Chapter 11 Samira
Samira
Tone’s attention was not loud.
It didn’t arrive with sharp instructions or hands that grabbed without warning. There were no sudden movements, no impatient sighs, no tone that suggested I was something inconvenient that needed managing.
Her care was so soft that at first I didn’t realize how closely she was watching me.
It took time before I noticed the small adjustments she made without ever drawing attention to them. The way her footsteps slowed whenever I moved through a room, matching my pace without announcing it. The way she spoke to me—never louder than necessary, never overly careful either. Just steady.
Soft, but not pitying.
There was a difference between softness and fragility, and Tone seemed to understand that instinctively.
Most people didn’t.
She always asked before she touched me.
Before her hand settled lightly on my elbow when we walked.
Before brushing a loose strand of hair from my face or placing a cup or a plate into my hands.
Before adjusting the blanket over my shoulders if I had fallen asleep in a chair.
Every time, she asked.
Even when the gesture was small.
Even when it would have been easier not to.
That mattered more than she probably realized.
Because there had been a time in my life when hands had appeared without warning. When touch had meant control, not comfort. When people took what they wanted and left me broken.
Tone never took.
She offered.
And somehow, that made all the difference.
One afternoon she sat across from me at the dining table.
I could hear the soft slide of something being set down on the table, followed by the soft rustle of packaging being opened.
Not ripped. Opened. Methodically.
Paper folded aside rather than discarded. The faint scrape of cardboard against wood.
She was unboxing something.
I tilted my head slightly in her direction, listening.
“Can I put something on your wrist?”
The question came gently, the way everything from Tone did.
Not I’m going to.
Can I?
I nodded after a moment.
Consent had become a language between us that didn’t require words from me.
She reached across the table and took my hand.
Slowly enough that if I wanted to pull away, I could have.
My wrist turned in her hands, palm facing upward first. Her fingers lingered there a moment, giving me time.
I didn’t move.
Her hands were warm. Steady.
The metal of whatever she was holding brushed against my skin a second later.
Cool at first. Smooth.
She fastened the band delicately around my wrist, adjusting it until it sat snugly but not tight.
“It’s a smartwatch,” Tone explained, her tone calm and practical. “I know you can’t see it, but I want you to feel it. Tell me if it’s uncomfortable.”
I rotated my wrist slowly.
The metal rested against my skin with a reassuring weight. Not heavy enough to bother me, but solid enough that I felt its presence immediately. Grounding. Real.
My fingers traced the edge of the watch face, memorizing the shape. The slight curve of the glass. The coolness of the metal band where it wrapped around my wrist.
“It tracks your heart rate,” Tone continued. “Your vitals too. It gives me information in real time.”
Her voice never carried urgency. Only certainty.
“So even if I’m not in the room,” she explained, “I’ll still know how you’re doing.”
Something inside my chest fluttered.
The strange tenderness of being cared for without being cornered by it.
“Our watches are synced,” she added. “So I’ll be able to see your readings whenever I need to.”
She paused for a second, like she was choosing her next words cautiously.
“And you’ll be able to reach me, too. If something’s wrong.”
Her hand briefly brushed over mine again.
“You won’t be alone with it.”
I lifted my wrist again.
Ran my fingers over the watch face one more time. Committing every detail to memory the way I had begun committing the entire world now that sight was gone.
Tone didn’t speak for a moment, like she was searching for the right words.
Then her voice shifted slightly—lighter.
“And for what it’s worth, it’s a really pretty rose gold colour.”
I smiled. Because I could hear the smile in her voice when she spoke. And somehow that made it easier to imagine.
Rose gold. Soft. Warm. I knew I would love it if I could see it.
“Keep it on. All the time,” she added gently. “Even when you sleep.”
Her fingers adjusted the band once more.
“It gives me peace of mind.”
Peace of mind.
The phrase settled in my chest like something fragile.
No one had ever spoken those words to me before.
Not without strings attached.
Not without expectation lurking beneath them like a hook waiting to be pulled.
Peace of mind had always belonged to someone else.
Someone who owned me.
Someone who demanded obedience in exchange for it.
But this felt different.
I reached for the tablet sitting beside me on the table.
I still couldn’t force words past my throat, but I opened my mouth anyway, forming the words and mouthing them slowly.
Two simple words.
Thank you.
Tone’s breath caught.
“You’re welcome,” she whispered.
Her hand closed gently around mine for a brief moment.
A single squeeze. And then she let go.
