Inspired by Adelaide Anne Procter, “The Ghost in the Picture Room”

Lucia

“No… That’s not me.”

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A week later, the honeyed aroma of figs from Sofia’s kitchen slipped into Lucia’s memory. The warmth she’d felt only sharpened the coldness waiting for her at home. She wanted more, needed more, but she’d learned the hard way that big leaps could break her. Smaller steps might carry her further.

She looked up through the library hush and found Matteo. He sat across from her, brows drawn in quiet focus, a finger curled under the page to hold his place. When he caught her looking at him, the corners of his mouth lifted into a smile. Breathing him in, vanilla and sandalwood, pinched something low in her chest in a way she hated.

He thumbed the Catherine de Palma medal his grandmother had given him. Lucia had noticed him playing with it whenever doubt crept in. He raked his hair back. “Leaving early today?”

“Yes. An appointment at Merle Norman, a cosmetic store.” Within a week of plaiting her hair and covering the spots, the hallway glances changed. No more lingering stares, just quick looks that moved on. Smirks turned into small nods and polite smiles. Time for another small step.

“I can drive you,” he offered, his grin widening. “You can skip hours on the bus.”

“Really?” Accepting his kindness meant owing him something, and debts were dangerous things.

“My pleasure.”

Stores on that side of town made her heart race. Salespeople stalked her through the aisles, as if theft were inevitable. Her hands left damp prints on anything she touched. She didn’t want to rely on him, but his blond hair and blue eyes would turn suspicion into polite smiles.

On the drive to College Grove Mall, he glanced over at her. “I’m meeting with Carol tomorrow. I’m looking forward to being done.”

Carol’s name hit low in Lucia’s stomach, tight and unwelcome. Her foot began bouncing against the floorboards, a jackhammer she couldn’t stop, driven by the fear of being replaced.

“If she doesn’t end it this time, I will.” He said with a determined look on his face. “We both need to move on. It’s not fair to any of us.” He didn’t explain, as if she should already know.

And she did. Another girl was waiting her turn. Maybe the next one wouldn’t want him hanging around with Lucia. Heat flared in her throat and remained there as he pulled the car into the mall’s parking lot.

He saw too clearly, and the barrio saw everything else. Before she turned to look at him, she put on a smile.

“What do you think?” She turned so he could see the foundation on her skin. Neither woman mentioned the bruise on her cheek. A small knot in her shoulder eased by a fraction.

“It matches your skin tone,” he said, his eyes fixed only on her.

He was every bit the fairy-tale prince, lighting every corner with his bright smiles and effortless grace. Princesses shoved each other to claim him: Snow White was a scrapper; Cinderella and Aurora outmatched. A smile tugged at the edge of her mouth.

She hoped her first real boyfriend would be someone she could breathe around. Not a fairy tale. More of Roger and Anita. Just home.

The women returned to the cotton pads, brushes, and compacts on their tray. Sharp pink lips. Eye shadow rimmed in electric blue. Another mask layered on: dutiful granddaughter. Good minority. Catholic girl. Now 80s girl.

The makeup sat heavy on her skin, as if her pores couldn’t breathe. She wanted to look like herself, not to add another mask. Being who people wanted would protect her, but she wanted more than safety. She wanted to figure out who she wanted to be. In the mirror, her eyes turned flat and downcast.

The women stepped back. One turned to him. “Doesn’t she look beautiful?”

What if he agreed? Her mind jumped to the worst place, fearing she might need a new mask to please him. Her breath thinned.

“No,” she told the woman, and then, louder. “That’s not me.” The words tasted of stupidity because defiance never ended well for her.

“She is looking for something different.” The quiet certainty in his support eased the burn low in her stomach. Before she knew she’d been holding her breath, she exhaled.

“But she looks amazing!” one of the women protested.

He smiled sweetly. “Understated suits her better.” Her smile rose to meet his, feeling seen, not molded.

This look was hers. Delicate pink lips. Faint blush. Lightly lined eyes. His gaze stilled. Away from the barrio, being seen didn’t feel like vulnerability. It felt like possibility opening before her.

But then she remembered Abuela’s voice. La feita. Ugly. Her reflection in the mirror dimmed beneath Olivia’s shadow. Her mind clung to the old script, but something new was trying to take root.

Outside the store, Matteo spun her as they headed to his car. A soft laugh slipped out, heat rising to her cheeks.

She was ready to start taking up space in her world. The makeup and Dutch braid set her shoulders back. She could picture herself in a suit, lecturing at a university, rows of students turning to her. Something inside her cut loose. Gravity lost its hold. She could fly, and for just a heartbeat, she did.

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Beneatht the Weight of Water.

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“Affirmative action kids.”

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Ink hits paper in quick, controlled lines. Dates. Names. Terms already outlined in the syllabus. Her mind on her scholarship.

“Affirmative action kids.”

The words land behind her, not loud, not whispered either. Meant to be heard. Not meant to be answered.

She knows what they mean. No one has to tell her. In their mouths, the term assumes she cannot think.

