Zebauda Asati [District Six]

Things are, you know. Fine.

You stay busy after school, tutoring on Mondays and Thursdays and helping out at the orphanage most other days. On free afternoons, you people-watch with half an eye as you flip through your homework on the college square. Not that you hate going home, exactly, but you try to avoid the stillness there. As long as you're making yourself useful, or laughing at the kids' antics—the little ones especially, they love riding on your shoulders because you're tall and mess up your own hair so much by tugging on it throughout the day that you don't care if they do—you feel... not bad. Close enough to good that you don't think about the difference anymore.

It circumvents the temptation to drink before your parents get home, too, which is best for everyone. They're so proud of how far you've come, these last three years. And Miri is out of the house with a job and a boyfriend now, he doesn't have time to come fetch the girls when you can't get it together. No need to disappoint everyone, not now that your sisters talk to you like they know who you are and your parents smile again when they ask about your day.

None of that conviction makes the long nights spent staring at your wall any easier.

It's stupid; nothing is wrong. You like the people around you. You're not totally sure you like yourself, but you feel all right about the choices you make. Your family does okay; nothing fancy, but you're rarely hungry, and your clothes are neat if not exactly new. Things are fine. Just... dulled by a fog your family thinks you've burned away.

You don't cry much, and you always get to sleep eventually. It's fine.

299 | odair