“Something would have dragged you here,” she leans on my shoulder. “Fate is cruel that way.”
“You tried to fight it.” I kiss the top of her head.
“Another failure on my growing list.” She hums.
I huff, but don’t disagree. Instead, I roll my neck to ease some of the tension in my body. The stabbing lesson worked a different kind of muscle that I’m not used to and now my body is mad at me for it.
Around us the platform eases a bit as a different train arrives and collects some of the people. It’s stifling down here. I don’t get how anyone can stand it. The noise and smells are enough to put me off this form of travel unless absolutely necessary.
“No, that’s definitely her.”
The whispered words might as well have been shouted. I glance back as subtly as I can. Behind us, taking up the whole fucking bench with their spread legs, are two men. They are finely dressed for a night out, their hairlines dotted with sweat and their eyes not capable of fully focusing.
“Take a picture.”
I freeze. I can’t stop my body from reacting to them, nor can I make myself stop the tears that form. My heart beats so loud it drowns out all the noise around me. There is a moment when Orthia lets go of my hand and it’s replaced with the ghost of Love. They reach through the ether the best they can and wrap themselves around me, but it isn’t enough I can’t move.
“Hey, Delphini, right? You wanna take pictures with us? My buddies have never been with a fat-”
My chin trembles as I try to stand strong, but I am crumbling into a million pieces. I don’t understand what’s wrong with me. Tears slip down my cheek as the rushing sound grows and grows until it sounds like I am underwater. Suddenly, my body dips and Love takes control of me.
Love moves me onto the train and I know Orthia is standing over me, watching me, guarding me. Her petite frame overwhelms the deafening noise of the train moving and people talking too loud. All I see is her. The way her body doesn’t even rock as the train jerks to a stop or sways into a turn. She is as steady as a lighthouse in a raging storm, but there is still so much ocean between us.
It’s not that I see her with my eyes, but it is that Love feeds that information to my brain. They hum in a low tone that vibrates through my soul until I can’t even think. My muscles loosen until I’m slumped into the plastic seat.
If Orthia is my lighthouse, then Love is a hot spring I’ve sunk into after a week on my feet.
They said I wouldn’t feel fear again, but I do. From all the little things like spiders to the crushing weight of disappointing everyone. They were all there lurking behind a performance, a mask that I was stronger than what happened to me. It all came to the surface when those two guys spoke to me, tried to take a picture of me.
Love’s phantom grip and sweeping control of me are welcome and soothing, thawing the ice that had frozen my muscles. I want to curl up under the warmth of Orthia and Love until this fear burns off of my skin. Until my tears are dry and there isn’t a trace of shame left on me.
There is no place for that emotion in my life, there wasn’t a place for it in my old life, but I can’t stop it. I knew about the photos. This isn’t the first time randoms have recognised me on the street, but something about this encounter hurts. There is a wrenching feeling in my chest that I can’t get a grip on. I’m not the kind of famous person who encounters paparazzi regularly. If we were invited to an event, our pictures would ultimately be taken, but I was scandal-free and respectable in the eyes of the public.
My whole life imploded when I called out that designer, and everything since then has been trying to crush me. Those pictures were the last straw. I avoided thinking about it because I reasoned it wasn’t worth the thought. I gave up that old life to be here. Why should I linger on something that is not part of the new Delphini brand?
But why am I boiling my life down to a brand? I am more than that, more than what I show people on social media. Those parts of me I keep secret that I knew would upset my family were hard kept. All my plans for the future; leaving Chicago behind to be withYiayia; finding a purpose for my life, becoming more than a brand and doing something good with my life.
Those parts of me don’t have to be secret, not any more.
Yet all that guilt and fear are still there. Like I’ve dived into the water and been refusing to surface because I’m scared of what will happen when I do. I’m scared to see the person I am when I am free to breathe and be myself.
Everything about my life has been held under a microscope, from my parents to head teachers at prep schools to my engagement to Miles. It is well documented with academic awards, sports trophies, and witty social media posts, so much information about me is public knowledge that I am not sure what part of me is performing for them and what part is real. I can’t look into the world of the past me and assess myself. I’m not under the microscope and I’m so lost now. There isn’t a thing about my new life that I’ve documented.
If it weren’t for those fucking creeps, I honestly would have been a ghost. No one cares that I’m not around any more. It’s liberating and terrifying. My mind can’t make itself up about how to feel as these thoughts roll through my head like old workout tapes until the frame freezes on that fact again.
Who is the real me?
Orthia may have blundered through trying to tell me something I already knew would be true, but she never said, “People are looking for you; they hope you’re okay.”
Because nobody cares now that I am not performing for them.
I don’t remember getting back to the ship. Love moves my legs, and Orthia holds onto my hand like she’s worried I’ll drift away. Which almost makes me cry. She tends to me like I am a wounded animal to be rescued, but she doesn’t really want me. There’s a physical pull between us, whether that is pure lust or some sort of soulmate magic I don’t know.
The warmth radiating up my arm into my heart from her light touch is overwhelming, dizzying. It reminds me of the first time I tried the sauna with myYiayia. She came to Chicago for Christmas only to complain so much about the blistering cold wind that Mom booked us a whole weekend spa. Little twelve-year-old Delphini sat on that wooden bench until she nearly passed out just to feel like she belonged.
Maybe it’s blood rushing to my head from laying down. Orthia tucks me into my bed and looks down at me. Her hand cups my cheek again like it did on Tuesday night and Love slips away from me. My muscles seize as a shiver so fierce racks down my spine. They were keeping me loose, but now I am so tense I ache all over again.
“Tomorrow, we shall train, plot your revenge, and your wounds will scar.”
