"These aren't good people," she continued. "None of them. Just because Noah doesn't hurt you the way Jonah and Caleb hurt Ava and I, doesn't mean he's not one of them." Her voice grew angry as she spoke through gritted teeth. "He has you chained to a bed frame where you're forced to lay on a nasty ass fucking mattress just like us. He's no different from them, and you are no different than us, so stop acting like it."

Suddenly words were hard to find. I opened my mouth to tell her that I had no problem stopping, but as I looked down at my ankle no longer encased in metal, I simply couldn't. I wanted to tell her that I hated the act that I put on every day, but as I thought of Noah's smile as he brought me a soft cotton sheet set and pillow, I couldn't.

The truth was, in pretending to be one of them, I wasn't suffering like she and Ava were suffering. It was easy giving Noah's family what they wanted.

She just couldn't see the benefits from doing so.

"It's fucking disgusting," Cami spat.

She couldn't see how nothing was being taken from me by simply pretending.

"You need to stop with this bullshit."

She couldn't see how much better her life could be if she just stopped fighting herself.

"Keep thinking of your family and how they'll find us soon."

She couldn't see how all she needed to do...

"Just hold on."

Was let go.

The overhead lights dimmed down until there was no difference in my vision whether my eyes were opened or closed. The darkness was yet another benefit of the charade Noah and I had been putting on. Having been stuck beneath constant bright lights, we were never given any inkling of time before, but now the lights had been set to a timer with 16 hours of "day", and 8 hours of "night".

That one, small change gave us back some semblance of normalcy. I would have thought she'd thank me for it, but I was met with nothing less than disdain and I couldn't help but feel roiled by her incessant demeaning of all that I've attempted to do to better our situation.

It wasn't long before steady breathing on either side of me sounded like soft echoes of one another.

Maybe Camilla was having such a hard time because of Ava; she couldn't see the bigger picture when her little sister was in the frame. I just wished she could at the very least see how everything she was telling me to stop doing, was beneficial to not just me, but to them as well.

✟

A warm light slowly dimmed on and the chatter of deep male voices filled the previously silent air.

Noah's smiling face soon appeared at my door and I stretched before slowly standing. He closed the door behind him and I met him half way across the room.