Chapter 3 #2
“Protect me?” I laugh, sharp and bitterly.
“I’ve been here for three years now, and look around!
Nothing horrible has happened. All your paranoia, all your looking over your shoulder—it’s wasted time.
I don’t think you can even stand to see me thriving.
To see me happy. So you’re ruining it. I won’t take you up on any of your transfer offers, so what now?
You’ll dredge up some deep, dark secret you could’ve shared a million times over and try to scare me into leaving with you? ”
She flinches as if I’ve struck her.
“There was a time I would’ve given anything to have this conversation with you.
To know what you were hiding and to have you talk to me.
Really talk to me. But that time’s gone.
You missed your chance.” My voice is shaking, my chest heaving, but I can’t stop.
“Now that I’m old enough to make my own choices, I’m choosing to be the opposite of you. ”
The silence that follows is suffocating. She takes a breath and tries again. “It’s because—”
“Because what?” I cut her off, heat rushing up my neck. “Because you are too afraid to put down roots in one place and see if I can flourish?”
“No, absolutely not. That’s never what I—”
“Nothing in my life has ever been normal. We stayed nowhere long enough for me to have friends that lasted, or traditions, or anything. You dragged us from place to place, new schools, new people, new languages—”
“Languages were never a challenge for you—”
“That’s not the point! It wasn’t supposed to be easy. It was supposed to be stable. I wasn’t supposed to have to start over every year like it was nothing. It shouldn’t have felt normal to keep erasing entire parts of my life.”
I suck in a ragged breath and barrel on, “Did you ever think about me for one second?” My voice cracks, rising. “Or was it always about YOU? Your feelings, your needs, your secrets?”
Her voice breaks, pleading. “Your safety was always my priority. That’s exactly why—”
“Oh, really?” I lean over the table, my hands trembling against the edge. “So worried about my safety that you altered my body before I was old enough to consent?”
“You do not understand—”
“You’re right,” I snap. “I don’t understand.
I don’t understand any of it because you’ve never trusted me enough.
Trusted me enough to know I could handle something hard.
Trusted me enough to give me a chance. Don’t you see?
Look at me now. I’m in college on a scholarship that I earned.
I actually have friends—real friends who know me and care for me.
And now that you’re no longer in control, what do you do?
Try to tear it all away from me. Again.”
The words come out sharp as glass, and I fling them at her. Rage overtakes me, scorching through my chest. Out of the corner of my eye, the orange glow of the streetlight outside flares brighter, pulsing in rhythm with my racing heart.
The room tilts again. My skin prickles hot, feverish, and my hands shake like I’ve skipped meals for days.
“Metra,” Mom whispers, panic edging her voice. “You need to sit down. You don’t look well.”
“I will not sit down.” My laugh tears out of me, harsh and brittle. “I can’t believe I’ve wasted my evening here. I could’ve been out with my friends, people who actually respect me. Or even at home alone. Anything would’ve been better than this.”
I sweep a hand around the apartment, my voice climbing. “Better than this dank old apartment with its ragged, ancient carpet, and its hard plaster walls, and—” My chest heaves, the insults tumbling out faster than I could stop them. What am I even saying?
“And this tattoo, this supposed tattoo that matches yours, what did you think? That it would make us matchy-matchy, bonded for life?” The words drip derision, my fingers crooking in the air like quotation marks.
“You’ve tried to keep me locked away. ‘Protected.’ But it didn’t work. I’m old enough now to choose my way. I have been for a while. And I’m done. I don’t care about your kooky secrets anymore.”
I shove my chair out of my way so hard it topples as I storm toward the door. The last thing I see is the stricken look on Mom’s face, her tattooed hand half-lifted like she might call me back. But she doesn’t, and I don’t look back.
I snatch my phone, grab my coat and bag, and yank the door open.
The slam rattles the frame, and the old brass “3” flips upside down with a final metallic clatter, like I’ve broken it for good.
Across the hall, Ms. Kosikas’s door creaks open, the chain stretched tight as she eases it just far enough to peek through.
Her eyes blink at me, wide with curiosity or maybe judgment—heat flares across my cheeks, not just from anger, but shame.
Everyone has probably heard. And I’ve just trashed the apartment out loud, the same building they all call home. Mortifying.
The fury burns hotter than the shame, but I can’t dwell on it. I tear down the old stairwell so fast it’s like gravity has released me. I couldn’t move quicker if I slid down the banister rail.
Out the front door, the cold air hits me like a slap, but I don’t even bother with my coat.
My skin already burns, feverish, flushed.
The walk to the station blurs by in jerky flashes: my boots striking pavement, people glancing sideways as I barrel past. My whole body screams, “Get out of my way.” A tiny part of me knows I look unhinged, but the louder part thinks I might pick them up and hurl them into the street if they slow me down.
Somewhere along the way, an unhoused man sitting against a wall lifts his head. His voice is hoarse but gentle: “Miss… do you need help?”
The words snag me mid-stride. If even he thinks I look like I am unraveling…
“No,” I mutter, fumbling in my pocket. “I’m fine. But—here.” I press a couple of bills into his hand and keep moving, faster. The kindness juxtaposed against my anger burns me alive.
By the time I board the train, my head is buzzing, my palms clammy. I slump into the hard seat and press my forehead against the cold glass of the window. The city lights streak into smears as the train picks up speed.
The entire conversation replays in my head, jagged and unfinished. I hadn’t let Mom get a word in edgewise. But how could I? How could she say it like it was nothing, that she’d marked me as a baby?
What reason could a sane person have to tattoo a newborn? There isn’t one. The truth settles cold in my chest as the train carries me away: my mom is officially not well, and I am going to have to figure out what the hell to do about it.