And the snow flakes swirled outside the window in a mad waltz. A big gray cat twirled its whiskers predatorily and jumped on the author's lap.

  - Is it time to tell a tragedy? Or will it be a comedy? Mia's life is definitely full of surprises. Waltz, gentlemen! Waltz!

  And the Author's fingers tapped on the keyboard, and the room was filled with Igor Kornelyuk's Waltz. Snow flakes burst into the room and swirled around the desk and the small hunched figure of the Author. And Mia's hoarse voice sounded louder and louder from the electronic pages of the manuscript, and her fingers tapped faster and faster on the keyboard.

  Waltz, gentlemen! Waltz! Your life is a waltz, so dance beautifully and don't step on your partner's feet.

  I was falling. From somewhere in the sky, from the place of distribution of further life and destiny of a person. It was not like bungee jumping or parachuting. It was more like a flight: light and balanced. It was as if this state was so habitual that you did not worry that something would go wrong.

  I fell past layers, each with a country, a house, and a different season: winter, spring, summer, fall, summer again, winter, spring, and summer again. And then at the next layer my flight stopped and I stepped my feet on solid ground. A sense of anticipation swept inside: my seventh life. I can see the entryway, the colorful flowerbeds in the courtyard, the green trees with their branches spread out. This is the place where my life's journey will begin.

  I wonder what kind of people they are that I'll show up at? My family...

  ***

  I woke up feeling stuffy. Strange dream. Again my brain makes up its own stories to shut out reality. So foreign and cold. I wiped the sweat off my forehead, hot. Even though it's winter outside. I sat up on the bed and listened: Mom was awake again, watching. She's getting up and coming to my room. She's going to go through my things again. I wonder if she really doesn't know I know about her nightly forays. And what she wants to find? But I don't think she needs an excuse for another rebuke, another argument. I sighed heavily and lay down on the bed, pretending to be asleep. Mom came into the room and came straight to me: she looked at me for a minute and put her hands under the pillow, where my head was lying. She thought I had been on the phone all night and was looking for it.

  - Mom, I'm asleep and you're shaking my pillow where I sleep - I couldn't stand it, I opened my eyes and saw my parent's tense face - I laughed hysterically - listen, did you ever think that you might wake me up by fumbling under my pillow? - I laughed hysterically and sat up on the bed. I picked up my pillow and pointed to the absence of my phone with my hand - is that it? - I asked, continuing to laugh. My mom didn't answer anything, just snorted angrily and looked around the room before leaving. Yeah, it's going to be double tomorrow, because she's pissed that I uncovered her cunning plan. Oh well. Her disgruntled face was worth it. I smiled contentedly at this little revenge and covered myself with the blanket.

  ***

  The small children's room was a source of regret for me now. It had seemed so big before, so huge. And so had the toy I was holding in my hands now. A little curly beige poodle named Bullet. I don't know where a child could have heard that word at age 7 or 8, probably from the NTV channel we watched with my mom, but somehow the nickname stuck. And it was ironic, considering that I was rushing through life like a bullet, sweeping away everything in my path. That poodle was an important part of my childhood life. I took him everywhere: to the clinic and for walks. And I even slept with him, as it was impossible to sleep without him. That's why I decided to take the toy to my apartment to remember: there were good moments in my childhood too. I held the poodle in my hands, walked around my nursery and waited for my mom, who was making tea in the kitchen. She called me over for a visit, which was already nonsense, and offered to have lunch together. I didn't mind, we were having a good conversation now, everything was behind us, as if it hadn't happened at all.

  With a sad sigh, I headed for my little library: a few shelves of my parents' books and a few shelves of my own. As my dad says: light tabloid novels: Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, Romeo and Juliet, and, of course, Shakespeare's sonnets. Also there was a complete collection of Kir Bulychev, I just adored him. And classical literature: the complete collection of Gogol's writings and letters - my parents brought it when they moved to the present city. Dostoevsky, Tolstoy. Naturally, I did not read everything: the classics seemed boring to me. And then there's Twilight. I chuckled, remembering the story associated with this book.

