The journey home was a blur. Marina saw nothing, heard nothing, guided only by the animal instinct to take refuge in her burrow. The tears streaming down her face were no longer of sadness, but a purging, a violent rejection of all she had just endured. She stumbled on her doorstep, her hands shaking so violently she could barely insert the key.
When the door finally opened, she nearly fell forward, but two strong arms caught her.
"Marina! My God, what's happened to you?"
Paul's voice. Full of a sincere alarm that pierced her more deeply than all her father's shouts. She looked up at him with a ravaged face, wet with tears and despair. Seeing him there, present, worried about her while her own family had just rejected her like garbage, another sob, deeper, more heart-wrenching, escaped
