A Narrative:
Bernadette and the Lilies

In days gone by, freedom was a word I never knew. My parents were like chains, always clinging to me. As soon as I was out of school, there was a text from my dad asking if I had gotten on the bus and was okay. I would just shut off my phone so my dad couldn’t text me anymore. When I got home, there was my mom, asking me everything about my day. “Hey sweetie, how are your friends?” she would always ask. “Mom,” I would always say. “I have no friends, because every time I try to make one, you always forbid me from going anywhere with them.” Then I would shove myself away from the table and stomp off into my room. That was before I met Lily. One day, I was sick and tired of being chained. I got home from school and snuck into …show more content…
The librarians looked at me like I was fresh out of Street FIghter. I practically flew past all of the shelves, until I came to the file cabinets. I searched through the folders, until I found one labeled “L”. I went through it, searching for Lily, Lily anything. Eventually, I found one labeled “Lancaster, Lily”. It was like the folder had a force that pulled me to it, but whatever it was, I opened the folder slowly. I saw a picture of a dead body, with olive skin, dark hair, and beautiful hazel eyes. It was Lily. She had been dead for over twenty years. I read the paragraph on her, and it said something like this:

Lily was killed by her father, who apparently was on a drug overdose. He wouldn’t let her out of the house, and she eventually managed to escape, but her father followed her and killed her. According to the local police dept., her last words were “Freedom always comes with a price.”

I could feel the tears welling in my eyes. “She wanted me to be free,” I whispered. “She showed me the way.” I closed the folder and quietly slipped it back into the box it came from. As I stood up and left the library, I whispered, “Tomorrow,