About The Scarlett Kite
Hi! I'm Scarlett Kiteway, I'm 20 years old, a journalism student in Perplex City and this is my blog all about the excitement over the search for the Cube. I'll be keeping track of what the media over there is saying about it, and maybe a little bit about my life as well!
Previous Entry
Friday, February 23, 2007
The heart of the matter
Category: me, 06:08 PM
In all of my journalism classes, they tell us to suspend judgment of the facts, to doubt everybody. I guess I never really understood before that they really meant... everybody.
I think back, now, to that ball night. I felt so very grown-up in my new gown. It was white satin, with a maze of little sparkly beads all on it, and it was strapless. I was so smug that I had talked my dad into letting me wear a strapless gown. And I felt sorry for Violet who was too sick to come.
I guess that's when she started lying to me. To everyone.
A couple of days after the ball, I made soup from an old recipe of our mother's I'd found in the kitchen, and I brought it over to Violet's apartment. Her nose was so red you could've used it for a traffic signal, and her eyes had these terrible purple smudges underneath. I made her eat the soup and clucked around piling her up with pillows and blankets, just like she'd done for me a hundred times when I was sick. And she croaked up at me, "Don't ever change, Lettie, you're perfect just as you are."
Well, it's too late, I've changed anyhow. People keep treating me like I'm broken, you know. They talk to me in hushed tones and they lay their hands on my shoulder in a way meant to be reassuring and they avoid asking me about anything 'worrying' or 'stressful,' which means nobody wants to let me talk about everything I've been through. I'm not broken, though. I mean, I think I was before, right after... you know. With my dad. And Lancewood. I'm not, now.
But I'm not the same Scarlett I was three years ago, either. There's a Scarlett-shaped hole in everyone's life where I used to fit, and I don't fit there anymore, but people keep trying to push me back in. And I'm just so angry at everyone, at Kurt and Violet and my father for all lying to me, and for expecting me to just trust them again and go on being sunny little Lettie. And I'm angry at the whole city for giving Kurt and Violet a Silver Solve for their very convincing years of deceit, while I get... "Oh, don't worry, Scarlett, the drugs are almost entirely safe. We're very probably almost sure that everything will be fine, eventually." This must be what growing wiser feels like.
Violet knows I'm angry, of course. She sees it simmering there under the surface. Maybe the worst part is she thinks I don't have a right to be angry at all; like when we spoke a couple of days ago.
"I was only trying to do the right thing," she told me.
I told her: "I know you were 'trying to do the right thing.' I know you didn't ask for it, I know you were afraid, I know you were trying to keep me safe. I understand all that. But the point is, you lied. You even lied to me."
I shook my head, and tried to explain just one more time. "And you were so good at the lying, Violet. So very, very, good that I just don't know where the real Violet is anymore, or if there's even a real Violet at all."
I still love my sister, I just don't know if I can trust her. But I'll always be there for her if she needs me. She did risk her life and her secret to come save me, in the end. Although... without her secret I guess I wouldn't have needed saving.
My fingers don't hurt so much anymore, you know. They still feel bruised when I use them. They're so ugly, though, and I can't bear to look at them. I've been wearing gloves, and telling people it's to protect my fingers, but really it's so I don't have to see them all the time. They remind me of all the ugly things there are in the world.