- "Misery is a communicable disease" -
~ Martha Graham
"Worse?" the words left her lips through a croak.
"Yes Emmie, dear."
"W-Worse?" she enquired again, in a doubtful tone.
"Worse."
The air grew thin as Nanna's words sank in. Berty got worse? Even after all those commands, he got worse? She closed her eyes tight and tried to forget the world for a couple seconds. Then, in the darkness, she saw the little girl with jet black hair like a silky shawl, sitting at the back of the empty cinema, watching the recent episode of "Guilt 5" rolling on the projection screen.
"Don't blame yourself, honey. It is not your fault. Berty is a man with a strong heart. He'll get over it," Nanna smiled, a hint of apprehension leaving her gaze dull and her smile, a stark contrast. "I fear, however, that he may not be strong enough to guide you for the competition- And you know how crucial that is."
"Lies..." the little girl in the cinema's petite frame shuddered. Her back hunched to its limit and her knees drawn to her chest, she buried her head in the newfound escape hollow where the darkness and her racing heartbeat exacerbated the overwhelming emotions. "I know how things go. That's a lie!"
Her eyes cracked open and the weight of her guilt forced open another wound in her heart.
"Nanna..." her voice gave out. She reached out and took two defeated fists full of khaki-coloured fabric of Nanna's blouse. "Please... don't lie."
The elderly woman's gaze remained the same but came across with a different intensity. Whether the weight of the increasing stack of likely-to-occur endings she was meticulously crafting made her feel on edge and insecure, leading her to that idea or Nanna simply being immersed in thought, she was not sure.
"Emmie, believe me. It's not your fault dear."
"Please don't lie," her voice trailed off to silent tears, "because we both know it is."
As the evening transitioned into night, Emma grew unsettled. Random tremors pummeled her body. She trembled and shuffled in her shoes, constricted by the thoughts lurking in her mind. All she could think about, as she had been for weeks was the competition.
At the end of the month would be the finals of the International Math Olympiad, orchestrated by the world's best Mathematician himself, Bromisk Erkoka. This year, it was held in Alkia. Math scholars from all across the globe, who were successful in the semifinals, would return to battle at the finals.
For Emma, this was nothing. Besides, as she had been so labeled, she was the math cyborg or as she was better known, Berty's marionette. She was a reigning champion in every math competition since the wee age of 4, winning a plethora of medals, trophies and alluring prizes. Math Olympiads were no different.
After excelling at the semifinals of the Olympiad recently, however, she had been losing her touch. 'Represent the school! We know you'll make us proud': that's what they had said. She knew without a doubt that first place would be hers - it always was. It was nothing but a minor competition anyway. Then, the day would come for her grand performance. Several feet shuffled as the second round went by until eventually, her moment came into being. The name rolled perfectly off the tongue - Emma Waltz of Wilmer's High. There is stark silence, save for the chair's cry of freedom when she rises to her full height, and the resounding click of ballerina flats against the Masonite hardboard.
In the semi-darkness, hundreds stare and observe every aspect of her frame and she stares back. The room, compared to others, is not that big. From the lower to the higher rows, pairs of pupils take in every detail - from the way she shifted her weight from one leg to the other, the flare of her nostrils, the ever so slight twitch of her lower lip and the fidgeting with the microphone. The audience was anticipated. No - they were on the edge of their seats. A tidal wave of butterflies washed over the crowd and taunted every stomach. She was the best so it was expected. Except, it wasn't particularly normal. Something was not right. The room never remained as silent as it was then whenever the best was on stage.
Their competitive grins and for some, frowns of fangs had faded as quick as they came when the question was administered and the legend remained frozen and suddenly mute. A foreign yet familiar surge of anxiety rose from the bellows of her chest cavity and lunged after her vocal cords. She did try. She could see their perplexed faces assuming otherwise but for heaven's sake, she just could not get the answer out. Her heart gradually picked up the pace. Foreign movements spawned with a strange natural flow. Suddenly, she had teleported into the shoes of her rivals. The world was spinning; the air was thick and suffocating. Then the nauseousness came lurking. It was the last question on calculus - a question she knew the answer to within a few seconds of thinking - to determine whether she would be declared the winner or not. The time was counting down, her heartbeat was running behind it and it would be a shame to allow the time to run away first and leave her behind with the murmurs. She did the only thing that made sense then. Finding the strength somewhere in her buckling leg and run for it. So she did just that. She ran until the judgmental stares disappeared, leaving behind audible gasps, surprised faces and disappointed teachers.
