THE UNSEEN FLAME

Chapter five

Weeks blurred.Three weeks now,Tania lived in a cramped apartment with her mother, typing until dawn.Rejections piled up-publishers,agents, contests."Too raw,"they said."Too strange." She kept going,fueled by spite and hope.Tania persevered all of this alone.She never informed her mother about anything she was doing.She went to work and wrote the moment she came from work,she didn't need any minute wasted.She always got very exhausted,since she even did chores when she got home,her mother never did anything.All she did was gamble away the money Tania left her as allowance, drink and sleep throughout the rest of the day."Hey you,can you do the dishes tonight? They're smelling really bad.Am very tired and I want to sleep in a fresh environment,"her mother commanded."I understand that you couldn't do them,but couldn't you at least put them in the dishwasher? I've had a very bad day too!,I just want to kick back and relax.If they smell really bad,I wouldn't mind if you stepped out and slept anywhere else.Afterall I don't want you here,".."Hey!,just because you had a bad day today doesn't give you permission to take it out on me,"her mother replied pulling the duvet to cover her head.Realising that the chances of getting rid of her mother were slim,Tania decided to let it go and do her writing.

Years passed in a wink.Twenty-two now,Tania still tried everything in her power to prove to herself and everyone else that she could do better than everyone else expected from her.One day,a small press said yes.Her novella-about a girl who turns rejections into fire-hit shelves. It sold ten copies at first,then fifty,then a hundred and then a thousand.People read and appreciated every word in the book.They started whispering her name.Tania had started signing autographs and doing interviews.She started feeling important and appreciated,her tight heart started loosening and she felt lighter.The interviews boosted her confidence,she started smiling more and this warmed her heart very much.Life wasn't as bad now,she started receiving good money,her hope grew brighter and it is at this point that she saw herself putting whoever despised her to shame.The new motivation she got made her confident that she could do better than she was doing.She was going to prove to the whole world that rejection isn't the end of life.

It had been long since her mother had moved out of her apartment.This was one of the best feelings she'd had in a long time.At twenty-four,Tania received an award.The room clapped but she stood there stunned.Her old teacher emailed her,"I remember you.Congratulations."Tania read it once and burned it."Life is very funny, people are now emailing me, dying to talk to me ,I didn't see this coming,"Tania said to herself.She turned on her favorite James Arthur non-stop and sat in her recliner, feeling great and satisfied.The next week,she visited home.Her mother hugged her stiffly.Her father who'd long separated with her mother called when she visited her mother."We didn't know you had it in you,"her mother said.Her half siblings were home when she came by.Tania had just learnt that she only shared a mother with them.They didn't share the same father."What a waste,"Tania had said to herself.The boy wanted a loan and the girl wanted a signed book.Tania smiled at them and left early.She didn't have the right words to tell them.