Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 75833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Once we were well-respected. My last name alone had people assume the best and ignore the worst from any of us. Then everything got turned around because my grandmother asked the wrong questions to the wrong figures in authority.
In this place, no one questioned the elders, but most especially not a woman.
“Melody,” came whispered from a window inside.
I made my way back up and inside already knowing the voice. While I knew her voice, I couldn’t have prepared to see her in the state she was. Lyric looked like she hadn’t slept in days. Her auburn hair was braided tight and put up into a bun like always but a few strands had managed to break free around her face. Her cheeks were flush, her skin paled, and her eyes distant like I had never seen before.
A piece of me died inside seeing her in this frail, broken way.
Lyric and I were only six weeks apart in age. My grandmother used to call us her twins. She loved babies and always said we were her special blessings coming so close together. It was a present for her obedience she always claimed.
Looking back, now I wanted to laugh at the entire meaning of obedience.
To this day, I didn’t know what she felt she was in line with God doing to give her a gift for obedience since she tended to be the only one questioning things that had changed in recent years. She was a rebel in our community. It was how they lost the house. Her questioning the bishops marked us all. The church swooped in and gave the whole family a lesson in falling in line or losing everything.
Lyric looked like a ghost of her former self and I had only been separated from her for a month. I couldn’t wrap my head around what happened to my best friend. She was shaken up so bad she was literally trembling in front of me. I didn’t know what to say.
“You okay?” I asked even though I could clearly see she was anything but.
She hesitated before wrapping her arms around me, pulling me close into a tight, desperate hug. Yet, she didn’t speak. I still had no explanation as to why we had to meet here instead of her house and in secret. This wasn’t typical.
“Lyric, what’s wrong?”
She took a deep inhale, her eyes locked to mine. “Melody, we have to leave. We aren’t safe staying here.” She blinked in a dramatic way that sent chills through me. “You’re not safe here.”
The words hit me harder than they should have. My cousin wasn’t one to overreact. She also wasn’t one to go against the grain.
That’s why I haven’t seen her in a month. She married BJ in a quiet ceremony and they have been on their honeymoon for the last few weeks. Given she actually had a crush on BJ, I thought this arrangement would make her happy. They weren’t strangers or enemies. Given the state of things I was worried they would hand her over to someone else to continue showing the curse upon our bloodline.
Our cousin, Rachel was married to a man who made it known on every level he hated her. The way he has marked her body from the beginning showed everyone how bad her situation was. Everyone could see her pain, but he justified it under the umbrella of her lacking submission.
I didn’t buy into the submission crap. How could any God of any kind think any of his creatures were beneath another? Just because men were created first didn’t mean they had more value than a woman. Unfortunately for me, no one else in my community saw beyond the way we had been indoctrinated. Lyric got lucky given how things could have went.
BJ and Lyric dated, well as much as someone could in our town. It was in high school, which he was older than us, but still we graduated this spring. He broke up with her when he left for college, something else common in our culture. Men got education while women waited for their assignment from the almighty. Lyric waited for him to come back all while wondering if the elders would see fit to assign her to him. She literally prayed for this union.
And it worked out for her.
I don’t understand her panic now. I thought things went well. And what did any of this have to do with me?
“What’s going on, Lyric?” I asked moving deeper into the house.
“We have to leave. I’m going to take my car, pack it up, and in two days, we take off and head East.”
My eyes shot open wide. “Car?”
She nodded, “BJ bought me a small sedan for a wedding gift. He wanted me to be able to go to the grocery store and bring him lunch on job sites and such. He plans to start teaching me to drive it. He went and got it registered and all that stuff. It has insurance, it’s legal to drive.” I stood in place freaked right out. Women didn’t typically get cars in our town. She took a deep breath. “Melody, this is our only chance.”