Her grip on her pen tightens. She does not turn around. The line she is writing presses deeper into the page, the ink slightly darker where her hand bears down. She adjusts her fingers without lifting the pen. Control first.

“They can’t keep up.”

The rules shift. Now belonging requires proof. On command.

The professor keeps speaking. No one interrupts. The sentence dissolves into the lecture as if it belongs there. As if it is another term to be defined and moved past.

Her notes stay clean. Bullet points. Subpoints. She keeps her handwriting steady, even as the words behind her rearrange her place in the room.

“I bet she’s screwing Dr. Hayes.”

That one lands differently. Her stomach turns sharp, immediate, harder to contain. She writes down a phrase on the board, though she has already memorized it. Pressure travels from her fingers up her wrist. She underlines it. Twice.

So she writes. She does not look up. If she looks, they will know she heard them. If they saw her face, they would know their words landed. If they got to her, it becomes real.

Her body stays still, except for her hand. Stillness looks like focus. Focus passes as belonging. She leans into it.

Dr. Hayes calls her name.

For a second, her pen hovers above the page. Then she sets it down carefully, parallel to the margin. Not dropped. Placed. She answers.

Her voice comes out even. Measured. Without hesitation. She does not search for the answer. She delivers it. No filler.

He nods.

She picks up her pen again. The rhythm returns. Write. Listen. Anticipate. Write again.

Understanding is not enough. Her knowledge has to be visible. Immediate. Undeniable.

The work expands. Not because the material requires it. Because she does. If they think she cannot keep up, she will stay ahead.

Silence becomes structure. She does not argue with them. Pause would give them time to look at her. She cuts reactions before they reach her face. Lowers her breathing so her chest does not rise too quickly. Keeps her eyes on the page, not on the people speaking about her as if she is not in the room.

She builds something that cannot be taken apart easily. Competence layered over competence. The student who always knows the answer. The student who does not need help. She calls this discipline.

By the time class ends, her notes are complete. She closes the notebook and runs her hand over the cover once, flattening it, as if the pressure inside it can be contained that way.

She stands. Walks out without looking back. Her pace is even. Not fast enough to suggest escape. Not slow enough to invite conversation.

She does not question whether she belongs. She reorganizes what being there requires. More work. Less space. No error. No margin.

What have you done to keep from turning around?

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~Ian Maclaren

Lucia

The worst part wasn’t the pain but the fear they would see her bruise and use it as proof she never belonged there.

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In a crowded lecture hall, it was easy for Lucia to lose herself. Not so with only ten students sitting around the conference table in Historiography and Methods. She usually sat beside the professor.

On this day, she chose a seat near the door. She positioned herself so her curls would hide her face. The welt pulsed under her hair, dragging her thoughts away from the lecture. Her stomach tightened. The worst part wasn’t the pain but the fear they would see her bruise and use it as proof she never belonged there.

“Ugh,” a girl muttered, loud enough for Lucia to hear. “I can’t believe she’s back. I thought she’d flunk out. When are they going to learn? They don’t belong here.”

“Who are they?” someone asked, voice rising with curiosity.

“Affirmative action kids,” the first voice sneered. “They can’t keep up. It’s not fair to the students who actually earned their spot.”

Lucia’s grip on her pen tightened. Write. Focus. Work. Acid bubbled up her throat, swallowing the rhythm. Every word hit like another blow.

A rough scoff cut through the whispers. The professor glanced around, but as he turned back to the board, the first voice continued: “I bet she’s screwing Dr. Hayes for good grades.”

They always crossed the line, turning her work into something filthy because they wanted her to break. She felt the room tilt and fought the desire to get up and just run. Dr. Hayes called on her. Answering hurt, but silence would confirm what they already believed about her.

Their words said it all; every syllable shut her out, but a real future was worth any price. What was one more ulcer? Her family had already given her so many.

It wasn’t the first time someone had tried to hold her back. Her high school counselor had told her to give up on college and get a job because she would be pregnant before she turned eighteen anyway. While other students applied nationwide, she focused on schools she could reach by the city bus. The reality was that without a scholarship, she couldn’t attend. Her future hinged on numbers she couldn’t control.

Collwood State University offered her nothing. The University of Alcalá gave her a partial scholarship. Clairemont Community College was her fallback. But there was still one last possibility, a long shot.

When the thin envelope from the University of La Jolla arrived, she tossed it onto her desk. Thin envelopes were nothing more than polite rejections, another reminder that girls like her should know their place. When dreams died, they took pieces of you with them. She was done. Time to move on.

A few weeks later, a thick envelope from the university sat in her mailbox. Her heart skidded, hands trembling as she tore the seal. Her mind stalled. She couldn’t be reading it right. The first line of the letter blurred behind her tears. She blinked hard, reread it.

The University of La Jolla gave her a full scholarship. Work-study. Real. Unbelievable. Hers. It was everything she dreamed of: a prestigious faculty, a leading research institution, globally respected. She could finally see the future she wanted in the ink of the scholarship letter.

Johnny stopped in the doorway, frowning at her tearful smile. Joy was something he wasn’t used to seeing on her face. She held up the letter like Charlie clutching the golden ticket, except this time, she was the protagonist of the story.

