Page 46 of Teach Me How To Fly

“Since when do you call your father Lukyan?”

I could tell from the tone of voice that he was confused about the entire situation, and what I was going to tell him now was going to make him even more confused.

“Since I found out he’s not my father.”

He turned into an ice figure, not knowing exactly what to do, but I understood him because I didn’t know either.

Maksen kept holdingmy hand during the entire car journey to my aunt’s house, without forcing me to talk or say anything that would’ve hurt me more.

He stood beside me, caressing my hand and keeping the silence I needed. It was the best he could do considering that I was close to crying every time I thought about my dad and my family.

Which turned out not to be my family at all. Not even Lydia, so I didn’t exactly know why I still kept calling her my aunt because she was just a woman with whom I got along well.

I kept digging in my mind for things to connect, but nothing came to me, just the question to which I might not receive any answer in this life.

If the woman I called mom wasn’t really my mom and she died when I was one year old, that meant it might’ve been a chance for me to really have a mother somewhere in the world. Or maybe a father who might’ve been better for me.

But what would’ve made any of my real parents better if they didn’t want their own child?

Nothing.

I no longer had a family, and I didn’t need one. I needed just myself and Maksen, if he wanted to stay by my side.

But what if he didn’t want to do it? What if he wanted to leave me too?

“Annalise,” he whispered close to my ear and that was the moment I realized we arrived at Lydia’s house. “We’re here.”

Why did I want to come to Lydia's house? What did I have in mind? Maybe I thought that she could’ve helped me somehow, but how could she help a stranger?

But wait. What if she knew that I wasn’t a part of their family and kept this a secret from me?

So many questions were coming into my mind and I knew that it was impossible to have the answer for them all. I just had to accept them and wait for everything to figure out by itself.

Maksen opened the car door and got out, then held out his hand to me and waited for me to entwine my fingers with his, which I finally did.

The bodyguards were staying by our side, while Maksen didn’t take his gaze off of me, not even for a second. He was waiting for me, not only to take him by his arm, but to speak outloud what was hurting me and what happened back home. Yet, he didn’t force me to do any of these.

I took his hand in mine and started walking towards the entrance. I pressed the doorbell button and waited quietly in front of the door until my aunt’s voice was heard from beyond it – Lydia’s voice.

I really did have to get used to the fact that all the people I thought were my real family were actually just strangers I grew up with.

The door swung open, and my gaze locked onto hers. The glimmer of fear and terror in her eyes left me bewildered.

“W-What are you doing here?” she stammered.

But the moment I walked inside the house and I inhaled the heavy air inside of it, I felt my knees weakening.

My heart started beating harder and harder, and the fear so familiar to me seeped into every fiber of my being. I could almost hear the haunting laughter of the man from my nightmares, and the hallway in front of me seemed to be filled with the same fog that had always haunted me in dreams.

The sickly shade of yellow on the walls, slightly ripped in the corners. I used to peel off the plaster, and he was always there to yell at me, thundering at me because I was destroying his house. Then he would punish me.

The Persian carpet was adorned with various red motifs. I used to play on it with my dolls, but one unfortunate day, I took a glass of orange juice with me and spilled it on it. He unleashed his anger upon me again, punishing me like no other day.

That vase with plastic flowers on the table next to the wall. I used to play with those whenever I came to their house, and Maksen was always offering me one of them and proclaiming that he gave me flowers because that was what princesses received.

He would come and yell at us, taking Maksen by his hand and hiding him somewhere in the house without letting him come to me again. Then, he would come back and punish me again, telling me that I was no princess, just a little thing he was using to get revenge on my father.

The pungent odor of mold pervaded the space, a scent my aunt always attempted to mask with scented sticks and aromatic oils.

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