A way that I can embrace all parts of me and be whole. Behers.
Her Arrow.
So yeah, I have to tell her all of this.
In fact, I’m going to her now, right this second. I know it’s Monday and school is in but fuck it.
I’m not waiting.
I’ll pull her out of class if I have to but I’m talking to her and maybe she’ll reject me.
After everything, I wouldn’t blame her.
But I’ll take it. I’ll take it like a man and I’ll keep trying.
I’ll keep trying to be her Arrow.
But just as I’m about to kickstart my bike, my phone rings in my pocket. I almost ignore it but something makes me fish it out.
It’s Mom.
I don’t really want to talk to her right now but it could be important. It could be about Salem and her time at St. Mary’s.
My mother is out of town for some conference or whatever but a day ago, I called her up and told her that she needs to get Salem out of that hellhole and bring her back home. My mother was reluctant – because every mistake has to be paid in full – but I was adamant. She can punish me all she wants and she can keep punishing me for the rest of my life but no one is touching Salem.
No oneevertouches Salem.
Even my mother, the woman who raised me and the woman I owe everything to.
So I’m already expecting to shut her down but as soon as I pick up, she says, “Arrow.”
Just my name.
And my fingers clutch the phone tightly. Forcefully.
I think she knows that she has my attention because she sighs. “It’s about Salem.”
Something grabs me by the gut. Something vicious and unrelenting. Something that makes me grip the phone even tighter.
“What about her?” I ask slowly.
“They found letters,” Mom says. “They were addressed to you.”
I write you letters…
“Someone alerted the warden that Salem was missing from her bed,” she continues. “And the warden told Samantha Miller. And they found boxes and boxes of letters in her room and…”
I have shoeboxes full of them…
The thing in my gut spreads, slips into my veins and every corner of my body.
It’s hot and savage and animalistic and it has claws. They’re digging inside of me, in my muscles, making me growl into the phone, “What did they do to her?”
“People said that she freaked out when she saw Miller reading them out loud and she charged at her. The guards had to get involved. They had to restrain her; she passed out. She’s at the hospital. She’s fine though. She’s fine. They think she got really hysterical and that’s why she fainted.”
“Which hospital?”
“The one in town. Listen, Arrow, did you know about the letters? Was she sneaking out to see you?”