She could almost cry at her naivety. Every time she let herself hope, something struck her down. It had been stupid to think that getting the scholarship was the hardest part. Now, for the first time, she wondered if it was all worth it.

The moment she stepped out of class, she could breathe again. The future, she promised herself, was more important than the bruises of the present. Most students grumbled about the sprawling campus, but she loved the long walks, each step carrying her closer to the independence she craved.

Then, she saw those icy blue eyes sweeping the crowd of students, drifting her way. The memory of his voice, shifting when he heard her crying, tore through her. If he reached her now, he would see too much. She walked fast, then faster, until she broke into a run.

The eight-story building loomed, cold concrete and glass, but inside, peace awaited. In the quiet stacks and dim corners, she could exist. Here, she felt untouchable, because there was no one to twist her words or her worth. Without judgment. No expectation. Surrounded by the scent of paper and the rustle of turning pages, her frayed nerves would give way to serenity as they always had. Books never flinched at her silence. They always welcomed her questions, her need to understand, her longing to belong.

On the sixth floor, she chose a carrel desk tucked deep in the stacks. After arranging her things, she curled beneath it. Book in hand, a memory rose unbidden, a hard truth she lived by. She whispered, “Any woman worth her weight in salt can do anything she needs to do.”

She blinked, slightly disoriented, as she realized that she had fallen asleep in the library again. Leaning into the silence, she wrapped herself in the familiar scent of old paper and ink. With a deep breath, she stretched and felt relaxed.

“Baby…” Baby? She must have misheard. No one called her that.

She shifted, and there was Matteo crouched beside her. The thought of his embrace rattled her. Although she feared his pity, she wanted him to reach for her, steady her again.

“Hey,” he said, brushing her curls away from her face. “Did you forget we were meeting?” Even after her confessions, his gaze held steady. This felt more intimate than his fingers gracing her face.

“I promised to take you to my sister’s house. She can help with your face,” he said, his smile unchanged.

“Oh, yes, I’m sorry. I forgot all about it. It was a rough morning. Anyway, I don’t need help. I’m fine.” The lie burned her throat on the way out.

“A promise is a promise.” He gave her a knowing smile, then lifted her up by the hand.

She flushed, embarrassed that she had gotten exactly what she had wished for.

Sofia, Matteo’s sister, let her calm blue eyes linger on her bruised cheek. With an easy smile, she showed them to the kitchen island. Shade by shade, she guided Lucia’s skin back to balance: green for red, peach for blue, and concealer to seal it. She was not used to a woman offering guidance instead of criticism, and the warmth of it enveloped her in a way that left her craving for more.

“Every girl can face the world on her terms with the right tools,” Sofia said. Her fingers were gentle, but Lucia flinched, the reflex automatic. “Let me teach you how to do a Dutch braid.”

“My hair is impossible.” Abuela’s voice echoed in her mind whenever she reached for hair products.

“Even the wildest hair doesn’t stand a chance against a tub of gel.” Her grin held an easy confidence. “Did you see the picture of my girls in the living room? Their hair is crazier than yours.”

In the photo, one had defined curls; the other, a tight ponytail. Their smiles, unburdened by guilt or fear, sparked a flicker of envy in her.

“How old are they?” Lucia guessed they were Matteo’s age.

“Eighteen and seventeen. My husband loves having girls.” She winked at her brother. “If he missed having a boy, we just borrowed Matteo from Mom.”

“I’m everyone’s favorite toy,” he said, grinning as he rummaged through Sofia’s fridge.

“Says the most loved kid in this hemisphere,” she retorted, shooting him a look. “Has he told you that he used to wear a cape everywhere until he turned seven?”

Arching her eyebrow, Lucia tried hard not to smile. “A cape? Superman?”

“Oh, no. Not a red cape. Black. It had to flow behind him. He even wore it to the Bolshoi Ballet performance of Spartacus. I still can’t believe mom let him do it.”

Matteo groaned without looking up, his head buried in Sofia’s freezer. “Revenge is coming.”

Unfazed, she smoothed gel through Lucia’s hair and gathered it tight. “I have photographic proof.”

“You wouldn’t,” he said as he sat on the countertop with a tub of vanilla ice cream, as though it were his rightful prize.

“I would,” she said with a sweet smile. “You were such a dramatic child. Even your tantrums had flair, and your exits were theatrical. You were made for the stage!”

Matteo’s smile froze, and for a breath, the corners of his mouth faltered. There was a wound there, still tender, one he had not shared. He caught Lucia’s surprised look and, too quickly, pulled a tragically comical expression. “Et tu, Brute?”

Sofia raised her hands in mock innocence. “I didn’t say a word.”

“Traitor,” he muttered, digging into the tub with a serving spoon. Sofia tucked a napkin into his collar; he didn’t blink.

“I still can’t believe mom let you run around New York City wearing that thing,” she said, shaking her head at the memory.

He groaned again. “I was dashing!”

