CAGED ✔

《 Chapter 1》

I
Try to
Whistle you
Down the
Wind

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"Hey!"

I looked up quickly to the smiling face of Peter; a new student who had been admitted into our school five weeks ago. He was jovial so he made his friends quickly and had quite gained popularity with the girls - he had more friends than students who had been in the school since JSS1.

I was shocked he was speaking to me. I expected him to stay away just as the rest had - my classmates hated me and I couldn't blame them. I couldn't expect people to love me when I didn't love myself.

One would wonder why, as people find it much easier to love themselves than others but how could I do so when I hated the life I was leading?

My grandma - the woman I had lived with all my life - didn't make loving myself easy for me. Sometimes, I wished I was never born; that way, I wouldn't have to pay for a crime I didn't commit.

Peter waved his hands in front of me when I didn't reply and I looked around. As expected, people were looking at me and I could feel chills run down my spine as I willed myself to take a deep breath.

I wanted him to go. I couldn't talk to him. I didn't want to get into trouble. Grandma could walk in any time and see him speaking to me just as she had done in the past. I could still remember the event clearly like it had happened a few hours ago when it had occurred many years back.

It had been my first time playing with a boy and I had enjoyed the game we were both playing but grandma had seen me with him and had slapped me very hard on my cheek.

I was just seven then and Timothy had been my classmate; we had both been waiting to be picked up from school and while we waited, we decided to play a game but grandma had walked into the school compound and had seen Timothy holding me tightly on the waist. Without waiting for any explanation, she dragged me from Timothy's grip and had landed a heavy slap on my cheek.

I felt nothing but pain each time I remembered that incident.

"Hellooo!" Peter dragged the words to get my attention and I sighed heavily, hoping he would leave if I ignored him. I tried to focus my attention on something else but Peter standing before me and thoughts of what grandma would do to me should she walk in - since she was known for paying me unannounced visits at school - consumed me instead.

Living with grandma all my life, I couldn't remember staying elsewhere other than the four corners of her compound: a compound I had come to greatly despise. It was on her floor I had crawled; my first walk had been in her house. She had been my guardian ever since I came into this world. How I wish I could go back to wherever I came from. It must be so much better there than here.

My mum, her daughter had given birth to me out of wedlock. I was given birth to after she completed secondary school and after my delivery, she had stayed with me for just a year before going to further her education. Ever since then, I had been left at the care of her parents: my grandparents.

Though she had visited me often while she was in school, her visits became less frequent when she got married.

Before then, I had pleaded with her to take me along with her but she had smiled and made a promise to take me after she was done with her schooling but she never did.

The man she got married to refused to take in a kid that wasn't his and so my mother was left with no other choice than to leave me in the care of her parents.