Chapter Five :
Julie's Point of View
"Fathers ready to sell their daughters"... this sentence echoed like a corrupted tape repeating the same thing. I tried to turn it off, but I couldn't.
I sat on the floor, placing both my hands over my ears; perhaps I would succeed in blocking the sound from entering, but what I realized was that the sound was originating from the inside.
It was growing like black mold in the corners of my mind, whispering to me that the world I knew had collapsed, and that the person who was supposed to protect me was the very one who sold me to this monster.
Olivia entered the room, and the sound suddenly stopped. She looked at me with eyes full of hatred and said:
"You've only been here for a few hours and you've already turned this place upside down. Where did you come from? I don't think you're from New York; you look like an underdeveloped country girl."
I smiled while still lying on the floor and said:
"I really want to stand up and respond to you, but you know what? I feel a bit tired, so I won't."
She said to me, consumed by the fires of rage:
"Mr. Robert is looking for a special customer to buy you... a customer who likes wild boars."
The blood boiled inside me again. She now knew my weak point and played it every chance she got. So, I tried to keep myself together and said:
"I heard that wild boars are dangerous... please take care of yourself."
Her expression changed and she said:
"We'll see, you pig,"
and left the room to leave me with my looping record.
The room returned to its coldness, and that corrupted tape began to spin in my mind louder than before. "Fathers ready to sell their daughters"... Now, it was no longer just words Robert had said; it had become a reality threatening to tear my future apart, and Olivia's words confirmed to me that I was nothing more than a coming deal waiting for the worst buyer.
I closed my eyes, and time took me back to the day I was in my room, drawing a rainbow and coloring it with various bright colors. Suddenly, my father burst into my room like a black cloud... with his presence, all my colors disappeared, the beautiful rainbow vanished, and it became just lines in shades of black and gray.
He was carrying a brown bag in his hands, from which he pulled a beautiful pink dress that looked like a princess's dress. My eyes sparkled and I smiled in amazement:
"Dad, is this dress for me?"
He replied as if blaming me:
"Your school principal called... she said there's a damn party and every student must attend."
Then he added:
"Don't you dare remove the tag attached here... I will return it as soon as you get home."
The smile vanished from my small face and I nodded in agreement. The words couldn't come out, but he was pressing me in every way possible. He said in a serious voice:
"Do you understand what I'm saying, Julie?"
I replied, unable to even hear my own voice:
"Yes, Dad... I understand."
My father left after placing the dress in the closet with a gentle touch I had never seen before.
I went to open the closet as soon as he left and stood there contemplating that beautiful dress. Even though it wasn't mine, and even though it was just a garment to display my father's fake affection in front of people, an 8-year-old girl ignored all those facts and stared at it as if it were magic.
Steve's voice interrupted my thoughts: "Julie, you'll look like a princess in this dress." I laughed and said: "Stop it... you know I can't be."
He looked at me while pushing his long blonde hair off his forehead, making the green of his eyes appear more vivid, as if the color green loved him so much it drew other marks all over his body. He said:
"Pink suits you... it's enough that you aren't stained with green."
I felt a pain in my heart, a pain a girl my age shouldn't know, but those marks drawn on his body carried shades of green; every mark told a different history, and all of them spoke of one monster we called... "Dad."
I felt guilty toward him even though I wasn't to blame. Steve was only four years older than me, but those years stretched every day to become much more.
While I received coldness, he received an extra dose of daily beatings. His mere presence in the house was enough for my father to pull the belt from his trousers and embrace his small body with utter brutality. I approached him and hugged him with all the strength a child possesses, my tears falling on his blue shirt, and I said:
"I love you, Steve."
He patted my back with his hand, saying:
"And I love you, Julie."
His touch wasn't that of a twelve-year-old boy; I swear he felt fifty years old.
Steve left the room, leaving me to finish admiring the dress, for tomorrow would be the long-awaited party.
The next morning, I woke up to my father's voice screaming:
"Where is that stupid boy? Where did he go?"
My brother Steve was used to waking up early and sneaking out of the house before my father noticed; he was like a fugitive from an inevitable fate.
I was waiting for my share of the family "hymn," and I didn't wait long. Soon he burst into my room, growling:
"Get up, you brat, and put your clothes on right now! I don't want your damn teacher coming to my house now!"
He slammed the door behind him, making the walls of the room shake, and I got up quickly, my heart thumping with terror.
I put on the dress, my eyes on the hanging tag, for its safety now decided my entire fate.
