s i x
the will
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two thousand eleven
WINONA COULDN'T THANK Pamela and Lawrence for too many things, but she could thank them for teaching her self-discipline; how to not waste her time, how to function off of just a few hours of sleep due to math homework, how to push her body farther than she thought possible in gymnastics training. She was once motivated by her desire to make them proud. But now all she had was hatred.
Hatred was what kept her from giving up on the set of sit-ups she was completing as punishment. Her knees hooked over a pull-up bar and ankles tightly crossed, Winona ignored the burning in her muscles and the aching in her lungs to touch her elbows to her knees, hang upside down, then curl herself back up again.
She got caught drinking on the roof with her friends, Ophelia and Oliver. They knew better — they rarely get away with anything at all, really — but it was Winona's 18th birthday, and sneaking out to buy alcohol was a rite of passage.
Now they were suffering the consequences, Ophelia to her right and Oliver to her left, struggling through their hanging sit-ups. Oliver had already thrown up, which seemed to be their drill sergeant's goal; it was cruel, really, making them hang like that with a few beers in their stomach.
Winona felt the acid creeping up her throat every time she went upside down, but then she thought of Godspell and of Pamela and of the burning sensation on her cheek, and she forced herself to breathe and keep going.
"God, I think I'm gonna be sick again," Oliver mumbled, hugging his knees and screwing his eyes shut.
"Oh, fuck, please don't," Ophelia replied, looking up at him as she hung upside down. They were all having trouble keeping their beverages down.
"Pick it up, you two, or I'll give you ten more," their drill sergeant told them. Honestly, he wasn't a horrible person; he didn't shout like the others, and he had a bit more humor. But he never gave them a break no matter how many times they proved their punishments didn't do all that much.
Oliver groaned as he let go of his knees to fight through the last of his workout. Ophelia could barely reach hers at this point, but she got some strength from Winona, who's pace remained steady.
After just a few more, Winona finally grabbed the bar, unhooked her ankles, and dropped to her feet, sucking in deep breaths and wiping her forehead. Ophelia followed soon after, falling to her knees rather ungracefully. Oliver joined soon enough, too, letting out a loud, drawn-out groan as he collapsed on his back.
"Good work. Wash up and get to your rooms. If you wander, I'll find out."
And with that, they were alone on the field. Ophelia gave in and joined Oliver, laying on her back, too.
"Holy shit," Oliver breathed. "I'm never drinking again."
"That's bullshit and you know it," Ophelia told him.
"You're right. Got any plans tomorrow?"
The anger was slowly leaving Winona, and she managed a smile — a smile that grew when Ophelia laughed and Oliver joined, both of them a bit delirious from exhaustion.
"C'mon, Wam. There's no one around to look tough for anymore," Oliver said, lazily waving a hand at her to join them. She shook her head at him but gave in regardless, laying down next to him and stretching her arms out.
"Fuck, this is gonna kill tomorrow," Ophelia groaned, her hands rubbing her stomach. "God, I hate Doug. Upside down sit-ups are demented."
"I reckon he's getting creative since we're graduating soon," Winona said. "Who's he gonna torture once we're gone?"
"You're right. We bring the life to this school," Oliver said, a sense of sarcastic pride in his voice.
This school. L&L Military Academy. Where Pamela and Lawrence sent her almost two years ago. After Pamela hit her, she realized that she didn't have to pretend that she belonged there anymore, and she resisted the Monroes in every way she deemed necessary — no more lessons, no more tutoring, no more humoring Pamela's dream of her becoming a lawyer.
She was sent to London before the start of the next semester, only managing to give a proper goodbye to Polly, who gave her friend a pin emblazoned with the words knock 'em dead. She hoped Jasmine and Mr. Keating wouldn't forget her.
Upon arrival to the academy, she traded whatever she had left of a home for a uniform, combat boots, and a dog tag stamped with W. A. M., the only exception being during the summer, when she didn't have any choice but to endure three months with the Monroes. Lawrence picked up his wife's slack in parental care — Winona was worse than dead to Pamela. The ghost of her would have disturbed her, but no, Pamela acted as though Winona never existed at all.
Lawrence seemed to feel bad for it. He almost acted like a real father, but then a sliver of Winona's true self would slip through the cracks of the show she tried to put on for them, and he would get reminded that she's not the daughter he asked for. At least he took her to dinner sometimes.
