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The room is the coldest one in the house. In it, there are couches and chairs, but no one is ever at rest. She sits on the tallest chair in the room. Her presence looms over anyone and everyone who dare disgrace her with their company.
I’ve been in this room a handful of times. Not one of those memories bring me warmth. They have only brought me harsh reminders of scoldings for things I didn’t even know were wrong. She’d scowl at me, frown lines deepening. As every syllable she spat put together her perfect portrayal of ‘The Evil Queen’.
I reminisce the last time I was in here. She’d called me reckless and foolish, while I had finally felt free for once. Regardless, I bowed my head, chin to my chest, and shoulders tense, and I said, “Sorry.”
The last time I was in this room, I was alone, and I chose to step back, because there was no one behind me. There were no repercussions. But no one to catch me at the bottom of the cliff either.
Before I enter, I pause at the door. When he notices my trembling breaths and hesitating hand, he holds it, and cracks a joke.
“Is this the ‘room where it happens’, then?” he mutters to me, and the resulting smile at my giggle fills me with the warmth of a thousand suns.
When I turn the handle and step into the room, the coolness that permeates from her is jarring. Still, no room to step back. I take a step forward, then another, then another, until I stand before her. He’s on my right, my sister on my left, and my mother next to him. She scowls, and I hold my chin up, face irritatingly neutral. She doesn’t like it.
We all sit after her, and no one speaks, not even when she pauses, until they are addressed. Unsurprisingly, I am the first one she calls on.
“How do you plan on fixing your… mistake?” she says, pointedly ignoring the ‘mistake’ who in reality is standing right beside me. His face stays natural, but I squeeze his hand anyways. Not to comfort him, but so I can maintain my composure. Her eyes dart to the miniscule movement and narrow, but not a word is spoken about it. I answer her question. It’s not an answer she likes very much, but it’s the truth.
“There is no mistake.”
The room is silent after, and she stares at me, seemingly astounded by my audacity. My brother, who had been sitting in front of me, on her side of the room, mistakenly thinks it is his turn to speak.
“Are you seriously going to throw your life and duty away for some—” My jaw clenches, but before I get a word out, her voice rings out and bounces off the walls, whatever my brother was going to say dying out in his throat.
I don’t care for anything that comes out of her mouth. Time and time again have I been berated for things I’ve had no control over whatsoever, and I am sick of it. I tell her as much, perhaps with a few… choice words here or there. Her reaction is feral, but I squeeze his hand where he stands beside me and I pull him along, outside the room and down the corridor. I leave my mum and sister in there to deal with the aftermath, to deal with my brother and her mother.
I don’t feel guilty, even as I continue to move forward. Once we’re far enough, I turn around, and not a million words nor a million streaks of gold would be able to capture the essence of the beams that emulate from my sun.
He gives a cheeky giggle, then says, “Was that the last time you’d be in the room where it happens?”