Chapter 1
The House That Wasn’t a Home
Ayesha had always wondered why her heart beat faster when she heard the front gate creak. Most kids ran to greet their parents; she ran to her room, locking the door, praying her footsteps wouldn’t be too loud.
Her father’s voice was thunder—never soft, always crashing. Even the smallest mistake, a broken glass, a mark on her shirt, became a crime in his court. Her mother’s silence was sharper than words; the way her eyes narrowed, the way disappointment dripped from every sigh.
“Ungrateful,” they called her. “Selfish. Worthless.” Words that clung to her skin like bruises.
At school, she laughed a little louder than she felt, so no one would see the cracks. At night, she lay awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering if love was supposed to hurt like this.
One day, after another storm of shouting, Ayesha went to the rooftop. The sky was wide, endless, free. For the first time, she whispered to herself:
“This isn’t my fault. Their poison isn’t mine to drink.”
And though she couldn’t leave yet, that night she wrote in her secret notebook—a promise that one day she would build her own home. A place where laughter wouldn’t feel dangerous, where love would not be heavy, where silence would mean peace.
Until then, she would survive. And survival, she realized, was its own kind of rebellions
