POV — Leah
My feet hurt.
They always hurt by the time I made the walk home from the hotel — the cheap shoes, the hard floors, the eight hours of bending and scrubbing and carrying things that were too heavy for one person but there was never more than one person to carry them. I had learned to stop noticing the pain somewhere around month three of this job. Now it was just part of coming home. Sore feet, aching back, hands that smelled of cleaning product no matter how many times I washed them.
This was my life.
I had made my peace with it.
Mostly.
"Leah!"
I turned.
Sarah was leaning out of her doorway three houses down with the particular energy of someone who had been waiting for something exciting to happen all day and had finally found their moment.
"Oh Leah you are back!" she said.
"I am back," I agreed. I kept walking.
"Wait — wait — guess what!"
I stopped.
Turned around.
Looked at her.
"What Sarah."
She grinned. "You know those popular idols I told you about? VXN?"
I started walking again.
"Sarah I am tired," I said. "I don't want to hear anything right now."
"Oh come on Leah just listen—"
"I am tired."
"Just one thing—"
I stopped again.
Turned around again.
"What," I said.
"VXN are having a concert tomorrow!" She said it the way people announce miracles — like the information itself should be enough to fix whatever was wrong with your day. "Right here! Can you believe it?"
I looked at her.
"Okay," I said.
"Okay?" She stared at me. "Leah that is VXN—"
"I have to go," I said. "I will talk to you later Sarah."
I turned and walked and did not look back even when I heard her saying something else behind me because I was tired and my feet hurt and I had never owned a phone in my life so whatever VXN was meant absolutely nothing to me and right now all I wanted was to get inside and sit down and exist quietly for five minutes without anyone needing anything from me.
I reached my front door.
And stopped.
Sounds from inside.
I stood completely still on the front step with my hand raised toward the door handle and listened and felt my stomach drop slowly toward the floor.
Moaning.
I knew those sounds. I had been hearing them on and off for two years — ever since my mother died and this woman started appearing at our door and my father stopped pretending he had any shame left about any of it.
She was the same woman my mother had always complained about.
The same face. The same presence. The woman my mother had cried over in quiet voices behind closed doors that were never as closed as they thought they were.
And now she was here.
In my mother's house.
In my mother's room.
I pressed both hands over my ears and stood on my own front step like a stranger and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
The door opened.
My father came out first — straightening his shirt, completely unbothered, the expression on his face the particular one he wore when he had already decided that whatever you were feeling about a situation was not his problem.
The woman followed behind him.
My father looked at me.
"You are home," he said pleasantly. Like I was a minor inconvenience he was choosing to acknowledge. "Where is the money? This is the time you normally collect your salary."
I looked at him.
"They haven't paid me yet," I said.
The slap came before I finished the sentence.
Hard. Open handed. The kind that snaps your head sideways and fills your ears with ringing and sends everything you are holding crashing to the ground.
My bag hit the floor.
And my father's eyes went straight to it.
He moved faster than I expected — crouching, reaching, his hand finding the envelope inside before I had fully registered what was happening — and I grabbed for it at the same time and for a moment we were both holding it, both pulling, and I looked at my father's face and saw nothing there. No guilt. No hesitation. Nothing that looked like a man who recognised what he was doing to his own daughter.
He pushed me.
Both hands. Hard.
I went backward and hit the ground and the envelope went with him and I sat on the floor of my own home and watched my father straighten up and tuck my salary into his pocket and offer his hand to the woman beside him like nothing had happened.
Like I wasn't even there.
Like I was furniture.
Like I was nothing.
They walked past me.
Through the gate.
Down the street.
Gone.
I sat on the floor for a long time.
The tears came slowly at first — the kind that build up behind your eyes before they fall, the kind that have been waiting all day for a quiet moment to arrive — and then all at once, the way they always did when I was finally alone enough to let them.
I cried the way you cry when there is nobody to hear you and no point performing anything for anyone and the weight of your own life has simply become more than your body can hold upright.
"I work," I said to nobody. To the empty doorway. To the street my father had just walked down without looking back. "I work every single day and I cannot use my own money for anything."
My voice cracked.
"I need to go to school," I said. "I need decent clothes. I need a phone." I pressed the back of my hand against my mouth. "I need one thing. Just one thing that is mine."
The street was quiet.
The house behind me was empty.
"Since mum left," I said quietly. The words came out broken and small and completely true. "Since mum left there is nothing. No help. Nothing."
I sat on the floor outside my own front door with my empty bag beside me and my sore feet and my hands that smelled of cleaning product and I cried until there was nothing left.
Then I wiped my face.
Stood up.
Picked up my bag.
And went inside.