Episode 13

POV Camille

I was a dreamer, even though the world around me tried to tell me there was nothing much waiting for me in the future. But still, I believed.

I always lacked many things in life, new clothes, school supplies, medical care, and a father. However, I didn't feel it. You know why? Because I had the best mother in the world. It was only when I grew up that I understood how much she sacrificed for me, how much she was my great example of a woman.

But I took a while to follow her example, I took a while to be strong enough to sacrifice what I wanted most, for a greater good. I had to stop being a dreamer and start walking with my feet on the ground to be like her.

Sometimes I feel guilty for hiding so many things from my mother, you know? For hiding the bullying I suffered, the pain I felt, and Henry…

Henry… when I met him, he represented to me the first teenage love, the silly one, the one that makes us shy and makes us have silly imaginations of marriage. That innocent love that makes us write love letters we'd never dare deliver.

It was very innocent, you know, and I don't think it needed to go as far as it did if I had realized it before, that Henry was just a teenage fantasy that should be left behind.

Back then, when we met, I didn't have much notion of class differences, I had no idea that our differences would be so evident, so stark, and so significant in our lives.

I wasn't the prettiest girl in school, I wasn't the friend of the prettiest, I wasn't the nerd, I didn't fit into any pattern exactly. I was the odd one out, the ugly duckling among the yellow ducklings.

No one wanted to be near me, people just wanted to make fun of me. They laughed at how I walked because of the length discrepancy in my legs, laughed because I always got dirty because I couldn't eat properly with the ridiculous braces I wore, laughed because my movements were robotic and slow because of my back brace. They laughed because I was poor.

I was born with some malformations, things that could be fixed with surgeries, but since my mother couldn't afford it, I was left to undergo treatments and physiotherapy.

Therefore, even as a teenager I needed to use those things. Whenever my mother got paid, she would sit down with me and ask me to help her do the math on everything we had to pay for, and when there was anything left over, she would celebrate saying that that month we would be able to put a little more in the savings account.

I remember that with joy because I loved to see my mother's smile and she always reminded me that even in adversity, I should keep smiling.

I carried that with me for a long time but ended up losing it after Henry.

Our story began because I felt very left out and Henry was the only boy who looked at me. He never talked to me, but I almost always saw him secretly looking at me.

I thought he liked me and it was like a dream to be admired by someone. With that, I started to create fantasies about him.

The day of the accident, when he saved me, to my teenage mind, it was confirmation that he loved me. Who would risk his life for someone he didn't like?

And that's how I ended up stuck with him and nothing was as I imagined.

At first, I took care of him out of sheer guilt; my lack of mobility had hurt the only boy I thought liked me.

Even though he would say hurtful things to me, I ignored him, thinking it was normal for him to be upset because unlike me, who was used to having difficulties, he never had difficulties in life.

And I felt very sorry for him, he didn't have what I had, a wonderful person like my mother to do everything for me.

Henry's blindness could be reversed, I even asked his father to pay for the surgery, but he said it was up to his stepmother to sort it out, as she supposedly did everything to take care of Henry. Which was a blatant lie. Everyone in that house knew that she would have let Henry die, but no one said anything out of fear. Even I was afraid, I couldn't put my mother's job at risk.

Henry only had his father, and he was hardly ever home, he always said he was very busy, very busy.

And that's how, without realizing it, I became my ex-husband's crutch. I did everything for him and as time went by I did more.

My mother was able to fulfill her life's mission, she was able to raise enough money for me to have the surgeries I needed to get fixed up.

So, over time, I didn't need to wear orthopedic shoes, a neck brace, or braces anymore. That was a relief because it was very difficult to take care of Henry while having mobility issues.

From a girl, I became a woman by his side, we were both trapped, and taking care of Henry wasn't easy.

But what tired me the most in this routine, was always hearing words of contempt from his mouth. He didn't even say thank you.

The more time passed, the more my fantasies about him were destroyed. The more time passed, the more tired I became.

When I realized it, I would sometimes catch myself crying at night, asking God for a solution to all this. I loved Henry, but I started to think that maybe, we weren't meant for each other and that it was best to go our separate ways.

But how could I abandon him when he had become so dependent on me? How could I abandon him knowing that as soon as I left, his stepmother could find a way to get rid of him?

And it was one day, out of nowhere, that the answers to my prayers appeared; one day, I met someone who was willing to help me.

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