Bad Habits: A Dark Anthology - Yolanda Olson Page 0,100
shame that not all of the convent's residents spent more time listening then they spent doing.
Sadly, my time was up, so I needed to go do my kitchen chores. They would’ve just eaten afternoon meal; I would scrub the dishes so they would be clean for dinner. That actually was not so bad either. Honestly, as I thought about it, if I could spend my entire life in the nunnery doing menial chores and spending time in prayer, I would die a happy woman. However, the appetites of men must be met.
I understood this more than others perhaps. Maybe because the two priests made sure I did, or maybe because in this society, it just simply was.
Standing in front of the kitchen window as I scrubbed pans, I looked wistfully at the garden out the window. I would need to prove my worth before I could work outside. In a way, I left one prison to come to another. The difference though – this prison was my way out. No one made this choice for me.
Finishing up with the cleaning, I fixed a sandwich and sliced an apple. Praying for the food the lord supplied, I sat down with my simple meal.
The sisters ate three times a day, I was permitted two on my regimen. In all honesty, two was truly enough to sustain my body. Plus, and the Lord would have it, he would send someone to slip pieces of cake, or a piece of fruit under my door every evening after I was sent to my room.
My guess was, it was Sister Hanleigh. She was the only one who deigned to even take a peek at me. I don't know what she saw in me, but I was glad that not everyone looked at me with disdain. Once, I’m pretty sure she winked when she passed me by. It was a nice gesture; however, I could only guess the trouble she would get in with the Mother if she was found out, and I surely wasn’t worth it. I would be one day, but I needed to prove myself, and I had every intention of doing that.
6 Months Ago
Every year was the same. The girls that turned of age, Rita had them transported somewhere unknown in the middle of the night. She told my caseworker it was easier on us to do that then to drag out a goodbye. I didn't believe her lies, but there wasn't much I could do. Our caseworkers ate that shit up, either because she was na?ve or because she didn't care enough. I knew I needed to do something, but I was at a loss.
In my senior year, I got a new English literature teacher. She was young and full of ideas. Renewing all of our interests in the classics, she soon turned out to be one of my favorites.
As my birthday drew closer, I knew I just had to leave. I tried sneaking out in the middle of the night, making it as far as the driveway when the nosy ass neighbor called Rita. She literally dragged me by the hair and threw me in my room. She took a leather belt and she beat the shit out of me, then left me lying crumpled on the floor. She turned around, left, and locked the door. I dragged a shoebox I had hidden under my bed and opened it to look at the remains. It calmed me down enough when I started visualizing that one day, it could be Rita. I laughed of joy, thinking that fat bitch would need a much bigger box.
Driving me to school the next day, she informed me she would be picking me up also. It was her way of keeping tabs on me. I then realized I was more trapped than I originally thought. I was running out of time and I needed to find a way out of this quickly. I didn’t know where the girls were, but if they had to be taken in the middle of the night, without their consent by the sound of their screams, it couldn’t be anywhere good.
As I made my way through the school, Mrs. Otis, the new teacher, had seen me in the hall and decided to pull me aside. She was concerned by my erratic behavior in school. When she asked me if I was doing drugs, I laughed hysterically and explained what was happening at the house.