Her apartment was tiny but quite elegant and sophisticated. The walls were painted in stunning coats of grey and blackberry, her bed sheets and curtains had matching colours that blended beautifully together forming a sequence. She had a purple bed lamp, multiple vanity bags, fluffy fleece mats and many other things that she did not need. She thought she had enough, yet she still could not escape this feeling. She rubbed her sweaty hands together, looking at Adam so she could at least interpret an impression out of him but there was none.

She hated feeling this exposed. This felt exactly like that fateful afternoon when Elsa and the girls changed their tune and decided that their future mattered more than her privacy did.
“Have you suddenly gotten collective amnesia? You are supposed to be going the other way,” she had chuckled.

“No silly. You are good at maths, and we need help. You’re about to become our maths doctor, let’s see if you can cure our poor brains, Luna,” Elsa said.

Luna’s heart choked her. What did they mean they needed help with maths? Did they mean that they were going to her house? No!

Luna had a brilliant mind but in that particular instant, it failed her. She could not think of a single way out of that disaster. She contemplated walking forever, until they all got tired and turned back to their own homes or she could just tell them right there and then that there was no way in hell that she was ever going to be their personal tutor but none of it made enough sense.
As soon as her home was in sight, her poor feet buckled up beneath her jelly knees. For some weird reason unbeknownst to her, her house appeared to be smaller and dustier than usual.

“This is my home,” a whisper escaped her lips, “you guys can wait for me under that tree, I’ll be with you after I get out of my school uniform.” She pointed at the tree on the eastern side of the yard. The girls ran towards the tree as she made her way to the house.

Flies buzzed as she approached the house, then she remembered the biltong. The biltong! At this point her head had begun spinning and she had no idea what she had to do to find her balance. She was living through her worst nightmares and there was nowhere to run to. Her classmates now knew that she lived inside a muddy matchbox, that she used firewood to cook and that she did not have running water. These were things she would have loved to keep a secret. She would grow up, work hard and change all of it but even the growing up was taking its sweet time.

There was loud chattering when she finally decided to join the girls under the tree. This was a surprise. The girls listened attentively, took notes, and even asked relevant questions. This was another surprise. Before they knew it, the sky was getting glistened with the darkness and the stars. The girls thanked her profusely and asked that they do this same time, same place the next day, they would even bring two lunchboxes to accommodate their after-school escapades.

Luna’s heart was breaking into a million pieces that night. Her world was tumbling down. The classroom had always been her haven. There, she was brilliant. She was bright; brighter than everyone else and now, all of that had been taken away from her. No one would admire her ability to solve a mathematics equation in 90 seconds anymore. They would all just laugh and gossip about her poverty to dim her light.

The next day, she struggled. Her regular chest out, chin up and shoulders square portrait was just impossible. She wanted the earth to open and swallow her whole. It did not help that the first period was Madam Dali’s maths class.

For the first time since the beginning of the year, no one in class answered Ms. Dali’s questions. The learners kept stealing glances at Luna, while the teacher looked at her suspiciously beneath her spectacles.

“I can’t be talking to myself as though this class is empty. If no one gives me an answer in the next minute, I am going to randomly pick,” ma’am Dali said.

The entire class turned to the corner at the backseat. They looked at her as though they were pleading with her to please save them. She reluctantly raised her hand, “the answer is 180 degrees madam.”

There. There it was! The admiration. But it couldn’t be, could it? There was no way they still admired her. Not after finding out about her questionable background. She wasn’t as bright after all because she did not ever see the possibility of this happening. She couldn’t believe she had finally found her freedom to be. She could then stop solving equations over and over again during breaktime, afraid that they might catch onto the fact that she did not have a lunchbox. She could now share in on theirs and play ‘mogusha’ like all the other kids her age.

Now here she was again with Adam, taking a gamble. She was reluctant but hopeful that he would still like her even after ‘seeing’ her. She looked at him as he drew in a large amount of air into his lungs and heaved a sigh.

“It is nice to finally meet you, Luna,” Adam said as pulled her in for a hug then he let go and went to look outside from her window.

She couldn’t put a finger on what he thought exactly, and it bothered her.

“Why are you just standing there? You have such a beautiful view from up here babe. Come, let us stand here for a moment,” he said.

There it was! The admiration was still there. Perhaps she needed to untie the knot in her tummy and the one in her brain.

‘It did not matter what she had, it mattered who she was. It mattered WHO SHE WAS,’ she realised.