THE SOUP TEST

--- CHAPTER 1: Hot days don't last, and cold days don't last either. My grandmother always said, _"No matter how long the night, the dawn will break."_ But back then, my night felt very long. I am Estella. I was the lastborn in my house — the last finger, the last soup in the pot. As we say, _"The lastborn eats the sweetest bone, but also carries the heaviest eyes."_ My parents loved me too much. They watched me too much. They thought I was perfect. They watched me too much that they never thought I could have my own thoughts. They thought I was perfect, so perfect that they forgot I was also growing. They saw a child where I was already becoming a woman. No one was in suspense of my looks, my growth, anything and such. No one even bothered or minded about anything about my body or something and such. To them I was still small, still their baby, still too young for anything to be bothering me. But inside my own head, I was a courtroom and I was always on trial. I remember standing in front of my mirror every morning back in 2021 and not seeing what they saw. I saw an outcast. I felt like the ugly sheep standing among a pack of beautiful and gorgeous wolves. They were light, they were shaped, they were chosen. I was just... me. I was not fine enough. I was not light enough. And I am still learning to unhear those voices even now. That was my life then. *L.O.W — Living On Whispers.* Whispers that said you are too dark. Whispers that said you are too tall. Whispers that said light girls will be chosen before you. I fed on those whispers every day like food. But this was not just a small fear. This was not just a girl feeling shy. This trivial fear I carried was about to grow teeth. It was eating me from inside. It made me question every photo, every dress, every laugh. If someone complimented me, I thought they were lying. If someone didn't look at me, I thought it was because I was not beautiful enough. I was present in class, but absent in my own body. I was smiling outside, but inside I was shrinking. As my father used to tell me, _"If there is no enemy within, the enemy outside can do us no harm."_ But my enemy was already inside me. She lived in my head, she slept in my bed, she ate with me, and she talked to me every night, telling me I would never be enough. It was a small fear that had become crucial. It was trivial to everyone else, but to me it was everything, because it decided who I would let close, and who I would push away. ****_She didn't know it yet, but that small fear that everyone ignored was about to become the hand that would dip her finger into two soups. And when a finger is dipped in two soups, it will taste none and spoil both. That is where her S.O.U.R — Seeking Outside, Undervaluing Real — was about to begin.****