The pool was nine steps from my door. I counted.
My mother left me with him. She thought it was for the best — the big house, the cars, the life she couldn't give. She kissed my forehead. The car pulled away. I was four.
The room had been storage once. Chlorine baked into the walls. Ceiling sweating year-round. Above me, the garage — I'd fall asleep to engines starting, tires rolling out. Mosquitoes bred in the corners. At night, roaches moved behind the plaster like whispered arithmetic.
Sometimes my father would call for me. A banquet. A drive. Women with perfumed hair leaning into his shoulder, laughing at nothing. Easy pleasure. I'd sit in the back and watch the city slide past tinted glass. At the end: the gate, the pool, the nine steps, the door.
I was a cheerful boy then. I smiled for his women. I said thank you for the rides.
The bites layered until my arms were topography.
Nine steps to the water. I never touched it.
I learned you can be kept close and still be abandoned.
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The room taught me how to sting.
I lay awake on the wet mattress and made my vow: the world would pay for what it took. Every bite a debt. Every dark night, interest.
I left. I rose.
Years later, I came back. The servants use the room now — karaoke on Sundays, lechon at Christmas, laughter through the walls. I stood in the doorway and watched them sing where I once bled.
I walked the nine steps to the pool.
The water was still. I touched it, finally.
The cold remembered me. I let it be.