  March 8th, I'm 12 years old. The book had just come out, but it was already making a lot of noise. I knew I couldn't get it, because my parents only liked serious literature, and vampires could "ruin Mia's psyche, because she's so dependent and impressionable. You shouldn't read such nonsense at all, you could go crazy." I promised that when I grew up, I would buy and read this book. But here came the evening and comes my brother, he brings me "Twilight" and says that now it is popular and, knowing that I love books, he bought me this work. Before I could rejoice, my mom snatched the book and said she wouldn't let me read it, because only idiots like it. The book was hidden and everyone went to dinner. However, I knew my mother's hiding places well: I had to adapt. At night, when everyone was asleep, I took out the book and started reading. A few sleepless nights and I was completely enthralled. I didn't know anything about human relationships yet, I had little idea how people met. And what to say, I did not know where children come from: I did not have the Internet - I bought the phone much later, my friends were very clearly filtered by my mother. And in fact, the only source of knowledge about socialization for me was literature. I liked the books I read, but what fell into my hands, passed my mother's strict check: cheap literature should not spoil "weak psyche". For the same reason I didn't read fantasy for a long time. "Fantasy makes people crazy." So, I was incredibly excited. It was amazing to me that such a strong love could exist between people who are essentially still strangers. I didn't realize at the time that the relationship between Bella and Edward was far from healthy.

  I smiled and looked at the shelves of books. Oh, here was one of my favorite childhood books: Deniskin's Tales. I opened it in the middle, flipped through the pages, and saw a picture tucked in between. It must have been put there recently. At least for sure, after I left. It shows my young mom with some man. It's hard to know how old she is here, because my mom always looked young. But if you do the math, she's about 23. More shoulder-length dark hair, happy smile. Strange, but mom here does not look perfect: an ordinary girl who recently gave birth to a beloved man and now she is overcome with new emotions, feelings and worries. This is exactly how Vitella Vishnevskaya appeared here. She probably had a different surname then. She is standing with a young tall blond man, and he is holding a baby carriage by the handle. There's a funny, chubby little baby in it. That must be my brother. He's just a baby. It was the first time I'd ever seen my mom's first husband. The one they always held up as an example to my father. Someone she seemed to really love. That's the family she really cared about.

  - Why did you divorce him? - I asked my mom when she came into the room.

  - Because I was stupid," she replied dryly, and took the photo from me.

  - And more specifically? - I didn't give up.

  - You don't need to know that - mom put the photo away in the desk

  - What happened then? Why did you leave Astrakhan? You married my father, gave birth to me, even though you didn't want to. What happened?

  - Why rake up the past now - the statuesque, beautiful blonde in front of me, who looked about 35, but not 50, pressed her lips together and turned away

  - You've never talked about your past. I don't know where you were born, if you had friends, girlfriends. How you met my father and why you hate him so much, even though you won't give him a divorce - the question in my eyes read like Russian subtitles to a French melodrama. Except life is even better than the movies.

  My mom looked out the window behind me, pushed her long hair back, and chewed her lip as if she was going to say something, but then she just walked out of the room. I shifted my gaze to the door, which Mom closed behind her, and the images swam before my eyes.

  The door to my room was always open. When I was little, I thought that someone or something was hiding between the door and the corner behind it. When darkness fell, it was from there that something would come out and deprive me of my life-saving oxygen. Suddenly it was very stuffy and the clammy fear paralyzed me, making me shudder to look at that unfortunate door. I was so afraid of falling asleep. A cold shiver crept up my fingertips, and as soon as tiredness and sleep overcame me, I felt like I couldn't breathe. I opened my eyes and someone tall, in a black cloak was leaning over my face. I saw him: white as chalk. But the eyes... I couldn't remember his eyes. I couldn't move and just stared. It was scary, and the torture continued every night until I was 18. As an adult, the nightmares got weaker, turning into muffled longing and a sense of hopelessness, but it definitely didn't get any easier. All this dragged on like gum until I left my parents' apartment. The nightmares stopped, and I put it down to the fact that there were spirits in the apartment. Or the aura was just so addictive. It's funny, because it was a usual sleep paralysis, caused by strong emotions during the day. Of course, I found out the reasons later, when I went to a psychologist, trying to understand why I have a huge package of fears, a mix of insecurities and doubts. But at that moment I was ready to believe in anything: in a parallel world, and in spirits.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  I will not tell you about some horrors that happened to me in my childhood, simply because the concept of "horror" is different for everyone. What to hide, I was a very impressionable and naive child, and what for other children was just an unpleasant circumstance, for me was a nightmare. Whether it was really that bad is hard to say, because my memories are a reflection of my emotions and my impressions of the actions of others, particularly my parents. Where here, the truth is hard to ascertain, but I'm not looking for the truth. Nor am I looking for blame. I'm just finally gathering the strength to give all of my experiences to the silently sympathetic sheets. Of course, you can't disconnect yourself from the past, but you can accept it and leave it on the shelf like a long-read book. Good or bad, but already read.

