Chapter 11

Raven

A day and a half pretending to be good was exhausting. I had listened to Allita and participated in many godly activities that included reading a Bible verse in front of nuns, prayed every time they prayed, joined the choir. I even agreed to fast in 3 days time.

All this while, I had not seen Claire once. Ever since she lashed out and slapped Aurora, the girl disappeared. I asked Allita who informed me that Claire was ill. They did not let me see her the day before so I decided to sneak around and find the room she stayed in.

Out of all the holy hypocrites of this convent, Claire was the only one with a pure heart. Despite who I was, she welcomed me and defended me many times than my own family ever did.

Speaking of family, I tried calling my mother but her phone was off. I wrote a message that was never read. I was starting to worry that my father did something to her. But I knew he would never lay a hand on my mother.

My father loved my mother more than anything.

“Here you go” Allita held out a busket with bananas inside In front of my face.

“What’s this?” I asked placing the Bible I had  been staring at for the past hour, pretending to read.

“Bananas”

“I can see that, why are you giving them to me?”

“So you can eat”

I glared at Allita.

While I was busy being a nun pleaser, Allita had given me tips on everything so far. I hated her two faced guts and she pretended to like me in front of Mother Superior. The other times, her smile would drop the second Elizabeth looked away. It was creepy.

“So now you want to poison me?”

“No, I was hoping you would go talk to Claire so i came bearing gifts”

That was a strange request, out of the ordinary because ever since my arrival, Allita had not showed any attachment with them. She kept to herself and when surrounded by others, she never took part in conversations.

So why was she worried about Claire?. They were not friends.

“Why don’t you go yourself?”

“The bananas were supposed to be stuffed in your mouth to avoid questions”

“I miss when you were scared of me”

“Was I really scared of you or was I pretending?.” Allita morphed her face into a fake sad expression.

Two faced bitchy nun.

“Well pretend to have that common sense and leave me alone”

I stood up.

“Please check on her. She has been…she is not doing good”

Allita was hiding something. There was something going on with these people, these nuns, that they were trying too hard to hide. As much as I loved staying out of people’s businesses, if Claire was not okay then I had to be involved.

“Okay tell Sister Elizabeth I’m…praying” I cringed at my own words.

My legs took me to Claire, the walls of the Convent felt heavy, a little too tall and a never ending hallway In a horror movie.

Something bad in the near future.

I brushed off the eerie feeling and opened the door which behind it laid the adorable nun. To my surprise, bright innocent happy eyes were replaced by empty swollen red ones. Pain stirred in the nuns eyes.

“You are a red head?” I roamed over the red strands of hair splattered on her white pillow where her head was resting.

Claire blinked as if she didn’t hear me come in. I went to sit beside her bed.

“Yes, uh what are you doing in here?” She sniffed while she sitting up and grabbed her head cloth but I grabbed it from her hands.

“You can put it back on when I leave. I came to check on you. I thought Aurora finally convinced you that I am a bad influence”

“No I’m…ill” She tiredly admitted.

Her nose was red and dead skin under her eyes showed me she had been crying for too long.

“You don’t have to lie to me Claire. Remember I’m not one of your nuns, you can tell me what is really going on. It’s eating at your mind”

Tears trickled down her cheeks. She covered her face as she sobbed in her hands. I pulled her into my arms and hugged the crying nun. Something happened, something that broke the girl.

“Tell me what happened” I pulled her back and wiped her cheeks with both my hands. I pushed her red hair that was sticking to her wet face, and slid the strand behind her ears.

“Sh..she is gone. She left me” Claire’s voice broke as she wiped her nose with the back of her left hand.

“Who?. Who left you?” I grabbed her hands in mine.

“Rayana”

I was confused. Who was Rayana, I had never heard of her before.

“Go on” I encouraged.

Claire pulled away from me and sat back slumped on the wall with her legs folded close to her. I couldn’t help but be saddened by how broken she appeared to be in that moment.

“When I joined the Convent, most novices were already here. They were used to each other and I was having a hard time adjusting to the schedules and not being able to just leave without permission or purpose. One of the nuns, Rayana was very nice to me. She was older than me with a couple of years but we became close. She helped me cope and get used to this place and introduced me to her friend Aurora and her twin sister Allita”

Holy crap, there was two of them?.

“Keep going”

Claire sighed pushing her hands in her palms again.

“Hey, it’s okay.” I grabbed her hands back to see tears in her eyes.

“I really loved her” Claire’s lips wobbled as more tears flooded down.

“You don’t have to tell me if it hurts to say”

“It.. it just happened. I didn’t know I am..like…like that. Rayana is just…beautiful. She is someone anyone could love Raven. So soft and happy. Rayana was always… always happy. Being in her presence was like getting second hand happiness even with nothing to be so happy about. While I was close to Aurora, Allita liked to keep to herself. But those were who I kept close while I got along with everyone else. Then it happened, Rayana took me away from everyone and kissed me. It was sooo… awakening.” Claire traced her own lips with her three of her fingertips.

I stayed silent, letting her reminisce. She was clearly going through a lesbian heartbreak.

“And I couldn’t stop it, I didn’t want to. We kept it a secret, sneaking around and  with time, being here started to feel like a cage for our love. Aurora wanted to be free with me, out in the world, take me to places and live with me. She talked about marrying me. So we planned to leave. We were going to meet behind the garden and climb into trees to go over the wall. Rayana told Aurora and Allita about our plans and we promised to go over and say goodbye before we leave.”

I didn’t like where this was going.

“What happened?”

“Aurora started crying, asking me not to go. She was going on and on about the devil and my love for Rayana being a sin. I tried calming her down and it took time, a little more time. Just a few minutes late to the time Rayana and I had agreed on. When I went to the garden, there was nobody there. She was gone”

“She just left without you?”

“I thought she would come back, call or anything but she was just gone. I have been waiting, for months and then I received a letter from her a few days ago. I.. I she is not coming back for me, she said she found another who is a man and..” Claire started to panic, moving around looking for the paper.

She grabbed it with her shaking hands.

“She said I am pure and she loves me but she doesn’t love me anymore. I don’t know what that means” She pointed at the black inked words, tears spewing out as she tried to let her words out.

I felt sorry for her. I hugged her and held her as she cried. She was completely wrecked by this. I wanted to say something to comfort her but how do you possibly heal a heart that’s still breaking?. I hated this Rayana girl for hurting someone like Claire.

Claire was too immaculate to be ruined by pain.

■ ■ ■

A/N

Which country/ state are you reading from?