Tea arrives. It smells wonderful, but I don't want it. I want to leave.
An awkward silence passes because I don’t want to answer her question. I fumble with my teacup to ease the growing discomfort within me.
“I’m not asking to make you uncomfortable,” she finally says, leans forward, and her hand touches my arm. I gasp in and roll my shoulders back as a jittery feeling rushes through me. I have never felt anything like it before, and my eyes widen.
“I’m asking because I am curious,” she says. I look from her hand on my arm up into her eyes.
I swallow hard.
“What are you so scared of?” she asks me.
I rub my fingers together to calm the waves of emotion that are surfacing in me. Why does she affect me so?
She looks at me, waiting patiently for an answer.
“I guess, I’m okay the way things are. I don’t have any ambitions, because peace is what I want.”
“Hmmm,” she says and removes her hand to take a sip of her tea. “Or could it be you are scared of disappointment?”
I stare at her as my chest tightens.
“Could it be that you have been disappointed so many times in life that you protect yourself now by pushing everything away?”
“I—um—maybe,“ I stutter, unable to form a word. Blimey, what is wrong with me!
“Let’s start with an easier question,” she says. “Mia, are you a lesbian?”
My cheeks flush, and I want to hide my face in my hands. Easier question?
She looks at me with drawn-up eyebrows. Judgement.
“I don’t think I feel comfortable talking about my—um—orientation or activities with someone I don’t know,” I say and fumble with my sleeve.
“Is that so?” she asks. She is so self-assured and confident, I am almost envious of her. “Maybe talking to a stranger could be very much…relieving.”
“Or it causes judgment and embarrassment,” I say.
“Do you believe I judge you?”
“Yes,” I blurt out.
“Well, I do not. I am actually quite curious. You assume, and I would bet none of what I truly think will have occurred to you.”
“I can see your reactions, of course, you judge.”
“So, tell me, what do I think of you?” she asks challengingly. “And just so you cannot tell I lie, I’ll write it on a piece of paper—“ Victoria gets up and walks over to a spindly table with an armchair next to it and gets the notepad lying on it.
I watch her write quite a lot, and I’d like to evaporate into non-existence at this point.
“Tell me what you believe I am thinking about you,” she says as she sits back down, folds the piece of paper and puts it on the table.
“Well,” I say awkwardly. “You think I am less of a person because I am a nobody, a wallflower. I’m basic and can’t live up to your standards.” With every word I say, I become smaller. “I’m also boring and messy, and have issues with my mother. I am too young and without self-worth, otherwise a simpleton.”
Victoria looks at me with an unreadable expression.
“Oh, dearest,” she says. “Who made you believe you to be all that?”
“I don’t—I didn’t say?—“