“You were overly dramatic,” she corrected and laughed as she reached for a second spoon to steal a bite of his ice cream. “But we love you.”

Watching them smile at each other, Lucia glimpsed the ease of a family knitted by love. It felt foreign to her, yet not unwelcoming. Just… unfamiliar. Something that had been denied to her the night her parents died, a reminder that love like this was out of her reach.

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Beneath the Weight of Water.

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Her knees begin to give.

It is not dramatic. There is no cry, no reaching. Her body folds in on itself, small and contained, as if even collapse should take up as little space as possible. The movement is quiet. Easy to miss if you are not already watching her closely.

He is watching.

He sees the shift before she falls. The slight change in balance. The way her weight tilts forward, not enough to draw attention, but enough to matter. It registers in him immediately.

He does not move.

For a second, he stays where he is.

He has learned her boundaries. She avoids touch, even when she needs help. He knows this because he has been paying attention in ways that do not announce themselves. The distance between them has rules, and he has followed them.

If he reaches too quickly, he risks becoming one more person who decides for her. One more body that closes the space without asking. One more interruption she has no control over.

If he waits, she falls.

He lets the calculation run its full length.

His hand shifts, then stills. Not yet.

He watches her balance fail by degrees. The angle changes. Her weight does not recover.

He steps in only when the fall becomes certain.

The decision lands before he moves.

He catches her before she hits the asphalt.

The moment reads as clean. He prevents harm. He steadies her. From the outside, it looks like instinct finally took over.

It didn’t.

He chose to intervene.

That choice carries weight because it breaks something he has been maintaining with precision. He crosses the line he has been careful not to cross. Because he decides it is worth crossing.

He does not ask.

There is no time to negotiate. No way to pause again without consequence. The second he already took has closed that option.

He replaces her choice with his own.

He holds her up.

Her weight folds into him, and he absorbs it without hesitation now, as if the decision, once made, cannot be undone. The restraint disappears on contact. His arms tighten, not cautiously, not partially. Fully.

He stabilizes the moment as if that had always been the plan.

From a distance, it could pass for certainty.

The pause is the part that stays.

Because it leaves a question sitting just beneath the action, quiet but intact.

How long would he have waited if she had fallen faster?

How do you decide when to step in, and when to let someone fall?

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~Fyodor Dostoevsky

Matteo

They just made him miss her.

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As Matteo cradled Lucia in his arms, he found it unbelievable that he hadn’t seen he had fallen for her. The warmth of her breath on his neck pulled the past into sharp focus.

He should have seen it in the way he noticed little things about her: the way her curls fell forward as she read, head tilted slightly, a nail between her lips. Whenever she looked up and caught him watching her, something in him faltered. Her dark brown eyes, unblinking, cut through him as if she saw what he’d been trained to conceal.

It was nothing, he told himself, a play of light and timing. But these moments stayed with him. The way she seemed both fragile and unbreakable, a paradox that haunted him. By the end of their freshman year, he enjoyed sitting with her in a corner of the library surrounded by dusty books. He pushed aside the pull of her because he had a girlfriend, one his family claimed to love. A single rule carried him through every hard choice: stay in control or watch his family take the reins again.

A long summer stretched before him. He left for Mallorca at the end of May. Surfing, traveling, even among friends, he couldn’t stop thinking of Lucia sitting at the library, dust motes dancing in the light hitting her face. The growing ache of missing her threaded through everything he did.

Only now did he understand why he had written so many letters from the other side of the world. He began writing to her at the school bookstore because he didn’t even have her home address. His letters were restless, full of parties, cliffs, and distant waves. He told himself the letters were harmless, just summer chatter, but he knew it was more.

Then, after Côte d’Azur, he reeled at the stack of letters waiting for him in Mallorca. Without thinking, he had written the villa as his return address. Laughing at himself, he opened the letters. She didn’t write about her life; she asked questions about the places he’d been and the books he read. Her restraint made him wonder what she was holding back. The way she sometimes flinched as she sat down, the shadows marking her skin, returned to him now.

The letters stayed with him, but so did his family obligations. Mamà gran, his grandmother, leaned forward. “Your girlfriend is an interesting young woman.”

Matteo shrugged, hating the formal dining room when it was just the three of them, but his grandparents insisted. Padrí, his grandfather, had Matteo seated to his right, positioned like heir apparent, as if the title belonged to him rather than his mother.

“Is it customary for a young woman like her to read so many books?”

His blue eyes narrowed, cold and cutting. She wasn’t speaking of Carol, Mamà gran had read Lucia’s correspondence. The breach hit him with unwelcome clarity. For a moment, control slipped, and he crumpled the napkin in his hands.

“Curious.” Her tone was cool and dismissive. “How does one move from Crime and Punishment to Princess Daisy in scarcely a week?”

“She just does.” His voice a blade drawn clean, he added, “Simple as that.” Her judgement of Lucia was also a judgement of him, and it felt like a hand closing around his throat.

Padrí’s eyebrow lifted, a quiet but unmistakable warning. Everyone noticed the bitter tone of his voice, even if they all pretended that years of being treated like a child hadn’t shaped it.

