PAPER THIN

Raffaelo learned the rhythm of cruelty before she learned its intention.

It arrived dressed as humor, wrapped in familiarity, passed hand to hand at family gatherings like a shared inheritance. Buffalo. A word chosen not for meaning but for sound, because it rhymed, because it landed easily, because no one had to think before saying it. Her parents said it with smiles, squeezing her cheeks, proud of how unbothered they believed she was. They never noticed how her laughter came a second too late, how she began standing at the edges of rooms as if apologizing for occupying them.

Her cousins learned quickly that repetition was power. They used the name whenever she reached for food, whenever she laughed loudly, whenever she seemed too comfortable in her body. The name became a leash. A reminder.

And then there was Abdurian.

Abdurian did not shout. He did not sneer. He hurt people softly, efficiently, with timing that proved intention. He was admired—polite, clever, charismatic. The kind of boy adults trusted instinctively. The kind who knew that cruelty delivered with charm is almost never punished.

Raffaelo loved him quietly, disastrously. She believed that if she became better—smaller, quieter, less—he might stop looking at her like something mildly embarrassing.

He knew she loved him. That knowledge sharpened his cruelty into precision.

At thirteen, she overheard him once, leaning toward another cousin, voice low and amused.

“She eats like she’s afraid someone will take it away.”

They laughed. He didn’t look at her. He didn’t need to.

Later that night, as plates were cleared and sugar-heavy desserts passed around, he said it aloud.

“Slow down, Buffalo. You’ll break something.”

The table laughed. Someone patted her arm. Her mother smiled.

Raffaelo stopped chewing.

That was the night hunger introduced itself—not as pain, but as relief. Hunger was quiet. Hunger was obedient. Hunger promised that if she erased herself carefully enough, the laughter would stop.

She began with small disappearances. Skipping breakfast. Claiming she wasn’t hungry. Learning how to move food around a plate so it looked eaten. Compliments followed quickly. You’re losing weight. They sounded like forgiveness.

When hunger wasn’t enough, punishment arrived.

She hated herself for it, which made the cycle perfect. Shame fed hunger. Hunger fed shame. The bathroom became a locked sanctuary where she could undo herself privately. Mirrors became judges that never acquitted her.

Abdurian noticed everything.

“Guess the Buffalo learned discipline.”

“Funny how shrinking makes people respectable.”

“Don’t worry, she still eats. Just not where you can see.”

He said these things with a smile that invited agreement. No one challenged him. Silence became endorsement.

Family gatherings turned into suspense chambers. Raffaelo learned to anticipate humiliation the way prey anticipates footsteps. Her heart raced before she entered rooms. Every meal felt like surveillance. She learned to dissociate while chewing, to smile while lightheaded, to leave before anyone noticed her hands shaking.

Once, an aunt pulled her aside and whispered, “At least you’re trying now.”

That sentence hollowed her out more efficiently than starvation ever could.

The final gathering came disguised as celebration. Lights. Food. Noise. Raffaelo was thin enough to frighten strangers and impress relatives. Her collarbones were praised. Her silence was admired.

Someone said she looked sick.

Abdurian laughed.

“This is what she wanted,” he said lightly. “Isn’t it, Buffalo?”

The room went quiet—not in defense of her, but in discomfort. No one contradicted him. No one said her name correctly. The silence pressed down like a verdict.

In that moment, Raffaelo understood something with terrifying clarity: there was no version of herself that would ever be acceptable. There was no finish line where cruelty stopped and love began. She could disappear entirely and still be remembered as a joke.

She left without a coat. Without explanation. That was her final skill—leaving without being stopped.

She faded rather than fell. Hospitals tried to name what had happened using clinical language. Complications. Systems failing. Her parents cried with the grief of people who realized too late that jokes are not harmless when repeated into bone.

Abdurian visited once. He stood at the doorway, hands in his pockets, unable to apologize without dismantling the version of himself he preferred. He told himself he hadn’t meant it. That everyone joked. That she was sensitive.

Raffaelo never woke up.

At the funeral, Abdurian felt the word Buffalo echo inside his skull like a curse that finally found teeth. He did not cry. He was praised for being composed.

Years later, Time passed, and life pretended it didn't care.

Abdurian had a daughter named Samara.

The name was soft, lyrical—too easy to twist.

At school, the children found the rhyme almost immediately. Samara–chimera, they sang, stretching it into something grotesque. Sometimes it became Scare-a Samara. Sometimes just laughter, pointed fingers, eyes sliding over her body like judges. The exact words changed, but the structure was the same. Rhythm first. Meaning later.

Samara learned quickly that names were not shelters—they were handles.

She began to eat carefully, then fearfully. She learned how to fold napkins over plates, how to nod when asked if she was full, how to disappear during lunch breaks. Teachers praised her discipline. Classmates praised her “self-control.”

At home, she stared at mirrors the way Raffaelo once had—not searching for beauty, but for permission to exist.

When Abdurian found Samara crying on the bathroom floor, whispering that she was too much and not enough at the same time, the rhyme finally came back to him like a blow to the chest.

Buffalo.

Chimera.

Different words. Same cruelty.

And in that moment, he understood with sickening clarity: he had taught the world how to hurt his child.