The End - Cassidy Shay (essential reading .TXT) 📗

yet. In all the time that they tried to find out how I work, they didn’t find out everything.
I can draw a Memory with my eyes open or closed. I can decide. But I never draw Memories for them. Sometimes I draw with my eyes open. They tell me when to have them open or closed. It is doesn’t work the way they want it to, they shock me.
I hate this place.
Instead of accepting that I won’t give them Memories, they keep shocking me. But they don’t know my secret. I didn’t tell them that I can see Memories. For all they know, I could just be a regular person, Memory free. But they don’t care.
I don’t show Mommy my bruises. I know it will make her sad. So I’m careful and don’t bump my arms on anything. She hasn’t suspected anything yet.
After a long time, Dr. Pender tells me I can go. She grabs all the paper that I used into a pile and throws it away. It fills the small trash can.
The doctors all write in their notepads and then clean up their stuff. I open the door and Mommy is there, waiting.
“Come on, Belle,” she says sadly. “Let’s go see Julie and Aron.” Her eyes are red and her face is swollen. I squeeze her hand.
We walk down the stairs holding hands. We get to Floor Four. Usually, I would start running to their room, but not today. I stay with Mommy.
Julie is surprised to us. I know by the way her face lights up when my mom walks in. I go play with Aron in the corner. In a little while, I’m able to hear my mom crying.
“Did you draw a Memory?” Aron asks me. I shake my head. Aron is the only one who I’ve told about my Memories. I think Mommy knows, though. He nods. “I didn’t either.”
I laugh. It’s out joke, even though it’s not really funny. Aron can’t see the Memories. He’s told the doctors this, but every couple days they try again.
Aron and I play together for a little more than an hour. He does most of the talking, just like always.
Mommy and Auntie Julie tell is it’s time for dinner. We all go to Floor Six. Mommy doesn’t want to cook, so we go to the cafeteria. Julie watched her closely, makes sure she eats all her food.
I look around the big room until I see Marc. I smile at him and then look back to my food. As I take the last bite, I see Marc heading over to the table.
“How are you doing?” he asks Mommy. She just pushed her food around on her plate. She looks so sad.
“She’s going okay,” answers Aunt Julie. “I think she’ll probably go to bed early tonight, though.”
Marc nods. He stays and talks for a few minutes, and then leaves. Mommy and I go to our apartment. Julie and Aron go to their room.
Everyone looks so sad.
My mom goes to bed almost right away. I play with my toys until Daddy gets home.
He comes through the door and I run into his arms. “Sorry I’m home so late,” he says. He looks around the small room. “Where’s your mom?” I point to the door to the bedroom and he nods. “It was probably a long day for her.”
He tries to hide it, but I know he’s sad too. “I’m gonna go to bed.” He kisses my forehead, and then he carries me to his bed.
“Goodnight, Daddy.”
“Goodnight, sweetheart.”

For the next two weeks, my mom and dad get a little better, slowly. I know it still hurts them, but they move on. There are less tears, less breakdowns. More talking. Slowly, things go back to normal.
But that means that Mommy and Daddy ignore each other more. They both talk more, but not to each other. When they aren’t sad anymore, they don’t need each other. So they don’t talk to each other.
I still go to Dr. Pender’s office each day. They keep trying to make me draw a Memory. But I won’t.
I can’t.
I don’t know why I feel this way. But for some reason, I don’t think it’s a good idea for them to know that I can see the Memories. If they know, they’ll never give up.
The bruises on my arm have gone away, but there’s a bump on each arm instead, along with an ugly scar. They hurt, and then I get shocked, they burn for a long time.
That’s why I won’t draw them a Memory. I can’t.
During those two weeks, I stay inside. Aron keeps asking me to go outside with him, but I always say no. When I think of the yard, I think about the brother and sister that I had.
Meagan

