The nights were long, and the air smelled of dust and firewood. I lay awake, listening to the creaks of the old house, the soft steps of shadows that weren't mine. Sometimes I wondered if anyone had ever noticed me—really noticed me—as more than just a quiet child to be ignored. School was both a refuge and a battlefield. I learned to move silently, stay out of the way of bigger kids, teachers who didn't look closely, and friends who came and went like birds. Their laughter reminded me of what I didn't have. I wanted to join in, to be included, but I had no map, no instructions for how to belong.Ntombentsha's moods were unpredictable. Some mornings she shouted over nothing, her voice slicing through the walls like a knife. Other days, she left scraps of food on the table, muttered something half-kind, then vanished. I never knew whether to expect warmth or cold, love or indifference. I learned to brace myself for storms. Survival depended on it.But even in the shadows, small sparks appeared. A neighbor, kind just for a moment, offered bread without expecting anything in return. A teacher saw my worn shoes and didn't ask why they were old or tattered, just nodded once like I mattered. These were small things, easily overlooked, but to me they were proof: maybe someone could see me after all. Maybe someone would see me one day.I imagined my mother. Not as the woman who abandoned me, not as a stranger—but as someone I could hold, someone who could tell me it was okay to exist. At night, I whispered into the darkness, "Where are you?" and imagined a face smiling back. Sometimes, in the quiet, I thought I saw her in passing—a flash of hair, the curve of a hand, the way someone moved. My heart would skip, but then I'd remember: it was only a stranger. Only a flicker. Only a shadow. By now, I'd learned to hide my feelings. Walls were easier to build than explanations. People didn't want to know, and I didn't want to give them the satisfaction of seeing my vulnerability. But hiding came at a cost. Nights were lonelier. Dreams were heavier. Questions festered. "Why wasn't I enough?" I repeated the words, over and over, until they became a chant in my mind. No one answered. No one ever did. Still, life had tiny gifts. A good grade on a test felt monumental. A kind word from a classmate or teacher felt like sunlight breaking through clouds. I clung to these fragments, small proof that I could survive, that I could exist in a world that often forgot I was there. Sometimes I wrote in secret. Tiny notes, scribbled in the corners of my notebook, letters to a mother I'd never met, letters to myself, letters to a world I didn't yet understand. "One day," I wrote, "I will find out who I am. I will find her. I will find me." I folded the paper carefully, hid it beneath my mattress, and hoped the universe was listening. But the house was never quiet. Shadows moved. Voices argued. A cousin, drunk more often than sober, lurked in corners, pretending he didn't see me, pretending he wasn't there. I learned to anticipate danger, to move without being noticed, to vanish into walls like I was part of them. The world outside my room was never kind. The world inside it offered only fleeting reprieve. Yet even in all this, I began to understand something important: the small moments mattered. The ones who smiled just a little too long. The teacher who paid attention. The neighbor who lingered. The scraps of kindness, however brief, reminded me that life could be different. That someone, somewhere, might see me, even if I couldn't see them yet. I didn't know when it would happen, or how. I only knew one thing: I would wait. I would watch. I would learn. And when the time came, I would be ready.
