Chapter 11: The Fire She Hid Inside
The days blurred into one another — quiet, controlled, and cold. Jiha stopped asking questions, stopped arguing, and most of all, stopped expecting love from people who only wanted her to obey.
She woke up early, even before the sun touched the windows. While the rest of the house slept in silken comfort, Jiha sat by her desk with a blanket around her shoulders and her textbooks open. She studied by the soft hum of her desk lamp, tracing every word, solving every problem, and underlining every detail.
It wasn't to impress anyone.
Not her father.
Not her stepmother.
Just herself.
If she couldn't be free here, she would carve a life out for herself elsewhere. That was her quiet promise.
She poured everything into her studies. Her teachers noticed the shift — her hand always raised, her homework flawless, her test scores rising. But she never smiled when praised. It wasn't for show. This was survival.
She stayed back in the library every evening, surrounded by books and silence. It was the only place where no one asked her to fake a smile or wear a pretty dress. Here, she was just Jiha — not a pawn, not a burden.
At home, she barely spoke. Her stepmother often made sly remarks about her "new obsession with school," calling it antisocial and cold. Her father didn't even notice.
But Jiha kept going.
Each A on her report card was a silent scream: I am more than what you tried to reduce me to.
Each scholarship application she wrote felt like planting seeds in soil only she believed would bloom.
She studied through migraines, through family dinners where she was ignored, and through nights when her chest ached from pretending all day.
There were moments of weakness. Times she clutched her pillow and cried until she couldn't breathe. Times she wondered if she was just running away from emotions too deep to face. But every morning, she wiped her tears, tied her hair back, and faced the world with quiet fire.
Because Jiha had made a decision:
If they wouldn't love her, they'd at least respect the woman she would become.