It’s getting better. I don’t hurt as much when I think of them. It still hurts, of course. It’s only been a couple weeks. But I’m better.
I’m walking down the hallway with belle to go see Marc. He’s helped me get through this. He knows what it’s like to lose his child, to never get to see her.
“Hey,” he says. I stand next to him at the window and face the yard. I’ve decided that I won’t cry today.
“Hi,” I say. He looks down at Belle. She’s rubbing her arms.
“Are you cold?” he asks her, and sits on his heels. He rubs his hands up and down on her arms, creating friction. She shakes her head and pulls away.
“I’m okay,” she tells him. I frown at the way she reacted. She loves Marc. But I don’t say anything. He just shrugs and stands up.
“Pretty soon, it’ll be perfect fishing weather.” He leans against the wall. “You’re really not supposed to fish. They don’t like it, and you can get into serious trouble if they catch you.” He smiles and I notice the mischief in his eyes. “If they catch you.”
“How did you get away with that, with your dad working with the government?”
He shakes his head. “I didn’t. That was one of the reasons that he sent me to train to be a Vipero. But since I was fourteen or fifteen, a bunch of us boys would sneak out to the lake and go fishing. A couple guys had old fishing poles from their grandpas and great-grandpas, when fishing wasn’t illegal yet.
“But me? I just had a big stick with some string. We usually didn’t catch anything. There aren’t many fish left, which is one of the reasons why we’re not supposed to fish. But it was fun just to relax by the lake and talk with the boys.”
He closes his eyes, remembering. “When was the last time you went fishing?”
He laughs. “The last time I went fishing was two days before I left for training. My dad followed us. He said he wouldn’t turn my friends in that time, but every day, at a random time, he’d send someone to the lake to make sure they hadn’t gone back.”
I think about that. Why did his dad spare the kids? When I ask Marc, he just shrugs. “I never asked him. Technically, he could still turn them in. So I don’t mention it, in case he decides to do it now.”
I nod. I guess it makes sense. “Do you think you’ll go fishing ever again?”
Once again, he shrugs. “I don’t know. I want to. It’s so calm and peaceful, and you can just think and figure things out.” She shakes his head, getting rid of the mental picture.
“But, I don’t know if I’ll ever get the chance. I have four years left here, and then after that I have to find another job. I can be a Vipero out there, or I can sign another contract to be here.” He looks out the window. “I was so young, I didn’t get a chance to be trained in any area besides law enforcement. So I really have no choice.”
I nod. He has a wife, he must make sure that she has all she needs. “You’re not a kid anymore. You have responsibilities now that you didn’t have before. You don’t have time for that kind of stuff, especially if it’s illegal.”
He nods. “Exactly.”
We don’t talk for very much longer. Marc has to go to work, and I take Belle back to the apartment. She goes to her “room” and closes the curtain. I shake my head. She needs a bedroom.

When Belle goes to Dr. Pender’s office, I go downstairs to visit the Warden. I know he probably won’t be very sad to see me. But I don’t care. I knock on the door and wait. When he doesn’t answer, I knock again. I hear shuffling on the inside, and then he comes to the door.
“Oh. I had a feeling it was you.” He simply turns around and walks back to his desk, the open door the only indication that he’s inviting me inside. I follow him and take a seat in the chair.
“I want to ask if you can do something for me.”
He sighs and nods. “I figured that. Why don’t we just make a schedule. Each week I’ll set aside a time for you when you come in and tell me what great ideas you have for me.”
He’s being sarcastic, but he’s almost right. This office has become pretty familiar to me. “It’s about Belle. I feel like she isn’t getting the space and privacy that she needs. Her bedroom,” I use air quotes when I say the word bedroom, “is a tiny space with a bed and a curtain around it. She basically has no privacy at all.”
He shuffles through a few papers on his desk, silent. When he finds the one he needs, he leans back in his chair.
“We were just discussing Belle and Aron the other day.” He leans forward now. “You do realize that it’s very unusual for Azulate children to stay with their parents for this long, right?”
Is he really doing this?

“You do realize that it’s very unusual for Azuli to have children in the first place, right? And do you even have proof that they can see the Memories?” He looks over his piece of paper.
“Ah! It says right here.” He scans the paragraph and then looks back at me. “Azuli have a certain chemical in their blood that other humans do not have. We think it has something to do with the Memories. I do now have it, your mother does not have it.”
He puts the paper on the desk, instead of holding it in the air to read it. “You, of course, have it. So do Mathew and Julie. When we first started observing Aron and Belle, we found something interesting.”
I lean back against the chair. I just wanted a bedroom for my daughter.

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