Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 84533 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84533 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 423(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 282(@300wpm)
“Yes,” I answered quickly. Of course I did. I wanted to make the world a better place. I wanted to be strong for my mother. I wanted to be the son he needed me to be. If I was the only rightful child to be born—because I was the only one to come from a person who had reached true Enlightenment—I would be the best son I could be. I would work hard and follow his teachings and make him proud. I wouldn’t need people or feel loneliness because none of those things were as important as fulfilling my destiny as his son.
“Good job, son. Now go for punishment. You shouldn’t have asked me about this. You should be concentrating on your betterment, on what our people need, and not be upset you don’t have children to play with. Tell them I said twelve hours and ten swats.”
My heart jumped into my throat at his words. I knew that we needed pain because it made us tougher, stronger, but I hated my time in isolation. Being alone in the dark for twelve hours was torture.
Because I was weak.
I needed this.
Chosen was right.
He was always right.
“Yes, Chosen.” I stood on shaky legs, wishing I could get out of this, then hating myself for thinking that. From punishment came Growth.
I made it all the way to the door before he said, “Crow?”
“Yes, Chosen?”
“Don’t tell your mother about this. I’ll tell her you’re hunting. It will break her heart that you required punishment. You don’t want to hurt her, do you?”
“No, Chosen.” I never wanted to hurt her. “I won’t tell her.”
My eyes jerked open, but I didn’t move. My reaction was always different when it came to having a dream about before. Sometimes I was angry, others I felt nothing at all. I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t change anything I’d been through. The only thing that ever hurt was when I thought about her. My mother. She had given up her life for me. She had wanted something more for me. Not more than the mountain, I didn’t think. If so, I couldn’t give her that—couldn’t leave this place I loved so much. Did it matter that my life was different? Would she at least be happy that I didn’t spend my life getting hit with a switch, spending hours alone in isolation, or carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders?
My eyes were wide open, and I knew I wouldn’t sleep again tonight, so I did what I often did in moments like these. I got out of bed, went to my safe, and plucked out my mother’s journal. She’d told her story within these pages, some notes to me specifically, some just writing out her feelings. I’d never known it existed until the lawyer had given it to me.
She had been alone when she’d met my father. She’d grown up in a very wealthy family, with parents who traveled often. She was raised by nannies. When she was eighteen, her parents died in an airplane crash. She’d been searching for love, for community, and had found it in Chosen. He was older than her and charismatic. When he’d spoken, people had listened.
I opened the journal, eyes scanning the sometimes neat, sometimes messy handwriting. I didn’t read in order, just picked over certain things, even though I knew the whole thing by heart.
When my parents died, they left me everything, but money was all I had. No self-confidence, no self-esteem, had never known what it was like to be loved, and I wanted that, so very badly.
It was only a few months after my parents passed away that I met Chosen. I was nineteen, naive to the world, lonely. I didn’t have many friends. He was handsome and charismatic. All the women wanted to be with him, and all the men wanted to be him. He just had that electric kind of personality. When he spoke, people listened, they believed, they wanted to be a part of whatever he was.
For some reason I couldn’t understand, Chosen wanted me, picked me, made me feel loved for the first time. I had never known anything like that before.
I see now that he picked me because he knew he could manipulate me, that I was so needy for love, he could take advantage of that…
You deserved better than the life we were giving you.
That’s when I started my plan of escape, but I think I knew even then that it was too late for me. But I swear to you, Crow, it’s not too late for you! It is never too late for you.
I closed the book and locked it away again. While it helped me deconstruct the things Chosen had taught me, it also filled me with guilt, because now she was dead, and I would never be able to give her so many of the things she’d wanted for me.