Page 20 of Thane's Demon
And even though I told myself to let him go, I knew the truth long before I admitted it.
He had already taken root inside me.
I sighed as I dressed quietly, choosing one of my more comforting outfits. A pale blue, cable-knit sweater. One that was worn on the sleeves from how often I pulled on the fabric when I grew nervous. I paired this with a short denim skirt and a pair of navy-blue leggings with light blue hearts.
I brushed my hair carefully, tucking a loose strand behind my ear the way I always did, my movements slow and methodical as if the routine itself were a shield against what waited downstairs. I checked the mirror once more, practicing the small, bright smile I had learned to wear like armor, lifting the corners of my mouth even though the expression felt hollow and tugged at the edges of my heart.
“Just breathe,”I whispered to my reflection, trying to summon the courage I rarely felt.
“You can get through the morning.” I took a deep breath, opened my bedroom door, and stepped into the hallway that always felt colder than it should. Its silence thick and uncomfortable in the early hour. The moment I reached the bottom of the stairs, my stepmother’s voice pierced the quiet, sharp and unwelcoming, each word landing like a stone.
“You took long enough,” she snapped without even turning to look at me, her tone carrying the kind of irritation she reserved especially for my existence.
“Honestly, do you think the world waits for you to float around doing nothing?” I forced my smile tighter, walking into the kitchen where the lights were bright and unforgiving, illuminating every tense line in the room. My step-siblings sat at the table, just like yesterday. Both of them were eating breakfast without acknowledging me at first, but then one of them glanced up, smirking before nudging the other.
“Nice hair,” my stepbrother Wei said, his voice dripping with insincerity as he pretended not to laugh.
“Did you roll out of bed or is that the look you’re going for?” he added with a snigger.
“And that sweater,” his sister, Xiaoling, added, wrinkling her nose dramatically.
“You look like a thrift store threw up pastel colors. Do you ever wear anything normal?” I opened my mouth to respond, something soft and polite ready on my tongue, because that was the only kind of defense I ever learned. But then my stepmother chimed in before I could speak.
“And honestly, Alora, that diary,” she said, gesturing toward the notebook tucked under my arm as if it were something shameful.
“Most girls your age are planning their futures, not scribbling fantasies and emotions. It is so very childish.” My smile wavered, but I kept it in place, swallowing the hurt like I had trained myself to do. I tucked the diary closer to my chest, as if shielding it from their words could somehow shield me too.
“I like writing,”I murmured, though my voice barely carried over their dismissive laughter. My father finally looked up from the newspaper he had been pretending to read, his eyes landing on me with the same distant disapproval I had grown used tosince moving in. He sighed heavily, as if my presence alone exhausted him.
“Just remember what I told you,” he said, his tone stern and void of warmth.
“Writing will not build you a life. You have real responsibilities now. You are not a child anymore, Alora. Start acting like it. Focus on serious things.”
My throat tightened painfully, but I kept my smile steady. The expression stretched so tightly across my face that it felt like it might crack and fall away entirely if I let myself blink too long. The heaviness in my chest grew until I could no longer breathe properly, but I didn’t let it show. I couldn’t show it. Showing it only made things worse.
“I understand,”I said softly.
My father nodded once and returned to his paper, his attention already drifting away from me, abandoning the fragile attempt I had made to be seen, heard, or understood.
I glanced at another photo of my mother, this one tucked into the back of my phone case. Her smile was bright and unburdened, her eyes full of love, and her presence was everything warm that this house was not. I whispered silently inside my head, a habit I had never managed to outgrow.
I miss you, Mom. You always told me my light mattered. But sometimes I do not feel like I have any left.
My chest tightened, and before they could say anything else, anything sharper, anything that would tear another piece of me away, I walked quickly toward the door. My footsteps were quiet and hurried, as if escaping a place where the walls pressed too tightly around me.
“No later than six,” my father said without looking up.
“Yes, Sir,” I answered automatically, too softly for any of them to bother hearing.
I slipped my shoes on, gripping my diary a little too tightly, then opened the front door and stepped outside. The cool morning air rushed over my skin like a relief so profound it nearly unbalanced me. I closed the door behind me, exhaling the breath I had been holding since I woke, letting the weight of their voices fall away as the fresh air settled around me. It was gentle and forgiving in a way this house never was.
The street was quiet, washed in soft gold from the rising sun, and I let the warmth soak into me, loosening the tension in my shoulders, softening the ache in my chest. Out here, I could breathe again. Out here, I could be more than the disappointment trapped inside those walls. Out here, I could almost believe my mother was right, that I still had something bright inside me.
Almost.
My steps quickened the farther I moved from the apartment building. My shoulders eased slowly, the weight of my forced smile lifting as the city sounds swelled around me. Shanghai mornings had an energy that felt almost healing.
I followed the familiar route toward the bus stop, the diary tucked safely against my chest, and took the same number eighteen bus I always did. Riding it across several districts until the sprawling modern buildings of Fudan University came into view.
