Seven.
1091 Words
I came back quieter than I left.
Russia did not change me the way people assume foreign places do. It did not suddenly give me clarity or erase the ultimatum hanging over my head. What it gave me was distance. Cold air. Long nights. A version of myself that did not belong to anyone’s expectations.
But distance is temporary.
Home waits.
It had been a week since I returned and Camille was still in Thailand chasing silence and whatever spiritual awakening she claimed she needed. We barely spoke now. Not because we fought. Not because we drifted. But because we were both searching for something and neither of us had language for it yet.
The Whitmore mansion felt the same. Grand. Polished. Suffocating.
I had not fully unpacked my boxes. A part of me refused to settle back in. I told myself it was laziness. In truth, it was instinct.
That evening, I was walking past my parents’ bedroom when I heard my name.
Not the casual kind.
The careful kind.
“…we have to tell her soon,” my father was saying.
My steps slowed.
“She will not take it well,” my mother replied.
My stomach tightened.
Tell me what.
“We cannot keep postponing it,” my father continued. “The boy is back. His family is aligned. It is the right move.”
The boy.
Aligned.
Right move.
My blood ran cold.
I did not knock.
I pushed the door open.
Both of them turned toward me at the same time. My mother’s eyes widened. My father’s expression hardened, not in anger, but in preparation.
“Tell me what?” I asked, my voice already trembling despite my effort to steady it.
“Elena,” my mother began softly.
“No,” I cut in. “Do not soften it. Tell me.”
My father stood. “We were going to speak to you tonight.”
“Speak to me about what?” I demanded.
Silence stretched for a second too long.
“About your suitor,” he said.
The word felt like a slap.
My laugh came out sharp and disbelieving. “My suitor.”
“Yes,” my mother said, stepping forward. “Listen to us first.”
“Is that how desperate you are?” My voice rose without permission. “To chase me out? To get rid of me so badly that you are willing to marry me off to anyone without my consent?”
“We are not chasing you out,” my mother snapped, her own voice rising. “Do you know how much we have given you? Everything. You have everything. Education. Exposure. Freedom. And the only thing you refuse to do is open yourself to another opportunity to love.”
Love.
The irony almost made me choke.
“You call this love?” I shot back. “Choosing someone for me?”
“What if you decide to enter another so called relationship,” she continued, emotion spilling over now, “and the person hurts you again? What then? You think I did not watch you fall apart last time? You think I did not see you lose yourself?”
“That was my mistake to make,” I said fiercely.
“And how many mistakes should you be allowed?” she cried. “You should not waste your time. Just get married. Build something stable.”
My father finally intervened. “Your four months are nearly over.”
“Not complete,” I said immediately. “Four months are not complete.”
My mother’s face tightened. “If you failed to find someone in three months, how will you find someone in one?”
The room felt smaller.
I stared at her. Not blinking. Not breathing properly.
“Is there any escape?” I asked quietly.
The question cost me something.
Her answer cost me more.
“No.”
Just that.
No.
Something inside me went still.
If I screamed more, I would break. If I cried, I would lose whatever dignity I had left.
So instead, I did something colder.
“Fine,” I said.
Both of them looked startled.
“I will agree to the wedding.”
My mother’s breath hitched.
“But,” I continued, my voice steady in a way that frightened even me, “I want freedom from now until it happens.”
“What does that mean?” my father asked.
“I do not want to be involved in any preparation. Do not ask me about colors. Do not ask me about guests. Do not show me fabrics or jewelry or halls. I want nothing to do with it.”
“Elena,” my mother whispered.
“I will appear before you again the night before my wedding,” I said. “Until then, consider me absent.”
Silence fell heavy.
“And if this so called marriage ever ruins me,” I added, each word deliberate, “then save yourselves the trouble. The day I leave my husband’s house is the day your daughter died.”
My mother gasped as though I had physically struck her.
“Do not say that,” she pleaded.
“I mean it.”
I turned before they could see the tremor in my hands.
I walked out of their room. Out of the hallway. Out of the suffocating air of expectations.
I went straight to my room.
The box.
Still half packed. Still accusing.
I did not think. I did not allow myself to.
I grabbed it. Closed it. Dragged it down the stairs.
No one stopped me.
Maybe they were too stunned.
Maybe they thought I would cool down.
I walked past the portraits, past the marble floors, past the life I had known for twenty four years.
I did not take my phone.
I did not want to hear it ring.
I placed the box in my car. My hands were shaking now, but my face remained blank.
I drove.
I did not know where I was going. I just knew I could not breathe in that house anymore.
In the rearview mirror, I caught one last glimpse of the Whitmore mansion growing smaller.
Inside, my mother was breaking.
I know she was.
Because as strong as she sounds, as determined as she appears, she is still a woman who once called me her best friend.
And now she is terrified.
Terrified that she is doing the wrong thing.
Terrified that her daughter is not just resisting marriage.
But losing herself.
- Writer
