Page 119 of About Love and Revenge

“I couldn't keep up with regular school. The teachers lost patience, and my father was called in. They thought I was too lazy to study, but I wasn't. The letters and numbers were like secret codes to me.”

"Didn't they realize it was dyslexia?"

“I'm not sure. If they knew, they never told me anything. They never took me to a doctor, and there came a time when my father explained to me that I was just plain stupid and that the only thing that would stop people from laughing at me was my appearance. That I shouldn't let them see how stupid I was. From then on, I started faking it.”

“Faking?”

“Yes. I pretended to understand conversations. I pretended to read books. After a while, I started faking feelings too. I was never myself until I came to the States.”

"Did you fake it with me?"

“No, I never did. You always pressured me to make my own decisions. I ended up forgetting about fear.”

“I didn't want you to be afraid of me.”

“I was never afraid of you. Not even that first day, in your house. It's just that you made it clear you didn't like my family, and I thought that would extend to me too. So I tried closing myself off like I did with the rest of the world, but it didn't work.”

“Why not?”

“Because from the beginning you didn't just accept what I wanted to show you. You always looked at me as if you could see beyond my defenses, and little by little, I started to like that.”

"You liked me seeing you?"

“Yeah.”

“How could I not see you, my love? At the beginning of our relationship, I was already lost. I just fought it.”

“Because I’m his daughter?”

“Yes, but mostly because I didn't want to give up. I was afraid of letting all those good feelings in and then ending up pushing back my plans.”

She looks at me but doesn't ask about what kind of plans they are. “I've spent my entire life policing myself, but when you brought me to the States, I felt as free as if I had just been released from prison. I wanted to learn everything and dreamed of having a normal life, but I didn't even know where to start. Pride stopped me from asking you for help. The way you looked at me made me feel special.”

“You're not just special—you're unique to me.”

“I still can't believe we're talking about everything. I never thought I would unveil my soul to someone one day.”

“You can tell me anything. We’ll overcome every obstacle together.”

She snuggles up to me. “I wasn't a copycat when I was younger. As you may have noticed, I can be a little hot-tempered at times.”

Elina pulls back to look at me, and I smile. Her defiant manner is one of the things I love.

“I used to speak without thinking and got beaten for it. Even in the beginning, when I couldn't learn, I still tried to argue. It was after the beatings became more frequent that I became silent, but I wasn’t so afraid of physical aggression—I was afraid of verbal aggression.”

“What do you mean?”

“At first he didn't anger me that much, because he said things like,no one can know how stupid you are, because they'll laugh at you, and I thought he was trying to protect me, you know? Hiding from people that I was slow to understand things. But my father started using it against me at any given opportunity. Every time he was angry, if I got close to him, he made a point of reminding me how useless I was.”

“There's nothing wrong with you. Dyslexia is not a flaw. Your mother was neglectful. As for your father . . . he just gets worse every day.” I take a deep breath, trying to calm my anger. “If they both knewabout your problem and deliberately ignored it, it's not your fault, it's theirs.”

“Don’t you care?”

“About what?”

“About the fact that I can barely write my name.”

“I care about how deeply not getting help and living in hiding has scarred you. Yesterday, you pulled off a perfect party for five hundred guests. Your ideas helped us raise a lot more donations than we did last year, so don't tell me you're not a smart woman. I know how capable you are.”

---