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Another day, another round of classes that bored her out of her mind. It was easy enough for Seraphina to get passable grades in school, even if she was only paying attention half the time. The real game was walking the fine line balancing her test scores pumping up her average versus her constant tardiness bringing it back down. After all this time it still struck her as amazing that she ever took school seriously. Getting the highest grades, securing her position within the hierarchy as one of the strongest Royals, making sure she was acknowledged as a force to be reckoned with by everyone at Wellston High. These ideas— not hers, but those forced on her by her mother, by the society her mother represented— were strong enough to convince her to oppress others for years, but weak enough for someone to shatter into pieces in weeks.
John wasn’t in this class, which bummed her out to no end. It was advanced placement, so it was a lethal combination of positively dull and absolutely impossible for him to have had any chance of getting in. For all his positives, he was far and away the worst studier she had ever met. Maybe, actually, that was just another positive she liked about him?
He tore through the bullshit that was the structure built around her life, but didn’t give her freedom. John didn’t work that way; he only gave people the honest truth that cut to their core past all their defenses, and then left you out in the open. Exposed, free of the cover bullshit gave you as well as from reservations you’d built up fearing it leaving you.
Now she wore her hair how she wanted, not how anyone else did. She didn’t care about the Royals anymore, except to keep an eye on them to make sure they still behaved as they’d promised.
And, most importantly, she hung out with John whenever she wanted. That was what she really loved about being free. John would be there, demons and all. Even when he was King, haunted by his past and taking his trauma out on others— even on her— he still lurked there on the inside, screaming out for her to come rescue him just as he’d helped her break free.
Her mother would’ve hated him when he was masquerading as someone without any powers and would’ve gladly joined everyone berating and bulling him for that perceived weakness. And there was also no doubt she would’ve loved the conniving, desperately brutal nature that John displayed when he was spiraling out of control. Even if he said it was for smashing the hierarchy, she would’ve seen the hypocrisy that Seraphina saw— but whereas she saw the good person John had as his true indisputable nature, her mother would have seen the hypocrisy as just another fact of power. When you’re a leader without remorse or equal you can claim whatever you’re doing is for the greater good; you can claim that you’re tearing down an unjust system even while reinforcing it for your own gain.
It hurt her to ponder what would’ve happened if the darkness in John’s heart was the dominant part in him. That side’s sadism would’ve earned him the utmost respect from every preening, cold, calculating, and pernicious Royal walking the halls. At the very least, even Arlo would’ve given him begrudging his due as a member of the hierarchy.
But just like the chains that held her down, all those things went away. King John Doe was no more, but then again the old facade that was powerless John went with him as well. Now there was just John, carrying another cross as he tried to find out who he really was, who he could really be. When she held his shoulder on the roof that day he came back, she could tell that there was an air of honesty around him that she’d never quite felt before. A new-found center, a conflict of morals that now turned him towards justice. He’d managed to transform into every little bit of the warm light in her life that he’d become, and yet something so much more wonderfully complicated. Sincere in his penitence, a metamorphosis divine.
And no doubt, her mother would once again be sneering at the idea of such a transformation—
Mother. Again, in her thoughts like a malady that would not leave. It’d been how long since Seraphina cut off ties with her, and still she haunted her mind? A permanent occupation. It wasn’t bad enough that Seraphina saw her mother in her own reflection every day but also whenever she saw her sister, even if just so subtly on Leilah’s face her mother’s visage still prowled.
And her last name—
Not even worth mentioning. Don’t bring it up, don’t think about it.
If her hair, her style, her way of thinking from all those years of indoctrination into a culture of violence were the chains she broke, then her last name was the shackles that still remained. How might she one day shatter these damn things?
The wind outside looked nice. It was a summer day, but the weather looked like it would be changing soon. New temperatures, an outbreak of clouds and storms to replace the grand march of warmer times, but soon the change that spring promised eternally would come again.
Maybe it was time for her to change again as well?
Seraphina wrote her name down every day for tests, for homework assignments, and of course for every little note her teachers threw at her to mark her lateness or unexcused absences. Rebellion on a spreadsheet, a revolt tracked by scoldings. Avoiding all the minutiae was well worth it, if only to avoid having to look at her last name again. It was bad enough that when she had to talk to any particularly irate teacher they’d usually use her surname as if it were a magic word.
