It’s 2:00 am, I’m staring at the ceiling that I’m not familiar with.

I gaze at the tiny globes embedded in the ceiling. My mind is not in this room but on how I got myself into this. Voices battle in my head but the one that dominates the most is that of my mother. In my mind’s eye I can see her asking me, “Thina, where the hell are you? What are you doing there?”

I can see her with her Cruella De Ville tendencies. My body shivers as I think of how she would react to this. “Oh well, they got me into this anyway,” I try console myself. Does she even care? Do I even matter to her? Or is she focused on her new love?

Everyone views me as this decent girl who is not capable of making mistakes. I find myself trapped in a shell where I try to escape the realities of being me. Of cause I’m an intellectual, I play sport but there’s no need for everyone to make me perfect. My mother and her beloved husband try by all means to keep me in this prison, with my half-brothers on hand as their security guards, them as Sheriff and the Judge.

At times I miss my dad; he is the only one who could understand how I feel and what I think. Mum is too attached to her new family and forgets about me, it’s not my fault that she and my dad got divorced. I could have chosen my dad ‘cause I know I’m his one and only child.

But anyways it happened that I landed up with my mom who is hypnotized by this old white man who happens to be step-father. The only thing that matters to them is Isaac and Tom their precious twins. I’m not allowed to visit my dad even during weekends, unless I bump into him at Sandton City.

My life has become this boring routine where my step-father drives me to school every morning and picks me after work. I never get to see the realities of the world like other teenagers. I always hear kids at school saying, “Oooh that party was off the hook.” The only party I know was the one I had when I was turning eleven, before my parents got divorced.

They would go on about how one got “sloshed” and how the other blacked out. I would always try to figure out how it feels to be “sloshed” and “high”, but I’m imprisoned at home so there’ll be none of that for me.

I know the exact number of bricks that made that house we live in, the ceilings that covers the house and the number of tiles on that floor. Every Friday all I do is float in this vacuum space and the weekend just floats by. Then comes Monday where everyone speaks about how their weekends were and my tomorrow looks exactly the same as today.

The door creaks open and suddenly I’m back in the room with the glistening lights.

“Is everything ok?” he asks.

I stare at his caramel coloured skin and try to find my voice. Why the hell is his shirt unbuttoned? I can’t think straight now. I mumble something under my breath because I don’t have words and I don’t trust my voice.

I finally have a weekend story, I think excitedly.

“What’s that look about, sexy?” he asks as he slides onto the bed.

He doesn’t wait for me to answer; his cushy soft lips find my lipstick stained ones. He seems interested in every detail about me, but he does all his investigating by touching. He puts his hands through my braids to see how long they are. He touches my cheek to see how soft my skin is.

He runs his finger along my brow to see how high my arch is. It’s so distracting and intimidating but moreover it’s enticing. I’m so lost in the moment that I can vaguely see my phone going off in the distance. But I can’t be bothered to find out if it’s a text or a call or a Whatsapp from one of my friends.

My mind drifts back to where all this started

***

Tell us what you think: Who do you think is in the room with the narrator?