The pain came fully a few seconds later.
At first, Matou had only registered shock — the suddenness of Aunty Bae’s hand, the violence of the pinch, the disbelief that an argument between children had ended in blood.
But then her cheek began to burn.
Not burn —
It felt peeled.
As though someone had taken a blade to the side of her face and stripped the skin away. The sting deepened with every passing second until it throbbed violently beneath her fingers. When she touched the wound, her hand came away wet.
She stared at it.
Blood.
Bright red.
For a moment, her mind refused to understand what her eyes were seeing.
Then the tears came.
Not the quiet tears she had learned to cry in secret.
Not the controlled tears that slipped silently onto pillows at night.
These tears arrived from somewhere deeper.
They rushed out of her with a force she could not contain. Her body folded inward as sobs shook her chest. The cry that had been trapped in her throat finally escaped — raw, broken, startled.
It was the cry of someone who had been wounded in more ways than one.
The blood running down her cheek was only the visible part.
The deeper wound had no color.
No bandage.
No medicine.
It tore through her with a force she had never known.
Matou cried like her body had finally given up pretending to be strong.
The tears came violently, uncontrollably, shaking her thin shoulders until she could barely breathe. Her chest tightened so badly she thought she might stop breathing altogether. She gasped between sobs, her mouth opening and closing like someone drowning in air.
And then—
The grief widened.
It stopped being about Aunty Bae’s nails.
Stopped being about Jane.
Stopped even being about the blood.
It became everything.
Everything she had swallowed since the day she was taken from home.
Suddenly—
She hated her parents.
The thought came so quickly it frightened her.
But it was there.
Hot.
Raw.
Unfiltered.
She hated them.
She hated Borogie.
She hated Yerro.
How could they give her away?
How could they hand her over so easily?
How could they let another family decide her worth?
The questions rose violently inside her.
Why me?
Why was it her?
Why not Nata?
Why not Khadjel?
Why not Bubel?
Why her?
What had she done?
Was she the least loved?
The least useful?
The easiest to discard?
Her mind spiraled wildly through memories.
The day she was sent away.
The way adults had spoken around her as if she were too young to understand.
The false promises.
“This is for your future.”
“You will go to school.”
“You will have better opportunities.”
“You should be grateful.”
Grateful.
The word now felt like poison.
Grateful for what?
For being treated like an outsider?
For being reminded daily that she was charity?
For sleeping in fear?
For being pinched awake?
For scrubbing urine from another woman’s clothes?
For eating after everyone else had eaten?
For being told she was lucky?
Lucky.
The cruelty of that word made her sob harder.
She cried for every plate she had washed until her fingers wrinkled.
For every floor she had swept.
For every insult she had swallowed.
For every night she lay awake missing home so fiercely her chest physically hurt.
She cried for the times she had been falsely accused.
For the missing sock.
For the suspicious eyes.
For the adults who never defended her.
She cried for her loneliness.
The kind that sat beside her even in crowded rooms.
The kind that followed her to bed.
The kind that made her feel invisible until someone needed something from her.
She cried for her siblings.
For the years slipping away without them.
For the games they played without her.
For the memories they were making that did not include her.
She imagined Bubel growing taller.
Khadjel learning new songs.
Nata carrying pain Matou did not fully understand.
And she—
She was here.
Washing.
Serving.
Disappearing.
She cried for the nights she had no one to whisper to before sleeping.
No sister to share secrets with.
No mother to stroke her hair.
No father whose presence alone made home feel solid.
And then the darkest thought came.
What if they did not miss her the way she missed them?
The thought hollowed her out.
What if life had simply moved on without her?
What if she was easier to lose than she had imagined?
What if they had survived her absence too well?
That thought made her feel physically ill.
Her sobs turned guttural.
Animal-like.
She cried because poverty had stolen choices from her family.
Poverty had made adults make impossible decisions.
Poverty had dressed abandonment as opportunity.
If they had enough—
Enough food.
Enough money.
Enough land.
Enough stability.
Would she still be here?
Would she still be someone else’s burden?
She hated poverty.
She hated what it had done to her family.
She hated what it had made normal.
Children being sent away.
Families splitting.
Love becoming sacrifice.
And then—
A thought even darker than anger entered her.
Maybe she was unwanted everywhere.
At home—
She was given away.
Here—
She was tolerated.
Neither place fully claimed her.
She felt discarded.
Passed around.
Useful only when needed.
Loved only from a distance.
That realisation shattered something fragile inside her.
