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SOFIA

I look around at my life, and I still can’t believe that it’s mine When I stepped into this country for the first tiined that one day I would find love and fa over ain

Back then, eance that beat within it I wanted only to bear a son, a son ould one day avenge s done to me

Yes, papa had tried to ht, but then I had to lose him as well Too much loss while the one responsible walked free It was a festering wound that had stayed with me every day

I did not think I could ever love anyone My heart was cold, dead even I knew only a thirst for revenge I did not knoould get there, but I knew that someday I would see it

But this ht hi before I learned to cling to him He’d worked his way into the deepest recesses oflove I came to feel for him overshadowed the darkness inside

His kindness, the hate I saw in him for my attacker when I told the story ofmy wounded heart I never planned to tell anyone what had happened to me; papa had said never to tell But it was like an unburdening of my soul to share

I still don’t knohat it was that had ht Maybe it was his persistence; maybe I was just tired and afraid Whatever the reason, I never once regretted it

He’d kept me hidden away in his rooms for weeks before anyone kneas there When I worried that the others would think so ill had befallen me, he didn’t care He cared only for me

In the beginning, when he h I knew his name would offer me protection, for me and my son, I had come to care for him too much to cause him the loss of his family, but he persisted

He was strong like ht my heart to soften