And the bread taste good, fuck!
Charlotte
After the last student filed out, after the laughter faded down the corridor and the dining room emptied into silence, before I could pick myself up, the crystal in my pocket buzzed.
I wiped my hands on my school skirt and pulled it out to see a message notification. As I clicked read, a message revealed itself in the air in a cursive font.
'Report to the board immediately.'
I looked down at myself — food dripping from my hair in a slow trail, my uniform soaked. I blinked continuously to keep the liquid from getting in my eyes. I closed my eyes for a second, then stood up on trembling legs and rubbed my itching nose.
I raised my chin and walked out of the dining hall to meet the board, food still dripping off me in a slow, continuous trail across the tiles. As I walked through the corridor, it was almost empty, but the few students hanging around gloated as I passed. I didn't have the energy to respond to any of them.
Our garbage bin.
That's what's befitting of you.
A human. We don't want them in our midst.
Go back to the farm, livestock.
But I didn't let that bother me. I kept my chin up and my jaw clenched. When I reached the board room, I breathed in raggedly and knocked on the door.
"Enter."
I turned the knob and stepped inside. The room was medium-sized and stone-walled, a long table running its length with five faces seated behind it. My eyes met each of theirs and I didn't miss the disgust that pulled at their expressions.
The woman at the centre had grey eyes and lips pressed into a thin line. "Miss Callahan," she said. "You are being brought before this board for disturbing the peace of this institution."
I stared at her. Did she really mean that? "Disturbing the peace?" I repeated. Goodness gracious, this was funny.
She gave me a look that said she didn't appreciate my response and adjusted her glasses. "Causing a great disruption during the lunch period that drew the attention of the entire dining hall and created disorder among the student body," she said, as if she were reading from a newspaper.
A humourless laugh wanted to escape my throat but I swallowed it and clenched my hands at my sides. I forced the word "understood" past the lump of bile in my throat.
"You are a guest of this institution," a man from the far end said. "A representative of the human world. We expect—"
Another woman cut in with a snide comment. "What else could anyone expect from the bottom of the food chain — failure was their natural state."
A failure. Bottom of the food chain. Standing in front of them with sauce drying in my hair, being told I was the disruption and I had caused it.
"I understand," I said again, because that was the only thing I could trust myself to say right now.
"Good," the woman at the centre muttered. "You are to be punished for that. One week of cleaning duty, starting tonight, and an apology letter to the school community stating your offence."
Before I could open my mouth to object, she cut me off. "You may go."
I was dismissed just like that.
I turned, dipped my head slightly, and walked to the bathroom. I stepped inside, locked the door behind me, and looked at myself in the mirror — the disaster staring back at me: hair matted, skin cold in patches and sticky.
One week of cleaning duty for being a garbage disposal for someone else's food. I disturbed the peace, I thought. Me. Personally. I was the disturbance.
A laugh rippled through me at the absurdity and unfairness of it — I was the one bathed in food, yet I was the one being punished. The laughter came out a little unhinged and hysterical as the tears I had been keeping fell from my eyes. I clapped my hand over my mouth to muffle the sound because I could hear how unwell it sounded, but it kept coming, shoulders shaking, eyes watering, the tears that followed not entirely from laughing.
I slid down the door until I was sitting on the floor, shoulders shaking, hands trembling as I pressed them over my mouth. The smell hit me then — sour juice, sauce and crumbs.
I hadn't done anything wrong. I hadn't done a single thing wrong since I stepped through that cold portal. Was being hungry and going to the dining hall a crime in this school?
The fairytale I had told myself in the east wing — that the outside world would be better, that people beyond the walls of the Callahan mansion would be different, that if I could just get out I would find something worth the trouble of getting there — that fairytale was a lie. I had told myself this lie with my eyes open, which only made it worse.
There was a book I had read so many times that the spine had cracked and the pages had gone tattered at the corners. The story was about a girl who walked through a door and discovered a kingdom waiting on the other side. I used to sit on the floor of the east wing with that book in my lap and think, Someday.
Even my nanny had encouraged it, telling me to be optimistic. I had fed that hope every year I spent invisibly in that house — every meal eaten alone, every birthday that passed without acknowledgement.
I had walked through that portal still half-believing it. That the outside world would be different. The dining hall floor had been cold against my knees. I could still feel it.
Even in the east wing, I had never been treated like this. Ignored, yes. Forgotten, yes. But I was never dragged to my knees and laughed at while food dripped from my hair. Never made into a spectacle for someone else's entertainment.
Why was I crying? I harshly wiped my eyes to stop the goddamn tears, but they continued to fall without my permission.
This was all happening because I had rejected Xade. I had said no, and the most dangerous person in the school had decided the correct response was to orchestrate my public humiliation. But was it only because of that? Or because I was different. Because I was human.
Here I was, sitting on a bathroom floor covered in food that was supposed to fill my stomach, while the hysterical laughter wouldn't stop. They just wasted a good meal. I touched the side of my face with my index finger and brought it to my mouth.
It was tasty, and they had wasted that. I cried harder for the food wastage. My lunch was gone too.
Then I remembered the bread I had stuffed into my uniform pocket earlier. My hands were shaking as I pulled the squashed piece from my pocket. It was damp with spilled juice, but I didn't care. I shoved a piece into my mouth, wiping my nose with the back of my hand. Even with everything, I couldn't say no to food. I was hungry.
And without food in my stomach, I wouldn't be able to stand whatever else they planned for me.
When I was done, I stood up and cleaned myself off, washed my clothes in the sink as best I could, and worked the food out of my hair, which took far longer than it should have because my hair was long and the mess was thorough.
By the time I was thoroughly clean, I stood upright and turned to find a corner where my clothes could dry a little — and stopped.
On the hook behind the door there was a clean dress, folded neatly and hung up. I stared at it. I had locked the door and definitely heard the click of the lock. I had been in this bathroom the entire time and had heard no one come in, no door opening. I turned and looked at the small bathroom window above the sink. It was open.
I glanced again at the open window, then back at the dress, and a small shiver ran down my back before I reached out and pulled it from the hook.
I put the dress on without questioning it further and stepped out into the hallway.
***
When I got back to the attic, the door was slightly ajar, and through the gap I could see my roommate sitting on her bed with a bowl, eating quietly.
She looked up when I pushed the door open and neither of us said anything. I moved to my bed and sat down heavily, the exhaustion of the whole day settling into my body now that I was finally still.
Without a word, she reached over and placed a small jar of ointment on the mattress beside me. Then she went back to her food.
It was the first acknowledgement I had received from another person in this school that I was allowed to exist here. I picked it up and felt my eyes sting with gratitude.
"Thank you," I muttered quietly.
She huffed and looked away.