The Scars that Made Me

Chapter 6

The Perfect Daughter**

Ayla Reyes was sixteen when she discovered that silence could be louder than words.

At school, she was everything a teacher dreamed of—present, prepared, and polite. Her notebooks were immaculate, her essays thoughtful, her group projects always submitted on time. She wore her school uniform pressed and neat, her hair tied in a ponytail, her shoes polished even when the soles had started to thin. Her classmates called her *ate* sometimes, not just because she was slightly older than a few of them, but because she carried herself with the calm authority of someone who seemed to have life figured out. Ayla Reyes: reliable, responsible, untouchable.

But no one saw the girl who came home from class with aching shoulders from carrying both books and groceries, who stayed up late helping her younger brother finish his math homework while their mother muttered complaints in the kitchen, who woke up before dawn to iron her father’s barong because he had a meeting at work. No one saw the tired teenager who buried her frustration so deep it began to settle like a stone in her stomach.

Her family adored calling her *the good one*.

“You’re lucky to have Ayla,” neighbors would tell her mother. “She’s so responsible. So different from other teenagers these days.”

And her mother would smile, pride swelling, as if Ayla’s obedience was a reflection of her own success. Her father would nod, sometimes patting Ayla’s head in front of others. “She makes us proud,” he would say.

Ayla learned to swallow her exhaustion in exchange for their approval.

---

The Reyes household was small but suffocating, their two-bedroom home on the outskirts of Quezon City cramped with noise and unspoken rules. Her father, Mauro, worked in government administration, stern and meticulous, rarely home before nine. Her mother, Celia, ran a small online shop selling clothing, spending most of her time juggling customer orders while demanding Ayla handle the house chores and her siblings. Ayla’s younger brother, Jace, was ten—playful, easily distracted, and often scolded for his lack of focus. The youngest, Lia, was seven and still clung to Ayla like she was more mother than sister.

“You’re better at explaining things than me,” Celia would sigh whenever Jace cried over homework. “Go help him, Ayla.”

“You know your father doesn’t like dirty uniforms. Make sure you wash them properly,” she would remind, even as her daughter’s own pile of homework sat untouched on her desk.

It was endless. It was expected.

And Ayla never protested.

Because love, she had learned, was given when she pleased others, and taken away the moment she faltered.

---

One night, Ayla sat at her study desk long after her siblings had fallen asleep. The yellow desk lamp cast a warm glow over her notebook, its lined pages filled not with school notes this time, but with her own handwriting—a private letter she would never send.

*Dear Future Me,*

*I hope you’re somewhere else. I hope you’re free. I hope you don’t feel this heavy, like you’re always carrying something you can’t name. I hope you don’t get angry every time someone says, “You’re so lucky you have a perfect family.”*

*Because you know it’s not perfect. You know it’s all glass—shiny and fragile. You know that one wrong word will make it shatter. And when it shatters, it will be your fault. It’s always your fault.*

*But maybe one day, you’ll know what it feels like not to be afraid. Maybe one day, you’ll believe that being loved doesn’t have to hurt.*

She stopped writing and pressed her pen down too hard, leaving an indent on the paper. Her throat tightened. The house was quiet—her father snoring from the master bedroom, her mother sighing in her sleep, the ceiling fan buzzing above.

And in that silence, Ayla felt the weight of her own words pressing back at her, as if the page itself could see through her disguise.

She closed the notebook quickly, slid it beneath her textbooks, and forced herself to return to her English essay.

She could not afford to be tired. She could not afford to fall apart.

---

The next morning, Ayla walked into school with practiced poise, her smile in place. She was on the student council now, balancing her role with honor classes, volunteer work at the parish, and tutoring younger students. Her teachers adored her; her peers admired her.

“She’s the kind of girl who’ll probably be valedictorian,” someone whispered once in the cafeteria.

“She’s so organized. I wish I had her discipline,” another chimed in.

Ayla smiled when they spoke about her. She smiled because that was what was expected.

But inside, she thought: *If you only knew.*

---

There were moments, however, when cracks appeared in her façade.

Once, during a biology lab, Ayla’s classmate Mara caught her staring blankly at the frog they were supposed to dissect, her hands trembling as she held the scalpel.

“Are you okay?” Mara asked gently.

Ayla blinked, forced a laugh. “Just tired.”

But the truth was, the sight of cutting something open, exposing the insides, had triggered something she didn’t fully understand. A memory, maybe—her mother’s sharp voice, her father’s belt slamming against the table, the feeling of being split in two.

She brushed it away, returned to her work, hid the tremor in her voice.

Later, Mara would describe Ayla to another classmate: “She’s amazing, but sometimes she looks… I don’t know, far away. Like she’s in another world.”

---

By the time the semester ended, Ayla’s calendar was packed with review sessions for exams, choir practice for the parish’s Christmas mass, and errands for her mother.

“Don’t forget to buy vinegar on your way home,” Celia reminded her over the phone one night while Ayla sat hunched in the library. “And make sure Jace studies tonight. He has a quiz.”

“Yes, Ma,” Ayla answered automatically, staring at her half-finished math problem set.

When the call ended, she dropped her phone on the table and pressed her palms into her eyes. Her chest ached, tight and heavy.

She wanted to scream. She wanted, just once, to say, “Can someone take care of me?”

But she never did.

Instead, she picked up her pen, forced herself to solve the equations, and buried the scream deeper inside.

---

At sixteen, Ayla Reyes was already learning the art of self-erasure.

And though no one noticed—not her teachers, not her friends, not even herself fully—the silence she carried would one day demand to be heard.