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𝐂𝐔𝐏𝐈𝐃 𝐃𝐎𝐄𝐒𝐍'𝐓 𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐄: 𝐌𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑.

𝐂𝐔𝐏𝐈𝐃!𝐄𝐃𝐃𝐈𝐄 𝐗 𝐅𝐄𝐌!𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐑

𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘: "You always "floated" from person to person, like a spectral ghost, passing right through them, invisible. You were always there, but never with them. Always close enough to listen, but never close enough to matter."

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: This chapter contains themes of child abuse (verbal, emotional, and physical), parental neglect, attempted abortion (and description of it), self-harm, suicidal ideation, and severe psychological trauma, parental loss, grief, child trauma, sexual assault, statutory rape, grooming, emotional abuse, betrayal, trauma.

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓: 4,5K

𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑'𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄: This was definitely one of the chapters I enjoyed writing the most; I think you can tell that, as a melancholic person, I love tragedies haha. The taglist is open, leave a comment if you want to be added.

𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄'𝐒 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 𝐌𝐎𝐎𝐃𝐁𝐎𝐀𝐑𝐃 𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄'𝐒 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓

I am punished by love

— Ethel Cain, Punish.

From the moment you were born, it was clear that you weren't special, and the people around you made sure you knew it. As your mother once said: "I'll always be here to remind you of the insignificant mistake that you are."

From before your birth, your mother made it clear that she was unhappy about getting pregnant so early — even though she was already in her thirties — and about ruining the beautiful body she had worked so hard to maintain. This made her angry, and she quit her job as a receptionist at one of the world's largest beauty magazines to dedicate herself to caring for and raising you. She never wanted to get pregnant, but during the pregnancy, she had gotten used to the idea of having a companion. Until the fateful day she had the ultrasound to find out the sex of the baby she was carrying. A little girl, and she hated you from that moment on.

She didn't want a girl, she wanted a boy. A boy who would grow into a strong man and love her above all else, even his partner, and finally she would have something to be proud of and mold to perfection. But a girl… A girl would drain all her beauty until the day of delivery, would have all the looks and smiles directed at her from birth, she would compete with her own mother's beauty and would make a point of stealing everything from her: your father would have another woman to give attention and love to. She couldn't let that happen. You hadn't even been born yet and had already become her greatest enemy.

Your father never knew, but she tried to abort you in many ways after that day. She drank tea made from every abortifacient herb she could find: rue, mugwort, cinnamon, boldo, cloves, and many others you didn't even know existed.

Then she tried with doses of alcohol, vodka one day, whiskey the next, and on another day it was a new mixture. She even tried drinking cleaning products, and when that didn't work, she poured them on the bathroom floor and locked herself inside. A neighbor smelled the chemicals and called an ambulance.

She said she was only trying to clean the bathroom.

And finally came the medication that was used in clandestine abortions and on fetuses much younger than yours.

Cytotec.

It didn't work, it was as if she had taken sugar pills that disappeared in her body without leaving a trace.

You were born perfectly healthy, to her surprise. And you quickly became your father's greatest pride, which further increased her hatred and envy towards you.

She always made a point of blaming you for her never having had the opportunity to be one of the magazine's models and for ruining her figure. The scorn she felt for you became more evident as the years went by, and what were once harsh words whispered behind your back while playing became powerful insults spat directly at you.

At first, you didn't understand why your mommy was so cruel to you, you loved her so much and even wanted to be like her when you grew up! Beautiful and elegant like her — you couldn't tell her that since she had gotten angry the last time you said you wanted to be beautiful like her and called you a deformity. But every day she made sure to remind you that you would never be like her.

“Bastard.” A single word spoken in a low voice, no louder than the soft whispers of the wind outside. A word that corroded like poison and burned like fire on the skin of the innocent creature who breathed deeply in the tranquility of her sleep in the small cradle in the corner of the dark room, forgotten by love. It was the first time she had looked at you since giving birth. In the hospital, she refused to hold you or breastfeed you, and yelled for the nurses to take you far away when your father left the room for the nursery.