Matteo checked himself. He smiled. It was a polite, forced thing. For the sake of family peace, he had spent the day pretending to love the Balearic and Mediterranean Seas, following the script they kept writing for him.

“Lucia is not my girlfriend.” Saying it out loud sharpened the bitterness of wanting her. He missed the Pacific. But he missed Lucia most. Fuck. For all he knew, she was dating someone in the barrio. He would find out.

“If you can’t manage a little girl, how will you handle a woman?” Padrí’s expectation, complete mastery, absolute control, pressed down on him.

Matteo’s jaw tightened, the only sign of tension as he pulled himself back under control. “I’ve never been interested in little girls.”

Padrí’s smile thinned. He’d lived under his grandfather’s expectations all of his life, even the smallest action a lesson that control was the only acceptable form of manhood. Matteo knew he’d pay for his sidestep, but his thoughts kept returning to Lucia.

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Disappearing can look responsible.

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She plunges her hands under cold suds to hide the tremor.

The gesture looks practical. Plates wait. Soap foams. The faucet runs. Anyone watching would see a girl finishing a chore. The movement is efficient, almost brisk, as if speed alone could justify urgency in her wrists. She does not look at her hands while they shake. She submerges them.

Cold tightens the skin. It steals sensation first, then steadies muscle. She chooses temperature with precision. The water does what her nervous system will not. It numbs. Then settles.

She does not defend herself. Dishes fill the sink. Within seconds, she has assigned herself a task no one asked for.

Work gives her a script. Scrubbing, rinsing, stacking. Each action begins and ends. A plate enters the sink dirty and leaves clean. The logic holds. Inside the task, there is no space for humiliation. No one questions a useful girl.

Domestic competence becomes a shield she can hold without raising it. Efficiency keeps her from being examined too closely. If her hands move fast enough, no one will notice the shaking. Invisibility requires performance.

She turns water into anesthesia.

The sink will not challenge her. No one misreads silence here or demands an answer. She lowers her hands deeper and lets the chill bite until the heat leaves her chest. Sensation narrows. Breath slows. The tremor fades beneath the surface.

Numbing herself passes for discipline. She calls it maturity. What she actually does is remove herself from the room without leaving it. The task absorbs her outline.

Disappearing can look responsible.

Water terrifies her. Right now it soothes. It accepts her hands without judgment. It carries away soap, heat, and the evidence of shaking. She stands at the sink and teaches her body a lesson it will remember. Submerge. Silence. Survive.

The same element that steadies her will one day turn against her. Cold will not calm her then. There will be no slowing it then.

She thinks she is mastering herself in this moment.

She is rehearsing something she cannot yet name.

Where do you go when you need to disappear without leaving?

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Copyright © 2026 Angelica Thorne

For permission requests, contact angelicathorne@icloud.com.

Set in 1980s San Diego, Beneath the Weight of Water follows a young woman navigating abuse at home, prejudice at school, and the quiet negotiations required to stay afloat in both. Every choice carries risk. Speaking has consequences. So does staying silent.

This is a story about survival, dignity, and what it costs to choose differently when no option comes without loss.

New chapters every two weeks, on Saturday.

Chapters

Chapter 7 — The Silence Between Us
May 9, 2026

Chapter 8 — New Friend
May 23, 2026

Chapter 9 — Between the Shore and the Sea
June 6, 2026

Chapter 10 — Her Sin
June 20, 2026

Chapter 11 — Dignity Recall
July 4, 2026

Chapter 12 — Not a Bird
July 18, 2026

Chapter 13 — Uncharted Waters
August 1, 2026

Subscribe to follow Lucia, new chapters are published every other Saturday.

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Copyright © 2026 Angelica Thorne

For permission requests, contact angelicathorne@icloud.com.

it is considered as if he saved an entire world.

~Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5

Matteo

This was a want so strong, it became a surrender.

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Matteo flexed his fingers, released them, then gripped the leather-wrapped steering wheel again. He drew a slow breath and he let it go even slower. Stillness thickened between them, heavy with everything he didn’t say. Self-control was something his grandfather expected, but Matteo had perfected it far beyond what his family imagined.

Even so, something about Lucia’s presence had always unsettled him. And now, the sight of her pain pushed hard against his discipline.

The fresh welts on her skin spoke of a coward’s rage. A violation of her. A violation of her dignity. A violation of basic humanity. Unacceptable. Unforgivable.

He forced his breath into a steady rhythm, jaw set, shoulders locked, his pulse refusing to speed up. She had done what he’d asked; she had called. Finally.

He remembered the moment she’d climbed into the car, her posture folding inward. Her shoulders were tense; her limbs were rigid. He recognized that tight, contained stillness. She was holding herself together by inches.

Ice. A gas station emerged ahead, its blue canopy sharp against the heat-hazed asphalt. He pulled in and returned minutes later with an ice pack.

As he handed it to her, their fingers brushed for a heartbeat. The thought of taking her hand rose unbidden, but she avoided touch in moments like this. Which was why he pulled back, protecting the trust between them. She opened her eyes, set the ice pack on her cheek, and said nothing. He gave her space, remembering how often he longed for the same from his family.

