She brought me back to the table inside. I unwillingly sat beside her and crossed my arms over my chest. It was just her, Melina and myself sitting and staring at each other in silence. The air was tense, and for me, it was because Melina was still working for the people that had done this to all of us.
Eventually Mama abruptly stood to her feet. As soon as Melina heard my mom's chair scoot back she lifted her eyes and they followed her as she walked out of the room.
"Where are you going?" Melina questioned as if she was tired of my mother's attitude. If I was being honest I had been tired of it this entire trip. Melina shook her head at my mom's antics as she responded.
"To do this thing myself. And you can stay here," she bit the last part with anger, pointing her finger accusingly at me. I narrowed my eyes at the sudden tone she spoke with. I grimaced at the sudden anger she displayed toward me. I hadn't done anything wrong.
"Don't. You won't survive," Melina reiterates. She continued to shake her head at my mother's absurdity. If I wasn't so confused by the way she had just spoken to me, I would have done the same. This wasn't a job for one person. Never would one person be able to take down that organization that made us all into what we are today.
"I wish I could believe that you cared," my mom continued as she disappeared into the hallway. I could still hear the heavy stomp of her feet. She stopped in another room and I heard her mutter another set of words. "But you're not even the first mother to abandon me."
She said it like it didn't even phase her anymore.
"No, you weren't abandoned," Melina said as she stood to her feet and followed my mother out of the room. I became curious and followed her once I was out of her line of sight. I leaned against the nearest door frame and listened in on their conversation. I could tell by the silence my mom responded with that she was interested enough to hear what else Melina had to say. It sounded like Melina knew more than my mother did.
"You were selected by a program that assesed the genetic potential in infants," Melina continued almost like she was afraid to say it. Judging by my mom's silence, maybe she should have been. i couldn't tell if my mom was going to be infuriated by the words, or if she was considering them. And listening to them. That wasn't something that she did well, or often.
"I was taken?" My mom asked for clarification. She was questioning her own words as they came from her mouth. She whispered them with another sudden change of emotion. But I was less angry about this change in her mood. For some reason I felt more sympathetic towards it. She had changed her attitude in an instant, but this felt more appropriate. And it was a genuine reaction of shock and sadness mixed together. Maybe her anger had been misplaced earlier, but this sadness, I don't think it was.
Melina was quiet for the next few moments. like she didn't want to hurt my mother any further.
"I believe a bargain was struck, your family paid off," she was breathing heavily as she said the words. It was like they had haunted her, having to hold them away for so long. Finally saying them was relieving. "But your mother, she never stopped looking for you. She was like you in that way...She was relentless," Melina said quietly and gently in response to my mom's reaction. Due to how quiet she had been I could feel her sadness. I didn't even have to see her to know it was there.
She quietly whispered, "What happened to her?" The words hardly even made it to a whisper. They were words of curiosity, but also words that were afraid of knowing the truth. The darkness behind the way she had said them made it clear to me that she didn't really even want to know.
But i wanted to know too. I had never had a grandparent and I knew that that was something that most kids had. I didn't have a lot of the things that most kids did, like a chance to even get to know my father when I was younger. Or maybe even a normal father that didn't get instructed to beat me as a baby. I didn't get a lot of things. And I know I didn't get grandparents, but maybe knowing what happened to one of them would fill that void?
I didn't actually think it would. But maybe I would feel a bit better if I knew.
Melina's silence told me that maybe my mother didn't actually want to know. Her silence seemed like she was trying to protect me, too. I knew that they both knew I was against the wall listening closely.
"Dreykov had her killed."
I wish I could describe the way that my emotion and my expression changed in that instant. But my face, it stayed the same. My emotions, I didn't even feel the shift. Maybe I had had this built in anger lasting in me for a while, because I didn't feel a transition in my emotion when she said the words. I just felt a mroe intense version of what I was already feeling. The sensation in my body became hotter, almost boiling, but I didn't know what to do about it. I didn't know how to react or what i should even say. My body felt weightless and I hardly felt myself move to step up behind Melina in the hallway. I didn't even know that I had done it until I was facing the back of her head.
And I didn't feel the need to cry. I didn't even feel any of this anger much for myself. I grew up with a loving mother. I had the chance to do that, and I didn't have the chance to do a lot of things. Of course, I was infuriated by the fact that yet another one of the things that I didn't have like other kids was taken away by the one man that took almost everything from me. Another person, another life, another key thing I could have experienced as a young girl was yet again taken from me by Dreykov. But I was less angered by that, and more angered by the fact that not only did Dreykov assign my mother a fake mom to intensify that feeling of abandonment, but he took her real mother, too. She didn't even get a loving mother like I did.