“Curse.” An insult that slipped from her hateful tongue as she watched the fragile human being she had created, lying in a hospital bed after accidentally falling down the stairs and collapsing amidst the blood that pooled on the steps. As soon as your father left for work, she made you clean up the mess, caring little about the stitches in your head and disregarding the doctor's order that you should rest. The wood was expensive, she said, and you prayed that the stains wouldn't penetrate and permanently mark it, otherwise those stains would go somewhere else.

"I've never seen so much uselessness in one person. You think a grade is going to get you into college? You're pathetic. I bet you did something to get that grade." You had arrived home beaming, eager to share the news with her. The highest grade on a test that even the smartest student in the class hadn’t achieved, congratulated by classmates and teachers who made a point of showing pride in your accomplishment. The reminder of your insignificance in her eyes at home.

“I don't know what's worse: having you or admitting that I have you.” You deeply embarrassed her. A visit from one of her oldest friends and her daughter brought to the surface a monster you thought you would have more time before seeing again. The woman with the rigid and disproportionate body — courtesy of the many plastic surgeries performed in a short period of time — spewed words of pride and satisfaction while contorting her stretched and immobile face, unable to make expressions. “Carmen will be modeling for the local magazine…” The rest of the sentence was lost in the look of disgust and disappointment that your mother displayed. Carmen was beautiful, almost bordering on perfection: large, sparkling green eyes, silky red hair like something out of a shampoo commercial, pale and flawless skin, thin like a Russian model; she was also tall, but tall in a way that attracted positive attention and not tall in a way that made her an "aberration," as your mother liked to call you from time to time.

“Not even death would dare take something so broken and useless.” The last sentence she uttered before you left home at seventeen. Again lying in a hospital bed with catheters and monitors attached to you, almost without consciousness or awareness after all the pills you'd taken, the pain of your slit wrists and neck didn't even come close to what those words did to you. A living death, with your heart beating out of stubbornness. And your body, out of pity, still breathed.

That woman — Mother — taught you that love is just another word for pain.

In all the years you suffered at her hands, you never let your father even suspect what was happening at home when he wasn't there.

That man was your heart outside of your chest — something he always used to tell you with a smile like a thousand suns on his face. He was like a ray of sunshine that had transformed into a human, his light was so intense and contagious, always guiding you out of the darkness. And his embrace was your home, and it was the most perfect home you could imagine.

And the nicknames he gave you… They always came straight from his heart, in its purest form of love. They were your favorite part of him, the way he loved you so much that he always felt the need to vocalize and give meaning to that feeling. Each nickname arose in the most unexpected moments when his heart seemed to float inside his chest, in such a strong and intense way that he thought his chest would open up and the only thing to be seen and heard would be his heart beating to the rhythm of your name. He once said — in an almost inaudible whisper as you two lay gazing at the stars on the grass in the backyard — that his heart didn't belong to him anymore.

It lived inside your chest, beating whenever you smiled. And that every beat was a 'thank you for your' light.

"My heart beats for you, sweetheart. And if it ever stops, someone out there will keep it going for me. Because the world will send you another heartbeat to follow." He used to say it as if he knew some hidden secret that only he knew. His eyes carried words that would be spoken years later.

"Sunshine," that was the first thing he said when he held the small, newborn-shaped bundle for the first time in the hospital's maternity ward. You opened your eyes the moment he spoke to you, that familiar voice you had heard so much while in your mother's womb finally speaking directly to you. "Because you showed up and the whole world got warmer." His teary eyes witnessed your first smile.

"Bumblebee" came to his mind when he saw you sleeping for the first time. Such a small and fragile thing, yet so strong and so full of life. You brought back his will to live and became the reason for his existence. "Because you're small but full of life. And no matter how tiny you are, you can make the world bloom."

"Firefly." A bad day at work that drained his energy, a frigid wife who scolded him as soon as he stepped foot in the house. Your first word as you looked at him at the front door, still in your mother's arms: "dada." "Because you bring me light even in the darkest nights." He whispered, after holding you in his arms minutes later, with emotion tightening in his throat.

