I learned to put on makeup to hide the bruises. Mandia learned about violence from a young age: she saw it on her mother's swollen face, she endured it at the hands of her father, who was the law in the house.
She grew up defenseless: in her hometown, a small town in Imathia, people did not interfere in each other's family matters. Thus, when at eighteen she meets Akis, a philologist from Thessaloniki, she decides to escape, to seek tenderness, independence – to live freely, without fear, pain, and shame.
However, violence has many faces, and before love fades, Mandia encounters the worst of all: the one that masquerades as love. On the other side of life, she recounts her trials and joys, the gifts that fate has given and stolen from her.
She speaks of what she did and what she regretted, of the strength she found within herself even in the depths of despair. A story about the brutality next door and the cost of survival. About love, which requires sacrifices so that it may not just be a word.
