Ten months later
The knuckles of my left hand ached as I washed the blood away. My split skin moved as I flexed my fingers, watching the dark, stained water swirl down the drain. My mother hovered in the doorway, her face pinched as she watched me. ‘You must remember to use your right hand, Thalia.’
‘I know, Mommy,’ I said, turning to stare up at her face. It had been almost a year since I’d made the silly mistake of telling the boy I didn’t know my secret.
I hadn’t made that mistake twice. Even though he hadn’t told on me, nobody else made me want to trust them as much as the boy who’d sat with me in the grass and hadn’t looked at me like I was a broken doll.
Mommy’s light hair gleamed in the overhead light as she stepped in to help me clean the sink basin. It was far easier for her to spot the red stains than it was for me to tell them apart from the dark spots of the marble.
Daddy hated when I used my left hand, because “proper girls” were right-handed. Proper girls didn’t stop to think about which hand they should grab their fork with at the dinner table. Even a moment of hesitation at the dinner table meant Daddy reached across and struck my left hand.
‘These will scar,’ Mommy said, grasping my hand in her grip and studying the wounds that never healed. Every strike, every lesson, reopened the injury until my left hand always hurt.
I thought that was the point. In his words, Daddy would beat me into being right-handed if he had to.
‘Miss Thalia, Calix Regas is asking after you,’ one of the housekeepers said as she poked her head into the open bathroom door. Her eyes narrowed in on the injury I tucked behind my back in shame, a scowl pinching her lips together. The shadows under her eyes grew worse by the day, as if she couldn’t stomach working for our family.
I knew it would only be a short while before she left.
They always did.
‘Who?’ I asked, turning my eyes to my mother, who set to straightening my dress. To studying the fabric and checking for bloodstains. It wouldn’t be the first time that I’d wiped my injury on my dress, but I did my best not to.
Daddy didn’t like it.
‘He’s the heir to one of the six families,’ my mother answered, fluffing up my wavy hair. She took my right hand in hers, tugging me out of the bathroom and pasting on that fast, easy smile that came so naturally to her. I envied her ability to smile even when she wasn’t happy. She said I’d learn in time.
We stepped into the dining room where my father stood beside the already cleared table, his eyes angry when he turned his attention to us. I swallowed back my nerves, letting my mother lead me to the boy standing beside him.
The same boy who’d sat in the field with me and kept my secret. The same one who I knew I shouldn’t trust, but something in his eyes made me wish I could.
‘Calix,’ my mother said as he leaned forward and kissed her cheek. He was just a boy, years older than me for sure, but he couldn’t have been old enough to be as tall as he already was.
‘Mrs. Karras,’ he said politely. He nodded to my father, who bit his cheek in displeasure but stepped over to my mother and took her hand. He guided her out of the room, leaving me alone with the boy when I knew it couldn’t be what my father wanted.
I wasn’t supposed to be alone with boys.
‘I brought you something,’ he said, squatting down so that he was my height. He held out a single light rose, and I took the stem in hand, noting that he’d trimmed the thorns off. I drew it to my nose, inhaling the uniquely sweet smell as I bit my lip.
‘Why are you here?’ I asked, wincing as I thought of how my father would scold me for being so rude. It wasn’t normal for a teenage boy to want to spend time with a child.
‘A little birdy told me that tomorrow is your birthday,’ he said, standing and reaching into his back pocket. The box was small enough that he had tucked it away, but curiosity got the best of me as I reached out to take it from him.
‘What is it?’ I asked as I pulled the lid off. Inside the heart-shaped box were six little plastic pockets, each with a rounded ball nestled inside.
Calix’s eyes narrowed as he watched me lift one into my hand. ‘It’s chocolate, Little One,’ he said, grinning at the flush that warmed my cheeks. Nobody ever called me anything aside from my name.
Not even my mother.
‘Haven’t you ever had chocolate?’ he asked, taking the one from my hand and holding it out for me to take a bite out of. I hesitated, staring at him for a moment before I leaned forward and bit into the soft chocolate. My eyes widened as the sweetness of it exploded over my tongue, forcing myself to chew politely even though I wanted to snatch the other half out of his hand.
‘No,’ I said softly before I leaned in to eat the other half. He chuckled as he drew his hand away and wiped the excess chocolate from his skin onto a napkin from the table. ‘It’s yummy.’
‘I’ll bring you more the next time I come to see you. Would you like that?’ he asked. I tilted my head to the side, still wondering what could possess him to want to spend time with me and why my father would allow it.
Even the girls at school didn’t want to be around me.
‘Okay,’ I said warily as I put the lid on the chocolates and delicately placed them on the table. Without knowing how long it would be before his next visit, I felt the need to make them last.
To save them for the bad days.
I drew the rose to my nose once more, inhaling to fill the quiet that claimed the room after my admission. He didn’t seem to know what to say, which I guessed was normal considering our age difference. He pushed to his feet, towering over me once more as he glanced to the door. ‘Do you like it?’ he asked, shrugging his shoulders as if he couldn’t decide why he cared.
‘It’s pretty, and it smells nice. Thank you,’ I said.
‘It’s pink,’ he answered, as if that meant anything to me. I’d never seen the color pink. There was nothing to connect to that word. ‘I thought it would be nice to have something different than all the narcissus flowers in the yard.’
‘I like the narcissus,’ I said defensively. ‘They’re mostly white. I don’t—’ I paused, sinking my teeth into the corner of my mouth on the inside.
‘You don’t what?’ he asked, leaning forward to tuck my hair behind my ear. His fingers hovered at the odd point at the tip, but where others made fun of me and called me names, he gave a slight smile.
As if maybe they were cute and not freakish.
‘I don’t feel like I’m missing out. Narcissus is pretty even though it’s just white. I don’t need to see color to love them,’ I said.
He froze solid, staring at the rose in my hand and gave me a kind smile. ‘I’ll bring you a white rose next time, λουλούδι μου,’ he said. ‘How does that sound?’
‘It sounds perfect,’ I said, smiling up at him. He nodded once, turning for the door without so much as a goodbye and leaving me to stare after him as he stepped out into the night.
Grabbing the box of chocolates off the table, I tucked it under my arm and made my way for the stairs to go up to my room. My father stepped out of my parents’ bedroom, eyeing the rose and the chocolates in my grip with distaste. A scowl transformed his face, the only warning before he reached forward and snatched the rose from my hand. Throwing it to the floor, he crushed it with his foot while I pursed my lips to keep from crying.
The chocolates were torn from my arm after and tossed to the side for the housekeepers to deal with. ‘Daddy!’ I protested finally, reaching out to them with my left hand. He smacked his hand down on top of mine, the slap echoing through the hallway as I cradled it to my chest and stared up at him.
‘Did you invite him here, girl?’ he grumbled.
‘No,’ I denied shaking my head furiously. He nodded once, moving toward the bedroom he shared with my mother. In the silence that followed, her pained whimpers trailed out through the open door.
‘You’d better hope I don’t discover you’re lying,’ he barked, making me jolt in place as I sniffled back my tears. Stepping into the bedroom, he closed the door to cut off the sound of my mother’s pain.
It was never enough.
