The night was quiet, except for the wind whispering through zinc sheets and the creak of a board house that had already seen too many storms. Inside, a baby cried softly - not out of hunger, but loneliness. Three months old, and already learning the sound of absence.
His mother was gone. His father, a man with rough hands and a tired heart, took the boy and said only one thing:
> "Mi nah leave yuh, no matter what."
From that day, it was just them - two souls trying to stand against a world that never bent easy.
His father worked nights as a security guard, guarding places brighter than his own home. Aiden grew up with the rhythm of the night shift: the click of the door, the hum of silence, the slow return of dawn. Sometimes he'd stay up waiting for the sound of boots on the step - that was his lullaby.
Then came Aunty Gena - his stepmother, with a voice like morning dew and eyes that carried secrets. She was strict, sharp when she needed to be, but sometimes, when she thought no one was watching, she'd hum little hymns and look at him with something close to love.
He met her one night when his father came home after a shift, smelling like rain and tired steel. His father smiled in a way Aiden hadn't seen before and said, "Mi want yuh meet somebody." That's how Gena walked into their lives - calm, confident, and steady. On nights when his father worked, she stayed with Aiden, made sure he ate, and tucked him in with the kind of care he didn't know he'd been missing.
A few days later, Aiden met her little boy - Michael.
Soft-spoken, gentle, with eyes full of wonder. From the moment they met, Aiden felt something he'd never had before - a brother. Before moving to Gena's place, they all lived for a short time in the old board house his father had built. The floor was rough wood, the kind that creaked with every step, and Aiden and Michael slept side by side on the floor while his father and Gena shared the bed. It wasn't luxury, but it was theirs. And to Aiden, that meant everything.
He loved being a big brother. He'd watch over Michael at school, help him cross the road, protect him from trouble. They'd play pillow fights until laughter filled the whole room, chase each other barefoot through the yard, and make up games only they understood.
He remembered one night clear as glass - December 31st, New Year's Eve.
They all went out to watch fireworks. The sky exploded with light, and Michael clapped at every burst like it was magic. For a moment, it felt like the world had no weight. They were happy. A family.
But time has a way of turning joy into memory.
Soon after, Gena left for America for her cancer treatment. She promised to come back, smiling through the pain. But she never did.
Before that, Aiden had learned that not everyone smiled at him. Some of Gena's relatives saw him as the outsider. "The guard's pickney," they'd say, like his father's job was something to laugh at. One day, one of them - a big man with rum on his breath - grabbed him by the ankle and hung him upside down while the others cursed. Michael's little cousin stood beside him taunting, laughing, chanting as if it were a show. The blood rushed to Aiden's head, and all he could think was how small the world looked from that angle - and how nobody stopped it.
After Gena flew away, her family changed. The warmth faded.
Arguments grew like weeds. One day, after harsh words and slammed doors, they ran Aiden and his father out of the house they once shared. With nowhere else to go, they moved back into the old board house, the same broken wooden place they had started from. It wasn't much - holes in the roof, cracks in the walls - but it was theirs again. And in the echo of that small house, father and son began again, holding on to each other through the silence.
Months later, Gena passed away in America.
At the funeral service, the air was thick with rain and perfume. Aiden stood staring at her face - still, calm, and far away. The woman who had once yelled, cooked, and prayed over him now said nothing at all. He couldn't bring himself to go to the burial, couldn't watch her go into the ground. He turned away before the hearse left, carrying with it a silence that would follow him for years.
After Gena, the house felt emptier than ever. His father barely spoke. The nights grew heavier.
Then came school - and trouble. Aiden was the class clown, the slow reader, the one teachers smacked for not keeping up. He got labeled "dunce." He hated the word more than any beating. Still, he found light in three friends - Kevaughn, Shavest, and Jaded. They were wild, loud, and loyal. Trouble together, always.
They dreamed of escaping the struggle through school, though the system never made it easy. Shavest and Jaded passed for Papine High, while Kevaughn made it into Camperdown. Aiden missed those days - the laughter, the plans, the way they made each other believe they'd all make it out somehow.
He once wrote a letter to his teacher, begging her not to tell his father about a suspension.
> "Please, miss," he wrote, "mi nuh want him kill mi."
That letter got him one of the worst beatings of his life - but it also showed him something new: writing could speak when his mouth couldn't.
He started to write about everything - pain, girls, dreams, fights, the sound of rain on zinc. Words became the place he hid when the world hit too hard.
But he couldn't hide forever. A girl tricked him into stealing money, and when he got caught, shame became his shadow. His father's disappointment felt colder than his hand. Love and pain started to blend - he didn't know where one ended and the other began.
Then came Brandy. Sweet, fierce Brandy. His first real girlfriend. She made him laugh, made him believe he could be more than just "the boy with no mother." Until she turned on him - shouting his secrets so the whole world could hear. He broke. Again.
After her came Gabrielle. Kind heart, soft voice. She left for foreign lands and never looked back.
But even heartbreak couldn't kill his fire. He ran track - faster than the whispers, faster than the shame. He won races. Heard his name over the speakers. Champion boy. The same kids who mocked him started chanting for him.
For a while, that was enough.
Then - his mother.
The first time he saw her, it was like looking in a mirror that smiled back. Half British, half Jamaican, sharp eyes and smooth skin. He bragged about her at school - "Mi madda look good!" But her love came with thunder. She called him stupid, said he was cursed, that his father was a witch.
He didn't understand how love could sound like that.
One day, he disobeyed her - went outside when she told him not to. Laughed with the neighbors. Came home to a locked door. He forced it open, leaving a scratch on the wall. She saw it and snapped. She beat him with a broom, calling him a demon, breaking one broom then grabbing another.
He cried out, "Stop, Mommy, please!"
The neighbors came running. One pulled her off him, another called his father. When his father arrived, he cursed her out in front of everyone, then turned to Aiden and said, "Come, mi son."
That was the last time Aiden ever called her Mom.
Back in Kingston, school started again. He sat on his bed one night, his father beside him, both quiet for a long time. Finally, his father spoke, voice breaking:
> "Son... mi tired. Can't yuh just change, please?"
That hit harder than any belt.
And Aiden decided he would.
He studied harder. Kept his head down. The day he passed for Kingston High, he ran home smiling so wide his cheeks hurt. His father smiled too.
> "That's good, son," he said. "It's an average school... but it's good."
And for once, Aiden felt it.
The warmth of pride.
The promise of better days.
He didn't know what the future held - only that he was still standing.
Still breathing.
Still rising.
The boy who wouldn't break.