Spelman. That's where Isabeth spent the spring semester. Fall semester, she was pregnant and hidden away on her grandparents' maple farm in Vermont. For Spring Break she went to Haiti to volunteer at one of her parents' seven orphanages. She taught Pierre the art of tying his shoes and Marie the beauty of literature. She put her French to good use teaching world history. 

Even in a stained pink Kate Spade fitted tee with sweat pouring down her face, neck, and back dolloping red beans and rice on plates in the never-ending line at the cafeteria—that was opened to the public on Saturday's—she looked flawless with her hair kept back wrapped underneath a Hermes Scarf. She didn't care about the dirt under her nails, the pestilent flies barreling around her face, or the muscle cramps in her hands from peeling bag after bag of potatoes. It was all the atonement she had to pay for the evil that she did.

"Chorus: It is the law: When the blood of slaughter wets the ground it wants more blood." Isabeth read from The Oresteia. "Slaughter cries for the Fury of those long dead to bring destruction on destruction churning in its wake."

Isabeth closed the paperback book she borrowed from Malachi's library and broke his carnal rule, folding it over in her hands. She plopped her head back on the plushy pillow and let the cool gold comforter caress her cocoa butter drunk skin. She stared up at the oat ceiling with heavy eyes and nerves strained like a pulled rubber band about to snap.

"I've spilled the blood of slaughter." She flipped over to face him.

He was the same Gavin Abramov she met on the steps of Sweeney Hall with swollen, purple knuckles because Owen Swain told him to speak English. The same guy that threatened Conrad Hollis with a golf club because he grabbed her butt at Tinsley Calhoun's Yacht Party. She swiped her onyx hair out her face and clenched his listless hand for dear life. His eyes stayed shut with the power of Gorilla Glue; his breathing was steady with every rise and fall of his chest, the monitor dinged with every heartbeat that pumped. It had been fifteen months since Gavin was his truculent self. Even in a coma, he was the same.

Unfortunately, she couldn't say the same. Isabeth Harlow Ovien wasn't the same girl that Zarah and Philip Ovien dropped off at Dawson Preparatory Academy (Dubbed The Billionaire Academy by Forbes) at the tender age of eleven. She wasn't the same jovial youth that use to sit on her grandfather, Luther C. Ovien, a textile tycoon's knee in awe as the Sugar Plum Fairy flawlessly illustrated a variation with poise and elegance. Sadly, she wasn't that carefree, whimsical teenager that walked home from The Rush devouring a lemon gobstopper daydreaming about the adventures the future kept stored away for her in a treasure chest. She was a new creature, one that had two new friends swirling inside her head with their own indistinctive voices.

"I didn't mean to. It just happened." She deeply exhaled the tension building within her. "I know people say that all the time but it's true." Her heart raced at the speed of a train. "I didn't mean to do it. I didn't know he had a family." She sat up raking her hand through her hair. "I didn't know he had children." Mist hazed her eyes blocking out Casper David Friedrich's "Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog" hanging above the black leather couch.

Being the only granddaughter of the only black textile giant in America she had a talent for keeping her nose clean, kept her hand out the proverbial cookie jar. She attended all the events on the social calendar even those annoying matchmaking catastrophes orchestrated by the Evening Social Association (ESA). It was an art she mastered by fifteen: wearing the right clothes, saying the right things, promoting the right causes. A pencil skirt, not a mini skirt, less was more when alcohol was involved and said No to riding the white dragon. Being dubbed America's Sweetheart by Dazzle and Grace Kelly of the New Millennium by Prestige were the monikers she worked tiresomely on and wore with pride; from the mouth of Faith, she lays golden eggs, sweats glitter, and shits diamonds.

"This pain I feel is strong." She gulped in a breath. "I know what he did to me was wrong." She lowered her voice. "I stabbed a man in the heart and watched his blood pool around by feet." She swallowed as nausea rumbled in her throat. The partition that locked away the terrorizing memories of that night began to vibrate. The mist grew to a storm that rained over her cheeks.

There it was, friend number one. Guilt. Guilt with its convicting voice whispered as it gripped the bars of its cage. He cruelly repeated the error she executed like a nursery rhyme. Guilt taunted her with the nightmare that would befall her wretched soul if word got out of the sin she transgressed. He threatened her with the shame her future would be cloaked with as a result of the wicked act she committed. Guilt petrified Isabeth with the rumblings of what her family would utter, agonizing her soul and troubled her spirit with paranoia.

"But he did something to me that night. He put his hands in places he shouldn't have touched." She wrapped her arms around her body stopping the trimmer that surged beneath her skin. "He tasted things he shouldn't have tasted and he entered in places he shouldn't have entered and when he was gone I still felt him." She touched the nape of her neck as goosebumps burned in the shape of his lips. "His breath on my neck, his hand on my thigh, him inside of me and when I slid that blade in him, he left me. And now I feel good." She took a deep breath. "I feel like me."

Her tears gave way to a smile. A  smile, and a gleam to her eye from the friend that sat on its bed in the cell next to guilt. It didn't have to speak; it just had to be. Be breathing, be there and it was. It reminded Isabeth of the ills that had to happen, of the wrongs that gave birth to it. It was the seed Dr. Fulton's lust impregnated her with. The child Isabeth's fury carried to term. It was primal. It was intuitive. It was savvy. Its name was Instinct.

"Also, I released evil from its cage." The remembrance of that creepy hallway at Everclear Asylum gnawed at her like a dog chewing on a leash. "Although nothing has happened I fear something will." She kissed Gavin's forehead. His skin was warm beneath her lips. Another salty tear slipped from her clasped eyes and splashed on his long eyelashes. "Wake up Gavin. I need something good to happen. I need to know that it wasn't a mistake so please...wake up." She stopped. The doorknob twisted. The mahogany door swung open.

"Harper!" Isabeth wiped the tears from her face and hopped off the bed. "You're back."

Harper held out her arms with a wide smile on her face, "I am!" She hugged Isabeth tightly. "Why are you crying? Harper let Isabeth go. "He's been in a coma for like...forever." She looked over at Gavin in the pale yellow silk pajamas.

"Oh." Isabeth sniffed and dabbed at her eyes. "It's this book." She held it up so Harper could see. "Greek tragedies. He loves them. I don't know why."

"Because G's a romantic." Harper twirled in her bikini top and denim shorts, her brunette curls flying. "He cried at the end of Tristan and Isolde."

Isabeth smiled then furrowed her eyebrows, "Why are you here? I thought seeing him as this creeps you out."

"It does." Harper faked a shiver. "But Odette said you were here and I needed to deliver this." She held up an envelope.

Isabeth breathing halted when her eyes fell on the crisp white envelope with her name across it in cursive. The thuds of her heart pounded in her ears.

"What's that?" Isabeth asked.

Harper stared at her strangely, "An invitation. Here!"

Isabeth hesitated then took the envelope from her friend of many years. She opened the flap carefully and then began to pull out an orange card. Her fears melted away after she read the bold black words. "You're throwing a luau."

"Yes!" Harper beamed. "It's going to be epic. Everything is being set up as we speak."

Isabeth's look of fear turned to confusion, "It's tonight."

"I know." Harper's button nose crinkled up. "But this is a dead Saturday. Nothing is happening. Plus, I just got back in town and none of ya'll came to my graduation so..."

Isabeth could see Harper was beginning to give her lost puppy dog eyes, "I'll be there." 

Seems like Isabeth went to Spelman, instead. Why do you think she changed her choice of college?

Why do you think Isabeth made that confession to Gavin?

Do you think Isabeth should go to Harper's Luau?