Page 75 of Pick Me Up On Tuesdays

That was it.

That was the only reason we were free.

I should have felt safe after that. I should have been able to move on.

But how do you move on when the world outside is still filled with demons? When you have to see them every day, passing by like ordinary people, as if they weren’t capable of becoming monsters?

They were everywhere. In the markets. In the schools. Walking the streets. Living their lives like normal citizens.

And I was expected to just… accept it.

To live alongside them.

To pretend like I wasn’t terrified.

Like I wasn’t angry.

Like I didn’t see him in every single one of them.

But I had no choice.

So, I learned to cope.

To exist.

To keep my distance.

To keep conversations shallow and impersonal.

To remind myself, over and over again, that they weren’t him.

That they weren’t all like him.

That not every demon was a monster.

But deep down—

I never really believed that.

And so, I threw myself into something I could control.

School.

But not the way he wanted me to.

He had spent years making my intelligence his. Forcing me to solve equations no child should understand, drilling me with problems that even other university professors struggled with. A wrong answer meant consequences. A slow answer meant disappointment. I had learned to think fast not out of passion, but out of survival.

He had shaped my mind into a weapon. And I refused to let it be his anymore.

I didn’t want to be the prodigy. The boy genius. The academic marvel people whispered about in hushed tones. I didn’t want to stand at the top of the world with a mind sharpened by years of fear.

I just wanted to be normal.

Not at the bottom, but not at the peak. Not the 100% types but the 96%. Just… slightly above the rest. Enough to be impressive, but not enough to stand out. Enough to be free, but not enough to attract the wrong kind of attention.

Because being the smartest in the room never saved me.

It only kept me caged.

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