I combed my short, soft brown hair and put a pink clip on it that Teacher Sylvia had given me; I kept it as if it were a piece of precious jewelry because it was something born of love, not duty.
I left my room and headed to the kitchen. My mother was standing there like a fashion model in her purple dress that reached her knees and her high black heels, while her long hair flowed down her back like a chocolate fountain.
She looked at me with her watery green eyes, then looked away as if I didn't exist.
I stepped forward to sit at the table for breakfast, and no sooner had I pulled the chair than my father shouted:
"What are you doing, you idiot? Get away from the table right now!"
I looked at him blankly; I didn't understand why he was stopping me, but he explained it perfectly. He approached me, pointed his hand at the food, and said:
"Not a single bite of food will pass through your mouth as long as that dress is on your body."
I left the chair quietly, while the sound of hunger wasn't just in my stomach, but also the pain of deprivation.
"Don't you know how to comb your hair neatly? You really are good for nothing!"
He said this sentence while stressed; his daughter had failed to be a mother to herself. He blamed me for my messy hair, while the one who should be blamed stood with us as if she were a guest.
I went to my room quickly, took the comb, and returned to the kitchen. I approached my mother and said to her:
"Can you style my hair, Mom?"
She didn't bother to look at my face; she raised her fingers colored with red nail polish and said:
"My nails aren't dry yet."
I could see that her polish was perfectly dry; perhaps she thought I hadn't noticed her painting them last night, but I knew that no matter how much I asked for her attention, she would refuse to give it to me.
My father shouted:
"Let's go, Julie, we'll be late!"
I put the comb on the table, patted it a little, and comforted it in my heart:
"Don't be sad, Mr. Comb, it's not your fault; she doesn't want to touch me, not you."
I sat next to my father in his worn-out, gray car that time had eaten and drunk away. It was dying and asking for mercy, but it didn't know its owner was my father. I didn't ask why my mother wasn't coming to the party; I knew the answer beforehand, and asking about it was useless.
In my father's car, there is no radio or music player; instead, my father replaced it with precise instructions on how to maintain the "soul" of the dress. He explained to me how we could lose it with the simplest mistake, like eating candy, drinking juice, or running around.
We finally arrived at the party location, which felt to me like a minefield I had to survive; any wrong step meant destruction.
I spotted my teacher, Sylvia, with her innocent face and charming smile; her blonde hair was like the bright sun in spring, and her brown eyes were like a bowl of honey.
I wanted to run as fast as I could to hug her, but my pink shackles prevented me from moving, so I walked with slow steps that didn't match the beating of my heart at all.
I finally reached the finish line where I received my prize; my teacher hugged me with her warm hands and said in her kind voice:
"You look very beautiful, Julie."
She took me by the hand and led me to a table filled with the most delicious types of food and said:
"What do you want, Julie? Shall I give you a strawberry cake? I know you love it very much."
I swallowed my saliva and kept my mouth tightly shut; I was afraid my drool would betray me. I said, careful not to open my mouth fully:
"I'm not hungry, Teacher. I ate a lot of food this morning."
The teacher realized there was something I was hiding, so she said:
"Alright, Julie, maybe later. Go now and play with your friends."
I couldn't offer her another refusal that would make me drown in a flood of endless questions that accept neither an answer nor silence.
I smiled at her and headed with cautious steps to where my friends were playing, while I was the only one who saw myself approaching the shadows of death.
I stood like a prisoner inside pink bars watching them dance. Jenny was wearing a dress similar to mine but in azure blue, yet she was like a butterfly fluttering, while I was trapped in my cocoon.
I saw Sunshine running toward me in her green dress, trying to pull me into a dangerous waterfall that would break my bones. I said to her:
"Sunshine, I don't want to play, I'm tired."
She was surprised by my behavior, which pushed her to pull me harder, saying:
"Come on, Julie, let's have some fun."
I felt my feet moving without my will, like someone entering a water current they couldn't control.
I felt as if my consciousness was numbed while I was among them, and I began to play and dance. For a moment, I broke free from my cocoon and flew with my colored wings in the sky. I touched the cotton clouds, greeted the little birds, bid farewell to the migratory birds, and tasted the delicious strawberry that, out of its sweetness, snuck onto my dress.
The music stopped suddenly, time froze, the clouds and birds disappeared, the colored wings broke... and I looked at the stain that decided to steal my freedom. I was no longer a prisoner now, but simply a person facing execution.