THE ALGORITHM OF THE FORBIDDEN HEART

Chapter 8

I walked toward the guest room, my sole objective being to lock myself in and find a semblance of rest.

But Donatella was waiting for me.

She was in the hallway, near her room, but she intercepted me before I reached my refuge. Her face no longer expressed the false gentleness of the hostess, but the determination of the professor.

"Not so fast, Carla," she commanded.

I stopped, my heart pounding.

"Come," she continued, without giving me time to reply. "The couch."

She pointed to her large, dark leather sofa. She was ordering me to sit. I knew exactly what was going to happen. She had followed the minimal protocol of getting me settled, but she hadn't forced me to come to her house just to let me sleep. She would now take advantage of my exhaustion and distress to get the answers her search had failed to provide.

I knew she was going to ask me questions. And I knew that this time, I wouldn't be able to run away. My body was too tired, my will too shaken. I needed to sleep, and she was the only obstacle.

I walked to the couch, keeping my posture as rigid as possible. I sat at one end, far from the spot she would probably occupy.

She came and sat at the other end, maintaining the distance. She looked at me, her eyes more serious than ever.

"Now that you are safe and have eaten, we are going to talk. The night is long, and you need to free your mind from this burden if you want to sleep," she began, using logic again to justify her intrusion.

She waited. She offered me the opportunity to speak, but the injunction was clear: speaking was an obligation to get rest. I was trapped again.

I was sitting at the end of the couch, my body exhausted. Donatella sat far from me, but her gaze was a close threat.

"The fraction of truth you gave me today is the key to everything," she began, her tone calm, but ruthless. "I need to understand the magnitude of the trauma to help you circumvent it. Tell me what happened when you were sixteen."

I stiffened. "I can't, Professor. It's not possible. It's in the past."

"The past is data, Carla," she retorted, leaning slightly forward. "And unprocessed data skews all future projections. When you speak of fragility, you are talking about them. You are talking about the loss of control."

She continued to push. "Tell me what made contact so terrifying. Tell me why another's will became your absolute threat."

I tried to deflect. "It was just a bad week. I was stressed by classes, the pressure..."

She cut me off, her tone becoming sharp as a blade. "Don't take me for an idiot. You are not stressed by a learning curve. You are stressed by the memory that someone took your sovereignty. Your parents' money failed to protect you. What happened after they took you?"

The word "after" shattered my defense. My heart started beating so loudly I could hear it in my ears.

"It's private!" I cried out, tears burning behind my eyelids. "You have no right to insist!"

"I have the right not to let you destroy yourself," she replied, her voice dropping, but her intensity increasing. "I am the only one who knows what you do with your hands. I am the only one who saw you broken on the floor. You don't trust me, I know that. But I am the only one capable of understanding the logic of your pain. Help me find another anchoring variable than violence against yourself."

She used my own defense mechanisms to force me to open up. The effort she was making to remain calm and logical, while demanding my darkest story, was torture.