21.
Milja doesn't want to think. When her father visits from Finland, he showers her with a verbal scolding. She can feel his spit on her face when he shouts. She doesn't want to say anything, rubs her stomach to soothe her child.
"What the hell were you thinking, Milja?" her father sighs. "You could've been killed."
She shrugs, scowls dejectedly at him as he sits down. "I didn't."
"Right," he nods. "And now you're pregnant with some stranger's baby."
"Hector was good to me, isä."
Mr. Tuomioja sighs, buries his wrinkled face into his hands before he scoffs at her criminal of a daughter. "Well this Hector guy doesn't care about you-"
"He does!"
"Well then where is he?! Huh? If he cared enough, he would've paid your bail and got you into a hospital."
Milja cries, wipes her face with the back of her hands. She feels her heart constricting, like she is ready to die, but God doesn't want her to, not yet. She cries and cries until her father begs her to stop.
"Look, Milja, I know you're scared to go back home. The war in Helsinki hasn't stopped but you need to trust that I'll take care of you."
"That's what you said before my trial but you never showed up. Why should I believe anything you say?"
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metis | hector bellerin
Historical FictionGREEK MYTHOLOGY SERIES: METIS ❝Zeus lay with Metis but immediately feared the consequences. It had been prophesied that Metis would bear extremely powerful children: the first, Athena and the second, a son more powerful than Zeus himself, who would...
