Page 67 of Conceal

Excitement skitters through my stomach. I have a real chance at this. I do as instructed and watch as a box appears and thousands of lines of passwords scroll by so quickly I can’t even read them.

I do my bodyweight exercises again. I’ve been doing them as often as I can throughout the day, and I love how I’ve been feeling stronger. They’ve been helping me get tired enough to sleep, and my arms feel more toned. It’s something small that I can do any time of day to feel more in control of my situation. I can’t control where I live, where I sleep, or what I eat, but I can move my body.

Afterwards, I pace. This could take days or weeks, I realize, but the excitement needs a place to go. Now that I have access to the internet, I can look up anything.

I search: “Free online classes” but then wonder what I would learn. I’d like to learn more about this kind of stuff - like what Axel does. What would this be called? Hacking? Espionage?

“Free Online Cyber Security and Hacking Training” is the top result when I look.

I sign up, and it automatically lets me into an online course program. I click the first video and open a notes app on the laptop, since I don’t have pen and paper.

And for the next three weeks, I work out, FaceTime with the boys, sneak into the kitchen when Giovanni’s away, run the password tool, and learn as much as I can about cybersecurity. I watch videos until I fall asleep and have to go back and rewatch them. I feel incredibly stupid most days because my artistic, romantic brain struggles with concepts like routers, Linux, SQL injection, and malware. I find myself having to pause the videos to look up what various terms mean, but I push on.

Once I’m connected, it’ll be me with access to the Vitale network, not Axel, so I need to learn how to do this on my own.

Chapter forty-three

Tatiana

Aquiet noise tugs at my subconscious while I sleep a month later. My tired mind wars with itself. Physically, I’m exhausted. I’ve been working out until failure four times a day. Mentally, I’m also exhausted from learning computers and cybersecurity. At some point, every day, my brain has just given up and refuses to absorb any new information.

However, the flicker of pride I get when I recognize a technical word, and the sense of success I get when I pass an exam, can’t be matched. I never knew how rewarding doing something hard could be.

I also realized that I didn’t need to go to school to learn about art. Art was subjective. I could pick up any art history book and teach myself. But something like this? Computers and networks? That was actually useful. I should have been going to school for something like this.

I was getting stronger, too. My arms had definition when I looked at them in the mirror, and baby six-pack abs could be seen if I flexed and twisted a certain way. I liked that look on me. Where a month ago a sad, lonely, tragic-looking bride had stood in the mirror, broken and hopeless, a woman stood there now. She was tall, and proud, and looked like she could kick ass.

I liked who I was before marriage, before the cabin, before the boys. But just as I never really knew them, or what love was, I had never given myself the time and space to really explore who I was. I loved love. I loved Sparkles and Juliet and reading and watching movies. I loved painting. But those are all things I loved. Not who I was. The hours where my brain gave up learning, I was forced to stare at the ceiling and really give myself a hard look inside.

I’d been naïve. And more than a little selfish. I’d been self-absorbed and let depression be a scapegoat for difficult emotions. I’d coasted through life without any challenges or adversity. I was more than a little privileged, and I took that privilege for granted.

I found that the woman I was becoming, though, was one I was starting to fall a little in love with. She was determined, driven, and self-aware. I knew how little I knew, and instead of living in that ignorance, I solved the problem. If I had a question, I went down rabbit holes of information, becoming a mini-expert on everything I researched. I downloaded self-help books on my phone.

Reading romance was a way of escaping before. Escaping family pressures, escaping my dating failures, and escaping the fact that I didn’t really like who I was on any meaningful level. I wasn’t escaping anymore. I wanted to get better. I wanted to be the best version of myself.

I learned about habits and routines, about assuming the identity of the person you want to be, even if you weren’t her yet. I learned about how to visualize what you want, and how to prepare for failure, so that when it inevitably comes, you’ve already come up with a workaround.

I learned about the history of the Russian communist revolution and trade routes. The history of America. I read about personal finance.

And when I read two things that contradicted each other, I made sure to sit with both ideas and work them out myself. Which felt more correct? Could there be an ulterior motive for saying the other thing? Who benefits by me thinking one way over another?

I think it’s called intuition or discernment. I’d never been taught either of those, but they were skills I could practice and get better at. I was learning to trust my inner voice. I liked that a lot.

But, it was exhausting.

So while both my body and mind wanted to fall back asleep and ignore the ping, a voice deeper in my chest urged me to wake up. I listened to her.

I rub my eyes. In my windowless room, I never knew what time it was without my phone. I lift it from my nightstand to read 2:13am.

I groan and rub the sleep out of my eyes, looking around nearly blindly for the source of the ding, or if I just imagined it in my sleep.

That’s when I notice my laptop screen. Something’s blinking on it.

I wipe my eyes again, my heart picking up a gallop - it knowing something before I do.

When my eyes finally focus, I’m able to read the flashing warning.

We’re in. We’re connected to the house Wi-Fi.