THE TORN MEMORIES

CHAPTER TWO

Vivian stepped aside with a graceful pivot, a smirk playing on her lips. She opened the book, flipping through the pages of charcoal landscapes and intimate portraits of the woods. With a slow, deliberate motion, Vivian gripped the center of the book and ripped.

Elena watched the first page tear away in Vivian's hands, her expression changing instantly from fear to horror. The page contained a drawing Elena had spent an entire night completing while everyone slept.

Vivian didn't even look at it properly before letting it fall. Then her fingers moved to another page. She wasn't destroying the book because she disliked the drawings. She was destroying it because she knew it mattered.

The sound of tearing paper echoed through the silent kitchen like a gunshot.

Elena froze. The sound seemed louder than it should have been, as though the entire estate had gone silent to listen. Her chest tightened, and for a moment she couldn't breathe.

The pages that had once made her feel safe were falling around her feet, scattered across the spotless marble that she had spent hours cleaning. She stared at them helplessly, unable to understand how Vivian could destroy something so precious without feeling anything.

"Stop it please!" Elena cried, her voice cracking.

The cry escaped before she could stop it. She had spent years learning not to raise her voice, but seeing Vivian tear apart the only memories she had of her mother broke through every wall Elena had built around herself. Her eyes burned, and her hands trembled at her sides. She wanted to grab the book, but fear held her back for another second, and that second was enough for Vivian to continue.

Vivian didn't stop. She ripped page after page, the sketches of Elena’s mother—the only images she had left of a face she barely remembered—fluttering to the floor like wounded birds. Vivian then walked to the industrial sink, turned the faucet on full blast, and shoved the remaining spine of the book into the rushing water.

The charcoal drawings dissolved beneath the stream, dark lines bleeding across the paper until the faces Elena had carefully preserved became nothing more than blurred shadows.

Elena could only watch as years of memories disappeared into the sink. She remembered sitting beside her mother as a little girl, remembered the softness of her voice, the warmth of her hands, and the way she used to tell Elena that she could become anything she wanted. Those memories had already grown faint with time. The drawings had been Elena's way of keeping them alive.

"Oops," Vivian whispered, watching the ink bleed and blur into grey smears. "I guess your memories were just as disposable as you are."

Elena stared at her. Something inside her went completely still. The words hurt, but not in the way Vivian expected. They didn't make Elena cry. They didn't make her beg. Instead, they seemed to settle into the deepest part of her, joining every other insult she had swallowed over the years.

Vivian had always believed Elena was weak because she endured everything. She had mistaken silence for surrender. She didn't understand that sometimes a person could endure so much pain that eventually there was nothing left to lose.

Elena collapsed to her knees, not to scrub this time, but because the world had suddenly tilted. She reached for the sodden scraps of paper, her fingers trembling. The silence that followed was heavier than the abuse.

It was the silence of something finally snapping. Elena gathered the ruined pages one by one, pressing them against her chest even though water soaked through her shirt. She knew she couldn't repair them.

She knew the drawings were gone. Yet she couldn't bring herself to let them remain scattered across the floor like trash. For years, those pages had been the only place where her mother still existed clearly, and now even that had been taken from her.

"Get up," Vivian commanded, sounding bored now that the thrill of destruction had passed. "The guest wing needs vacuuming. If I see a single stray hair, I'll tell Mother you stole from her jewelry box again." Elena remembered clearly the first time Vivian had lied about the jewelry box, she had been beaten with a heavy stick and starved for three days, by the time they gave her food, she was almost dying.

Elena slowly lifted her head. The threat was not new. Vivian had accused her of stealing before, knowing perfectly well that their mother would believe her without asking questions. Elena had never been given the benefit of the doubt in this house.

If something went missing, she was blamed. If something broke, she was blamed. If Vivian was angry, Elena was blamed. It was easier for everyone to blame the unwanted girl than to question the beloved daughter.

Vivian sauntered away, the scent of her expensive perfume lingering like a threat. Elena remained on the floor, clutching a blurred sketch of a willow tree. She didn't cry. The tears had run dry years ago.

Instead, a cold, hard knot formed in the pit of her stomach. It was a seed of hatred, watered by a decade of humiliation, and it had finally bloomed. She looked down at the ruined drawing in her hands and traced one finger over the blurred outline of the willow branches.

Once, she would have mourned the loss and then forced herself to continue working. Once, she would have told herself that surviving was enough. But something had changed today. She no longer felt only pain. Beneath the pain was anger, and beneath the anger was a determination she had never allowed herself to acknowledge.

Elena slowly closed her fingers around the ruined page, her expression remaining calm even as something fierce awakened inside her. She had spent ten years being treated like she was nothing. Perhaps it was time she discovered what happened when someone like her finally decided she had nothing left to lose.