"Little star," you questioned him days earlier about the business trip he would have to take out of town for a few days. You cried, afraid he would forget the way home. "Don't worry, my little star. You know why? Because no matter how far you are, I'll always see your light, and that will guide me home."

If you had known, you would have prevented him from going, invented some illness so that he would give up the idea of going away.

“North Star,” you remembered one of the stories about navigators that he loved to tell, how they crossed the world in boats, guided only by the stars and constellations, and returned home using only the sky as a compass. “Sailors follow the North Star to find their way back home. And I’ll follow your light.”

If you could go back in time and prevent him from leaving the house that day… You would still have him.

North Star. The last nickname he gave you before he died in a car accident on the state border.

The doctors arrived too late, they said he died instantly in the collision, and even if they had arrived in time, it would have been useless. Useless. You hated that word when it was used to describe you, but hearing it used about your father caused a different kind of pain.

The firefighters pulled his body from the wreckage that was once a black BMW 745e and placed it in one of those black bags to be taken for an autopsy. Your father hated black, he loved red: “Red is the color of love, my little bee. It’s the color that will find its way back to you, no matter how far it has to fly.” Once again,he talked as if he knew a secret that you don't know.

The information and details of that day didn't matter to you, only one thing that the forensic doctor said to your mother as soon as he saw her. Something that — if you're being honest — you'd rather never have heard, because it only made the pain even more unbearable, like an incurable physical pain.

“We found this inside his suit pocket, it seemed to be something important to him. It was protected by several layers of bubble wrap.” He held out a transparent airtight bag with a silver object inside. It was as if he knew he would be leaving that night and made sure to keep the object safe. Oh, Dad…

A North Star necklace. The silver chain was made of small, delicate rings, the silver and lapis lazuli pendant was round and heavy, with the silver star in the middle of the mixture of blue and black. The night sky full of stars, and in the middle, the largest and brightest of them all—an embossed silver star, with eight sharp points and a cold gleam. It represented you, his North Star. The bezel surrounding it was braided, almost like silver roots guarding a treasure.

Sailors follow the North Star to find their way back home, but he never came back. Maybe the star didn’t shine enough to guide him through the dark.

“We also found this along with the necklace,” he held out an envelope with bloodstains on the white paper, a blue and gold wax seal closed the opening. “It’s addressed to ‘My North Star’.” Before you had a chance to recognize the embossed symbol on the seal, your mother snatched the letter from the doctor’s hands with barely contained rage. She looked with tear-filled eyes at you, who were holding the necklace and silently crying, her gaze carrying a fury and pain you had never seen before.

You never knew what was written in that letter. The last thing he ever wrote to you.

You wondered what he might have written: did he give you another nickname whose meaning you would never know? Did he explain why he wrapped that necklace with so much protection? Would he reveal the secret you knew he seemed to know?

“I was his wife, and he didn't even bring me a single gift, but for you,” she laughed bitterly as she looked disdainfully at the necklace — now around your neck. “For you… He would give you the world if he had it, and wouldn't think of me while doing it. That's how he was, always thinking of you first, from the very first day.” You never understood her hatred towards you, it was too intense to be merely the result of an early pregnancy. She hated you as if you were a monster who didn't deserve an ounce of love.

That day, your tears learned how to speak his name while you looked at the ashes of the burned letter your mother threw into the fireplace. Claws seemed to be making their way inside your chest, tearing you apart without bleeding and hurting you without leaving a trace. Watching that paper burn to ashes was like watching the memory of your father die, and you didn't know what hurt more: knowing that he was dead or knowing that his last act of love had died with him, consumed by the flames of hatred that should have been directed only at you, not at his memory. Never at him.

As if the pain of losing your heart outside of your chest wasn't enough, you couldn't even say goodbye to him. Repressed and trapped like a wild animal, she locked you in the house so you couldn't go to the funeral, and that was worse than his death itself. Not seeing him one last time, not being able to say you loved him one last time. Not feeling his love one last time before he was buried six feet under and you were left only with memories and longing. You’re left with the ghost of a love that death refused to return.

