Chapter 7 - Anne

This is an excerpt from a longer literary work in progress. It explores the private self that existed before the world learned her name.

The bathtub filled slowly, the way quiet things do.

Steam softened the mirror first. Her reflection blurred at the edges, the hard lines of her face dissolving into pale watercolor. The light above the sink dulled, wrapped in fog, losing its sharpness. The room stopped feeling sharp and began to feel far away.

She turned the water hotter than she should have. She watched it strike the porcelain and rise, white and restless, until the tub began to cloud and breathe.

She sat on the edge, elbows resting on her thighs, and stared into the water as it climbed. Her fingers worked through the buttons of her blouse one by one. The small sounds landed softly in the room. Fabric slid down her arms and pooled at her feet. She stepped out of everything that had been chosen for her and left it folded on the tile.

Steam pressed against her skin as she stepped into the bath. One foot, then the other. Heat startled her. The water rose around her ankles, her calves, her knees. She lowered herself until it held her ribs and closed around her like something alive.

Her knees folded to her chest. Her arms wrapped around them. The water trembled slightly.

There had been a name before the one she wore now.

A real one.
One that belonged to her.

Before cameras.
Before fame.
Before people said it like they knew her.

Before television carried her into living rooms she would never enter.
Before it meant something to strangers.

She tried to think of her name.

Not the sound the world made. Not the shape written on posters and contracts and glowing signs. Something older. Something softer.

A name surfaced in her mind, soft and unexpected.

Anne.

It felt like stepping barefoot into warm earth.

The memory came with it, full and bright, as if it had been waiting just beneath the surface of her breath.

Tall grass, gone wild from a forgotten mow, green and thick and alive against her bare legs. Her mother’s laughter somewhere behind her, chasing not to catch her but because the chase itself felt like flying. Sunlight breaking through the uneven blades as she ran, arms lifted, hair loose, breath burning sweetly in her chest.

“Aaaanne,” her mother called, drawn out and musical, as if the name were part of the game.

She darted past the chicken coop, grasshoppers snapping away from her footsteps. The dog burst from nowhere, convinced it was part of this great and important hunt, tumbling into the grass with clumsy devotion, paws and tail everywhere at once.

They finally fell together in a tangled heap near the coop, both of them breathless and laughing. Her mother’s arms warm and strong around her, her cheek pressed into familiar cotton and sun. The dog wedged itself into the pile, indignant at having been left out for even a moment, the three of them twisting and squealing with laughter.

The chickens didn’t care. They scratched and pecked at scattered corn as if joy were the most ordinary thing in the world.

Her mother said her name again, softer this time.

Anne.

Then the tall grass thinned.

The sun dimmed.

The laughter slipped away.

And she was back in the tub.

Steam clung to the tiles. The room felt smaller. The air heavier. Her knees pressed tight to her chest, wet skin against porcelain, water gone lukewarm around her ribs.

No dog.
No grass.
No warm arms.
No one laughing.

Just the sound of water shifting against her skin as she breathed.

That was what she had traded.

Not just privacy.
Not just peace.

She had traded summer.
She had traded being called home.
She had traded a name spoken only with love.

The water had gone from hot to warm.
Then from warm to something she only noticed when she shifted.

Her skin felt strange. Too aware. Too thin. Too close to the world again.

The steam had thinned. The mirror began to remember her face.

She rested her head against the tile and felt the faint chill of it through damp hair. The memory of tall grass and sunlight was still faintly inside her, but it no longer felt alive. It felt like holding a photograph too long.

The water barely moved now.

She drew in a slow breath.

That was when the tears finally came.