Kevalina was born during peak summer, gasping before she even had a name. Her umbilical cord choked her and her mother had an emergency caesarean to save her. Born too soon, too fragile, but somehow radiant. She was a tender child, kind and playful. She would curl into her mother’s lap after meals, licking the rim of pumpkin carrot soup from her lips. She adored the warmth of her father’s arms, even when he came home drenched in sweat after a football match. Her brother, older and shadow-like, slipped in and out of the house; present, but unreachable.
She grew up bathed in softness. Maybe overprotected?
Right after puberty at the age of only eight, the illusion of innocence vanished. It began with stares in changing rooms, giggling behind her back when her uniform clung too tightly. They called her names. Filmed her in secret. A leaked sex video grainy, distorted, pixelated just enough for the world to doubt, but sharp enough for her to never forget.
And so, she drank to feel warm. She smoked to belong. She clung to any hands that didn’t push her away. Love or lust? became currency spent quickly, returned empty. A kiss for attention. A lifelong bruise for a moment of care, carelessness?
Her parents pleaded but did they know? She slammed doors and played music loud enough to drown them out. Her grades got lower and she had to repeat a few classes. She skipped classes for thrills that would make her feel alive. A living ghost.
She tried it. Snorted it. Swallowed it. Smoked it. Whatever would erase the ache, even just for a moment. What was that ache about? I don’t think even she knew. But it made her wake up in strangers’ beds. In bathrooms with the lights off. Vomit all over her.
She told herself she was just living. It was her choosing after all.
Then came Levin. Rough smile. Easy lies. He told her she was special. That he could fix her. That he saw her. They hung out. Laughed. Shared cigarettes and alcohol. It felt like the closest thing to love.
Then came the rules. She wasn’t allowed to wear makeup. No texting friends. No going out without him. Then he shaved her head. He said it made her his. Said it suited her better this way.
But still unconvinced of her worth, she left home. Moved in with him.
The beatings came slowly, wrapped in words like, “If I do this, it’s for your own good.” “You can be better.” “Only I can make you better”.
Then came the rape – brutal, possessive, unforgiving.
“You are mine. I’ll take what’s mine, you stupid cunt.”
The silence. The blood. The blame. The shame of not being good enough for him. She stayed. She told herself it was love.
Her brother tried to reach her, once. Called her. But by then, the distance he’d let grow was too wide to cross, she didn’t care anymore.
But how did a girl who grew up in a loving family turn out so bad? She hated herself so much, she could only accept hate from another.
He was arrested one night – for the rape of another girl. Kevalina didn’t ask. She just packed.
She went home. Her parents saw the bruises but said nothing. Perhaps, they thought they would not have the right words?
Kevalina lost weight. Lost herself, too. The silence, the anger within turned into sadness, and the sadness sank into depression.
Two years passed – awkward dinners, empty rooms. And slowly, things started to feel normal again.
“You are so much more than this, my little girl,” her mother whispered once, arms wrapped tightly around her.
Her father made jokes at the dinner table gentle ones, the kind meant to make her smile timidly.
Her brother started talking to her more, like he was trying to remember how to be close again. And for a while, it felt like the darkness could lift.
Her parents were getting ready to go on a date – the first in months. Her mother slipped into one of Kevalina’s dresses, laughing like a teenager, cheeks flushed with life. “You two behave,” Kevalina teased, grinning. “No curfew tonight.”
She hugged her mother tightly, whispered, “You’re the most beautiful woman in the world, ma. I love you.” Kissed her father on the cheek, told him he looked dashing in his old suit, even if it hung looser than before.
Then they left.
Food poisoning, sudden and vicious. Within a week, both were gone. PTSD came in.
The silence in the house was unbearable. Then came the settlement – six zeroes, no apology, just a cold cheque signed by strangers.
Kevalina and her brother split it evenly. She was only twenty.
During the funeral, Kevalina was silent. Her family cried – loud, broken sobs that echoed through the chapel. But Kevalina sat still. Not a word. Not a whimper. Only the silent tears that caressed her cheeks gave her away.
She was numb. The world had tilted off its axis. She couldn’t process it. She couldn’t accept it. Who would?
How? Everything had just started to make sense. Why?
Months passed and Kevalina started gathering strength. Her parents loved her, and this love fueled her – They loved her – unconditionally, completely – and because they did, she tried to love herself the same way. She used her part of the settlement to return to school, throwing herself into purpose. When the nights were too quiet and the memories too loud, she whispered, “Mom and dad would have held me through this.” That became her anchor.
She completed her studies, earned her masters, then her PhD. Along the way, she made real friends – people who saw her, beyond the battles she had once lost. She began volunteering, speaking at schools, and when she met teenagers standing at the same cliff she once stood on, something inside her awoke. She couldn’t save her younger self, but maybe she could reach them. She was no longer running from her pain. She carried it. Used it. She found peace in transforming, inspiring others to get better, to be better.
Kevalina looked at old photographs and cried – pictures of her parents, of birthdays, of a chubby-cheeked child smiling like she hadn’t been broken yet.
Kevalina curled inward and survived on denial one drink at a time at first and buried herself in achievement. Promotions, long nights, awards – the noise of success silencing the ache. Then came Adam. He smiled like safety. She let him in. She fell in love again, tricked her mind into thinking he could save this damsel in distress. Adam was the perfect gentleman. He was lovely, would move mountains to woo her. After a week. A marriage proposal which she accepted. Now, condemned. Damned.
A Levin in disguise? It is NOT the same, she told herself.
Only now she dressed the wounds with velvety wine.
Mostly white, sometimes red. “I don’t drink like those men in taverns,” she thought. “I drink wine. I am refined. I am composed.” She wasn’t. She was breaking, but with elegance or she thought. The depression she once got rid of, started crawling back. She didn’t fight it. Not this time. The grief was too loud, the silence too wide. She was once again in the place she swore not to get into.
She burned through her half of the money in a year. She kept the house her parents had brought her up. For a while. Couldn’t live in it. The memories stirred up her mind. Panic attacks. Almost felt like death was after her. She sold it for cash. Bought crack. Temporary peace. Her breathing slowed. Deeper breaths. Calmness.
Kevalina had lucid dreams of that night, of their bodies, lifeless. Of that last hug. That last kiss. And on those nights, she wouldn’t sleep. She couldn’t.
At some point, spoke to their brother. The conversation is always the same. “Hey… it’s been a long time. How have you been?” And none of them say what she really wished she could say.
Kevalina cooked the same meals mom once made: homemade chicken stew with baked potatoes, grilled veggies with garlic butter, and pineapple panna cotta. Each one tastes like home – and each bite – a reminder of the life she once had.
Kevalina was hit by a drunk driver after leaving a late-night meeting with the group of teenagers she was coaching. She ran to her car, trying to flee, she only had time to start it before her husband rammed her car in a fit of rage. She walked barefoot onto the motorway, high and unafraid. The asphalt was cold, unevenly textured, some with sharper pinches. Every step felt different. And so, she walked, undisturbed to the point of no return.
Looked at the sky.
The biggest, genuine smile on her face.
Jumps.
One life.
Different tomorrows.
Same ending.
How did the story make you feel?