"You don't get to see him. You had all of him while he lived, leave me what's left." You begged on your knees, cried until had no voice and until your knees bled.

And she just stared at you as if you were an insect she had tried to crush several times but it never died, her cruelty reached a new level that day. She knew that if you went to the funeral, everyone would pay attention to you and not to her. For the first time since you were born, she would have everyone's attention, even if it was at the expense of your father's corpse.

"You stole his heart the day you were born, and now you want his goodbye too? You had his light, so let me have his silence." She didn't want his silence, she wanted the condolences of the guests, the comforting hugs, and above all: she needed the world to see only her pain, and act as if you were absolutely nothing. The funeral is hers, not yours. Her sorrow must be the only one that matters.

That day, something died inside you. That day didn't just take him — it took you too, and you never found your way back home.

That man — Father — taught you that love was something you could see in someone’s eyes, not hear in their words. He said that one day, you’d meet someone whose gaze felt like home.

Things weren't much different in other aspects of your life.

You were always the least favorite friend, whether in a trio or a quartet, always forgotten with the excuse that "it was last minute, we thought you wouldn't accept and that's why we didn't invite you" or "you don't even like that, that's why we didn't invite you." But you were always there for whoever needed you, a shoulder to cry on, a willing ear to listen, arms ready to embrace their problems and let them consume you. But nobody wanted to be there for you, not even you wanted to be there for yourself. Everyone left, and you followed, abandoning yourself like it was the only way to feel less alone.

In psychology, there's a term for this: "floating friend," something that seemed perfect for the situation.

You always "floated" from person to person, like a spectral ghost, passing right through them, invisible. You were always there, but never with them. Always close enough to listen, but never close enough to matter.

Always the last one to leave the room alone because nobody waited for you, the one who walked behind the group on the sidewalk because there was no space alongside the others, the one who did the schoolwork alone because there was no more room in the group – it was as if people only befriended you to feel even better about themselves. A kind of charity, and in return they received your "services" without having to be accountable. They liked standing next to you, not because they saw you, but because you made them look better.

You hated how people treated you, but you hated being alone even more, so you endured all the humiliations and provocations disguised as jokes. You taught yourself to smile through the pain, because pretending to belong was the only way to stop the world from noticing you didn't.

Romantic relationships were even worse. Always the second option, good enough to heal, but never good enough to stay.

The boys would seek you out when they couldn't find anyone better, when they were rejected and needed an ego boost. Always in secret, you never went out with anyone during the day, too ashamed to admit to the world that they were with you. You learned that some people only wanted you in the dark, where no one has to admit you exist.

In the shadows, that's where everything happened, false promises whispered in moments of pleasure, deceitful caresses and misleading glances. While the girls excitedly talked about their first time, you felt ashamed of how yours had been. While they spoke of love, you only remembered the silence, the kind that comes when someone takes without asking.

You told yourself it didn’t matter and that maybe that’s what love looked like. But deep down, you knew love shouldn’t have felt like disappearing.

In the shadows, inside the car of a guy whose name you barely remembered but whose body you remembered all too well, it was cold and dark while it was happening, it was quick and awful. You felt more empty when he was inside you than when he put his pants back on and barely looked in your direction and said he would take you home. He never called or bothered to do so. A week later he was parading around town with the mayor's daughter hanging on his arm.

It didn't stop there, it was only the beginning; every touch, every gesture, only reminded you that the emptiness came from within, and nothing outside of yourself could fill it.

After him came another boy, blond hair and green eyes: he was on the football team, a freshman looking for something easy. It happened in the boys' locker room after classes had ended for the day; he pressed your face against the wall so he wouldn't have to look at you and took what he wanted. He called out another girl's name as he emptied himself onto your back. The next day, he announced he was dating one of the cheerleaders who had just joined the squad.

