Chapter Two: The Performance
1415 Words
Chapter Two: The Performance
“In a world where I had to earn love, I learned to perform until I forgot who I was beneath the applause.”
---
The restaurant was bathed in soft light, the kind that made everything look slightly golden, slightly unreal. Eliana sat across from Marcus, the man she had been dating for nearly eight months. He was the kind of man who asked questions and listened. Who noticed when she wore a different shade of lipstick or hesitated before speaking. He was kind, ambitious in a quiet way, and never once made her feel like she had to shrink.
And yet, as he reached across the table to hold her hand, Eliana’s stomach twisted.
“Your fingers are cold,” he said, rubbing his thumb gently over hers.
She smiled. “It’s just nerves.”
He looked confused. “Why would you be nervous?”
She didn’t know how to explain it without sounding dramatic. Without sounding broken. But the truth hovered between them: he was about to meet her parents.
“It’s not you,” she said. “It’s... them.”
Marcus tilted his head. “You’ve told me bits and pieces. Controlling mom. Passive dad. But you’ve never really said what it was like growing up.”
Eliana looked down. “Because it’s hard to talk about something that was invisible.”
Marcus nodded slowly. “But it wasn’t invisible to you.”
No. It never was.
---
Earlier That Week
Eliana stood in her apartment, phone pressed to her ear, her thumb digging into her temple.
“Yes, Mom. I told you—Marcus is polite, respectful, and very accomplished.”
Margaret’s voice crackled over the line. “I just hope he’s not another one of your... projects. You do tend to pick men who need fixing.”
Eliana’s jaw clenched. “He’s not like that.”
“Well, we’ll see. Make sure he dresses appropriately. Your father can be a bit traditional.”
“Like father, like mother,” Eliana mumbled under her breath.
“What was that?”
“Nothing. We’ll be there at six.”
She hung up and sat on her couch, suddenly aware of how much she hated the idea of bringing Marcus into her family’s orbit. It felt like feeding him to a beast and hoping it wouldn’t bite.
---
Flashback: Age 25
Eliana’s first real boyfriend, Aaron, had met her parents after a year of dating. She remembered how he smiled too wide, how he held her hand a little too tightly at dinner. Her mother had interrogated him about his career trajectory, his family’s wealth, and whether he believed in “strong women with a touch of modesty.”
Two weeks later, Aaron broke up with Eliana.
“She’s intense,” he said. “Your mom. It’s like she was testing me the whole time. And you... you disappear around her.”
That was the first time Eliana heard it phrased that way. You disappear around her.
---
Present Day: The Dinner
They arrived ten minutes early, just as Margaret preferred.
“You should never arrive exactly on time,” she’d once told Eliana. “It makes you look like you have nowhere better to be.”
The front door opened before they even rang the bell.
“Eliana,” Margaret said, pulling her daughter into a perfunctory hug. Then she turned to Marcus. “So. This is the famous boyfriend.”
Marcus smiled warmly. “Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Adams.”
“And you must be Mr. Adams,” he said, extending his hand to Gerald.
Gerald nodded, shook his hand, and mumbled something about football scores.
Dinner was exactly what Eliana feared: a performance.
Margaret led the conversation with surgical precision. She asked Marcus about his job at the publishing house, about his alma mater, about his parents’ professions. When he asked her about her own interests, she deflected.
“I keep busy managing the home. Eliana would understand if she weren’t always working.”
Eliana said nothing. She was used to these subtle jabs.
Then came the question that felt like a slap.
“So, Marcus, how do you feel about long-term commitment?” Margaret asked, casually buttering a roll.
Marcus blinked. “I believe in it.”
Margaret smiled thinly. “Good. Because Eliana tends to invest too much in people who don’t deserve her. We just want the best for her, of course.”
Eliana’s cheeks flushed. “Mom—”
“Am I wrong?”
Marcus looked between them. “With all due respect, I think Eliana’s more than capable of choosing who deserves her.”
The silence that followed was a small act of rebellion. Eliana’s heart swelled and ached at the same time.
---
After Dinner
They left in strained silence. In the car, Marcus was quiet for several blocks.
“I’m sorry,” Eliana finally said.
“For what?”
“For all of it. That... interrogation. My mom.”
He shook his head. “You don’t owe me an apology.”
“I do. I should’ve warned you. They’re always like that.”
Marcus pulled the car to the side of the road and parked. He turned to her, his expression soft.
“Eliana. I love you. But I can’t lie—I felt like I was watching you shrink the whole night. That wasn’t the woman I know.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “I don’t know how to be myself around them. Every time I try, I get punished. Or ignored. Or made to feel like I’m ungrateful.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t try anymore.”
Eliana looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean... maybe it’s not you who needs fixing. Maybe it’s the story you’ve been told about what love is supposed to feel like.”
---
Flashback: Age 10
Eliana had drawn a picture in art class—her, standing under a tree, smiling. Her teacher had written “Lovely expression!” in red ink.
When she brought it home, Margaret glanced at it and said, “Trees don’t look like that. And why is your dress orange? It clashes with your hair.”
Eliana had thrown the picture away.
Years later, she’d wonder: what would her life have looked like if that small praise hadn’t been erased by the need to critique?
---
Present Day: Cracks in the Performance
Eliana stopped calling as often. She let her mother’s texts go unanswered for days instead of minutes. She declined an invitation to brunch by saying she had a therapy session. It wasn’t a lie.
“Boundaries are not punishments,” Dr. Herrera reminded her during a session. “They’re protections. For you.”
Still, guilt clawed at her chest. Every boundary felt like betrayal. Every ignored text felt like treason.
But she began to see it for what it was: a performance designed to protect a toxic illusion. And she was tired of performing.
---
Climactic Scene: The Family Brunch
Three weeks after the dinner with Marcus, Eliana reluctantly agreed to attend a brunch with extended family. It was her cousin’s engagement party, hosted at her parents’ home.
Margaret was in top form—organizing place settings, correcting people’s posture, making passive-aggressive comments about how Eliana “worked so much she barely had time for family.”
At one point, her aunt leaned in and said, “Your mother is so proud of you, you know. She just doesn’t say it like other moms.”
Eliana smiled politely. But something inside her snapped when Margaret turned and said, loudly:
“Eliana’s always been sensitive. She cries if you look at her sideways.”
The room chuckled.
Eliana stood.
“I’m going to step outside.”
Margaret frowned. “What’s wrong now?”
Eliana turned slowly. “Nothing’s wrong. I just don’t want to be laughed at by the people who are supposed to love me.”
A hush fell. Her father blinked. Her mother’s jaw tightened.
She walked out onto the porch and took a deep breath. For the first time in a long time, the air felt real.
---
Chapter Close
That night, Eliana wrote:
> “I’m done performing. If they love me, they’ll have to love me—not the girl they curated, corrected, and controlled.
I’m ready to be seen. Even if it means losing them.
Maybe that’s what freedom costs.”
- Writer
