DEAR ALEXA

Year Two, Age Eleven.

*TRIGGER WARNING; molestation. If you can't read this part, skip.*

Dear Alexa,

I hate my parents! He touched me. He touched me. I wanted him to stop but he didn't. I knew what he was doing was wrong. I didn't like it so I said no but he didn't stop. He pushed me against the wall, put his lips on my mouth. I hated it. I hate him. He put his hand in my pant and he he touched me there.

I want to cry but I just couldn't, not after he was done. I had cried as he kept on touching me, I screamed but no one heard because his hand covered my mouth. He said I shouldn't tell anyone. I wanted to shout but I couldn't. I'm so angry. I want to tell mummy but I don't think she will understand, she is too busy anyway. She is too busy doing what she hated that daddy had been doing. She was also selling it now, alcohol and cigarettes.

Yes, Alexa, it's now a family business. Mummy sells ogogoro and cigar like her customers calls it and daddy sells beer. Everywhere is always loud and there's always smoke everywhere and I hate it, all of it. Some months after Marcel was born, mummy decided she didn't want to be jobless anymore so daddy gave her money to start her own business. We all thought she was going to start selling foodstuffs but when she finished building the shop, she had started selling wine and different kind of alcohol, later on she added cigarettes and one paper thing like this that they call rizla and they always put dry leaves inside. I thought my parents were going crazy if they both left their good jobs to start selling tout market. How will I start telling my friends that my mummy and daddy are selling beer and ogogoro, this is all so crazy!

Mummy had opened her shop at the civilian barracks which was not far from the soldiers barracks, daddy's shop was there too. The two barracks were beside each other and it was not far from the quarters where our house is. At first, mummy didn't let any of us come to her shop and we had promised her we would never to go daddy's shop so we didn't go there either but stayed at home by ourselves till they came back home at night. We were used to staying at home by ourselves anyway until mummy decided she needed help at her shop. According to her, she had too many customers she couldn't attend to on her own and she didn't have a sales girl to help her like daddy so she decided Ivy and Iris will start coming to her shop after school to help her and since I couldn't stay at home alone, I tagged along.

Ivy and Iris didn't even try to pretend they liked going to the shop and I couldn't find it in me to pretend either. Ivy especially was extremely rude to the customers and she got herself slapped regularly. Mummy only said she deserved it and never tried to stop the customers from beating her own daughter o. Iris was never rude to anyone, she was the good child and the customers even liked her. They always praised her and loved sending her on various errands. Ivy and I even thought iris liked mummy's shop until she told us one night when we were about to sleep that she didn't. Ivy had been really angry that night after another customer had slapped her at mummy's shop again.

"I can't believe what my life is turning into. How did everything change so suddenly? Why are mum and dad doing this to us? Do they hate us? Am I dreaming?" That's how she had been talking and talking for the past one hour while Iris tried to console her.

"I hate both of them for doing this to us" she stomped her feet on the floor.

"Haba! It's not up to that one now." Iris warned her.

Ivy stomped her feet again and glared at her twins. "What's not up to that? Did you see the way she shouted at me instead of defending me after that mumu man slapped me. She didn't even let me explain what he did to me. How could she_"

"What did he do to you sef? That made you pour his drink on his face like that." Iris asked. Ivy threw her hands up.

"You don't know? You also don't know abi."