She cried because she no longer knew where she belonged.
Home felt far away.
This house felt hostile.
And she—
She was suspended between both worlds.
Claimed by neither.
Wanted by none.
The thought was irrational.
Children think in absolutes when they are hurting.
But in that moment, it felt true.
Entirely true.
In her pain, she had the children gasped.
One of Jane’s younger cousins screamed.
“Blood!”
The boys who had spent the entire walk home laughing and taunting suddenly looked frightened. One stepped backward. Another looked away completely.
Jane’s face changed.
Her smugness vanished instantly.
“Grandma…” she whispered.
Even she had not expected this.
Aunty Bae stood still.
For the first time, her eyes flickered toward the blood running down Matou’s cheek.
She saw the damage.
Saw the broken skin.
Saw the way the girl cried… and trembled.
But compassion did not come.
No apology.
No regret.
Only irritation that the scene had grown larger than she intended.
Her mouth tightened.
“Well…” she muttered defensively, straightening her wrapper. “She should know her place.”
Matou cried harder.
The words landed harder than the wound.
Aunty Bae continued, louder now, as though speaking to the entire household.
“She is forgetting herself.”
Her eyes swept over the children gathered nearby.
“She is a foster child.”
The words hung in the air.
Sharp.
Deliberate.
Humiliating.
“She is here because her family cannot provide for her. She should remember that.”
Matou’s entire body stiffened.
The crying did not stop.
But something colder entered it now.
Something deeper than pain.
Hatred.
The children grew quiet.
Even Jane looked uncomfortable now.
Aunty Bae went on, her voice carrying the quiet superiority she had always held but rarely spoken so openly.
“This house feeds her.”
She pointed toward the kitchen.
“This house clothes her.”
Her hand moved toward the compound.
“This house sends her to school.”
Then she looked directly at Matou.
“And she thinks she can raise her voice like she is equal to my grandchildren?”
Each word stripped something from Matou.
Mrs. Owens entered carrying her handbag and a basket of vegetables balanced carefully against her hip.
She stopped instantly.
The basket slipped slightly in her grip.
Her eyes widened in horror.
“Mother!”
Her voice cracked with genuine alarm.
“What have you done to the child?”
The entire compound fell silent.
Aunty Bae remained unbothered.
“Nothing,” she replied dismissively.
Mrs Owens stared at Matou’s face in disbelief.
Blood had traveled down her cheek and begun drying near her jawline. Her uniform collar was stained red. Her crying had softened into trembling sobs.
Mrs Owens rushed toward her.
“Oh my God…”
She dropped the basket entirely.
Tomatoes rolled across the compound floor.
She gently moved Matou’s hand away from her face and inhaled sharply at the sight of the wound.
“Mother!”
Her voice rose now.
“What is this?”
Aunty Bae folded her arms.
“She was becoming too full of herself.”
Mrs Owens blinked.
“What?”
“I had to bring her down from her high horse.”
The words stunned even the children listening nearby.
Mrs Owens looked at her mother as if seeing her clearly for the first time.
“She is a child.”
“She is an ungrateful child.”
“She is bleeding!”
“And whose fault is that? She must learn.”
Mrs Owens stared at her in disbelief.
“She was arguing with Jane,” Aunty Bae continued, as though offering reasonable justification. “Raising her voice like she belongs here equally.”
Mrs Owens’ face hardened.
“She does belong here.”
Aunty Bae laughed bitterly.
“No.”
The word was immediate.
“She is being helped.”
“She is not family.”
Matou heard every word.
Each one entered her like a blade.
Mrs Owens turned sharply toward the house help.
“Bring hot water.”
Then toward another child.
“Bring my first aid box.”
The household moved quickly now.
The children scattered.
Aunty Bae remained seated.
Unmoved.
Mrs Owens guided Matou toward a chair on the verandah.
“It’s okay,” she whispered.
But Matou no longer believed those words meant safety.
Mrs Owens cleaned the wound carefully.
The antiseptic stung.
Matou winced.
More tears came.
But quieter now.
More exhausted than loud.
Mrs Owens kept apologizing under her breath.
“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…”
Matou stared into the distance.
She heard the words.
But they floated around her without landing.
Across the compound, Aunty Bae sat in complete silence.
No remorse.
No softness.
Only the quiet certainty that she had done what was necessary.
And for the first time since arriving in that house—
Matou stopped trying to be loved there.
Completely.
Something final broke inside her that afternoon.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
Just quietly.
Like a door closing forever.