And if I needed any other reason to hate the man, this had to be it.
"Her existence threatened to uncover the Red Room. Normally, the actions of the curious civilian wouldn't warrant an execution," Melina informed slowly, catering to how my mom was feeling at the moment. She had to look away. "But as I said, she was relentless."
My mom still couldn't bring her eyes to look back at Melina. It seemed like she was ashamed for some reason. :I thought about her every day of my life," she muttered like it would've made her come off as dumb if anyone could hear.
She bit her lip and looked around to anything but the two of us. "Whether or not I admit it to myself, I did." She nods her head like she's coming to a realization and is accepting it.
Melina carefully stepped forward as if she was afraid that my mother wouldn't let her.
"I've always found it best not to look into the past," she offered. And maybe all of us needed to live by that.
My mom seemingly disregarded the words as she reached up for an album on the shelf. She knew exactly where to look and she grabbed it immediately.
I became curious. She had to know exactly what was in it.
"Then why did you save this?" She questioned almost accusingly, holding it up for Melina to see. I stepped forward, coming from behind Melina slowly. I was afraid of how my mom would react if I tried to come closer and into the line of fire between them, but I couldn't help my curiosity. I wanted to get a better look at what she was holding.
Melina didn't respond right away. When I was standing beside my mom, I glanced up at her briefly. She stared back at my mom like she didn't really want to respond. She stared back at her like maybe the answer was one that she had never planned on sharing with anyone.
Mama and I held our eyes on hers, waiting to hear her say something. Anything at all. But my mom grew impatient and instead looked back down at what seemed to be a photo album. It was embroidered with pretty flowers all over the front, all different colors. To me, it meant that there had to be something just as whole-hearted or beautiful inside.
Our eyes fell onto the sheets inside of the book once my mom pulled it open. I could feel the tension in her body and I wasn't even that close. She scanned each page, as did I. She took her time, and so did I. For some reason, the pictures hit me pretty hard. And I wasn't even in any of them.
It was in fact a photo album. And inside of it were pictures of two young girls, one with curlier hair and one with wavier hair. One with blonde hair green eyes, one with red hair and blue-er eyes.
And what hurts me the most, even though I knew that I wasn't either of these girls, was the fact that their smiles looked so real. They looked so happy like they had to be enjoying their youth and the fun that came with it. They were so young and they looked so excited, and from these photos, I would've guessed that these girls didn't have a problem in the world to stress about. But what hurt me the most when I continued to stare into the green and blue eyes of the little, not-troubled girls was the fact that I knew exactly who they were and what they came to be, and I knew that they weren't not-troubled at all.
What hurt me about the pictures was the way that the girls grew but didn't grow at all the further I looked. But I could easily tell that something was so, so off in each photo. I couldn't tell if back then my mom or Yelena knew what was happening to them, but I could tell that my mom's smiles were starting to wear down. She was still trying, though, to put on a show for her little sister, who looked so bewildered and excited about the world that she was living in. When Yelena's smile looked weary, my mom's smile was the biggest that it could have been.
It looked like my mom just wanted to protect Yelena from the world. And from how old she looked in this picture, I was guessing that she was so intent on doing that because she hadn't gotten to do it to me.
My mom had to be at least twelve in these pictures. And if I count, she had me when she was thirteen. This had to be around the time that I was born or around the time that I was taken, or maybe even while I was still growing inside of her. Maybe she had a fear of not being able to protect me. Maybe she was already devastated because she hadn't gotten the chance to do it.
I started to look for a date on any of the pictures. I tuned out everything else for the few seconds that I got to look. But when I heard my mom speak again, I was completely present again.
I wanted to hear everything that she had to say about it.
Her finger started to tap the image in the bottom left corner of the page. It was a picture of her and Yelena by a fireplace on what looked to be Christmas.
I lifted my eyes to her.
"I remember this day," she said airily. She didn't look at me even as I continued to look at her. "We shot Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, and summer vacation all in one day," she said the words with little to no emotion in her voice. That was when I narrowed my eyes and looked back down at the pictures in the book. I turned one of the pages back curiously and took a closer look at each one. All of these photos were staged, and the girls looked exactly the same in each photo.
I don't know why I was shocked. While I knew how terrible the Red Room could be, my mom knew it so much better. My mom knew the darkest parts of it, the darkest past and secrets that I didn't. I was lucky to spend less time there than she did.
