Chapter 3
830 Words
Bola did not cry when they sent him away.
He stood by the gate with his hands in his pockets, watching the car that would take him to his uncle’s house. Everyone kept telling him he was strong, that as the eldest he should understand, that he had to be a man now.
He did not feel like a man. He felt like someone who had been removed from his life without being asked.
His uncle’s house was quieter than he expected. Not peaceful—just careful. Conversations were short. Instructions were clear. Mistakes were noticed quickly.
“You’re old enough to know better,” his uncle said on the first day. “We don’t tolerate nonsense here.”
Bola nodded.
At first, he tried.
He woke up early. He went to school. He followed rules that changed depending on his uncle’s mood. When he was praised, it felt unfamiliar. When he was scolded, it felt expected.
His aunt watched him closely, as if waiting for him to fail.
“Don’t eat too much,” she said once. “Food is not free.”
He stopped asking for seconds.
School did not help.
Teachers assumed he was troublesome before he spoke. Other students treated him like an outsider. When he reacted, even slightly, it confirmed what they already believed.
One afternoon, after being punished for something he did not do, he walked home slowly, dragging his feet. He stood outside the house for a long time before going in.
Inside, his uncle was waiting.
“Why are you late?” he asked.
Bola shrugged.
That was the wrong answer.
A slap landed before he could react. It wasn’t hard, but it was deliberate.
“Don’t shrug at me,” his uncle said. “You’re not in your father’s house.”
Something shifted inside Bola.
He did not cry. He did not argue.
He simply nodded.
From that day, he stopped trying to explain himself.
He learned quickly that anger made adults feel powerful. Silence confused them.
So he stayed silent.
As months passed, the silence hardened.
He spent more time outside. At first it was harmless—helping neighbors, running errands, sitting with boys his age. Then it changed.
The boys laughed loudly. They spoke freely. No one expected anything from him there.
“You don’t talk much,” one of them said once.
“I don’t have anything to say,” Bola replied.
“That’s fine,” the boy said. “Just stay.”
So he stayed.
He skipped school sometimes. Nobody noticed. He returned home later and later. Nobody asked where he had been.
When his uncle did ask, it was only to remind him of rules.
“You’ll end up useless,” his uncle said one evening.
Bola stared at the wall.
Inside, something burned.
He began to do things simply because he was told not to.
He talked back. He broke curfews. He stayed out overnight. When confronted, he smiled in a way that made adults angry.
“You think life is a joke?” his uncle shouted once.
Bola laughed.
The sound surprised even him.
Punishments followed, but they no longer mattered. The house had already rejected him. He saw no reason to protect it.
At night, he thought of his siblings.
He wondered if Amina still talked to herself before sleeping. If Sadiq still counted his steps when he was nervous. He wondered if they blamed him for leaving first.
Sometimes guilt crept in.
Other times, anger drowned it out.
One afternoon, his father visited unexpectedly.
They sat across from each other, an unfamiliar distance between them.
“How are you?” his father asked.
“I’m fine,” Bola replied.
“School?” his father asked.
“Fine.”
His father nodded, satisfied.
Bola wanted to scream.
He wanted to say, You left us. You chose peace over us. You didn’t even fight.
Instead, he asked, “When are we coming home?”
His father hesitated.
“Soon,” he said.
Bola knew then that soon meant never.
The reckless choices began quietly.
A drink shared. A night out. Money earned in ways he did not ask too many questions about.
Each choice felt like proof that he controlled something, even if it was his own destruction.
“You’re wasting your life,” someone told him once.
“Maybe,” he replied. “It’s my life to waste.”
But deep down, there was fear.
He was afraid of becoming exactly what everyone expected him to be.
He was afraid of becoming nothing.
Years later, when people talked about his turnaround, they would say it happened suddenly.
They were wrong.
It began here. In silence. In small acts of rebellion. In a boy learning how to survive without being seen.
He did not yet know how the story would end.
But he knew this much:
He would either break completely, or he would break free.
And at that moment, he didn’t care which.
- Writer
