Minder

Chapter 5

OLALLIE

When you enter a psych ward, they do not tell you that you will be cured or that you have rights. For the safety of other patients and yourself, you are under their rule.

Technically we were adults, most of us emancipated, while others allowed to be here even though they were nineteen—Zailey, for instance—wouldn’t mix well with the actual over eighteen on suicidal watch down the hall. She got special permission. She was headed into college in September, and I was led into the sophomore year of high school.

It might have been an excuse as some sort of summer vacation before I entered my father’s reality. If I was going back to the girl’s academy in Texas, well, I might have enjoyed my time here.

But Knox decided he wanted all his children under one roof.

The thought of going to a high school that was coed made my skin grow goosebumps like frying eggs on asphalt. Not that I haven’t had interactions with men, but these boys grew up with Calhoun and Kalonie. They’d known them for years.

Broken Axe, Oklahoma, the small community worshipped my father’s last name. Every able body fondled at the thought of him.

Not because he owned and made a profit from a private prison or purchased any free lot on this side of the county line.

Nope, sugar, they respected him on the same principle hierarchy expects loyalty. Because beneath the bravado, he was a genuine man. Gave 60 percent of his earnings back into the community. Knox gave them back sons and daughters whose wrong decisions came out looking like innocent opportunities.

I wasn’t born to be a martyr. My mother was offered that role. Her only duty in life was to deliver me and soften the loveless man. There was a reputation of boldness that made me shrink away. I would never live up to; neither my mother’s nor my father’s definition would claim me.

Goodness was inside me, but it was for me, and I didn’t want to gift it to others to prove I was a part of the Krause bloodline. It wouldn’t be asked of me, not if I could help it.

Harper Calico came in a few weeks after Zailey at the center, and I smiled at her. Her pain was a beautiful thing to witness; I admired how she let it shine on. Not hiding in the darkness like the rest of us; instead, she caressed the nose of it and patted her leg to have it follow her.

She walked lopsided from an accident. Either way, she didn’t stare down at the floor as others gawked at her limp. Her cane was blemished with gothic skulls and emo lyrics. I’d never felt so welcome standing next to her.

“Stop blessing people, Olallie; nobody needs that kind of pressure.” Zailey practically yelled from across the rec room as I stared at the poor girl limps closer. Then I turned back to Z and flipped her the bird for being an annoying b***h.

“The way you talk—” Harper starts off the conversation, and I know how degrading this can get.

“Is embarrassing, isn't it?” Agreeing with the demeaning comments before she can counter an attack.

Harper doesn’t look like she is trying to be rude. “No. I mean, the way you talk, it’s like you mean every word you say.”

I learned that it was a simple statement, meant to release my opinions about myself, not alienate. But overpower the negative comments of the prejudice.

“He couldn't have a weak offspring.” That is the answer I go with, why I can hear now, and my tongue is tortured with speech. Vowels, I could only communicate through my hands but now are vocalized out my throat.

“Your father?” She keeps asking questions with my answers, and I have never been one to steal the spotlight.

“Yeah.” Minimum execution to bring forth what she really wants; my pain.

“He doesn't think you’re weak.” Something Dr. Candy our therapist would say.

“No, not now, but before.” Before, I was altered to be the same as everyone else.