Chapter 9 YOU MEAN NOTHING

Minutes have passed, and I am beginning to relax after managing to calm Lyana down. My left cheek is still burning, and honestly, I don’t even want to imagine how it looks because I feel like the skin is peeling off. However, despite the pain, I have been able to suck the tears back just to pretend to be a strong gem for the sake of my daughter. But I swear, even my head is spinning now from the impact of that slap.

And all for what?

What earned me that, huh?

Because I stood my ground? Because I refused to be traded like a piece of trash? Because I spoke my mind? Well, they might as well go get a gun and shoot me right in the head because nothing, and I mean nothing whatsoever, will make me allow this injustice. I am not bowing to their evil scheme for anything.

“Child? Come to…”

I grab my mother’s hand and slap it away before she can even touch the hem of my daughter’s dress. Filthy hands! Worthless grandmother! The nerve!

I rise up slowly, my teary eyes glued to her. I toss my quivering child on my back. She is scared to hell. I can feel her trembles and hiccups as I secure her to my back. I don’t remember the last time I saw my baby cry. But they made her cry today. And I hate them so much for this and everything they have ever done. Even their mere existence and the fact that they are my parents, I detest.

“I just want to take your child out so that she can be spared from all this.” This woman speaks, avoiding my threatening eyes, which are not breaking from her.

“Try to get close to my child one more time, and I will forget that you gave birth to me, woman!” I warn, and I mean exactly that.

They have no right to even cast a glance at my child.

She snaps at me after I speak, perhaps to demand to be addressed properly, but she swallows hard whatever she wants to say after meeting my stern, cold face and eyes. She must have noticed the intensity of my words. The pain they have inflicted on me and the pain they are still inflicting on me is too much to bear. There were times that I used to think that this anger I was feeling towards them would somehow, someday, subside. I will be able to forgive them somehow, and they will forgive me. After all, I paid the price for my mistakes. But with how bad and hard they are making everything for me, not even the heavens will be able to intervene in their case. I hate them. I detest them so much that our future seems so vague. I don’t know where we stand with the way things are right now, and I also don't see how we will cope with each other in the future.

How will we even live if we crash into everything? I feel like I have been made enough and beyond. And now they are extending the bounds of injustice. They seem to feel that they have been so lenient with me, while on the contrary, they have done more than necessary. They are not done punishing me. Like, my punishment will not just end here in this dungeon. They are hell-bent on tearing me apart, and I am hell-bent on preventing any more injustice against me and my child. Tooth and nail, I will fight.

This bond is broken beyond repair. This rift will most probably never be merged.

“Staying in this room for years and having this little kid might have made you delusional, Ayana. You might be forgetting that I am Donald De’Mario! I am the only voice in this home, and when I speak, no one dares speak against me.” Father speaks, aiming to scare me, which he is failing at all costs, and that is aggravating him even more.

I meet his cold eyes. It's not like mine are soft either. “I know that, but I was obliged to obey you only when I was still a De’Mario! But I am not anymore. I no longer belong to this family.” I state.

“What does your ID read, huh? Is it not Ayana Salma De’Mario?” He questions coldly, boldly, and furiously.

This must be the worst day of this man’s life because no one dared talk back at him like this. Like he said, he has been the voice, the word, and we were bound by the authority that he percolated, still does, the fear that we always felt for him, and the respect that we gave him as our father to obey his every single word. But things have changed now. I have dropped all the fear and respect that I had for him a long time ago. I held him in high esteem, but not anymore. Not after the hell he has made me and my child go through. And certainly not after this. Not after daring to trade me like I am a harmful dog that he needs to get out of his compound.

“Give me just one chance, Mr. De’Mario, and I will drop your name in a flash. I will trash it like it means absolutely nothing because that is what you all mean to me—nothing! You are all dead to me!” I affirm.

Silence resonates in the entire room for a long time. They are gawking at me, browsing my face from one corner to the other, searching my eyes to perhaps gauge the intensity of this hate that I am bleeding, and I am giving them all the satisfaction and the time they need.

There comes a time in life when you have to take up the mantle and fight. That point where you have to speak up and force people to hear you. That point where you know that you can depend on no one but yourself. That point where you put everything behind—the bonds, the relations, the emotions, and all—and just fight for what you want. What you believe in. What you feel and think is right. That moment when you realize that if you don’t do something to help yourself, the ship will drown and you will never be found, and you realize that, with or without any certainty of winning the battle, you have to fight.

And that point in my life is now.

I have given these people enough pleasure to hurt me, insult me, and humiliate me over and over again and again. I thought they would change somehow, somewhere along the way. But I was damn wrong. It seems like I don’t matter to them at all. All they want is to hurt me more or get rid of me. Use me for every chance they can get.

But I say enough is enough. I maybe should have been bolder and been able to stand up for myself a little while sooner. But, oh well, they say that it is better late than never. I am hanging on to the hope that there is still hope in my case. I can still do something to save myself and my baby from this absurd injustice being committed to us.

And I will, no matter what it costs. No matter the price, because no price is too much for my child’s life.