She stayed at the academy during holidays. Ophelia and Oliver did, too. They called themselves the Golden Trio from Harry Potter, except they were all Harry, since they all had shitty guardians. For the group chat's sake, though, Oliver was Harry because he had glasses, and Ophelia was Hermione because she had curly hair. Winona was Ron by default.
The three of them stared up at the night sky, basking in the silence of the empty training field. Winona almost felt happy, lying beside friends that understood her and where she came from. She didn't act, but she was free to read as many plays as she liked, and she could go see a show every weekend if she wanted to. She had almost grown to enjoy the exercise. Almost.
"I'm going to go meet with a social worker tomorrow," Winona told them. They both turned their heads, Ophelia propping herself up on her elbow to see over Oliver. "Since I'm eighteen I can finally get my mom's stuff from storage."
Excitement bloomed in her chest as she said it. She had been waiting for this all her life. She remembered close to nothing about her childhood home, just shades of yellow. She didn't even remember what her mom looked like.
Naturally, her imagination conjured up a giant room filled with memories, subconsciously fine-tuning every detail over the years. She imagined mountains of boxes and stacks of photographs that would take her weeks — no, months — to peruse. And everything was yellow.
"Do you want us to go with you?" Ophelia asked her.
Oliver nodded and sat up, too. "Yeah, you'll need help bringing stuff back, won't you?"
"No, it's alright," Winona said. "I'm just going to check it out. I'll wait to move it out once I get an apartment or something."
"So not even for emotional support?" Ophelia said.
"I think this is something I need to do on my own," she told them. "Thanks, though. Really."
"Okay, but if you need us, call us," Ophelia added, pointing at her friend with a distinctly serious look on her face. "I mean it."
Winona chuckled, saying, "I will, I will."
"Good."
Winona turned her head back toward the sky, her eyes gazing at the light pollution-washed expanse above her. Her friends glanced at each other, Oliver debating laying back down on the grass — his abs were killing him — but both of them felt like more needed to be said. They had no way of knowing if she was actually okay. Her words were occasionally raw, but her face was always composed.
"Hey! You three!" a voice shouted from the nearby building. "What'd I say about dilly-dallying?"
The trio immediately got to their feet, stifling snickers and grumbles and anything in between as they ran over to Doug, their heavy boots stomping in the grass.
🌻
Winona stood in front of a door to a rather small storage unit, her hands trembling in the pocket of her sweatshirt as she watched the social worker place a labeled key into the lock. She held her breath, hearing a click and watching the handle turn.
The door opened and a light flickered on, and Winona continued holding her breath, tears slowly filling her eyes. No mountains of boxes, no stacks of photographs. Only a single box was shoved off to the corner of the room, casked in a harsh off-white glow.
"That's it?" Winona asked, feeling faint.
"There's a possibility that someone else already collected items," the social worker told her. Winona looked up at the woman, her heart pounding.
"Someone else?" she asked. "Is that even legal? Didn't she have a will?"
"As in a relative or significant other," the woman clarified. "What was specifically left for you is all here."
Her stomach dropped, or maybe it was her heart, or maybe it was all of her organs at once. Did her mother really only leave her a box? She didn't even want to think about the possibility of someone else being here before her. She especially didn't want to think about having a relative that came to take her dead mom's furniture instead of her.
"I'll be outside. Take your time," the social worker said. She offered a brief shoulder rub, then went on her way, leaving Winona to stand in front of the doorway.
She didn't even want to go inside. The room was tiny, and the lighting was strange, and she wasn't sure how well the door would stay propped open. But that box was all she had.
Winona took off one of her shoes and set it in the doorway before stepping inside. Her hands shook as she opened the flaps of the box, disrupting a layer of dust.
Surely, her stomach or heart couldn't drop any further; surely this sensation was organ failure, or her entire body just giving up altogether.
A thin journal and a piece of jewelry. That was it. No photographs, no giant stack of letters detailing her mother's existence, and their short time together, and an explanation why there was no one else to come for her.
Winona picked up the journal. It looked brand new; the corners weren't bent or worn from use, the pages weren't wrinkled from the stroke of a pen, or from spilling tea. No indication that her mother ever used it.
Winona set it to the side and picked up the piece of jewelry, instead. It was a bit odd — too large to be apart of a bracelet, too showy to be used as a necklace, at least for her taste. It was a pink ring with a strange, golden symbol in the middle.
Winona turned it in her fingers until the symbol resembled a K.
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author's note ;
don't u guys just love random bursts of inspiration