Writers 
THE PAIN OF BEING UNWANTED
Even when a child finds a place to belong, the wounds of rejection can follow her into adulthood.
I was scared to tell her the truth, though, especially because my father had called me aside just two nights earlier to repeat his warning. So I told her that I was only his niece, and that my parents had died in a car accident a few years earlier. I was boldly accepting the title of an orphan because, in a way, I felt like one.
Trouble came knocking a few months after my father and his wife returned to the city. She stumbled upon a letter my father had carefully hidden. My uncle had written to him, reminding him to send money for his daughter's school sandals.
She confronted him as soon as he came back from work that day, and he had no choice but to confess. To this day, she says she would have left him if she hadn't been heavily pregnant at the time. She felt betrayed, cheated, and manipulated, but her heart also went out to me. She told him that the only way she could forgive him was if he brought me to live with them in the city.
After much argument, my father finally agreed. At first, I was overjoyed at the possibility of going to the city and living with my father and his beautiful, kind wife. But later, I began to feel a quiet fear about what exactly awaited me there.
I was welcomed warmly by my father's wife, and she told everyone who cared to ask that I was her husband's daughter. That was the first time I didn't feel hidden.
My father, on the other hand, remained indifferent. Most times, he behaved as though I didn't exist. Still, I was content. At least I was living under my father's roof.
My father's wife gave birth to four beautiful children over the next eleven years, and I watched my father shower them with love and undiluted fatherly affection. I got jealous at times because I had never been privileged to receive that kind of love from him. I would watch him fuss over them and wonder what it would have felt like to have him treat me the same way. But I made do with the love my father's new wife showed me.
We all grew up and focused on different pursuits in life. My father trained all his children up to university level, while I managed to get an NCE. My father's wife made that possible. My stepsiblings are really nice to me, and, in all sincerity, I wish them well.
I got married fifteen years ago to the absolute love of my life. He seems like compensation from God for all the years of love I missed. I gave birth to my first son exactly a year later, and my joy seemed complete.
My second son came three years after that, but his arrival marked the beginning of another level of pain for me. His pregnancy and birth came with a lot of complications, and I lost him a few months after he was born. Eleven years later, I still haven't conceived again. The doctors said my womb was affected during my last pregnancy and that I might never be able to get pregnant again.
Honestly, I feel indifferent right now. I'm just living. My stepsiblings are all doing well in life, building their own families and having children. I look at them and wonder if I only came into this life to escort them. They've had the finest things in life since they were born, while life has dealt me serious blows since I was a baby.
I don't know what life holds for me tomorrow, and honestly, I don't even care. I just hope that my son gets to have the best part of life.