Chapter 28: SOFIA
Read.
That was the best word to describe it. My fashion intuition, I mean. When I’m analyzing someone through their attire, it feels like flipping through the pages of a book, except in this case it’s the different layers of their dressing.
Every crease feels like the lines of a page holding words about the read and every accessory feels like a mystery waiting to be unraveled.
I remember the first time I read. It was when I was just ten. 2 years after I lost the family I’ve always known. 24 months after my whole world shattered. 104 weeks after I practically became an orphan. 730 days after happiness and laughter became a stranger and tears and melancholy turned into a friend. 17,520 hours after my last name changed from Reed to Blake. 1,o51,200 minutes after 8 years of my life disappeared like a dream and the years that followed, a stark reality. 63,072,000 seconds before I lost it all.
Some say that when has a power, especially one that has been dormant for a while. One that lay like a dragon in hibernation. It takes a certain circumstance, a desperate need... a need so great often a matter of life and death to awaken the dragon.
Mine wasn’t a matter of life and death though.
I never knew that inherent in me was this power to read and analyze people by taking in what they were wearing.
It was on a day just like any other in the Blake Mansion after I joined them. We (I, Mirabel and Annabel) had all returned from school and like every other day, I was attending to my chores while they ate. Only when I was through with my list of chores do I hope to get the crumbs they offer as my meal.
Specifically, I was dusting the paintings, artworks and artifacts that adored the space called the foreroom, when the doors were thrown open. A raging Alicia stormed in, flinging her bag to the nearby servant who scrambled to catch the bag.
"Thank your stars my designer bag didn’t touch the floor, or else your entire generation would’ve had to work till the debt is paid" I remember her telling the servant who was busy sucking in deep breaths of relief to take in her words.
Covering Felix with her coat, her up to no good twins laughed as he staggered to rid himself of the coat. He was practically blind and somehow he was really finding it difficult to remove the coat. I had rushed to his aid, saving him just in time from crashing into the nearest wall.
"Mama, Sofy is no fun. Punish her" Annabel called, feigning a cry.