People often mistake my laugh for lightness—as if I’m laughing because life’s been kind.
But the truth? I laugh because I had to.

Humour became my armour. Jokes are easier than tears, especially in public.
Because when trauma doesn’t come with a mute button, you learn to laugh just loud enough to drown it out.
I laugh so you won’t ask.
So I don’t break.

I was four.
Just four years old when a neighbour took something that didn’t belong to him—something sacred, something silent.
And I told no one.
Not a soul.

I buried it deep.
Deeper than words, deeper than fear.
So deep, I nearly convinced myself it hadn’t happened at all.

Until I was twelve.
That’s when my dad mentioned another girl.
Younger than me.
Same street.
Same monster.

That’s when silence shattered.
And guilt rushed in like a flood.

I thought, “If I’d spoken up, maybe she’d have been spared.”
But I was just a child.
A scared, silenced child.

He got two years.
Two.
In some low-security facility with tea breaks and daytime TV.

Me?
I got a life sentence.
Of memory. Of silence. Of rebuilding.

I saw him again when I was sixteen—just walking, free.
Like nothing ever happened.
And I remember thinking:
He got out. I’m still trapped.

But I kept going.
I grew up.
Became a mother.
Became the mother.

The fierce one.
The "nobody is laying a finger on my kids" one.
Because if I couldn’t protect the child I was,
I’d damn well protect the children I had.

And I did.
But life… life had other plans.

I married a narcissist.