"This is all...One day?" I asked, hesitating as I looked back at my mom for confirmation. A small smile twitched on her lips for a fraction of a second, but it wasn't a real smile anyway. Melina leaned to look over my shoulder at the images. She still didn't seem to have anything to say.
My mom nodded her head. "Different backdrops," she responded, almost brokenly. She looked up at Melina and forced that same smile onto her face, even through the tears I watched her try to conceal.
"Mm," Melina seemed to feel obligated to respond. She looked away almost after ten seconds, with the same tears seeming to burn her own eyes.
"I knew that all the presents under the tree were just empty boxes, but I didn't care," Mama said into the air, I was assuming she was talking to me. I looked up at her and listened while she spoke solemnly and reminisced about the bitter-sweet moments. She shook her head. "I didn't care, I wanted to open every single one," she smiled painfully as she tried to make the smile go away at the same time. "So just for a second, it felt real."
Melina jumped forward and shut the book. "Let's stop this," she said with regret as she pulled it away.
I lifted my eyes to look at her, slowly narrowing them. I hadn't liked her up to this point, and if she could've done anything right now to make that hatred for her worse, she had just done it.
"Why are you doing this?" Mama questioned, glaring slightly at her also.
Melina turned around to face us, swallowing the emotion in her voice before she continued. "Why does a mouse born in a cage try to run on that little wheel?" She asked, tilting her head. "Do you know I was cycled through the Red Room four times before you were even born? Those walls are all I know," she continued, hugging the book to her chest. 'I was never given a choice."
I shake my head at her. I wouldn't have spoken up because I knew my mom wouldn't appreciate it, but I felt it was appropriate.
"But you're not a mouse, Melina," I say. I intended to finish with something else, but my mom cut me off because I am sure that she could sense that.
"You were just born in a cage but that's not your fault," she said instead, which was almost the exact opposite of what I intended to say. And still, it was much nicer.
Melina scoffed in response, still struggling to keep her tears from falling. I watched her carefully, wondering what he would say to make me hate her next. I wondered if it would be worst than snatching the book, or worst than the way she acted when we first arrived.
"Tell me, how did you keep your heart?" She rushed toward my mother as the words rushed out of her. Out of nowhere, she had a desperate need for this answer that must have been stuck within her for all of these years. It seemed like she had been wondering for some time.
My mom blinked, trying to get the words to come from her lips. I could tell she was struggling to get them out.
"Pain only makes us stronger," she muttered, shrugging softly. "Right?" Her eyes got distant before she continued. "And the pain I went through with my cycles, it helped," she continued, still looking off distantly. "But the pain I went through watching her be cycled made me the strongest," my mom said as she slightly tilted her head toward me. I wanted to smile at her but I couldn't bring myself to do it. She wasn't looking at me anyway. I didn't know how to react. The moment was the most bitter-sweet I had felt but I couldn't get myself to react at all.
"The pain I went through watching them beat her, kick her, punch her, leave cuts all over her newborn, delicate, innocent body," she continued, still not meeting my eyes. I couldn't bring myself to meet hers either. It hurt me so much more as she spat the words in disgust. Even though I am the one that felt them, I felt it more when she said it. I felt it more when she said it now, and clearly expressed to me how much she had suffered watching me suffer. "That pain made me stronger," she finished, nodding her head at the sad, painful truth behind them. "Didn't you tell us that?"
Melina felt those last few words so much. She leaned away slightly and I could see the tears in her eyes shifting as if they were going to finally fall.
"What you taught me kept me alive," she told her, nodding her head with sincerity. I looked away from both of them because all I could feel was guilt for feeling I was intruding on this moment for them. I looked away, but I wasn't expecting to hear what I heard next.
"I'm sorry, but I've already alerted the Red Room. They'll be here any minute," Melina said, almost with all of the emotion fading into and out of her voice at the same time. I couldn't tell if she was sorry, I really couldn't. But if she understood how terrible of a life the widows lived in that hell hole, seeing as she was cycled, she wouldn't have done it. She would have never even thought to try and send us back there.
If we went back, we wouldn't survive.
I couldn't go back. I couldn't go back there.
I felt my heart drop, I couldn't even lift my eyes to look at her. I couldn't even cry. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't feel anything but the oddness of my heart falling into my stomach, churning and squeezing intensely. I wanted to shut my eyes tight and imagine I wasn't here, imagine I was dreaming, imagine I could get myself out of here before they came.
And if there was anything else that Melina could have said to make me hate her maybe thirty times more than I already had minutes ago,
I t was definitely that.