The Gangster Princess

Chapter 32

Chapter 32: A Mother's Prayer

Maris Lee

There’s a kind of pain only mothers understand. It’s the kind of ache that settles deep in your bones, in your soul—the kind you can’t cry away or talk away or even scream away.

The moment Aisha looked at me with trembling lips and glassy eyes and told me those four words—“I have leukemia, Mama”—I felt the world collapse around me. Para akong binuhusan ng malamig na tubig. I couldn’t breathe. My knees almost gave in.

Just four words. But those four words shattered everything.

I stood there frozen, staring at her. My sweet, gentle bunso. The one who never failed to hug me from behind when I was cooking, the one who still calls me “Mama” with the same soft voice she used as a child, the one who laughs the loudest when we all watch silly family videos together. Aisha, my baby girl. My light. My heart.

How do you even react to that?

I wanted to scream. I wanted to collapse on the floor and cry. I wanted to wake up from what felt like a terrible dream. But I couldn’t. Because she was looking at me, terrified but trying to be brave. My daughter—my brave little girl—was trying to comfort me when it should’ve been the other way around.

“I’m okay, Ma,” she said, forcing a smile. “I’m going to fight.”

But I saw it. The fear in her eyes. The same fear that gripped my own heart.

I nodded and pulled her into my arms. I didn’t even realize I was crying until my tears soaked into her hair. She didn’t move. She just hugged me tighter.

“I’m here, anak. I’m here,” I whispered again and again, as if repeating it could somehow fix everything.

Many people only saw the sweet side of Aisha—polite, calm, always smiling. But I knew her better. I knew the fire inside her, the storm that once lived in that tiny body.

Because before she became the soft, sunshine girl that people knew… Aisha was a rebel.

Like her kuya Spencer.

Aisha was chaos in human form.

Not many people know this, but Aisha was diagnosed with leukemia when she was just seven years old. It was early-stage—manageable, according to the doctors. She underwent quiet treatments, check-ups, oral medications. We never told anyone. She didn’t want to be seen as fragile, and we respected that.

She looked okay. She was okay for years.

But it was always there. A quiet battle inside her body.

And I know now that one of the reasons she fell in love with beng rebelled and pasaway, she wants to enjoy her life.

Aisha never said it aloud, but I knew—she hated feeling weak. She hated feeling like her life was on borrowed time.

So she fought.

☽ a//z ☾

I still remember her as a child—how she used to climb the neighbor’s mango tree just to get a better view of the sunset. She'd come home with scraped knees, dirt-stained cheeks, and the biggest smile.

“Mama! I almost touched the clouds kanina!” she'd say proudly, arms wide like she conquered the world.

She was only six.

She was unstoppable.

But even back then, I could see it—how she pushed herself too hard sometimes, how she'd suddenly get tired for no reason, how she'd cry in her sleep during rough nights. She never complained, but I noticed.