A curse, maybe. ‘Fuck’ and ‘shit’ didn’t pack quite the vile punch that being related to her ghoulish mother had.
So instead of thinking about her own cross, she took up doodling. It wasn’t anything special; just scribblings here or there. Maybe she drew whoever was pissing her off the most at the time— sometimes even a teacher that she was in the class with right at that moment, shielded by the unsurprising fact that she absolutely sucked at doodling. Art was anathema for most of her life; after all, that kind of art got in the way of studying ‘The Arts’, or whatever was deemed sophisticated and proper for an elite.
And after those little pencil massacres, she began writing down random nonsense phrases strung together into adolescent poetry that she helped survive against the storm of rigor, compromise or even mild competence. Haikus run amok. But that wasn’t enough; it was just her beating around the bush, avoiding striking out the most profane thing in her life.
So Seraphina wrote her first name down, and only her first name. Down again, down again, giving it little designs like stylistic emboss or grand impact fonts to make her true identity larger than life. But ‘Seraphina’ alone was almost like a cracked whip without the ride, a ship without direction. It felt alone, when really she knew perfectly well how to avoid being alone now. What was there to do? She wasn’t some kind of diva or trying to make some sort of cultural statement that garish. Artists with singular phrases or simple, isolated names bugged her for the vanity it displayed.
If that was the case, then what would be a suitable replacement?
She toyed around with nonsense once again, only this time trying to find a new last name that made her feel right at home. One that didn’t make her want to curl up in a ball again, one that didn’t make her feel judged for who she had no choice but to be related to, but rather who she chose to relate with.
It came one day as a mistake in her head. But isn’t that how some of the most splendid things in life started? It grew into a nagging in her head, something she couldn’t get loose.
She wrote it down. It felt weird, so she just abandoned it and decided she wouldn’t come back to that silly little thing.
It wasn’t even an hour later when she tried it on again.
Then again the next day, and then the next. Three days of trying it out, stopping, then trying again. A seesaw of decision, trying to imagine what this little struggle on her pen meant to her.
Now her she was, enjoying another mundane day at school waiting for the minutes to count down to lunch so she could go be with John again. He owed her another boba because she bet that he couldn’t catch back up on homework by the end of the week. It was hilariously cruel to play him like that, but she didn’t worry— they’d work on that together.
And her pen started moving again, with barely a few minutes left in the lecture. It wrote down what whispered in her heart, what rattled her brain like a petulant child demanding to be acknowledged. Seraphina treated it with the same coldness she treated anything else that bugged her, but then again it was also her choice to let it keep standing there waiting.
She took a peek at the name she wrote, and her heart beat just a bit faster. Was she really that excited about something like that? Seraphina was only trying it on for size, nothing more.
The teacher was wrapping up. Go, get on with it. The roof was calling to her; there was still sun to be enjoyed, breezes to be captivated by, conversations still left to be had before the day was done.
And maybe then she could leave this paper behind, no matter how it teased her.
John sent her a message first. His typical eagerness to beat her up there made her grin. Maybe he’d even win this time.
A ringing bell. Time to go, time to move, time to take flight and beat John up there once again— as if nothing had ever changed. She left the piece of paper behind, forgetting to completely crumple it up on her way out.
Another day went by. Seraphina and John had long since gone home to their dorms. The nameless, thankless cleaning crew moved through the school premises, cleaning up debris from fights both physical as well as intellectual; glass to be scooped, cans to be recycled, papers to be tossed.
One such crew member went into the next abandoned room on his route, taking anything with him that wasn’t supposed to be lying there. He found a piece of paper lying near the window, and only out of sheer boredom did he bring the white notebook sheet to the light. There wasn’t anything there except two words tied together, repeating over and over again, as if a chant or a mantra— a wish? A prayer? He tossed it either way, but he thought it sounded rather nice.
Seraphina Doe, over and over in different sizes, from small to big and there and back again across the page for everyone to see. Seraphina Doe, just waiting to be found again tomorrow.