And then the last guy before you graduated: Professor James, a young adult, every girl's dream at school and the newest rich guy in town. It started with prolonged glances in his classes, not-so-accidental touches when he handed back your test or answered one of your questions. Then came the comments: "you seem mature for your age" or "of the girls your age, you're my favorite." It happened at the town motel; it was strange. He was rough, asked for strange things you weren't used to but you did them anyway to please him, called you by strange names that didn't fit a sexual situation. He said he wanted to see you again next week, and you, craving attention, accepted. Months after graduation, James was arrested for having sexual relations with two fifteen- and sixteen-year-old students.

After graduation, you met Jason. You studied at the same college; he was sweet and kind to you, asked you out, and bought you coffee. You met a few times during the semester, but only for friendly outings. He was a gentleman, and soon you fell in love for the first time in your life. The relationship was wonderful for the first few months, but then came the suspicions: a different perfume on his clothes, a bruise on his chest that wasn't there the last time you saw him, one of his ex-girlfriends tried to contact you and he brushed it off, "she's crazy, she hates me because I found out things about her and decided to break up." Days later, you caught him having sex in your shared bed with one of the girls from college that he criticized so much: "she's so vulgar, it's no wonder she can never get a boyfriend," "I would never let you go out dressed like that, she looks like a prostitute." You should have known, something always happens. You kept wondering if it was your fault for mistaking attention for care.

Studies and work were the only things you could be proud of, always the top student with perfect grades and performance, you landed a job at one of the best book publishers in the world: editor-in-chief, a position far beyond what was expected for someone your age.

When the envelope with the results arrived, you couldn't even feel happiness, only relief at having completed another task. It wasn't an achievement to be celebrated, but an obligation to be crossed off your list.

Even after all these years, that phrase spoken by your mother still haunted you.

"I've never seen so much uselessness in one body. Do you think one good grade is going to get you into college? You're pathetic, I bet you did something to get that grade."

Even though you tried to compensate for your failed relationships with studies and work, you still didn't feel happy. It was as if there was a tiny hole in your chest that, no matter how much you tried to fill it with bigger things, it always reopened, as if you needed something small and specific to complete you.

Today marks ten years since your best friend and heart outside your chest passed away. You were now twenty-one, a complete woman—well, not quite. Ten years since you felt the truest and purest love that ever existed, the comfort of the arms of the most wonderful person who ever walked this earth. The melancholy you felt that day was not unfounded.

Sitting on the blue sofa in your apartment that night, trying to read a book in which the words sounded like arabesques in an unknown language, even though you knew every letter and expression on the page you had been staring at for more than ten minutes, you thought.

You thought about how happiness seemed to hide in dark corners in your presence, how people seemed to take pleasure in reducing you to a mere ghost who followed orders, to an empty shell that only served to comfort others when they had no better option and had to settle for anything.

Sadness consumed you completely, causing a physical pain in your soul that was impossible to heal.

A sudden warmth shot through your heart as if it had turned into a hot ember, making you drop the book you were reading and look towards where you swore you had seen something like a red specter. The pain disappeared as suddenly as it appeared, but it left a strange— yet very familiar — feeling lodged in your chest. Warm, soft, almost like…

No. That feeling is long gone. And it took with it the only person who could make you feel that way.

You sighed deeply in — relief? Longing? Who knows… — and picked up your book again and once more tried to read, until you were interrupted by a familiar voice that seemed to speak directly into your mind.

“My heartbeat for you, my North Star, and if it ever fell silent, the world would send you another heartbeat to follow.”

You didn't remember ever hearing your father say that, perhaps you accidentally forgot, and the melancholy of the day brought it back to the surface. Yes, that was it.

The rest of the night passed in a blur; you drank a few glasses of wine to try and drown your sorrow and extinguish the faint flame that remained in your chest, you looked up at the sky and searched for that special star and smiled as you wished your father goodnight, wherever he may be.

Your bed was cold when you lay down in it, but for some reason, you didn't feel cold. Something warm inside you refused to be extinguished and give way to the cold this time.

While you were sleeping, you dreamed of a mysterious young man with long, brown hair, laughing as he ran through a green field full of flowers near the sea. The mysterious young man had red wings.

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