The things she Never said

Chapter One — The Day Matilda Left Home Matilda was too young to understand what it truly meant to leave home. She knew she had parents who loved her. She knew she had a mother. She knew what it felt like to belong somewhere—to wake up in a familiar room, hear familiar voices, and know that she was safe. Home was her safe place. But one day, everything familiar was about to become a memory. Matilda was going to stay with her father's brother. He was a pastor who lived in another state with his wife and their only child. Everyone made it sound like it would be okay. They told her she would be fine. They told her she would come back. But Matilda wasn't happy about leaving. She didn't want to leave her parents. She didn't want to leave the home where she had always felt protected. She was too young to understand why she had to go, and too young to know how to express the fear sitting quietly inside her. That day was a sad one. She looked at her parents, knowing she would miss them, but not knowing just how much she would miss them. Part of her wanted to stay, to hold on to everything she knew and refuse to go. But children trusted the adults around them. If an adult said something was going to be okay, they believed it. So Matilda left. She left her mother. She left her father. She left the comfort of the home she knew and the people who made her feel safe. As she travelled to another state, she had no idea what awaited her. She didn't know how long she would be away. She didn't know what those years would become. And she certainly didn't know that the little girl leaving her parents' home would return four years later carrying a version of herself that even she wouldn't recognize. She was simply a little girl leaving home, trusting that the adults around her knew what was best. She went to a place where she was supposed to be cared for. She didn't know she was about to learn one of the hardest lessons of her childhood: Sometimes, being away from home makes you realize just how much home means.