The story of a little girl called June

June was the third child in a family of four. The second daughter. Life never handed her anything easy. Born into deep poverty, her childhood was far from joyful. There were no toys, no bedtime stories—only fear, silence, and bruises. Her father was a violent man. His fists spoke louder than his words, and his rage always seemed to find its way to her mother. Almost every night, her mother would lock June and her siblings—Mo, Jayden, and little Kayden—inside their cramped, dark room. They would sit in silence, clinging to one another, listening to their mother’s muffled sobs on the other side of the door. But no matter how bad it got, her mother never left. The cycle continued. And slowly, it began to change Jayden. He was the eldest boy, and he saw everything. The anger in his eyes grew colder with time. He stopped smiling. Stopped laughing. It was as though their father’s violence had infected him too. Jayden began to lash out—mostly at June. Sometimes over something small. Sometimes over nothing at all. A misplaced toy. A wrong answer. A stare too long. His hand would find her cheek, or worse. And every time, she was left with bruises that stained her skin and spirit. Their mother tried to stop it. Whenever she came home and saw the marks on June, she would punish Jayden—yell, beat, threaten. But deep down, she knew: this was not just Jayden's fault. He was growing up in the image of the man she refused to leave. And June? She never hated him. Not really. She hated the house. The silence. The fear. The way pain had a way of passing itself down like a family heirloom. Until one day… Everything changed.