  Well, back to the horror theme, my main one was that I was a doll for a very long time. My mom dressed me in whatever clothes she chose herself. And yes, as a separate circumstance, that's not scary. All parents dress their children in clothes that will be warmer, better quality. But for me, that fact in compatibility with the rest was truly disgusting. My mom cut my hair herself and wouldn't let me grow it out. She plucked my eyebrows herself and in the shape she chose. But I didn't want to pluck my eyebrows, and at that moment it was against my will. She put tape on my nails so I wouldn't chew on them. She would come to school to find out who I was sitting with and at what desk; who I was socializing with, who I was friends with. She practically lived in the school. She was there almost every day for some reason, even though she wasn't called in. Talking to my teachers, my classmates. She insinuated to them that I was retarded. She didn't say it directly, of course, but she used such forms... "Lera, was Mia in Russian? Why do you think she wasn't? What do you think? " - she asked my classmate questions. My mom pretended to be an unhappy woman who had to carry a disabled child. Asked the teachers in a concerned voice: "Well, what should I do with her? ". Of course, my classmates already knew whose mother this woman was, and that she went to school because of a sick girl. The few friends I had fell away when they tried calling me at home and my mom asked, "Who's calling? Who is it? ". Then she would hand me the phone, open the door to the room, and listen to what I was talking about. The only thing you were allowed to talk about was school. Tell me what I had to do, help me with my homework. You couldn't just talk. And if I tried to talk about anything not related to school, for example, that it would be nice to go to a disco, my mother started shouting so that it was heard on the other side of the phone and then demanded to stop talking.

  My extreme friend fell away because I couldn't stay after school to play snowballs in winter or just go for a walk at any other time of the year. He didn't stop trying to communicate with me for a long time, he held on the longest, but how was he supposed to remain my friend if I couldn't call him, and I couldn't go out because of the same prohibitions? I became an outcast, I was ignored, I didn't sit at my desk.

  In the end, she got what she wanted - I fell asleep.

  I made some mechanical movements: eating breakfast, going to school, sitting at my desk, but I didn't care. I stopped brushing my teeth, stopped washing my face. When I had my period, I didn't care if I got a red stain on my pants. There was odor, acne, greasy hair and dandruff. My mom got physical confirmation that her child was sick. Whereas before there was no official doctor's diagnosis or outward signs: a normal, cheerful child, now my mom could point at me and say, " And is she normal? ". It was as if I fell asleep and purely out of habit I made some movements that living people are obliged to make. My mom strictly watched everything, my every move. And she reproached me. She reproached me a lot. She shouted that she had put her life on me, and I was a degenerate, that because of me she didn't work, that if the time had come back, she wouldn't have given birth to me. But looking back, I realize that it was as if she was enjoying the situation where she was the victim and I was her executioner.

  I woke up abruptly. It was as if I had been pushed into cold water, and as I began to drown, I suddenly realized that if I did not start screaming, kicking my legs and arms, I would not be saved. I suddenly realized that my salvation depended entirely on me. Like the saying goes: It's up to the drowning. This realization happened for a moment, but it was enough for my mother to start losing control over my body, my soul, my consciousness, my self-value.

  A fight. I don't remember why. For some reason, I answer her, asking her to leave me alone. It's strange, usually I don't say anything, but that day I answered her. Screaming, my father goes out to smoke on the balcony. He never defended me, he didn't care, and he was more comfortable agreeing with my mother than getting into an argument with her. And in a way I understand him: he was a tired man.

