HER INNOCENCE

The smell of formaldehydes, antiseptic sheets, and cheap floor polish always clung to Sarah’s skin like a second coat of clothes. At the age of 19, her life had been measured by the sterile walls of old dormitory and the punishing schedule of a nursing student at the city college. She knew how to treat a wound without bruising. She knew how to quiet a panicking patient. But nothing in her clinical training could have prepared her for the suffocating, and cold pressure of the house she was supposed to call home. Sarah adjusted the collar of her coat. She was not the trembling four year old girl anymore. The world had broken her, yes, but it had also forged her into something unbreakable. She didn't knock. She turned the brass handle and stepped inside. Sarah sat on the edge of a velvet-upholstered armchair that felt as stiff as stone. Wearing her simple uniform neatly, a pressed white dress that looked entirely out of place beneath the dripping crystal chandeliers of the manor. Across from her, three people stared at her with the calculating intensity, like a livestock appraisers. "Look at her hands," Aunt Helena commented, her fingers adorned with blood-red varnish as she flicked a speck of imaginary dust from her silk sleeve. "They’re rough. They smell like a public hospital ward. We are going to spend more time at the spa just to make her presentable for the Solomon family’s gala next Friday." Helena said. One elderly woman sat propped against satin pillows, her skeletal wrists heavily weighted down by thick bands of 24-karat gold. Her eyes, clouded with age but sharp with unadulterated greed, tracked every nervous twitch of Sarah’s fingers. She is Sarah's grandmother named Augusta. "Her skin is good, though. She has the pale complexion that the Solomons prefer. Porcelain and Innocent looked. The kind of look that makes a wealthy man feel powerful when he buys it. We can still get the full price for her, Helena." Grandmother Augusta said. Sarah gripped her nursing textbook tightly against her lap. Her throat felt dry, choked by the thick scent of jasmine perfume and expensive cigars that saturated the room. "Grandmother... Aunt Helena... please. I don't understand. The letter said you wanted me back home because you missed me. It said you wanted me to be closed in this family." Sarah said. A harsh, barking laugh cut through the room. Arthur, Sarah’s father, didn't look up from the blueprints spread across the mahogany dining table. He was a man consumed by a singular, frantic madness, the dream of owning the largest casino syndicate on the southern strip. He had spent years running illegal underground card games, sinking every cent the family had into bad debts and back-alley loans. "Family?" Arthur muttered, eyes locked on the small table with a dark plan. "We brought you back because you’re nineteen, Sarah. You’re prime age. The Solomon family controls forty percent of the commercial real estate downtown, including the exact lot I need for my casino empire. They want an alliance. Old man Solomon wants a quiet, submissive and smart girl for his eldest son, Ethan. You are that alliance." "But I’m in my second year of nursing! I have clinical rotations next semester. I want to save lives, and finish my course, Father." Sarah pleaded, a single tear cutting through her pale cheek. Arthur snapped, finally slamming his fist onto the table. "You will save our financial needs first, not other people's lives, and that’s what matters most!" "Do you think we paid your boarding school fees out of the goodness of our hearts? For fifth teen years, we kept you out of sight, waiting for the exact moment your value would peak. The Solomons are our only way out of the dirt. If I don't get that casino lot, the loan sharks will take my hands. You will marry Ethan Solomon, or you will find out exactly how cruel this family can be." Arthur added. Sarah looked around the room, searching for any single trace of mercy. She had spent her entire childhood wondering why her parents had abandoned her to a distant boarding institution, rarely visiting, never sending gifts for her birthdays. She had kept a small, worn photograph of her mother under her pillow for a decade, praying that one day she would be brought back into a warm, loving household. But none of her expectations were real. She wasn't a daughter to them. She was a cheque to be cashed, a piece of meat to be traded to the highest bidder to fund her father's gambling addictions and her Aunt and grandmother’s lust for money and gold. "And what about Mother. Where is she? Why she isn't here to see me?" Sarah asked, her voice cracking as she stood up from the heavy chair. Grandmother Augusta let out a cold voice, and rattling snort, her heavy gold rings clinking together as she adjusted her shawl. "Your mother is exactly where she belongs, in the charity ward of the public hospital. Paralyzed, useless, and rotting. She hasn't spoken a coherent word in five years. She doesn't even know you're back, and she doesn't need to know. She spent her whole life crying about you, and look where it got her? Bedridden and broken." The words struck Sarah like a physical blow. Her mother was alive, paralyzed in a hospital ward, completely unaware that her daughter had been brought home like a lamb to the slaughter. And worse, she was being neglected by the very man who had sworn to protect her and their daughter. "How....?" Sarah asked, a tone that likely a whisper to his father's ear. "Don't bother to ask. Your mother is sick and weak, she stayed their because she needs that treatment. So, if you want to give your mother a proper care, think about it." Arthur told his daughter, treating like a maid in his own house. And now, his daughter is like a thing that he can sold anytime. "I spent my whole life looking up to you, trusting that you were my safe harbor. But you were the ones who threw me to the wolves. Father, grandma, Aunt... how could you put a price on my life? You bartered me away like merchandise in exchange for money. My heart is completely shattered. Look me in the eyes and tell me the truth, Am I actually a family to you?" Sarah said. Her breath was shallow, her gaze locked on the three figures of the people who wanted to push her out of their lives. Her father avoided her eyes, intently staring at his shoes. Her grandmother stared back with a cold, calculated indifference, while her aunt idly counted the stack of paper notes on the wooden table, the rustling of the bills sounding like dry autumn leaves scraping against the floor. "Father... Grandma... Aunt..." No one answered. Only the ticking sound of the grandfather clock in the corner, sounded like a countdown to her execution, sealing a truth that would haunt her for the rest of her days. Sarah felt the last remnant of her childhood die right then and there. Tears were hot with betrayal welled in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall in front of these predators. "You are a monster,. All of you. You look like people, but there is nothing inside. I am not your property to trade away. I won't do it. I will find a way to save Mom myself, but I will never let you sell me!" Sarah said, her voice is shaking.