I was born to a single mother, who was desperately in search for love and a happy ending. My birth held rays of a promise towards that end. She was impregnated by a man who promised her eternity together. He broke his word, and her ire descended on me.

No matter how she hid it, the resentment she felt for me was a vivid dream. She was livid at any single mistake. Every turn met a barrage of insults hurled at me. My existence was a thorn on her flesh, so I learnt to breathe in silence.

I was nine when she married. Finaly some shadow of love, but it was a single father who harboured a great evil in the shells of his son. The boy was fourteen, but already addicted to exploring new territories, like my body.

The first time it happened. My mother was absent. I narrated my ordeal to her but she didn't cough a word. In a move to win the approval of her stepson, she led me to the slaughter as a lamb of sacrifice. I was given two options: stay quiet or leave.

I chose the former. With no one to turn to, I sunk my teeth into my lips every night, praying for morning to come. She said I had no right to be angry. I was the cause of her misery. So, it continued until her husband ganged up with his son and ravaged the remnants of my bleeding body.

My mother turned a molten lava. Her eyes, a burning hue of outrage when she met the shreds of my broken body. I brimmed with gratitude. It was the first time she defended me. The first time she showed she cared. That first time became the last time.

In a blink of an eye, the confrontation died. He spoke in whispers when he called me into the kitchen. I met her body. It had gone cold on the tiles. That was the first night I cried, and also the night I rebelled. 

I shut myself in my room, poured water on the floor and dared them to come for me. When they broke in, my stepbrother lunged at me before his father could meddle. His fall preceded his father's. I minutes, I loomed over them in my pyjamas with a bloody blade like death and its sickle. 

Mother was gone. The monsters too. The world didn't stop, so I thought I should join her. It felt like a crime to live a life bought from the only person I have genuinely loved all my life. 

I waited trial with a resignation to die. My lawyer insisted I should plead “not guilty”. They had a footage of the incident, thanks to a camera hid in my room. Among several scenes, it had recordings of the day they stripped me of the will to live.

In a rough mix of liberation and guilt, I awaited the judgement from the jury. I waited for death.

I came to that bus stop. The end I wanted from the beginning. My end. The drumrolls of anticipation froze in the womb of time. I closed my eyes awaiting the verdict.

 “ not guilty,” someone said.

My eyes snapped. I gaped at the judge. The grim reaper whom I hoped would make it all go away. The guilt. The hate. This nightmare. 

He shook his head. "I look at you, and all I see is a girl whose childhood and innocence was taken by those who should love and protect her." His eyes blurred with a fog.

" You did what no one else could do for you. You saved yourself ." He drawled, holding a solid mask over the pity in his eyes.

I should have been grateful. It was a second chance but I had nowhere to go.

My lawyer greeted my anxiety with a smile. It quickly introduced his wife into the picture. She heard about me. She knew the story, yet she wanted me. 

Her decision to adopt me was the silver lining in the sky, but I was afraid that  she would regret it. Just like my mother regretted having me. Somehow, there was also a feeling that the lawyer will be like my stepfather. Yet, I had to grab this chance. Maybe…just maybe, I could have my happy ending.