My chest constricted. Zachary sniffled, biting the inside of his cheek as his arms crossed over his chest.
“I have a daughter too. She’s two,” Georgie added, a soft smile spreading on her lips. “My story isn’t as . . . complicated as yours, but I understand how hard it must be for you. I have her for a week, and then she’s with her father the week after.”
Verena inhaled deeply, tucking a long strand of brown hair behind her ear. Once again, I was captivated by her beauty, mygaze tracing the delicate constellation of her freckles. Sensing my unmistakable attention, Verena turned her head to meet my eyes. She smiled. “What’syourstory?”
My fingers clenched over my knees. The room grew quiet; everyone’s attention stalled on me.
“It’s not one worth sharing,” was what I decided to tell, and when I noticed the accusing tilt of her head, I continued. “It’s boring.”
Verena persisted with another glance. “Every story is worth sharing.”
My throat clogged as my mind drifted to the past.
Four years ago, something inside me altered when I celebrated my eighteenth birthday by myself, blowing out leaves instead of candles on the road in front of our house. It had just rained outside, but I didn’t care. I sat down in the mud, letting the rain wash away my tears as I picked up leaf by leaf; picturing a happy and sane family, with friends cheering by my side as I made a wish under the knowing eyes of the flame that stood tall on a cake.
My lips didn’t twitch. My forehead didn’t wrinkle. My eyes didn’t blink. I just cried, gripping and turning the leaves into dust inside my fists. I decided then that I would not let my life waste away, no matter how much I loved my mother. I was done. Done with feeling sorry for myself for being the reason she was the way she was. Done accepting everything as it came.
I could do both, I recalled thinking.I could go to school and take care of her.
The wind howled beside my ears, and thunder crashed through the sky, but I was smiling. The tears were gone. I was done.
I didn’t know what it was—some kind of revelation or the silent influence of becoming an adult—but my mind didn’tchange when I walked inside the house; my naked soles leaving patterns of mud behind me as I whistled a song I had never heard before. My mind didn’t change when I took an equivalency exam. My mind didn’t change when I was accepted at a university. My mind didn’t change as curious gazes followed me down the hallway, where I clearly resembled a janitor more than a student. My mind didn’t change when I failed a test. And another.
During those three months, I had lived lifeasI hadn’t in eighteen years. I had a purpose, a path.
But eventually, my mind did change.
One morning, I walked into her room, and the first thing I saw was the dark stain of the crimson liquid on the floor. Sporadic drops of blood, appearing on the doorframe, by the bed, staining the sheets, and clinging to her dress, made it clear what had occurred the previous night. That night, I had been sound asleep, my mind and body worn out by the demands of university life. I was so exhausted that when I dropped onto the bed, the rough sheets were no longer an issue.
While I was sleeping, my father beat her, and I didn’t even stir. Which, on a regular day, wouldneverhave happened. Not when I always slept with one eye open. But it happened. It happened because I dared to dream too big, too soon. I knew then that I had made a horrible, horrible mistake. A mistake I was never going to repeat.
After that day, the promise that it would never happen as long as I was alive was born. I became attuned to any superficial echo or whisper within the house. Every night, I laid in bed, sleepless, listening to the tiny thumps of a mouse’s paw, the buzz of a trapped fly, and the unmistakable sound of my father’s arrival.
The distant curses after he fell on the ground. The inconsistent footsteps. The jiggle of the metal keys that had nouse—but he was too drunk to realize our door wouldn’t close properly. The struggle to find the latch. The boot throwing the door open. The crash on the broken couch.
Only after hearing his snores, which sounded like a chorus of pigs, did I finally allow myself to close my eyes, knowing he would sleep for hours.
“Charisma? Are you all right?” Verena’s hand rested on my knee.
I blinked back to reality, shaking off the reminder of that day. With a sharp intake of air, I nodded at the group of people.
They were waiting for an answer. I gulped, a bead of sweat forming above my eyebrow. What would I say anyway?
Perhaps something along these lines: after I was born, my mother dedicated her life to educating me—including about various legends about the gods. The knowledge she passed to me proved to come in handy given the situation I found myself in years later. She knew we were penniless, but believed that schooling was priceless, so we’d spend day after day studying. We were a happy family back then, but her mental state had gradually worsened until the brief moments of joy lost their meaning. I was too young when it happened to remember them in detail. My father was a drunk piece of shit and made it his life’s mission to torment me and my mother—a woman who lived inside her head.
What a poor attempt to sum up someone’s life.
“I’ll see you at training,” I said, getting on my feet and walking to the safety of my room.
Chapter 5
Charisma
No one realized I was here yet, so I used that to my benefit, observing my surroundings before making my presence known.
The arena that yesterday was bare except for a weapons table, now had a climbing wall towered ahead, streaked with thick and thin green vines instead of handholds to grip.
Yvonne yelped as her foot slipped off a tendril. I held my breath, teeth sinking into my bottom lip as my mind took the reins and formed a scenario—I imagined how she fell from the vertiginous height, her arms flagging in the air, searching for something to grasp before she plummeted on the marble ground, blood splattering everywhere. Goose bumps erupted on my arms as I watched her, my mouth agape as her hair swayed behind her before she gripped a wide vine and regained her balance.
