Chapter 18: Mary's Strength
Strength doesn't always look like power. Sometimes, it's quiet. Hidden. Carried in silence.
For Mary, strength had become her way of life. Not because she chose to be strong, but because she had to be. No one else would carry her burdens, so she learned to lift them on her own shoulders—day after day, year after year.
It showed in the way she woke up early, even when her body begged for more sleep. In how she walked to school barefoot without ever asking for pity. In how she memorized her lessons by candlelight, even after hours of cooking and cleaning had left her hands trembling.
It showed in the way she forgave, even when no one asked to be forgiven.
She had every reason to give up. To quit school. To stop caring. To believe what they said about her—that she was nothing, a burden, a mistake.
But she didn't.
Mary held on.
She held on to hope, even when it flickered like a weak flame. She held on to kindness, even when the world around her gave her none. She held on to her dreams, even though they lived only in her heart and the corners of her secret notebook.
She didn't speak much at home, but at school, her mind came alive. In math, she found patterns and order—something her home life lacked. In reading, she escaped into stories and imagined new realities. In writing, she poured herself into essays that whispered her pain and shouted her resilience between the lines.
Some classmates began to notice.
"She's always top of the class," one would say.
"How does she do it without books?" another wondered.
But Mary never bragged. Her strength wasn't loud. It didn't need to be.
It was in her perseverance. In her quiet defiance of a world that wanted her to stay small.
Mary didn't know what the future held. But she knew this: She would not let the cruelty around her decide who she became.
That was her strength—and it was growing stronger by the day.