Make me whole

They say happiness isn’t a person but I beg to differ, my boyfriends are my happiness, the light in this very dark life, my remedies for a broken heart. I'm only Thirteen years old and I already have two guys that I’m texting daily, telling them how much I love I love both of them. I need love, plenty of it, that I’m not getting from the people that need to give it to me. I've been glued to both my phone and short, red and white striped body-hugging dress ever since met my first boyfriend. I’ve been about pleasing him ever since the very first day; even though I don’t have a closet full of clothes, I make sure that my small hips and curves get shown off with every outfit I choose when going to him. I mean, who wouldn’t love a guy who buys her gifts now and again? Spoils with all kinds of gifts? Appreciates every part, even the ones she doesn’t like about herself? What I love the most about him, though is that I never feel insufficient when I’m around him. He's one of the very few people to choose to overlook my dark skin and love what's instead. He’s the first person to make me feel loved. Yep… I said first, even my own family never had any time to give me the love or care that I needed very much at that stage. It was me against the world… and my stepmom and dad at the same time, and then it was us against the world as we formed an unbreakable bond. I am Lindi and am not proud that today, the only thing I want from my parents is not their love, care, or compassion, all I need is their money to cover my day-to-day needs. It was supposed to be as simple as moving to a place with multiple opportunities and being equal with my dad's other children, not to get there and be met with more problems than the ones I had before moving there. “They're strengthening you.” That’s what my friend, Sinakho always said to me whenever I'd run to her complaining about the latest injustice done to me but I couldn’t help but feel this big gap, a need to belong, to feel welcome, to feel anything close to normal and the least bit sane. It didn’t help the situation one bit that I came from a place where I always got beat up by my older sister, Uyasimama for the smallest things from making food for myself when she was gallivanting with her trashy boyfriend all over the goddamn place to going down to the river to fetch water. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, my family and I lived in a rural area before I moved to the suburbs to be with my dad. The main problem, according to me, that my sister had with me is that I was my mom’s favorite child because being a child, I was innocent and pure while she was… troublesome, To say the very least. I was also quite pretty, dark, but lovely, and beautiful and had the brains to match the beauty. It became as clear as daylight to me that she not only wanted to be like me, she wanted to be me. She wasn’t as pretty I was. On award ceremony days, I would be the show stopper with hands full with awards and certificates. She’d take them to hide the fact she got less because “What would people say?” and take everything, even right down to my underwear and wear it, even if it meant that I had no clean underwear for the next day. She's never been big on hygiene. Anything that sounded like “The basic hygiene talk” was insulting to her, she felt that she was getting attacked whenever my mom tried to approach her and talk to her about basic hygiene processes. Now, this wasn’t much of a problem for me when I was lazing about at home, I didn’t mind walking around without, in fact, I felt very comfortable. It only became a problem to me the day I had to go to school without. I had never in my life felt so violated and exposed! To make matters worse, the bus wasn’t there on that day so we had to catch a ride at the back of our neighbour's van. The air blew against my private area and I felt very uncomfortable asking myself if her two sons were seeing this or not. I thought that I had it under control and that it was hidden but because I wasn’t sitting cross-legged, just had my legs together, my knees were knocking against each other so my down there was in view. Sure enough, someone noticed it, and to make matters worse, he announced it in front of his group of friends, and mine. I felt very humiliated but still tried to lie l, saying that he’s the liar but no one seemed to have bought my story as they continued laughing at me and all I was focused on was thinking about where I’m going to get food to eat. Fending for oneself is not a joke hey. Uyasimama would steal food from the fridge to cook for her boyfriend, who sold her a sob story and won her heart over. I don’t think she'd have dated him, but then again, when used to being treated like you’re unloved, it makes one search for love in all the wrong places. It makes them ignore that nagging feeling that something is wrong and want to believe that they're just being paranoid. I bet that’s why she couldn’t care enough to make a decent lunch to go to school with. My friends had all sorts of goodies in theirs like ham and cheese accompanied by yoghurt and two fruits while I just got two pieces of bread and butter. She was convinced that he’d marry her one day but everybody else knew that he’s making a fool out of her. He had her wrapped around her little finger and so brainwashed that she'd sneak out late at night or have him come over and stand by her window, and me, being her fool would have to cover for her and spin mom stories every time she snuck out to be with him or bring him here.