Middle school was supposed to be about math, books, and friendships. Instead, it became a place where whispers cut deeper than laughter. It started small—quiet words drifting down hallways, classmates exchanging glances that stung sharper than any insult. "You don't know who you really are, do you?" a girl muttered one day, almost as if she didn't want me to hear. I froze, pretending not to notice, but the words settled heavily in my stomach. Who did I belong to? What did she mean? Rumors seeped through the neighborhood, too. Always second-hand, always vague. Some said I wasn't really Ntombentsha's child. Others claimed my real mother had left me behind because she couldn't care for me. I didn't know what to believe. Part of me wanted to shut it out and act like the world couldn't teach me anything new about myself. But another part—the part that never stopped searching—couldn't stop listening. At home, Ntombentsha's mood swings made everything uncertain. Some days she scolded me for nothing; other days she'd leave scraps of food, a reminder of her presence. I began to notice patterns, tiny signs that my place in the house was never truly secure. School became my only escape, but even there, curiosity gnawed at me. I watched the way neighbors and teachers looked at me, searching for any hint that my story was different. Each glance, each hushed conversation, became a clue, feeding a hunger inside me I didn't have words for. I started keeping secret notes, scribbled questions in the margins of my notebooks. "Who am I really?" I wrote. "Why was I left here?" The questions were messy, raw, unanswerable—but writing them made me feel less invisible. Somehow, recording the questions felt like a step toward answers. Even so, I stayed careful. I couldn't let anyone see how deeply I longed for the truth. Vulnerability had a price I knew too well. But the whispers had cracked the walls I'd built, letting in possibility, letting in light. Maybe there was more to life than what I'd been shown. By the end of middle school, I learned a new truth alongside all the old ones: survival wasn't just about food and shelter anymore. It was about understanding who you were, and knowing when to listen to the warnings hidden in quiet words. Somewhere, beyond the shadows of my crowded home, lay pieces of a puzzle I still didn't know how to solve. And so, I waited—not silently, but carefully. Every whispered hint, every rumor, every fleeting glance became fuel. I didn't know when I'd find the answers, or even what they'd look like—but I was determined to keep searching.