She failed them all, letting the chance to win 20,000 Alkia dollars for her school slip out of her fingers like grains of sand. Despite all the hard training, she succumbed. A scar suddenly ripped open and unleashed hundreds of painful memories that made her want to continue to run. The finals of the Olympiad were drawing closer and if she was successful, she would be entitled to a fully funded scholarship at Erkoka's Math Academy, the top provider of the highest-quality accelerated tuition for mathematics as a specialized field. It was all she ever longed for, all Berty ever wanted, all that would make Berty happy but, if the anxiety appeared and made her run then, wasn't it likely that it could strike again at the finals?
Throwing her head back, she reminisced on the collection of memories of every training session with Berty. She remembered the heavy coughs that attacked him and his tired lungs, disrupting his harangues, his bulging eyes with a sheet of red under them, maybe from those sleepless nights, the folds of skin that took over his forehead and a sneering mouth that spat out harsh words. Berty was her father after all. It would only be right for Nanna's news to make her spirit low but instead, she felt a spark of irritation. It tickled her soul. It felt like being stuck in a cave for years and finding the smallest crack of sunlight, rushing to it, only to realize that it was a glowing stone.
"I'll get better each time you win so do it even better!"
That was Berty's command and she carried it out perfectly. Yet, it never seemed to work the magic.
"Don't be a disappointment!"
She carried it out perfectly but it still never cracked the code. When things started going downhill after the greatest s**tshow she had managed to play off somehow naturally, however, it started validating some of his claims while also contradicting them. He was right- maybe. She missed a tile and messed up the record and what did it cost her? His health. But then she thought, when she hadn't messed up, he was the same anyway. What was the point then? The blaming, the shifting, the questioning... it was all just a strategic mind game.
She crept out of the stifling room and quietly went on the hunt for Nanna along the winding hallways. An idea sent her feet trudging and her knee buckling under her. She remained stoic, ignorant to the sharp pain on her thigh, running her fingers along the meditating walls that loyally kept all the secrets confined in the house, keeping alert of her surroundings.
Nanna was in the middle of the eerie hallway around the corner, on her way to Berty's room, the first door on her right when Emma spotted her. Her footsteps were heavy and she swayed to and fro. Her low bun was like a big gray donut, pinned and held securely at the back of her head with hair ties. She was trudging slowly as if she were a victim to a forced marriage walking down the aisle in tears. His saviour was concealed in a tray behind Nanna's tall retreating figure and soon, Emma began to rethink every thought that pushed her to such a decision.
The worried footsteps echoing throughout the hallway behind her leaped into her ear and made her pause abruptly in her tracks. Steadily, she turned on her heels elegantly like an angel and locked eyes with the lad's kneaded, dark expression. Her lips spilled into a smile.
"You should not be walking on that leg of yours, Emmie. Not until those cuts start to heal. Why are you putting yourself through all this?" the mellow elderly voice caressed her ears.
Emma walked up to meet her and lowered her gaze to eye Nanna's brown slip-on shoes. She felt a lump growing in her throat. Another episode of nauseousness was returning in her life to remind her of just how intimidating that stinging dizzy feeling and the want to empty the contents in her stomach was.
"I- I want to administer the medication to him."
Taken slightly aback, her lips quickered at the mention of medication and him. Emma seldom went to meet him unless it was time for another session. Besides her usual relaxed expression, her aura changed quite drastically. She could sense the tension slowly building in her chest and being compressed simultaneously.
"Emma, you are so thoughtful. How about you think about yourself for once, aye? You should rest that le-"
"I'm serious," she darkened her gaze and stretched out her arms, awaiting the 500-gram weight.
Nanna's shoulders slummed and the surprise in her eyes simmered. She smiled again, looping an arm around the girl and placing the tray into her hands.
"Well, I don't see why not," she gazed down at her frosty gray orbs softly.
Emma accepted the tray, feigning willingness while her insides were hesitant about the idea. She could feel her heart pounding its way up her throat and the tray began to rock in her hands as the nauseousness welled up. Nanna watched from the hallway as Emma stood at the door, knocked, turned the knob and disappeared. She hoped that all would go well.