Novels by Loluwa

LEONA’S POVI let a week pass before I confronted her, a week of restless nights, of turning that overheard conversation over and over until I couldn’t stand carrying it alone anymore.Octavia was in the same room I first met her in, standing at the same window, like she never left.“I heard you,” I said, before she could turn around. “You and Mara. A week ago and I have been trying to decide since then whether I actually wanted to know, or whether it was easier to keep pretending I didn’t actually know shit.”Her shoulders went stiff upright before they relaxed a bit.“I assumed you might.”“Then stop making me wait for it.” My voice shook. “Tell me exactly what you did.”She turned slowly, and she looked older than the version of herself she’d been presenting, “Sit down.”“I don’t want to sit down. I want the truth.”“Sit down, Leona,” she uttered.“You’ll want to be sitting for this.”Octavia lowered herself into the chair across from me, hands folded in her lap, she said nothing at

LEONA’S POVI didn’t sleep again that night either, I laid in that soft bed staring at a ceiling I couldn’t see in the dark, turning Octavia’s words over and over till the words started to hurt my eyes. A reason she would rather raise you in poverty with a man who beat you than risk you ever setting foot in this house.What kind of house does that? What kind of family makes a mother choose violence over her own blood.Even as I turned it over, my mind kept sliding sideways and I wondered if she was sleeping right now, wherever she was or if the headaches Mara mentioned were keeping her up too, both of us were awake in the dark for entirely different reasons.I pressed the heel of my hand against my sternum. I haven't touched her in weeks nor have I heard her voice but here I was, lying in a stranger’s house discovering I had a grandmother and none of it meant anything to me at all except for the fact that Maddison Alaine might wake up tomorrow and never think of me at all.*****Mara

LEONA’S POV“She gets paid more money than she’s ever seen in her life to come,” Mara said, already pulling me toward the car. “Then, I suggest you ask better questions later but right no? We move.”I didn’t argue, I climbed into the car, and the second the door shut behind me, I felt relief, disbelief and grief all tangled together so tightly I couldn’t tell where one ended and the next began.“Where are we going?” I asked, staring out the window as the institution shrank behind us, finally leaving this shit hole.“Somewhere safe… for now.” Mara didn’t look at me, eyes fixed forward, scanning the road like she expected trouble at every turn. “Tomorrow you’ll meet her.”“Say what now?.”“Octavia.” Mara’s mouth curved. “Your grandmother.”I let that settle over me slowly, the weight of a word I had never had reason to use in my entire life. Grandmother, like I was someone with family and like I was someone worth crossing this many lines to save.“Why does she want me?” I asked quietly.

LEONA’S POV‘Soon’ turned out to mean four days. Gosh, I don’t know why I kept my hopes so high for nothing, though nobody told me that until it was already happening. Do I feel fucking stupid? Hell yes. Will I give up still? Hell no.I didn’t see Mara again after that conversation, no note or message slipped under my door, nothing to tell me whether she had meant what she said or whether I had imagined the entire thing out of my utmost desperation to believe someone was still fighting for me. Low-key, I felt really angry but another part of me just gave up on the idea that she’d stay true to her words, whatever happened, I would still prevail regardless. ******The silence ate at me worse than Ingrid’s drawings ever had but at least Ingrid gave me something to brace against and I clearly couldn’t say I missed it, that girl was hella crazy. It was just that the more the silence was, the more it gave me time to spiral.I kept my head down, ate what they gave me, even when it turned

LEONA’S POV“You don’t want to do this,” I said, low, gripping the tray tighter.“I’ve wanted this for days now.” Ingrid’s voice sounded so lustful. “Ever since they brought you in… oh gosh, I have always wanted you mama. I want to make you scream on top of your voice and call my name proudly.” She stepped forward. “Finally, you’re mine tonight.” A dark smile crept on her face. “I remember how you usually scream at the doctors or fight five of them at once. I watched through the window and I thought, finally… finally someone real.”“I’m not what you think I am.”“You’re exactly who I think you are.” She took another step, and the light caught the object in her hand again, a piece of plastic, filed down to something with intent. “Everyone else in here is broken and empty. You’re not empty baby girl, you’re still fighting and I can feel it coming off you.” My back was flat against the wall now with nowhere left to go and for one terrifying second I was seven years old again in my mind

LEONA’S POVShe left before I could ask another question and I sat there in that little room with a freaking stranger’s note against my wrist.Honestly, I felt conflicted between two truths I didn’t know how to hold them both at the same time.Maddy was gone, at least the version of her that I remembered loving me back and now, someone, somewhere outside these walls was still fighting to bring me back and hopefully get me out of this shit hole of a prison.That night, alone in my cell, I finally unfolded the paper with my hands and I could barely keep it steady. I guess, I was too anxious to look at it.Finally, I saw what was written and it read: Your grandmother is coming for you.I read it so many times yet still none of it made sense, I didn’t have a grandmother and my mother never spoke about family, not once, not even when she was dying and even after everything, they left me with debts and a father who fought like an untamed beast.I hid the note in the same place I had hidden