He drove toward the coast because she loved long drives. The salt breeze slipped through the window, easing the tension in her face. Above the cliffs, seagulls drifted in slow, weightless arcs. Surfers cut clean lines through the swells. A horn blared from the opposite lane, dragging him out of his thoughts.

The car came to rest beneath the yellow light of a street lamp at Torrey Pines Beach. Lucia’s eyes fluttered open and met his. She looked small, wary, as if expecting another blow.

Something inside him broke, and it forced him to draw a ragged breath. He felt the urge to make empty promises, but he knew too well the betrayal in hollow words. His doctors and family had made countless promises, but none had spared him from what came next.

He stepped out, fingers curled at his side for a moment. The salty breeze filled his lungs, and he let out a sigh. When he opened her door, her whole body went taut, as if, in a breath, the space between them could tilt from safety to danger. He knew she might pull away, yet she needed steadiness more than distance. She allowed him to help her out of the car, uncertainty shadowing her face.

She bit her lip. Her breath snagged, a tremor undoing her before sobs ripped through her, wracking her body. Heat flooded his chest as her breath hitched against his collarbone, pulling him back into his own skin. It wasn’t fear. He had felt this kind of exhaustion, the kind carried by someone who stood strong for far too long. His arms tightened around her, steadying them both.

“Abuela doesn’t love me,” she managed between broken sobs. “She only took me because of Johnny… because she couldn’t have him otherwise.”

He held her while truths broke loose, one by one. Her fingers clutched the fabric of his shirt, her breath hot and uneven, as though he were her lifeline.

“I look like him!” She jerked away from him, crossing her arms as if she were throwing her armor back on. Yet she looked like a gust could topple her. “Abuela doesn’t love me because she sees him whenever she looks at me.”

“Lucia.” His voice was warm, steady, even though his chest ached. He had learned to conceal his weakness, but he still lived in a body that had turned traitor, stealing ballet and the future he’d trained for his entire life. A rush of helplessness cinched his ribs as he raked his fingers through his hair.

“My father! I look like my father.” She forced the words out between raw, broken sobs. “I’m just a breathing, living scar. A reminder of her loss. And the man she blames for her daughter’s death.”

Her weight folded into him, and the shock stole his breath. The trust in her emotional surrender landed harder than he was ready for.

“You are not alone. Not today, not tomorrow. Not ever.” The rawness in his words tightened something low in his chest, revealing a truth he wasn’t ready to examine.

Step by step, he steadied her from the parking lot to the beach. He lowered himself onto the sand and guided her onto his lap. The moment his body settled around her, he felt it. This was too far. He knew it. His body knew it.

The rhythmic crashing of the waves filled the silence. No rush, no words. Breathing in the heat of her body, he felt younger than he wanted to be. Unprepared. He wished he were wiser and knew what to do. Tightening his arms around her, he pressed a kiss to the crown of her head.

All summer he had written her restless letters he should not have sent, then read her responses until the paper thinned. He had told himself it was nothing. He had a girlfriend. Friends with benefits who made no demands. A family that asked for too much.

Infatuation, he understood. Desire, he could sate. This was a want so strong, it became a surrender. Desperate. Unforgivable. Irrevocable. Love. The moment he admitted his feelings, he knew he couldn’t tolerate silence. Action would follow, and the thought of it scraped at the edges of his composure.

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Beneath the Weight of Water.

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← 2: A Step Out of the Dark | Table of Contents | 4: Suddenly, not Empty →

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Copyright © 2026 Angelica Thorne

For permission requests, contact angelicathorne@icloud.com.

~Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching, 6th century BCE)

Content note: This chapter contains graphic domestic violence and verbal abuse.

Lucia

“He’s a good man, underneath it all.”

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Uncle Bruno’s boots hit the floor, and the vibrations crawled up Lucia’s legs, stoking the fire in her gut. It was always hardest before the first blow.

“What the fuck did you just say to me, bitch?” Each word hit like shrapnel against her skull.

Cold sweat skated down her spine as she braced for the blow. Panic collapsed into an unspoken prayer. Oh, God, help me! Please…

Heat seared another welt into her skin. Pain drowned out the sound of dishes shattering on the floor. The belt was all she knew. Breath failed her, but no sound escaped. The air reeked of sweat and fear.

He yanked her ponytail, and her body jerked like a puppet on his hand. Pain tore down her neck. Her knees nearly buckled. Stupid! I should’ve kept my hair short.

Tears spurred his rage. Screams made his strike harder. She gripped the counter, refusing to fall. No, no! Stay up! If you fall, he will kick you!

He dug his hand into her curls and yanked her face close. A wet glob struck her cheek, sour with spittle. “You’re nothing! School won’t change that! You’ll always be nothing, like your stupid mother!”

Biting back her cries, she closed her eyes and let the pain crash through her. Matteo’s steady voice rose in her memory, and her breath anchored to it. She bit her lip hard; the sharp tang of blood curdled in her stomach. Yet hope flickered, a small pulse beneath the pain, hinting that she wouldn’t always have to keep silent.

