Page 188 of Under the Waves

Squeezing my eyes shut, I took a deep breath. “I know…Iknowthe words you want me to say but I can’t…Ican’tget them out.”

I needed to scratch. I needed to scratch. I needed. I needed. I needed—

“I’m going to tell you a story, okay? And it starts with a little girl who dared to dream,” Vienna took in a deep breath, her body stilling against mine. “Once upon a time, Poppy, lived a little girl on the Amalfi coast who dreamed with every thread of hope sewn into her very bones. She grew up like a princess, servants waiting on her every second of the day, fetching her every desire and making her every wish come true. But this little girl, she didn’t care for the fancy jewels or the doll houses as big ascastles. She just wanted to dance. Her ballet shoes were her most favorite possession, and every night after her maids had bid her goodnight and the candles flickering in the hallway began to burn out, the little girl slipped out of bed, put on her favorite ballet slippers, and crept past the guards posted up and down the hallway until she reached the fountain at the very center of garden. With only the moonlight shining down from above her, the little girl danced and danced to her hearts content.”

“What happened to her?” I asked. “The little girl.”

Vienna sighed. “The little girl’s parents were never really in her life, Poppy. To the outside world, they were one happy family, admired but also…feared. Her father, you see, he wasn’t a nice man. Whilst he was vicious and merciless, her mother was cold and distant. Neither one of them had any time to spare to spend with their daughter, and instead threw her to the maids to look after. They may have been good people to everyone else, but they weren’t good parents. At least, not to her. But after time, they began…they began hurting her. At first, they started to take away the things and people she loved as a way of gaining control, then they began using other ways of disciplining her…the little girl, she didn’t want to follow in their footsteps, Poppy. She wanted to leave to New York and become a ballerina, the greatest one the world would ever see. But once they found out, they destroyed that too.” She took a steadying breath. “They…they broke her legs, Poppy. The little girl would never dance again. And after she came of age, they looked among their circle of elite to find her a suitable match to fulfill her dutiful right as heir. She decided the night her engagement was to be announced that she had to run away. Even if she couldn’t dance anymore, she would find something more in the world than what they wanted for her. Because she realized they didn’t love her, Poppy. Not really. They only loved what she could offer them. That night, she packed everything she cherished into a rucksack she’d borrowed from the kitchen staff, snuck out of her bedroom window, climbed down the pillar, and ran as far and as fast as her little legs could carry her. And when she reached the dock, she snuck onto the last ferry of the night and never looked back.”

“Why did you tell me that story?” I asked in a small voice.

Vienna smiled softly. “Because I—” She cleared her throat. “The little girl,shewasn’t loved at home. It was quite the opposite, actually. She learnt how to sew her own stitches by the time she was only six years old. How to cover bruises so no one outside would know what was going on within those walls. And after she escaped and made it to New York, she decided that she was going to spend the rest of her life helping others. Ones who faced the same challenges as her but could not see a way out.”

“Like me,” I whispered.

Vienna said nothing, but I knew she silently agreed.

“They love me…my parents, I mean.” I cleared my throat. “They do. In their own way…”

My mind trailed off in thought.

I couldn’t even convince myself of that anymore.

“It’s okay if they don’t, you know?”

I looked to her, my brows pinched. “It…is?”

Vienna sighed softly. “Not everyone has the ability to love. Some people simply love too much and some simply too little. You’ll meet both types of people throughout your life, Poppy, you just have to decide who to giveyourlove to—someone who will take and take from you, or someone who will give you every ounce back again.” Her eyes drifted to the bandages covering my arms. “People who love you wouldn’t hurt you, sweetie. Not like that. Never like that.”

My mother took from me.

And when I had nothing left to give,

she still took.

And that…that wasn’t love.

I…I kept making excuses for her—her behavior, her actions…

That wasn’t love, either.

And what shedidto me…

I’d remember that night for the rest of my life.

But she wouldn’t even think twice about it.

I held out hope that somewhere, down inside of her, there was a person capable of loving, someone who was really just struggling and needed a lifeline…but now, I was sure.

That was just who she was and I…I had to accept that before I got hurt even more.

Before I let her hurt me more than she already had.

“Come on, sweet girl,” Vienna said gleefully, hopping downfrom the counter, brushing her brightening blond hair over her shoulder. “Let’s go bake that desert, mm?”

“Okay,” I managed to smile, sliding off the countertop with a wince. Placing the pillow down, I placed my hand in her outstretched palm. “Let’s do this.”

And after multiple hours of cracked eggs on the floor, flour on our clothes, and snacking on the chocolate more than we used it in the desert, we finally made the Salame De Chocolate cake. And boy did itsuck.