Unwritten Scars

Chapter 1: The Day Everything Changed

I was born on the 10th of May, 2006, in one of Johannesburg's famous private hospitals. My mother was just nineteen — still more of a girl than a woman — but already carrying the weight of raising one. For the first three years of my life, I lived with her and my aunt in the city, until everything shifted.

I was sent to live with my grandmother in Mthatha, deep in the Eastern Cape. Life with her was far from easy; love wasn't always present in the ways a child needed it. Meanwhile, my mother had left for Cape Town. She told everyone it was for work, but part of her was chasing something else: my father.

Back then, he didn't even know I existed.

When my mother finally told him, he was shocked — but thrilled at the idea of having a daughter. He asked her to bring me home, to live with them. And just like that, my mother returned for me.

I still remember that night. The bus ride out of Mthatha felt like a new beginning. City lights glittered outside the window like falling stars. My mother sat beside me, dreaming of Cape Town's beauty — its beaches, its mountains, its promises. She smiled as she handed me a small pink-wrapped gift.

My first present ever.

Inside was a Barbie doll, complete with her own tiny toy phone. I held her tightly, my heart racing with excitement — not just for the doll, but for everything waiting ahead: a father I'd never met, a new city, new neighbors, a new life.

When we arrived in Cape Town, the bus pulled into Philippi, a township where the air smelled of dust and woodsmoke. My father was there, waiting. He looked so young, almost like an older brother rather than a dad. My mother too — two light-skinned kids trying to play house. He greeted me with a party, inviting children from the neighborhood. For a while, everything felt like a dream.

Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months. I started crèche, where teachers smiled warmly at me. Life felt steady, safe.

But things changed.

My father slipped into darkness — alcohol, weed, anger. The man who had once thrown me a welcome party became a man I feared. He started hitting my mother, controlling her every move, and sometimes, he turned his fury toward me. My mother worked long shifts as a security guard at Green Point Park, while my father lived as if he had no responsibilities at all. She carried her depression silently, until it boiled over, sometimes onto me.

I was barely three, almost four, when fear became my constant companion.

And then came the night that burned itself into my memory — the night everything changed.

My father had invited his friends over for drinks. The house was thick with the sour smell of alcohol, their laughter echoing through the walls. My mother was getting ready for her 4:00 p.m. night shift. She hated leaving me there, in a house full of drunk men, but she had no choice. Her eyes said it all — exhaustion, anger, helplessness.

When she confronted my father about it, their words turned into shouting, shouting into fists. His friends slipped out the door, leaving me there, frozen, watching as my father struck my mother. I tried to stop them, my small hands tugging, my voice crying out — but I was powerless.

By the time she finally left for work, her face was bruised, her eyes red from crying. My father didn't even look at her.

That was the night I realized: the fairytale I thought I was stepping into was really a storm I'd have to survive.

That night, it was just my father and I.
Something in me already felt uneasy, though I was too young to understand why. I was only four years old — innocence was supposed to be my whole world.

He couldn't cook, so he sent me to the shop for bread. I came back, and we ate sausages with cool drink. Everything seemed ordinary. We watched TV, then I grew tired and went to my room.

I didn't like the dark, so I kept my light on. But at some point, it went out. Silence filled the room, until I heard footsteps. They grew louder, closer. My little body froze.

And then, my childhood ended.

What happened next is something no child should ever experience. Something that broke me before I even had the chance to understand myself. My innocence was stolen that night, leaving behind pain, confusion, and scars I couldn't see — not yet.

The next morning, I woke up sore, my body heavy, my bed stained with blood. My mind couldn't make sense of it, but the evidence was everywhere.

My mother came home from her night shift, exhausted but still caring for me. When she pulled back my blanket, she froze. Her face changed, horror filling her eyes as she asked questions I couldn't answer. She tried to lift me, but my body ached. She undressed me for a bath, and that's when she saw the truth for herself.

She cried — the kind of cry that shakes the walls — and then stormed out to confront him. The fighting that followed was so loud, the neighbors rushed in to separate them.

That morning, she still walked me to school. She was silent, her face blank but broken. I didn't understand it all, but I knew something inside her had shattered.

At school, everything was normal until potty time. But when it was my turn, the teacher noticed something was wrong. Too wrong. Her eyes widened. Without hesitation, she called my mother, then social workers.

The room became crowded with adults, their voices blurring together. And then came the moment that broke me all over again: they took me away.

Right in front of my mother.

She begged, she promised, she told me, "Everything is going to be fine, princess. I will fix this." Her voice cracked, but her words held me like a fragile thread of hope.

I was confused, crying, pressing my little hands against the car window as tears slid down my face. Watching my mother fade into the distance, I didn't know what would happen next. I only knew one thing: nothing would ever be the same again.