Abuela’s wail pierced the room. She tried to turn her faith in her son’s decency into reality.

As if that mattered when the belt bit Lucia’s cheek and he sneered. His pleasure sent more bile up her throat. She swayed, but kept her feet beneath her, battered but unbroken. Refusing his stare, she told herself that her degree would free her.

He stopped as suddenly as he had started. She braced against the wall, breath uneven as the room spun. Silence frayed, as threadbare as her thin hand-me-downs.

“You’ll never learn, huh? Useless bitch!” he spat. “If it wasn’t for us, you’d be rotting in Mexico!” He slammed the front door on his way out.

Her legs gave out, dropping her onto the cold linoleum. She bit the back of her hand to stifle her cries, in case her uncle returned. One day, there would be no knots.

Her memory returned to Matteo, the one place she always found comfort. She hadn’t meant for him to slip past her defenses. He waited out her silences, saved her a chair, found books that spoke to her. When he looked at her, she couldn’t believe the worst about herself. She was safe, because someone like him would never want someone like her.

“I need things to change,” he’d said when the term began. The line replayed in her head. His restlessness clear, although its cause stayed hidden.

It unsettled her with a tension she mistook for her own. The gap between knowing and doing stretched wider each day, like searching the long Dewey Decimal drawers, until the cards blurred and the title slipped away. At least in the library stacks, the yellowed pages curled around her until the world thinned and she was free of it.

Matteo felt at home there, too. He loved the library as much as she did, treating the old, neglected books like treasures. Her intelligence never rattled him. He welcomed it, took her feedback, rewriting without hesitation. In return, he tightened her grammar and cut the clutter from her drafts.

Working with him, she could almost believe she wasn’t the stupidest of the smartest students. She wished someone would treat her with the same care he gave his favorite books. Maybe she could find a husband with his personality and his affinity for books.

When he shared his love of classical music, he became her door to Narnia. Chopin’s sweet melodies calmed the chaos in her mind. But Franz Liszt’s compositions left her unsteady. Listening to Liszt: Liebestraum No. 3, she felt his passion, raw, unapologetic, too close to emotions she didn’t want to feel.

As kind as Matteo was, she couldn’t shake the feeling that leaning on him was trespassing. He had a girlfriend. Yet he had become the air she gulped when she was drowning. Her family didn’t do crutches. You just toughed it out or pretended it wasn’t that bad.

“He’s under so much pressure,” Abuela whispered, clutching her Virgin of Guadalupe medallion. “Pain is temporary, but family is forever.”

Each lie sliced jagged through her. She realized Abuela’s loyalty had nothing to do with love, but only with survival, even if it was Lucia who always paid the price.

She shut out the excuses and felt herself give up on her grandmother for the first time in her life. Fear did not heal bruises, and excuses never stopped fists.

Abuela’s eyes, sharp and accusing, pinned her. They were all supposed to stop Bruno before he exploded. To fail was to invite blame. Abuela’s lips parted, but she said nothing.

A spark cut through Lucia’s despair. She held Abuela’s gaze. Not in defiance, but in quiet determination.

Abuela never asked her if she was strong. She simply expected it, always telling her, “Any woman worth her salt, can do anything she needs to do.”

She had to be strong. Not for her family, but for herself. It hit her then. That wasn’t given. It was claimed. She wiped the blood from her lips and slipped away to her room.

Almost as soon as Lucia eased onto her bed, Abuela began knocking at the door. The blanket pressed fire into her welts. She clenched her fists, fighting her tears.

The knocking became louder. Every nerve screamed for escape, but she had nowhere to go. At Penelope’s house, her mom would soak the welts in arnica and Lucia would see the pity in her eyes. Ellie was a worse option. Lucia had overheard her sneer, “a train wreck waiting to happen.” She fought the despair pressing hard on her chest.

Matteo had told her to call anytime. The rotary clicked beneath her fingers, but Catholic guilt gnawed at her ribs. She dropped the receiver. Then, she heard Abuela and Doña Cuca, her best friend, plotting in the kitchen. They would wring an apology out of her.

“Hello.” His voice was soft and reassuring.

Sobs tore through her plea. “Can… can you come get me?”

“Where are you?” Concern tightened his voice. “I’m on my way.”

She did not need to be rescued. Relief sliced clean through her doubts. She was choosing safety. “Home… you said I could call you.”

“I’ll be at the usual place in twenty minutes.” Urgency now edged his voice.

She pushed her hair back, fingers grazing the welt on her cheek, and hissed. There would be no hiding that bruise.

“Sooner. I promise.” His urgency tipped into panic.

She took off her shoes and barefoot crept past the kitchen to the bathroom. Her knees almost buckled at the sight of the angry red welt on her face. If the world saw it, so be it. Trying to steady herself, she began the chant that had gotten her through so many dark moments: “I’m a sister, a granddaughter, a woman, a student, a person. My uncle does not define me.”

