Chapter 5 Learning to Hold On

Time did not move in a straight line.

It stretched, then folded back in on itself. It slipped like unstable ground, always ready to give way beneath one's feet.

Anna could no longer say how many cities they had passed through. The names faded almost as soon as they were spoken. The streets too. What remained, instead, were sensations. The cold of mornings that came too early. The smell of bags that were never fully unpacked. The unfamiliar ceilings she stared at at night, trying to guess how long they would belong to her.

She changed schools several times.

At first, she still tried. An awkward smile. A seat taken beside someone. A question asked in a low voice. She watched the other children-their habits, their easy laughter. She tried to slip in among them.

Then there was always the departure.

A bag closed too quickly. A last day when no one said anything. An absence that, by the next morning, was already unnoticed.

So she stopped.

In every new classroom, she chose the same seat. At the very back. Near the wall. Where you can see without being seen. Where your gaze can move freely without exposing you.

Teachers took a long time to learn her name. Some never did.

That suited her.

Being forgotten had its advantages.

She spoke little. Answered just enough. No more. No less. When she was questioned, she lifted her eyes calmly. When someone watched her too closely, she lowered them-not out of shame, but calculation.

Claire worked a lot.

Too much.

She left early, before Anna was fully awake. She came home late, when fatigue had already erased her features. Sometimes she smelled of cleaning products, sometimes of cold kitchen grease, sometimes of nothing at all. As if she, too, had learned how to disappear.

Money never stayed long. Neither did apartments.

Anna knew how to recognize the exact moment a place stopped being safe. It wasn't about the walls or the neighborhood. It was something else. Boxes left half unpacked. Curtains kept open even at night, so the street could be watched. Conversations Claire cut short when someone passed too close.

At night, Anna often stayed awake.

She listened.

Footsteps in the stairwell. Muffled voices behind thin walls. Doors slamming too hard. She instinctively distinguished ordinary sounds from those that signaled danger. She didn't know how she had learned that. Only that her body reacted before her mind did.

One evening, Claire came home with a cut on her finger.

Nothing serious. A thin, poorly treated slice. But Anna noticed the way she hid it. The way she kept her hand closed. The way she avoided her gaze.

"Are you okay?" Anna asked.

Claire looked up. Smiled too quickly.

"Yes. Just tired."

Anna nodded. She didn't insist. She had understood long ago that some questions made things more dangerous instead of clearer.

Little by little, Anna developed habits.

Always the same ones.

She arranged her belongings in a precise order. She counted her steps. She memorized bus schedules, even when they didn't take them. She stored faces away. Intonations. Imperceptible changes in tone.

She observed.

She observed men most of all.

The way they looked. The way they lingered. The smiles that never reached their eyes. She understood very early that some gazes took more than they gave-that they lingered like an invisible hand.

So she avoided.

She made herself smaller. Quieter. She learned to disappear ahead of time.

One day, in a schoolyard, a boy stared at her for too long. She lowered her head. He moved closer. She felt that dull, immediate alarm tighten in her chest. She stood up and walked away without running.

That very evening, she asked to change schools.

Claire agreed without asking a single question.

It was that day Anna understood something essential.

Her survival would depend on her ability to anticipate.

She didn't put it into words. She carved it somewhere else. Deeper.

The years passed like that. Without anchors. Without roots. But with constant vigilance.

Anna grew faster than the others. Not in her body-inwardly.

She became strong in silence.

One winter evening, they were living in a small room rented by the week. A single space. A window that didn't close properly. Unreliable heating.

Claire came in, set down her bag, and suddenly sat down on a chair.

She wasn't crying.

She was shaking.

Anna watched her for a long time before approaching. She placed her hand on her mother's. A simple gesture. Steady.

"I can't do this anymore," Claire whispered.

Anna didn't answer right away. She squeezed her mother's fingers gently.

"We hold on," she said at last.

Claire lifted her head and looked at her as if she were seeing her for the first time.

"You shouldn't have to say that."

Anna shrugged.

"We say it anyway."

That night, Anna pulled out an old notebook she kept at the bottom of her bag. She didn't write often. Only when it was necessary.

She rested it on her knees. Thought for a moment. Then wrote, slowly:

Don't draw attention.

Listen more than you speak.

Leave before you're forced to.

She reread it. Closed the notebook.

She didn't yet know that this notebook would become a weapon. For now, it was simply a way not to lose herself.

The next day, Claire spoke about Paul.

Again.

But this time, her tone had changed. Less evasive. More grave.

"I think I don't have a choice anymore," she said.

Anna looked up.

"Neither do I," she replied simply.

They looked at each other for a long time.

For the first time, Anna understood that something was ending.

And that something else-more uncertain, perhaps more dangerous-was about to begin.

She didn't yet know that this door left ajar would change everything.

But she already sensed that holding on would soon no longer be enough