A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
~Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching, 6th century BCE)
Content note: This chapter contains graphic domestic violence and verbal abuse.
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.
“He’s a good man, underneath it all,” she insisted. “You don’t understand what it’s like for men.”
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.
After the blows and the blame, with the house already turning against her, she was done following their rules. She picked up the phone and dialed.
“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.”
Next Chapter: 3. Resurrection
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