The whole barrio had heard Abuela’s wails. It wasn’t the first time Lucia had dealt with their darting eyes and trailing whispers. But this was the first time she was refusing to play along with her abuse being called her family’s private business.

She cracked the bathroom door open and slipped back to her room. Her decision made, she grabbed her backpack and hurried out the front door before anyone could stop her. “I’ll be back late.”

An escape was never really possible. Outside, Ellie stood, immaculate in a navy suit. Guilt shadowed her features as she moved toward Lucia.

Jealousy knotted her stomach. Not now. Not her. Ellie had everything: beauty, doting parents, a perfect life. If she came near, Lucia would scream. Don’t act like you’re sorry! I know how you really feel!

Her jaw clenched, but she swallowed the words and walked away. A good person wouldn’t think this. With every painful step, guilt coiled tighter.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered to her ever-silent God. “I let you down again.”

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Beneath the Weight of Water.

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← 1: A Shattered Soul | Table of Contents | 3: Resurrection →

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Copyright © 2026 Angelica Thorne

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~Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5

Lucia

Silence was the safest place she knew.

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Lucia’s shoulders ached as she scrubbed the dishes. Each stroke forced back the sour burn in her throat. The smoky scent of her uncle’s carne asada turned her stomach.

“My baby is the best-looking girl in the family!” Uncle Bruno beamed, holding up a photo of his daughter, Olivia, to his mother. But as he looked up, his eyes pinned his niece, fragile as a butterfly impaled in place.

A plate slipped through her fingers and clanked against the sink. Her breath hitched, then steadied. She scrubbed on, remembering the fading bruise on her thigh. She plunged her hands under the suds to hide the tremor. With them beneath the cold water, she could pretend she wasn’t there at all. Keep busy. Stay quiet.

“Only you are better looking, viejita linda.” His words slid out, slick and hollow, a lie no one dared challenge.

Abuela smirked as her manicured fingers smoothed a wrinkle from the embroidered calla lilies on her dress, the same way she glossed over her son’s outbursts, his gambling, his drinking. She could pretend it was all fine. Except when it came to Lucia. Never enough. Always the same question: Why can’t you be more like your cousin?

“Stupid bitch! What’s taking you so long?” His voice slammed into Lucia, heavy and sudden.

She gripped the scouring pad until its fibers bit into her skin. Cold sweat slid between her shoulders. If Abuela ignored the insult, Lucia knew she was supposed to ignore it too.

Her voice wavered, her knuckles turned white. “I’m done with the dishes.”

The chair groaned under his weight. His rage tore the breath from her lungs. Past and present folded together. Accepted to college, then his fists. Bruises blooming. Not again. Her stomach clenched hard, a deep twist that meant she couldn’t stop the memories from assailing her. Scholarship, bones snapping. Her breath hitched, and her vision blurred. With Abuela and her uncle, each breath teetered at the cliff’s edge. The sink held her up, but the floor still tilted beneath her. Other families probably had the same problems, she thought, but didn’t believe it.

The tension in the house had become unbearable, her mind clawed for anything that would soften the edges of her terror. She hid in her memory of Matteo reading aloud. She borrowed the calm of the moment, not the boy who made it happen. His velvet-low tone curled with the soft hiss of his Castilian lisp. Nothing like her uncle’s jagged bark. Matteo’s voice loosened the knots in her chest. But, it was only a lifeline, not a place where she could rest. She pulled back before the memory could drift anywhere else.

His voice sliced through the room. “What do you mean, I can’t have any money? I’m your son. You owe me because you married that bastard.”

Fear coiled low in Lucia’s gut, tight, because she knew what was coming. He’d leave empty-handed. Property taxes loomed this quarter. The kitchen closed around her, but she kept scrubbing.

Once he left, Abuela’s guilt trip would start: “If you really cared about this family, you’d stop wasting time at that school and get a full-time job. It’s your fault I can’t help your uncle.”

She let out a thin grunt, and swallowed it before it became a protest. Then, nothing. She had stepped on a land mine. Lungs locked, she froze, awaiting the blast. Sometimes, survival meant letting the pain wash over her. Words only made things worse. She would lock her voice away. Her silence would have to save her.

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Beneatht the Weight of Water.

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What will happen when her uncle finally pushes too far?

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Table of Contents | 2: A Step Out of the Dark →

START HERE:

Copyright © 2026 Angelica Thorne

For permission requests, contact angelicathorne@icloud.com.

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,

And I dropped down, and down—

And hit a World, at every plunge,

And Finished knowing—then—

~Emily Dickson

Poem #93 (“I felt a Funeral, in my Brain”)

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Start reading → | Table of Contents | 1: Shattered Soul →

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To follow the story as it unfolds, subscribe to Beneath the Weight of Water.

Copyright © 2026 Angelica Thorne

For permission requests, contact angelicathorne@icloud.com.

This story begins in a kitchen where silence keeps the peace and hiding in plain sight is a skill you pick up young. Lucia knows how to survive her family. She has not yet learned how to choose herself. Beneath the Weight of Water asks what happens when survival is no longer enough.

If you want to follow Lucia’s story,

new chapters are published every other Saturday.