They arrived at the foot of the bed and sat down, Sophia leaning on the bedpost and the maid demurely sat on the bed staring down at her hands clasped into her thighs.
“Can I know your name?” Sophia asked, pushing herself up from the post to peer at her, her head cocked to the side.
She couldn’t start a conversation without knowing her name.
If she was able to get only her name today before getting her to open up about why and how she found herself here would be enough for the day.
“Gracia” the maid said blushing and Sophia eyes twinkled with happiness, she might be older than her from their appearance but she was no older than her with anything.
She was a kid herself, twenty wasn’t a number to a girl who lost her mother at an age where she needed her the most.
Earning her to grow up so fast even with her father by her side treating her like a princess but we all knew no matter what a father does, you would still miss that midnight cuddling with your mom and that girl talk and outing.
So many things her friends said about their mothers and them doing that made her jealous and almost fought one day with one of them.
That was when the isolation began, she hated people that had mothers and her father was not always around to go out with her.
The nanny was scared to act like even an aunty before a mother figure to ever have a girls day out with her.
The soldiers’ her father set her up with were more like a guard than a friend or even wanted to share any familiar relationship with her.
She was alone.
Starved(literally) and left with herself, she wondered what it would be like to have siblings to share her pain, stories about school and girls that were jealous of her and the ones she envied about having mothers.
A brother who would fight for her when boys started snapping pictures under her skirt and she didn’t want to complain to her father due to trying to be a good big girl.
A sister who would help push the girls in the toilet and hallways that dragged and pulled her bag and hair after learning about her father and vaguely what he did for business doubtful they heard it from their parents.
She wished her father remarried and she could have a mom again and maybe a sibling but he never did remarry.
He was still in love with her mom.
However she’d found someone whom she could make a friend out of.
“That’s a beautiful name” Sophia pressed her palm to her chest “I told you my name was Sophia and your name is Gracia”
Gracia hummed bouncing on the bed, exhilaration lighting up her face like a bulb and Sophia immediately knew how bubbly she was before whatever tragedy had occurred in her life but she was here.
Here to change the little she could in her and that would start with getting to know her before probing into her personal life.
“How old are you? I’m twenty and you are?”
A pause followed and Sophia rushed to say “it’s okay if you don’t want to tell me. It’s okay. I don’t mind, we could save that for later”
Gracia shook her head, twisting her fingers in between her thighs and dress, her eyes brimming with water and Sophia edged closer to her knowing this was going to be a breakdown of some sort.
She slipped her fingers into Gracia’s tightening ones, freeing them “it’s fine. You don’t have to—”
“No, those people made a mess of me. Made me do sick things, I forgot my own age. I forgot my name. My voice. Me being a person. A human being and not a thing like they’d taught me into. I thought I didn’t exist…I…I—”
“Shhh it’s okay” Sophia rubbed her back as sobs racked through her, her body quivering and Sophia pulled her in closer to her body, hugging her.
“Don’t think about it. They are all gone now”
Gracia raised her head up and stared blankly into the room, her lips moving nimbly “I thought I was dead. Find the original chapter at g.com.
I died.
I know I died but then he came.
He came and rescued me.
He saved me.
He took me out of their hands and killed them.
Slashed their throat and I was so happy” the last part was gritted out as she turned to face Sophia an eerie smile spilling across her face “I’ve never been happy about someone dying before but I was so happy they died” her face coming back to the somber sad state and Sophia dragged her into her an embrace.
“Am I bad?” Her voice hitched as tears fell down to Sophia’s neck.
“I couldn’t kill them and he did and am so happy. Who am I?” More tears touched her neck and Sophia closed her eyes mourning for the little girl that was lost after the death of her mother.
The girl she was trying to coddle though that meant nothing since the deed had already been done.
She was trying to get past that.
It was in the past but the pain and anguish and scars are never in the past.
The pain behind that lingering scar would never leave your body, no matter how you think you might have pulled yourself out from that pit.
It was always there.
You just have to move on from the pain but never over the pain.
Sophia batted her lashes, trying to will the tears not to drop but they did, rolling down her cheeks and she hiccuped.
The pain from the death of her father springing free and she drew Gracia in as they wept for their lost ones and a part of them that can never be brought back or relived.