"brother". she tries to remove her hand; she looks at him as tears slips down her cheeks.
"am not your brother, orphan girl". He drags her inside and locks the door. He opens the kitchen door, the whole place is so dirty, he pushes her inside there, she falls on the ground.
"you better start cleaning before mom comes inside, now that the phone is keeping her busy"
"yes". she stands up to start cleaning as Andre leaves the kitchen to go the sitting room. to watch the television.
"mom am hungry!!!" Andre shouts the minute he sees his mom coming down from the stairs
"where is that stinky girl?" Lucy ask as she takes a seat beside him.
"she is already cleaning the kitchen"
"when she is done cleaning the kitchen I will prepare dinner soon"
"will she also eat?"
"only if she finishes doing all her duty that the only way she can eat, can be feeding her for free all the time"
"ok mom".
The kitchen door opens as Ariyala carries two bags bigger than her going to the back door to drop the dirt bags outside and returned back to the kitchen to regain scrubbing the dirty floor of the kitchen as tears drops down her cheek, she tries not to make a sound so not be found out. When she is cleaning the whole the kitchen. she goes upstairs to their different rooms to take their dirty clothes for washing, taking it to the ironing room to wash it, separating the cloth then putting them inside washing machine before going to clean their various room and also checking the clothes in the washing machine. By the time she was done doing everything it was already past eight in the evening and everybody was done eating leaving the dining table in a mess, she took out their plates and cleaned the dinning together with already dirtied kitchen and living room when she was done cleaning the whole house it was already past twelve in the mid-night.
"grumps...." she touches her stomach.
"the noise in my tummy stop". she tries checking the kitchen cupboard but it was locked, she decides drinks water switching off the light in whole house going to her rooftop room to sleep, after 1hour of closing her to sleep, a knock wakes her up from her sleeping.
"knock knock"
"Ari wake up" a voice penetrates through the window, wake her up completely.
"Yves" she stands up to open the window for him helping him to come inside the room.
"what are you doing here?" she looks at him
"I brought you dinner". He takes out the food he is carrying from the bag.
"you know it is late for you to be here, but thank you". She takes the food from him sit down to start eating. she looks up to see him standing there.
"won't you go back?" she blinks her eyes at him, seeing that Yves couldn't stop himself from pinching her cheeks, he sits down on the floor and pinches her.
"ouches Yves that hurts". tears were already clouding up her eyes.
"am sorry" he pats her head.
"someone might notice that are you gone, you should go back"
"I haven't eaten" he says as he looks at the food in the plate that she is carrying.
"oh am sorry" she at food with struggle in giving it to him, she finally gives up.
"here let share ok" she gives him the plate of food to him
Yves chuckles taking the plate from her
"ok let share". He eats then feed her some
"thank you Yves"
"I made you a promise to always protect you, so here I am doing it everyday"
"hmmm" she wipes her tears
"hey why are you crying". He drops the plate and rises her hand to look at her.
"nothing" she shakes her head
"but you are about to tear up"
"something entered my eyes"
"are you sure"
"hmmm"
"did they beat you today?
"no"
"are you sure?" he tries using his eyes to see if there was any new injury on her body.
"stops looking nobody beat me, am just tired from working to much today"
"ok I believe you"
"you get going now, am done eating". She starts to rearrange the flaks the flaks for the way it in beginning and gives it back to him.
"thank you"
"sleep well"
"ok goodnight"
"goodnight Ariyala see you in school". He opens the window and climbs down through the tree there.
Ariyala closes the window to go back sleep.