Elementary school should have been a time for laughter, innocence, and carefree days. But for me, it became a battlefield I walked into every day—armed with nothing but a wounded heart and eyes that no longer held the light of a child.
I stopped looking down.
I started staring back—cold, sharp, and unafraid.
They mocked me again that morning. My shirt was stained with dried mud, my hands rough with the remnants of brick dust. I had spent the early hours lifting stones at the construction site near our neighborhood, trying to make a few coins before school. I didn't want pity—I just didn't want to go hungry.
"Hey, it's the kid whose daddy ran off with another woman!"
Laughter. Cruelty. The sound pierced deeper than any blade.
I clenched my fists.
I didn't look away.
And then—snap.
The first punch landed on the boy's jaw. He fell backward, stunned. The others stared at me, their mouths open, unsure if they should laugh or run. My knuckles throbbed, but the fire inside me didn't care. The anger, the shame, the humiliation—it needed an exit. And it found it.
Rio pulled me aside afterward. He didn't say a word at first.
We just sat by the side of the schoolyard, under the old guava tree.
"You've changed," he finally said.
"I had to," I muttered.
He didn't press. He knew better than to question pain he couldn't fully understand. But his presence meant everything. He didn't leave me—not like everyone else did.
That day, the teachers called my mother. She didn't come.
They never understood the bruises I carried inside—only the ones I gave out.
"When a child stops crying and starts fighting, the world has already failed him."