Page 143 of The Professor's Wife

His voice was soft. Coaxing.

My breath hitched.

“That to bear it nobly is to be free of it. That pain is not evil…only opinion makes it so.”

Oliver smiled faintly, as if pleased with a child’s recitation.

“Good,” he whispered, brushing damp hair away from my face. “You see? You’re learning. This is only the beginning. You’re starting to understand.”

He asked more questions.

I answered every one.

He continued to look satisfied. I wanted to scream that they were nothing but ancient words he had forced into me, but I couldn’t.

The fight had left me.

The chain was still around my ankle. Somehow, I had begun to feel it even when I wasn’t moving.

The defiant part of me wanted to tell him I didn’t believe a word I had read.

But the truth was, I didn’t know anymore.

The words rattled inside me like they belonged there. Sometimes, in the dark, I muttered them just to keep myself company. Sometimes, I caught myself thinking in Seneca’s voice.

Oliver tilted my face toward him, searching my eyes.

“Tell me, Daisy. Do you still think this is abuse?”

The room spun.

The answer should have been yes. I could feel it sitting behind my teeth.

Yes, this is torture.

You’re destroying me.

I hate you.

I will always fucking hate you.

But Seneca’s words came first.

Pain is only opinion.

Anger is madness.

What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears.

My lips trembled.

“I…don’t know,” I whispered.

His smile widened, tender and cruel.

“That’s enough for today.”

When he left, the chain was still around my ankle and the book was still in my lap.