  Well, my mom says the following: "Just die. Don't torture me. Let you get hit by a car. Or take the pills. Make you not exist." That's it! I sigh freely and calm down. Soon I'll be free. I take a handful of pills in my hand and tell her, " I agree, okay". She starts screaming, my father comes from the balcony and tries to unclench my hand with the pills. "Look what this idiot wants to do! " my mother yells, as if she wasn't the one who asked me to die five minutes ago. She makes it look like it was my idea to commit suicide and my mother should proudly carry that cross of a crazy daughter. I don't remember what happened next that day. It was like I fell asleep again, but I started waking up more often.

  I started running away from home and just wandering the streets. I thought about suicide, but honestly, I didn't have the strength anymore. That day I was ready, but the next day I was afraid. I was afraid to go to hell, because I believed in God quite sincerely. I still do. It seems to me that on the expectation of salvation, faith and thanks to the help of my Guardian Angel, I endured. I was able to get out.

  That's when recording studios came into my life: I would come and listen to many aspiring rappers trying to record their tracks, which were sure to be hits. I started to flounder: on the one hand, I wanted it to be over. And on the other... There was a big world out there beyond the school and my parents' house. And no, no, no, but I started to get curious, I started to fight for my life. I wanted to take my life back from my parents.

  Violence comes in many forms. I wasn't beaten that often, in fact, very rarely. But what my parents did to me can be scarier than beatings. For me.

  For example, my father monitored all my correspondence on VKontakte. I don't know whether he had a password or hired hackers - I don't care how he did it. I didn't think much about the question "how?" even then. I was more concerned with the "why?" question. He deleted friends from my page, then read my correspondence aloud and laughed, "admiring" my interests. He would scour the VK groups I was a member of and try to convince me that I wasn't thinking straight and wasn't interested. He leafed through my photos and demanded I delete them. It was a lot of stuff. I spent long enough under the supervision of animal fear. That's when I learned what "animal fear" was.

  Imagine you are in a confined space and you know it is dangerous, but you can't do anything. And you're in a constant panic. Or in another way, you are running from a cheetah: the cheetah is faster than you and if it catches up with you, it will kill you. You are running, and an animalistic, nasty fear grips you from the tips of your fingers to the top of your head.

  I was insanely afraid of my mother, to the point of insanity. Now, going through all those memories, I can't understand where that fear came from. It wasn't that she hit me hard; she would just give me a slap or something like that. Mostly, her anger manifested itself in tantrums, insults, and some kind of emotional pressure. She might say: don't call me mother, you're not my daughter anymore. Or simply, she wouldn't talk to me for two or more days.

  But for some reason I was afraid of her. Very, very much so.

  I snapped out of my memories and cradled my toy poodle in my arms, heading for the exit. Mom sat in the kitchen and just stared into the void. We're not going to have a conversation today. Such mood swings are not uncommon for her, and if the mood is ruined, she will no longer be cordial and we will definitely not have lunch with me. After all, it wasn't a pleasant conversation.

  I started to put on my shoes and heard my mom come out into the hallway. She decided to walk me out after all.

  - I shouldn't have gotten divorced," my mother said quietly, taking my hat from the shelf, "what a terrible hat you bought. If I had told you, I would have bought you something really beautiful - mom twirled the hat in her hands - his name is Volodya, and if time had come back, I wouldn't have gotten divorced.

  - But then there would be no me - I knew what she would answer, but I wanted to hear it definitively

  - Yes - my mother handed me the hat - then you wouldn't have been there and it would have been right - my mother was silent - and Volodya and I would have had a second child, he would have been happier than you. Because that would have been the right thing to do. And everything that happened to me after the divorce, all of this - mom wrapped her arms around the apartment - all of this shouldn't have happened. Believe me, if you were a different kid, you'd be happier.

  - You don't know for sure - I picked up my hat and smiled - besides, I'm more than happy right now.

  I wasn't uncomfortable hearing my mom's words. Everything was clear and logical. Buttoning my jacket, I silently left the apartment. My family, who loved me and thought it was the right thing to do, was waiting for me. Today I was going to a party with the man I loved and my friends, and my mother would remain in her apartment, entangled in the regrets of the past. Apparently, there, in her happy past happened not just a divorce, but something that broke my mother's life, Mia Vishnevskaya's mother.

  Well, mysteries of the past, who doesn't have them. I guess mom was happy, but for some reason the happiness didn't continue.