The Unbreakable Thread!

Saintilia POV

My name is Saintilia, but everyone calls me TiTi.

It is a nickname that once carried warmth and familiarity, the sound of a simpler time when life felt predictable. But the woman trapped in this room feels a world away from the girl named Saintilia.

My hips ached from lack of movement, even though I was permitted to walk the five steps to the lounge chair or stand by the window. Those few steps had become the unspoken reality of my universe. Five steps forward. Five steps back. A chair. A window. A bed. A door that did not belong to me.

That was how small my world had become.

Sometimes, when the silence pressed too heavily against my chest, I closed my eyes and tried to remember the sound of my name before pain changed the way I heard it.

Saintilia.

TiTi.

Jonas’s voice was the first place I always returned.

“You’ll be okay, TiTi, because you’re the prettiest in the village.”

At first, it seemed like a superficial thing, something to brush off with a smile. But as I grew older, I began to understand what he meant. He was not only speaking of beauty. He was telling me I was enough. That there was something within me that made me worthy. That I could stand tall no matter what difficulty I faced.

Those spoken words settled deep inside me and became a shield against the harsh realities of life. They gave me courage to face obstacles, to hold my head high when others tried to bring me low, and to believe in myself even when the world seemed determined to make me doubt.

They were more than a father’s proud boast. They were a lifeline, a reminder that I had a place in this world, that I had value. They became the foundation upon which I built my resilience, the quiet strength that allowed me to survive. Even when things became difficult and impossible, when disappointment and heartbreak threatened to crush me, I could always remember that in his eyes, I was enough.

And that gave me the strength to keep fighting.

“You look just like your mother.”

Those who knew Paulette would say that whenever they saw me.

She was the embodiment of elegance and grace, at least according to the people who remembered her. They would recount tales of her sharp chestnut eyes that could pierce through any pretense, then soften with a smile that radiated warmth and kindness. They said we were both tall, slim, curvy, and busty.

Was that what they meant?

I knew nothing more beyond the stories told by strangers and the rumors that surfaced after Jonas’s passing, whispers that said she had taken her own life. I only wished she had lived long enough for me to have known her.

My fingers would trace the lines of my own face as I compared myself to the old photographs Jonas kept tucked away in his wallet. The arch of my brows. The curve of my lips. The shape of my eyes. I searched for the similarities others seemed to see so clearly.

My smile, though warm, did not quite carry the same grace.

I felt a mix of sadness and acceptance, realizing that no matter how long I looked, I could never truly see the resemblance. Sometimes, I wondered if the woman they described was nothing more than a beautiful myth, a story people kept alive because the truth was too painful to hold.

I learned long ago that I could not long for something I never had.

In the absence of a mother, I had been around many women throughout my life. In many ways, those women influenced me, each leaving her mark differently. Some were fleeting presences, offering wisdom in passing, while others lingered longer, becoming steady fixtures in my life.

But it would not be until I was eighteen that I met the one who would truly try to be a mother to me: Victoria. She understood my emptiness because she had grown up with the same hollow space where a mother should have been.

In retrospect, Paulette’s death was shrouded in a silence so deep it felt like a forbidden secret. Even Jonas, my father, could never bring himself to discuss it. I was too young then to press for details, and he believed it was unnecessary to burden me with them.

He would simply assure me, his voice firm yet gentle, that Paulette had loved me beyond measure.

Holding that certainty in my heart, I walked through life with a strange kind of pride. I carried not just the echo of my mother’s face, but the possibility of her spirit. Standing before the mirror, I tried to see what others saw. I tried to see not only my own reflection, but a living legacy of strength.

I wanted to believe there was an unbreakable thread connecting me to the women who had shaped me. Some had loved me. Others had deceived me. But each, in her own way, had woven part of the tapestry of my life, bringing me to this moment at the age of thirty.

Still, I could not reminisce on the years that passed with simple fondness because of all the hardship I had endured.

As a child, I was picked on often because of my hair, which was long and usually kept in braids or buns that were easiest to manage. At least, I thought that was the reason, until the moment my hair was wrapped in someone’s fist and pulled while they cursed me, completely unprovoked.

There was one incident I remember vividly, and it will probably remain engraved in my memory forever.

I was sitting in front of a classmate during a school dance. Jonas had asked our neighbor, Adeline, to fix my hair, so there was absolutely no reason for it to annoy anyone. Ellie and I were friends, or so I thought.

But out of nowhere, her fingers were in my hair, pulling sharply, and she was calling on the others to join in.

As a child, I could not understand why my friend would behave that way. I had done nothing wrong to her. Later, I understood that it was the influence of others that made her act that way. Ever since that day, making friends was not easy for me. I learned to keep my distance because I could not fully trust the friendship of others.

I was teased just as much for my straight nose, bright eyes, and long lashes. Somehow, those things did not fit the norm, so I was considered strange-looking by the neighborhood children and became a target for kids and parents alike.

My young life became unbearable, forcing Jonas to keep me home. School was no longer an option, so our neighbor Celia became my teacher in her spare time. In Jonas’s mind, it was his way of protecting me.

And for a while, I believed protection could be that simple.

A closed door.