Cramped Quarters - Love Under Lockdown

I was suddenly reminded of the book I’d read about the boy who got stuck in a lifeboat with an adult tiger. Dad threw it in the fire, saying it promoted heathenistic beliefs because it was set in India, but I had managed to finish it first.

I wasn’t afraid that Augustus might eat me or even that he would hurt me. At least not in the corporeal sense. It was my soul for which I was most concerned. From what I could remember, though, his religion never really fought back. At least not against us.

Dad and his friends would pelt them with all manner of horrible things, from tomatoes to rocks, and yet they stood firm. Loathe as I was to admit it, I could really admire their conviction as well as their passive resistance. It was as if they were practicing the teachings of Jesus much more than we were. Although they claimed to worship Satan.

Augustus really didn’t seem like a bad person. No matter what his beliefs might be. Other than his outburst the night before, I’d never actually experienced him acting out aggressively. Even if his shout of ‘the power of Satan compels you’ did keep me from sleeping.

I liked him a lot when we had first met, and I didn’t know who he was. I hoped we might be able to get back to that. Particularly if he didn’t find out who I was. Though there was a lot from the past and a thick cloud of doubts that made me skeptical that this could happen.

The Bible said to love your enemy, but it was easier said than done. Especially when it was the world’s eternal fate at stake.

The sound of a click shook me back to reality, as if a door was being opened.

Oh, no!

He was coming out of his room?

How was that possible?

I could still hear him when I went to sleep the night before.

Did he really just wake up after no more than three hours sleep?

Oh, my Lord, he was a machine!

Before I had time to fully contemplate the full implications of this new information, I was already running. Flying as fast as I could back into my room. The door clicked firmly.

Fumbling in the mostly dark, I grabbed the chair and put it back in the position, not really knowing why. It was like the people who had to open and close the door three times before leaving a room.

There was no real reason to it, but I felt compelled, just the same. I had to protect myself. Though from what, I honestly had no idea.Chapter Ten - AugustusA storm cloud hung. Not only the one over the campus but another, smaller one, directly over my head. It blasted thunderbolts at my barely waking head, like in an old cartoon.

The night hadn’t been good. The tricky muses decided to take up arms and I, subsequently, took up my pen, metaphorically, anyway, composing an album’s worth of lyrics which, at that moment, looked like poetry. I still had yet to buy or learn to play a guitar, but that was just a technicality.

My hilariously out-of-date laptop was only one element in the total rebellion taking place. When the spirit called, I knew enough to answer. The only real question being exactly whose spirit it was.

As so often happened in such instances, the triumph of creation was soon replaced by the terror of fear. I’d been having nightmares for a while. An embarrassing fact that I’d tried to keep secret because only kids were supposed to have nightmares. Or so I thought at the time.

It was Amelia who’d figure it out, hearing me thrash as she snuck to the kitchen for a midnight snack. Sweetheart that she was, she did her best to help. Even though she was only twelve at the time.

Talking actually helped. Not only did it make me feel less alone, but it also helped give me a better idea of what was causing the trouble in my skull.

Life hadn’t been easy then and there were a lot of things that happened despite my parents’ best efforts. There is only so much shit you could see before it started having an effect when you’re young.

I started working on my head, trying to deal with everything. I told Jax, a priestess in my church, what I was thinking and feeling, and she did her best to help and things got better. Right up until it happened.

Since then the only thing I saw when I closed my eyes was her falling. The warm, vivid blood splashing on me, Jax trying to speak despite the damage to her lungs.

It was the angriest shower in history. Everything I’d been holding came out in a first full wave. Aggression rechanneled into what could only be considered self-harm. Rinsing the blood from the tiles, I bandaged my knuckles and dried off.