Tega was loud.
Not the kind of loud that annoyed you. The kind that filled a room. His laugh made people smile. His voice made silence disappear. And when someone pushed him, he pushed back—twice as hard.
He had bruises on his knuckles almost every week. People said he liked fighting too much. That he was reckless. That he didn't care.
But they didn't know he walked home through the alley just to check on the three kittens no one else fed.
They didn't know his mum was a nurse who barely slept, or that his little sister had seizures in the night.
They didn't know that when he fought, it wasn't just anger — it was desperation.
To protect.
To survive.
To feel something he could control.
At school, Tega was the boy you didn't mess with.
At home, he was the boy who hid his tears in a pillow that smelled like Dettol and old sweat.
He once told Dami, "I hate how people think I'm angry all the time. I just don't know how else to scream without using my fists."
Some nights, he'd sit in the dark with his head in his hands, whispering to no one:
"I wish someone would ask why I'm really fighting."