Taking a deep breath, Amara walked the edge of the dance floor at the mansion, heading towards the kitchen where her mother was. There was a party at the big house for Mr. Maroni’s 50th birthday, and while Amara wasn’t supposed to attend, she had needed something out of her routine.
The compound had started to suffocate her, to the point where she actually looked forward to her therapy sessions in the city. Yeah, she was going to therapy, had been going for a year. And she’d been homeschooling with the same tutors who came to teach Tristan, helping her with her education.
But she honestly didn’t care anymore.
She didn’t recognize herself a
nymore.
Things she once cared about seemed pointless to her. She knew the people around her cared for her, and after a few weeks, she’d realized she couldn’t hurt them as she hurt. So, she had put a smile on her face and listened to them talk, and lived on, pretending something very, very wrong, very ugly hadn’t taken root inside her.
She didn’t know how to push it out. She didn’t want to talk to people, didn’t like the sound of her own voice, didn’t like the look of her skin. She felt the scars under her feet every time she put on her shoes, felt the slight twinge in her back every time fabric slid across her flesh to cover it up. Worse, she saw the ugly, mottled skin on her wrists, vertical lines on the sides of her stomach, and that one surgical slit across her neck.
Her torture had been written on her skin and stained on her mind. And she hated who she was at that point – lost, adrift, clueless.
The ballet flats she wore as she made her way through the people reminded her she probably could never wear heels. Her sense of balance had been a little off since the incident. There wasn’t any physical reason for it, as her doctor had reminded her kindly. It was psychological. A lot of things were psychological with her.
God, she hated her brain some days for not shielding her, not blacking out the entire memory, and leaving her with a clean slate. That would’ve been better. Some days, anger at herself made her want to do something drastic. Some days, the knife on the kitchen counter looked friendly. Some days, all she wanted was to let go, but only knowing how much the people around her would hurt stopped her every time. She took hot showers to clean her skin but the filth stayed buried in, no matter how hard she scrubbed.
“Ma,” she called out to her mother, her new voice barely louder than a high whisper, and felt the eyes of the staff come to her. She ignored the awkward looks they gave her. Yeah, that was a new development – the staring, the whispers, the gossip. She had become a pariah. Boo-fucking-hoo.
Her mother looked up from where she was talking to two waiters, a smile on her face.
Amara swore her mother was a superhero at this point. She saved her, every single day, without even knowing. Just by giving her the same smile she used to give her before, loving her the same way she used to love her before. When everything around her had changed, her mother had been her constant through it all.
“I’m heading home,” she told her ma, feeling the strain in her throat as she spoke. The doctor had told her it would get better over time as her cords healed completely, but this would be her voice now.
At least, she’d never have to listen to her own screams again.
“I’ll walk you out,” the feminine voice beside her had her looking up at another new development in her life. Her half-sister, Nerea.
She had shown up one day out of the blue, with attitude for everyone else except Amara, and Amara really didn’t know how to deal with that. She already had too much on her plate without adding an older half-sibling she’d never known about.
And she wanted to be alone.
Giving Nerea a small smile, she shook her head. “It’s okay, enjoy the party.”
God, her voice.
“Are you sure?” Nerea asked, looking concerned. “I’d love to spend some time getting to connect with you.”
“Me too,” Amara reassured her. “But another time?”
Nerea nodded.
Leaving the staff to their duties attending to the party and her half-sister standing there, Amara walked out the back door, exiting into the lawns. Wrapping her scarf around her, even though it wasn’t cold, she looked up at the clear sky, watching the stars twinkle, and headed to the lake.
A few people milled outside, the noise from the party loud on the wind as Amara kept her head down and made her way down the hill.
This was another development over the year. While she still had her social graces, she didn’t like being around many people anymore. They always stared and not because she had grown up to become beautiful. She didn’t feel beautiful. She felt ugly and rotten on the inside. Where they just saw a tall girl of seventeen with wild black hair framing a face with pretty features and dark green eyes, she saw a girl who didn’t know who she was under that skin.
Who was she?
Coming to a stop by the lake, she looked up at the sky, hoping for an answer she knew wasn’t coming.
Someone came to stand by her side.
Amara turned her face, slightly surprised to see Tristan standing there, looking up at the stars too. This was another new development. For some reason, after the incident, he’d just become more present in her life. He never spoke to her, not much, but he was always there in the periphery, lingering, letting her know he was there.