The Experiment by Cassidy Shay (i can read with my eyes shut .txt) 📖

love you too, Jack,” I say, as he lets go. I watch him walk to the chair in the middle of the room. I watch as the doctor fills the syringe with an ugly liquid. When the needle touches his skin, Jack looks at me.
As the poison enters his veins, he smiles. And that is the last of my brother, of my family. I have no one left.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A couple weeks later, Mathew has another day off. He tells me that the Warden is giving them one day off for every window that they install.
The next window will go to Floor Two, then Floor Four, Floor Five, and then the cafeteria. They are big, magnificent windows, floor-to-ceiling masterpieces. The first windows will face towards the capital city, and then they’ll put in more windows on the sides. When they’re done, there are supposed to be twelve windows on each floor.
Mathew tells me that the reason it takes them so long to put in one window is that they have to follow a special process. “We can’t just knock a hole in the wall,” he explains. “On Floor One, there’s a chance that people would still live id they jumped out of that hole. And others might try to commit suicide.”
He shakes his head. “That’s what they tell us, anyway. I think it’s just so that they can keep us busy so we don’t have time to think about the revolution.”
I don’t really say much. Since Jack was killed, I’ve been pretty quiet. I still talk to people and maintain my relationships, but I don’t do anything that I don’t have to. Mathew constantly tries to get me to move on. But that just makes it harder, makes me more angry.
Belle doesn’t talk about Jack, and that is a relief. I was worried that she would ask me questions about him. But she seems not to even remember that day.
Mathew continues talking about the windows, and I try not to ignore him completely, but I can’t focus. My brain keeps going back to my brother. My eyes are constantly bloodshot, and it’s a very rare occasion that I don’t have tears rolling down my face.
Mathew stops in the middle of his sentence. “You’re not listening to me, are you?” he asks. He is not accusing. Instead, his voice is soft.
I shake my head. “I’m sorry. But I keep thinking about Jack and…” He sighs, and I stop. “What?”
“It’s been two weeks, Meagan. How much time do you need before you can go a day without being a blubbering idiot?” I just stare at him. I can’t believe him.

It’s not like you would have seen him again anyway. He was on Floor One. You’re up here. It doesn’t make any difference if he’s alive or not.”
“You don’t understand,” I say. “He’s my brother. I loved him. When you love someone, and they die, you cry. That’s part of being human.” He grabs my hands and twists his body so that he faces me head-on.
“I know. I know it’s hard. But you have Belle, and she loves you, and you love her. And you have me. I love you, and you love me.”
I choke down a sob. I shake his hands away, and bring my hand up to cover my mouth. I shake my head. He leans back, confused. “I’m sorry,” I manage to say. I look at Belle, playing in the corner, and the tears come faster. “I’m sorry.” I get up and go into the room.
In a couple minutes, he opens the door. “Belle’s in bed now,” he says. “Now will you tell me what you meant back there? Are you saying that you don’t love me anymore?” He comes to the bed and looks directly into my eyes, desperately searching for an answer. “What did I do?”
It takes a minute before I can answer. “Mathew, I do care about you. And I do love you. But no, I’m not in love with you.” His eyes cloud over as they fill with tears. “There isn’t much about our relationship that shows we’re in love. The lies, the…”
“Lies? Meagan, I’m always honest with you. What are you hiding from me?”
I look away from him. “They’ve been experimenting on Belle since the new Warden started. I didn’t tell you because I knew that you would just make a fuss about it.”
His voice is angry when he speaks. “Anything else that you didn’t mention, so that I wouldn’t make a fuss about it?” His tone has an angry, sarcastic twist to it, and I cringe.
“Only that I don’t love you. But that hasn’t been a lie that I meant to tell. I thought I loved you. But I was lying to myself.”
“Why? Why would you do that? Four eight years, you’ve told me that you loved me. We’ve has a healthy relationship. How can you tell me that that’s all a lie?”
I shake my head. “We’ve never had a healthy relationship,” I argue. “We’ve had a happy relationship. But nothing more.” I take a few deep breaths before going on. “Our relationship started because we were forced into it. Then, I needed you to cover for me, so that they would believe that the baby was yours. After that, I still needed a distraction. That’s all that you were. You were a distraction from what I really wanted, but couldn’t have.
“I lied to myself, convinced myself that I loved you so that I wouldn’t be hurt and so that you wouldn’t be hurt. But I don’t need a distraction anymore. Now, I need to be aware of what’s going on in the world.”
He won’t look at me now. “I had to have someone so that I could let go of Collin. I had to love you so that with this… experiment, I wouldn’t hate myself for what I had to do. So I lied. I thought I loved you. But I didn’t.” I stare at my fingers. “I’m sorry.”
When I wake up in the morning, he’s already left. His side of the bed is cold.

