33. Zayne

My mind goes back to the years I spent in the orphanage, way before I met Helbert. It all started after I got back home from my mother's funeral and my father threw her favorite vase at me. People said his pain turned into something ugly, but the truth was, it had always been there, lurking beneath the surface, poisoning our home.

I wonder what would have happened if I didn't run away that night. The mere thought sends a shiver down my spine. I never saw him since that night, but the pain, the fear, the trauma... it's all here. And sometimes, I believe it's the price I had to pay for running away. Sometimes I believe that if I didn't leave, everything would have been okay. I would have met my mother again and avoided all the heartbreak I had to go through.

I remember the cold walls and unfamiliar faces, the sense of abandonment that seemed to linger in every corner. It was a world entirely different from what I had known, a place where the echoes of my past were drowned out by the c