The Stars that Shine in the Dark Blue Sky

Chapter 3 - Fear

She graduated,finally.She did not know what the future would throw at her,and how her life would be different at home.Was she still going to be trapped in a prison cage with an enraged tiger?

Her brother now had graduated from secondary school and stepped into a junior college.It was beside her secondary school at a nearby town closer to her home.She and her older brother were growing distant by the day and the sight of each other was only  in the evenings.

He would be enclosed in his room studying,on the guitar or on his phone.'How time flies.'She thought.'The days where we would play together.'

She was being furiously thundered at by mother again for downloading Instagram without her permission.Whipped again,she broke down and cried. It was unfair.Her brother could download the trending app and she could not?

Her frenzied mother went on and on about the dangers of social media and an innocent,gullible girl like her would get easily fooled by "lurking predators."

Hearing upon what she warned,she knew her mother did not know her at all.She was not credulous and crass as her mother thought she was.Her mother did not know what she experienced in her previous school of cyber-bullying,targeted,isolation by her friends and how it felt like to be deserted by everyone.

She was not such a nincompoop to trust anyone so easily.She knew God did not desire His children to be in this state,but she still could not forgive her mother and her ex schoolmates and teachers for what they have done to her.

She had made true friends in secondary school.It was different.Her class was jovial and warm-heartening like a second family.She loved them.Despite the strict and abiding rules of the form teacher that everyone detested,all of them were brought together by the teachers.She befriended a classmate who genuinely understood her and could see through her on any of her emotions.She was glad.Her wounds and gashes was beginning to recover and heal at its first stage.

The 13-year-old girl showed her mother her first mock test paper.Once more,she was screamed at.The familiar lengthy wooden poles was grasped tightly in her hands.She scourged her once,twice,thrice.Until she was marked with red,nasty and swollen skin anew.

The year progressed,and it was a fresh start of another year.Her brother had moved on to National Service,and she knew deep in her heart that she would miss his presence for the weeks he will be away.On the bright side,the year was great with her friends.She had more freedom claimed now.Maybe her mother was beginning to let go of her leash on her.

She was accused of purloining her mother's watch.The girl was tired,really tired.This was undeniably a fact that her mother never trusted her.Maybe she was indeed a blockhead to believe trust existed in the relationship between her mother and her.She hated her mother after all.What was the point?Her mother threatened to call the police on her if she really had stolen it.To admit and confess ber wrongdoing of her crimes.Repeatedly and incessantly questioning her innocence in the matter.Was she really her daughter?She thought,despondent.

The one and true friend she made had been persuading her that it was the past.She knew her mother had changed and made leaps and bounds in progress.She has been with God every night alone since she graduated from her primary school.But could she really ever forgive her after all these years?Would she ever stop feeling petrified of mother and have a normal mother like others have their own?She did not know.She wondered about all the sobbing and exhaustion of tears behind the hard walls.The fear and trepidation she felt living under the sinister eyes of the beast.