Chapter 28

Six months go by, and things change. I turn 23, my stomach gets huge, my back hurts constantly. I discover that I’m having twins, and I decide that, after these kids, I’m done with pregnancies.
I’m looking out the window one morning when Marc comes up to me. “You’re huge,” he says.
“Yeah, well, I have two kids in here. I’m not going to be small.”
He laughs. “Yeah, you’re definitely going to have your hands full. But now Mathew will have two kids that are his. He’s gotta be excited about that, right?” I turn my back to the window and rest the back of my head on the cool glass. “Yeah, he’s ecstatic.” In reality, I don’t know how he feels. He doesn’t talk to me anymore.
For a few minutes, Marc doesn’t say anything. I notice that his eyebrows now form a solid, dark line above his eyes. “What’s on your mind?”
“Um… a couple weeks ago, remember when I had a couple days off?” I nod. “I went to see my wife, of course. And her cousin was there.” He laughs. “You won’t believe this, but her cousin is Collin.” His gaze travels from the window over to me, to see my reaction. “Small world, right?”
“What did he say?”
“I gave him your message, about Belle. For a while, he just kinda sat there. Then he stood up and stood about two inches from me. And he told me to tell you that he’ll make things right someday, and that he loves you. And then he left. Went home.”
I relax a little. “Of course he’d say that he’ll make things right. Even if he knows that he can’t, he’ll say that he can.” I look at Marc. “Thank you.” A couple minutes later, he has to leave, so I go back to the apartment. Belle is at the table, eating cereal.
“Hi, baby,” I say, and give her a kiss on the forehead. She just has her eighth birthday, when she decided that she was going to be a big girl from now on. That includes making her own breakfast and walking to and from her daily appointments on her own.
I sit down and try to eat, but I can’t get more than a few bites down. Belle can tell that there’s something on my mind, but she doesn’t say anything.
“Mommy, I’m going to play with Aron.” She gives me a hug before she leaves, and blows a kiss from the doorway.
And then, I am alone. I don’t want to be alone, though, because I don’t want to think about Collin. Not when things with Mathew are this bad. We rarely talk, and I only see him at dinner. If we have company, we act like everything’s okay. But I know people notice that things aren’t quite the same between us.
Belle acts like she doesn’t notice, that it doesn’t bother her. But I know that it does. And I hate that I’m such a terrible mother, that I don’t do anything to make it easy for her.
So that I’m not alone, I go down the halls to the stairwell. I go from Floor Six to Floor Five, wander the entire floor, then go to Floor Four. It takes most of the day to get down to Floor One. I pause at the door that leads out of the stairwell.
I know that, because of all the memories, it will be extremely difficult to get through this floor. But I do it anyway.
When I pass Jack and Carl’s old room, I look in. There are two girls in there. One looks like she’s Belle’s age, and the other looks like she’s about sixteen. The older one helps the younger one make the bed. Then they turn around, about to leave the room. When they see me, their conversation stops. “Who are you?”
“Sorry,” I say, and continue on my way through the floor. When I get to the room that I used to share with Macy, no one is there. The beds are made, and there is nothing on the floor.
Without realizing it, I walk in and sit on what used to be my bed. I stare at the floor, remembering all that happened here. From the day I arrived to the day I left, I remember.
I don’t know how long I’m sitting on the bed, but I come out of my daze to see a young boy about nine or ten shaking my leg.
“Lady, I don’t know why you’re here, but you should leave. Dave’s almost here, and he’s pretty grumpy today. He’s not going to like you being here.” I sigh.
“Sorry.” I get off his bed, try not to look at his confused face. I’m walking out the door when