Chapter 4 #2
Void of any shame, I ate seven pomegranates as my appetizer and then devoured six pork ribs and a portion of oven-roasted potatoes with caramelized onions.
It was unquestionably the best meal of my life.
Sure, it lacked significance, considering I wasn’t one with much culinary experience but the only thing I could compare the feast with was the water soup with grown carrots from our garden.
“Do you want my portion as well?” Theo said after he had been awfully quiet the entire time. His cheeks flared beneath his round glasses, as if he was almost ashamed of the question that rolled past his tongue.
I paused, and only then did I become aware of the discomfort—my stomach heavy as if full of stones.
I placed the fork down, deciding I’d had enough, even though questions lingered in the back of my mind.
What if this was my last day alive? Was I not deserving of a good meal?
What if I never got another chance to eat something as delicious as this?
I shoved the irritating thoughts from my mind. Negative thoughts attracted negative outcomes.
“How’s your nose? I thought h-he broke it.”
Remembering what 226688 told me, I replied: “Thankfully he did not. It’s sore, but I think it will pass in a couple of days.”
“That’s good,” he answered as the conversation picked up around us. “Zachary thinks he’s going to come after you during the trials.”
I frowned. “Who?”
With a friendly grin, Theo started rattling off the names, his finger moving to indicate each person.
A grimace touched his features as he gestured toward the people eating breakfast at Draven’s table ahead of us: Hunter, Riley (the woman with the blue hair), and the short-haired woman whose name he had yet to learn.
Beside me sat Verena, the woman I’d seen talking to herself the other day, along with Georgie, Yvonne, and the twins—Zachary and Nicolas.
“So,” Zachary began, wiping the corner of his lips with his wrist as he chewed on the last bit of food inside his mouth. “Since this might prove to be the last day of our lives—for some—I have a suggestion.”
His twin, Nicolas, buried a hand in his silver hair and shook his head. Zachary huffed at his sibling.
They looked as if winter had a human form—hair, brows, and eyes all white, skin pale as morning frost. Yet, their expressions carried the warmth of spring pushing through snow.
Zachary continued. “Why don’t we tell each other about our lives back at home and what we were doing before all of this? Who we were?”
Yvonne’s tattooed arm tightened across her girlfriend’s shoulders. “What’s the point? Like you said, we might die tomorrow for all we know.”
“You have a point, but I’d like to remember all of you as more than just some faces that had names.” He passed an expectant glance around the group, looking for someone who agreed. Zachary cleared his throat. “All right, I’ll go first.”
“Here he goes,” was all Nicolas said in a whisper.
“Long story short, we were the result of an affair our mother had, and when her husband found out, he kicked us out. Luckily, our father took us into his massive house and gave us a room, but that didn’t mean he was fond of us.
And I don’t know if it runs in the family or not,” he said as he forced a laugh.
“But I left my homeschooling teacher pregnant.”
“And she has a husband. Don’t leave that part out, you moron.” Nicolas gave him a flick on the forehead.
“He was presumed to be dead. How could I have known he was alive, when even his wife didn’t know?” He pursed his lips, his tone lacking its previous amusement. “Anyway, he showed up at my door one day, punched me in the face, gave me a big fat bruise and told me to leave his wife alone.”
“Did you? Leave her alone?” Georgie, Yvonne’s girlfriend, asked, her voice small.
Zachary’s jaw twitched. He shook his head. “No, I didn’t. I loved her,” he confessed, his fists tightening on the table.
“What happened?” Theo said from beside me.
“I wanted to be with her and with my child—even though God knew I wasn’t ready for a kid. I was eighteen back then. But she eventually filed a restraining order and fled the country. I have no idea where they are.”
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, my gaze tracing the delicate constellation of her freckles. Sensing my unmistakable attention, Verena turned her head to meet my eyes. She smiled. “What’s your story?”
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’t change 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 life as I 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, would never have 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 no use—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.