Tone never held on longer than necessary.
Never lingered in a way that made me feel trapped.
A chair shifted as she stood. Her footsteps moved away from the table, unhurried.
I remained where I was, my wrist resting against the smooth surface of the wood.
The watch sat cool against my skin. A steady presence. A small pulse of connection I didn’t have to see to believe in.
For most of my life, being watched had meant danger. Eyes that measured. Hands that took. But sitting there now, feeling the gentle weight of the watch against my wrist… Being watched didn’t feel like a trap anymore.
It felt like being held… even when no one was touching me at all.
I learned early that choices were not something meant for me.
They belonged to other people.
Older people. Louder people. People who moved through the world with the quiet certainty that it was theirs to arrange.
Their voices filled rooms. Their decisions closed doors.
Their footsteps echoed down hallways that I learned to move through hesitantly, softly, like a shadow trying not to be noticed.
My life was something that happened to me. Paths already cleared. Decisions already made. Doors already locked behind me before I even understood they had been there.
My mother had a word for everything she didn’t want to see.
She was tired. That was always the answer.
Tired when she stopped noticing the way I laughed less.
And when the laughter disappeared completely.
Tired when I started locking my bedroom door at night.
Tired when I stopped coming to the kitchen in the mornings.
Even when she heard footsteps in the hallway long after the house should have been asleep—and turned her face the other way.
Always tired.
As if exhaustion was enough to excuse the things happening inside the walls of our house, and the world simply stopped existing when she closed her eyes.
The first time my stepfather came into my room, I told myself it was a mistake. That he had opened the wrong door. That maybe he was drunk, or confused, or simply lost in the hallway between the kitchen and his bedroom.
I remember holding my breath so hard my chest hurt.
If I didn’t move… If I didn’t speak… If I just pretended I was still asleep… He would realize and leave. But he didn’t.
That was the night I learned something I would spend years trying to unlearn.
Silence doesn’t stop monsters. It only teaches them that you won’t scream.
I tried to tell my mother once.
The words came out broken and tangled, scratching past my throat.
She didn’t listen. Or maybe she did. Maybe she heard every word and decided not to understand them. Sometimes I still don’t know which option is worse.
After that, I stopped trying.
When Andrei turned fifteen and I was twelve, things changed.
Before that, the abuse had been something soundless. Something hidden behind closed doors and a heavy silence.
After that, it became something else. They called it an initiation. Not mine. His.
Into manhood. Adulthood. The kind of entitlement that men passed down to each other like a family heirloom.
As if something sacred was being handed from one generation to the next.
I remember hearing the word and not understanding what it meant. Not until he started coming into my room.
The door would open. Footsteps. Two sets.
Andrei was still awkward at first. Still unsure in the way boys are when they are pretending to be men.
My stepfather would stand nearby. Watching. Correcting. Guiding his son in what to say, how to move. What was expected. Of him. Of me.
I remember staring at the ceiling while it happened.
I memorized every crack in the plaster above my bed.
Every faint stain in the paint. I used to imagine that if I stared long enough, I might disappear into it.
That my body would fade into the ceiling the way smoke disappears into the air.
That I could leave everything behind and float somewhere else.
To another world. Somewhere no one knew my name.
But I was still there. Present. Awake to every horror happening around me. To me.
Everything was always about Andrei.
What Andrei needed. What Andrei deserved. What Andrei was becoming.
A man. A son. A legacy.
No one ever asked about the pieces of myself I was losing. No one noticed the way my world grew smaller every day.
Sometimes I wondered if my mother loved him more than she loved me. Or if loving me simply required more strength than she had left.
Either way, the result was the same.
No one came. No one stopped it. No one opened the door and said ‘enough’.
Eventually, I stopped waiting for someone to save me. Rescue belonged in stories. Not in houses like ours.
Later came my husband.
Chosen for me. Approved by everyone who mattered. A man with money and influence and plans that had already been made before I even arrived in his life. Another man who decided my future would fit neatly inside his expectations. Another door closing faintly behind me.
By then, I understood the rules of the world I lived in.
Women like me were not asked what they wanted. We were placed. Moved. Claimed.
I had never belonged to myself.
Not as a child or a girl. Not as a wife.
I survived the only way I knew how.
By enduring. By folding inward and making myself smaller and smaller until there was nothing left to take that I hadn’t already surrendered.
And when there was nothing left… they stopped looking at me like a person at all.
Just something that had always been there. Still. Waiting for the next decision someone else would make for me.