Girls with Sharp Sticks (Girls with Sharp Sticks, #1)(44)

“Ah, yes. Your husband. Do you want a husband?”

“If that’s what Mr. Petrov and my parents think is best,” I say, parroting what I’ve been taught at the academy.

“It’s not what’s best for you,” she replies, standing up. She stares directly into my face, too close, but I hold a pleasant expression. I don’t trust her to know my real thoughts. “Then again, it doesn’t really matter what I think, does it?” she adds.

She turns away, a little unsteady on her six-inch heels. “You’re on target weight,” she adds, going over to hang the clipboard back on the wall. “But your muscles need toning. Run a few extra laps today and tomorrow. Now get dressed and head outside.”

I thank her for her time, although she doesn’t return the courtesy. She’s gone before I finish dressing. I stand there, a bit exposed even though I’m more covered up now. I can’t help but think about what she said. About marriage. About her opinion not mattering. And it strikes me as odd that she asked if I’d ever kissed a “man.” Why not “boy”? Why not “person”?

I shiver in the cold and pull on my sweater, adjusting my headband over my ears. And when I run out into the field, I’m not just running for the course. I’m running to get away. Escape what feels like humiliation and judgment. I’m thrown by her questions, by the intent of them.

The poem talked about men keeping us captive. But . . . what about the women who work with them? Where were the mothers in that poem?

I run to the overgrown bushes and slip through the bars into the woods, vulnerability still on my skin. I should be used to Leandra’s coldness by now, but the truth is, I’m not. Not when I let myself think about it. I nearly trip over a branch in my haste, and I reach out to catch myself. Instead, there’s a sharp sting on my hand as a thorn tears through my skin.

Gasping, I hold up my hand, nearly falling backward. I’m bleeding. It’s not a deep cut—only the size of a fingertip. But it’s a scratch on my palm, near my wrist. It might turn into a scar.

I’m panicked, not sure what to do about it.

“Mena?” Jackson calls. I spin around, my eyes tearing up, and he quickly drops his backpack and rushes over. He takes my hand and examines the cut. “You okay?” he asks concerned.

“I need to see the doctor,” I say. He lifts his head.

“For this?” he asks, confused. He checks me over like I must have another injury.

“Yes. It’ll scar,” I say.

“I . . . don’t think so,” he says, dropping my hand. “I mean, not in any significant way. Here, come sit down. I have a Band-Aid in my backpack.”

“I can’t have any scars,” I tell him, worried.

“We all have scars,” he says as we sit on a fallen tree. He sifts through his backpack until he comes out with a Band-Aid. “See this one?” He points to the small scar above his eye. I had, indeed, noticed. “My cousin tripped me while I was running through the living room and sent me headlong into the coffee table,” he says. “Two stitches.”

“Why would he do that?” I ask, upset. But Jackson laughs.

“I don’t know. We were kids. I got him back a few years later when I accidently shut the door on his hand and broke three of his fingers.”

These injuries are shocking to me, especially in how casually Jackson accepts them. All of a sudden, his scar means more. It’s not just an imperfection, it’s a story. It’s a memory he wears on his skin. It doesn’t devalue him at all.

I look down at my hand, knowing I’ll have to ask the doctor to graft it, claiming I got hurt in a different way. But then I wonder why. Why do I have to be scar-free while Jackson doesn’t?

Jackson opens the wrapper and positions the Band-Aid. I don’t tell him that I can’t keep it on. I let him place it because I’m comforted by how gently he’s touching me. So at odds with the way men touch me at the academy—either cruelly or possessively.

I’d overanalyzed my last meeting with Jackson, thinking I’d have to be polite to get him to like me. That I’d have to appease him. I’m starting to realize that not everything I’ve been taught is true.

Jackson finishes applying the Band-Aid and crushes the wrapper in his hand before stuffing it into his backpack. He turns back to me, his expression serious.

“Do you want me to be more polite?” I ask suddenly. Jackson’s mouth twitches with a confused smile.

“Why would you think that?” he asks. “I want you to be yourself. I want you to be comfortable.”

It’s an interesting thought. Comfortable. I’m sure Professor Allister would say that’s the same as laziness, but when Jackson says it, it sounds right—the way you should want another person to feel. I’m still thinking about it when Jackson leans back on his hands, looking me over.

He’s wearing a black leather jacket with a knit scarf around his neck, the fabrics clashing, but still working somehow. His eyes are glassy from the cold. In the distance, I hear the padding of feet as the girls make another loop around the track. Despite the morning chill, birds are chirping in the trees and the sound is lovely. It makes me forget that I’m not supposed to be beyond the fence. But when I remember, it feels unfair that I can’t come out here when I want.