Chapter 5

The road to college was nothing like she expected.

It was beautiful.

Mountains on every side, big and quiet and green, the kind that make you feel small in the best possible way. And running alongside the road, like it had decided to come along for the journey, a river. It moved with them the whole way, glittering and easy, like it was showing them the path.

Sia pressed close to the window and didn't look away.

Her dad was talking. He was always talking. Words falling out of him carelessly, comments about Sia, about her mother, little cuts wrapped in casual conversation. Neither of them responded. They had learned that too. Instead they watched the mountains go by and let the view fill up the space his words were trying to occupy.

At some point the cold air found its way through the edges of the window and moved across Sia's face and something in her chest shifted.

It was the kind of cold that feels like a message. Clean and sharp and honest. Like it was telling her something. Forget it. Whatever happened in that compartment, on that train, in that house, in all those years. Leave it on the road. Start fresh here. Enjoy this.

She breathed it in and let herself, just for a moment, feel okay.

After two hours the college appeared.

Her mother became emotional almost immediately. She moved through all the documentation herself, form after form, counter after counter, making sure everything was in order. Her dad stood nearby and did nothing useful. He made comments. About Sia. In front of other parents and staff, casual and cutting, like he saw nothing wrong with it. Like she wasn't standing right there.

Sia stood right there.

When all the paperwork was done the warden came and told her mother gently that from here Sia was responsible for herself and her belongings. This was where the goodbye happened.

Her mother's eyes filled.

A woman who worked there, a room cleaner, saw her mother crying and walked over without being asked. She came and stood beside her and said soft things and patted her back like she understood completely. A stranger being kinder than she needed to be.

Sia hugged her mother tight. Held her for a moment. Then she said bye, picked up her bag and walked toward her room.

She was not scared.

That was the thing that surprised her, that there was no fear. What she felt instead, walking through those corridors with her bag on her shoulder, was something she didn't have much experience with.

Freedom.

Her father's house had its own kind of cage. Not the kind with rules written down or locks on doors. Just him. His presence in every room. His commentary every time she stepped out. His eyes following her movements and finding something wrong with all of them. It had been easier, over the years, to simply stay in her room. Her room was safe. Her room was hers.

But this. This was different.

She found her room. She put her bag down. And then she went straight to the balcony and opened it wide.

The mountains were right there.

She stood and looked at them and then she closed her eyes.

Everything from the journey came back. The train compartment, her dad's voice rising, her mother's silent tears, the snacks she had been eating when he decided to make her feel small, the cold night they had spent holding each other instead of sleeping. His words. The way he said them without any weight, without any regret, like they cost him nothing at all.

Because they didn't. They never did.

She sat with all of it for a moment. Let herself feel it properly.

Then she opened her eyes and looked at the mountains again.

They were just standing there, the way mountains do. Solid and old and completely unbothered. And she didn't know why but it felt like they were looking back. Like they had been waiting. Like they were saying, without words, in the way only very large and very quiet things can: you are safe here.

She stayed on that balcony for a long time.

When her phone rang it was her mother.

They were leaving. Her mother's voice was doing the thing it did when she was trying to hold herself together. She went through everything. What to eat. When to sleep. Who to call if something happened. Don't forget to lock your door. Don't skip meals. Call me every day.

Sia smiled. Then she laughed a little.

"Don't worry," she said. "I'm fine."

She meant it.

After she hung up she sat back down on the balcony and looked at the mountains and thought about her mother on that return journey. The same car. The same taxi. Her dad beside her the whole way back, already looking for something to say.

Her chest tightened.

Take care, she had said before cutting the call. Two words that meant so much more than two words. That meant I know what you're going back to. That meant I'm sorry I can't come with you. That meant I love you even when I don't know how to say it big enough.

She sat there until the light started to change.

The mountains didn't move. They just stayed, the way they always had, holding everything quietly.

She was glad they were there.

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