Chapter 3

She had a window seat and she was grateful for it.

Outside, the world kept changing. Fields, small towns, stretches of open sky. Sia watched all of it with her chin resting near the glass, letting the view replace whatever was going on inside her head.

Behind her, her parents were talking.

Her dad's voice was the kind that filled whatever room it was in whether you wanted it to or not.

"I don't understand why Dad had to send her so far," he said. "Can't she study here? Live a normal life like other girls?" He made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a scoff. "Wasting my money."

Her mother didn't respond. She knew better than to respond.

Sia kept looking out the window.

After a while, one of the train staff came through the compartment offering snacks. Sia took something small, unwrapped it quietly, started eating.

That was when her dad looked at her.

"Sia." His voice had that particular flatness to it. "Why are you wasting my money."

It wasn't really a question. He didn't wait for an answer either. He looked away almost immediately, like she wasn't worth the full sentence. "Leave it. I don't even want to know."

Sia kept eating.

She stared straight ahead and kept chewing and told herself it was fine. It was fine. She was used to this. She had been used to this her whole life.

But the tears came anyway.

They always did, no matter how many times she told them not to. They slipped out quietly, one after another, and she turned slightly toward the window so nobody would see. Her hand came up once to wipe her face. Then again.

Her mother saw.

She always saw.

She reached over and touched Sia's arm, soft and careful, trying to give her something without making noise about it.

That was when her dad's voice rose.

Right there, in the compartment, with other passengers around them and nowhere to go and no door to close, he started. At Sia. Then at her mother. His voice climbing in a way that made the air feel smaller, made the walls feel closer. Her mother's eyes filled up but she didn't make a sound. She had learned a long time ago that sounds made things worse.

Sia's relationship with her father had never been simple. It had never been good.

He worked under her grandfather, always had, and whatever he earned he poured into the cult he had attached himself to. That was what he called it, his faith, his path, but Sia had watched it long enough to know what it really was. A group built on control. On keeping women small and obedient and grateful for their smallness. He didn't just follow it. He pushed it onto everyone around him. His wife. His children. He thought it was his right.

Sia had never agreed. She had never pretended to agree either. Her values, the things she believed in her bones, had no room for what that group preached. And her father knew it. He had always known it.

That was why she was the one he hated the most.

But Sia was strong. She had built that strength slowly, quietly, the way you build anything when you have no other choice. She didn't let him reach her. Not fully. Not anymore.

That night, neither she nor her mother ate.

Her father finished his food, arranged himself comfortably, and went to sleep without a word.

The two of them sat in the dim compartment, the train rocking gently around them, the world outside dark and passing. After a while, without saying anything, they leaned into each other. Her mother's arm came around her. Sia pressed close.

It was the same thing they had always done. When things were too heavy to hold alone, they held them together.

They didn't say everything will be fine. They didn't need to say it. They just held on, in the warmth of each other, until their eyes grew heavy and sleep finally, gently, pulled them under.

The train moved on through the night, carrying them forward.

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***