Chapter 5: A Silent War
Beneath the Weight of Water | Serialized Mexican-American literary fiction
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
~Ian Maclaren
Lucia
Series Table of ContentsIn 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.
All of her accomplishments—IQ of 142, SAT in the 90th percentile, Dean’s List every semester—turned into ashes under their sneers. Yet she clung to those numbers as if they were lifelines, proof that she had earned every inch of space in that school.
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.
He had found her under a desk. A jolt ran through her. He wasn’t supposed to find her folded up like a frightened child. Did he know she was hiding from him? No, his eyes stayed soft, and they held no judgment.
“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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