After a few days, Ivon woke up and quickly hid under the blanket.
"North, sister Anna is here. Aren't you going to talk to me?"
He didn't respond to her question.
"Look baby, everything is alright. Nobody is going to torture you from now on. You are not a burden to our orphanage baby. You are the most talented boy in our orphanage. Please, don't hide yourself from us."
"Go away."
He answered.
"Miss Flora sent you a storybook, do you want to take it?"
She put the book beside his bed and said,
"She said that she will visit you often. You know how much she took care of you when you were in elementary school, right? She still remembers you. After hearing what happened to you, she told me to take you in again to the orphanage. And absolutely let nobody adopt you again."
"Nobody is going to adopt me anymore, so she doesn't have to worry about anything."
"Don't talk like that baby, so what if you are blind in one eye? You can still do whatever you like. Please let us take care of you once again. If you are with us, we can at least protect you."
"Do whatever you wish. I just want to live quietly. Don't let anyone come inside my room."
"Not even Janice? You know how much she's worried about you. All those yellow flowers on the table you're seeing were left by her. At least talk with her for once."
He peeked through his blanket and saw yellow roses.
"Are you sure she wants to meet me? Those flowers are saying something else."
"Hah!!! I really can't hide anything from you."
"Hicc…hic…hic….."
"Don't cry North. Believe in your creator. God has definitely saved something good for you in exchange for this hardship. Believe in him. Good will always find its way to you."
…
2 months later, he left the hospital and settled at his orphanage again. But this time, a small room was given to him instead of giving him a bed with the other children.
The same old hallway full of excitement, the same old happy cabbage soup, the cold winter night with warm worn-out blankets. Everything was still the same except North.
He gave up…
He looked at the old dusty mirror and saw his eyes. One of them was whiter than the other one because of the injury. The world was dark for him in that eyes even if he keep it wide open. His silver eyes lost their beauty.
After a week, he was admitted to a boarding school under the church. Even so, no one could beat him in his studies in his desperate situation.
He was known as the most talented boy with more IQ than an average person from his early age. Getting 100 in every subject wasn't hard for him. It was the environment that made him lose his scores.
I guess I can stay here until my graduation. Then I can pay off the debt. I'm already 20 and still living in an orphanage freely.
What a miserable life I'm leading.
One day, his ex-mother came to the orphanage and demanded money for her dead husband.
Her husband was arrested and sentenced to 12 years of jail for attempting murder.
So, he killed himself inside the jail because he lost his job and prestige. He didn't even feel guilty for North. To him, North was a parasite who feeds off their money.
His wife came to the orphanage and demanded money and blamed everything on North.
To her, North was the omen of death to the family and it was all his fault that her husband died. So, she demanded all the money she spend on North with 100% interest for losing her husband.
Later, she was taken away by the police officer. But that didn't stop her. She started to throw tantrums in front of his school daily and spread false rumours about him.
Unfortunately, everyone knew what actually happened inside that house that night.
These problematic incidents continued throughout the year and on the graduation day of the senior students of the school, North vanished. The headmaster kept silent and the orphanage said nothing about it to protect his identity and whereabouts.
…
Throubb....
The sound of the door shutting made an echo inside the apartment.
"I'm home…"
But there was no one to welcome him. So he quickly changed his clothes and went inside his blanket after taking a shower late at night.
"My back hurts after working all night long. Ugh… I need to sleep to attain classes tomorrow."
He skipped 2 years of his high school life and took his graduation exam with his seniors to get away from his problems. So, there were no records of his class attendance. After he graduated, he left the city and went far away to a big city and enrolled into a college with the toughest subject. After he went to the city, he quickly found a small apartment and found a part-time job in a hotel from the orphanage's recommendation.
He ran away from everyone and everything to start a new life quietly so that the woman who adopted her couldn't find her anymore. Because if she finds out that he's going to a part-time job, she will sniff her out and take all of his money by force.
Even though he was so far away from her, the trauma inside his heart had already broken him into pieces. He was scared to death because of her at first.
So, he changed his name from the orphanage, run away from the city to a big one, finished his graduation quickly and took the hardest subject in college so that he can use his memory to get a good-paying job in the future.
Before he knew it, he quickly adapted to his new life in his small apartment. A restless busy life full of class schedules and job hours made him forget how traumatized he was by his past.
I must say that I'm genuinely surprised. My own nature got me off guard today to think that how a human can change so quickly due to the sudden change in his surroundings.
I guess I'm a human being after all. Emotions are just some chemicals going up and down inside our brains. Nothing else.
This world is just a play going in a sequence that triggers our emotions for encouraging us to let loose and leads us towards the path of thorn.