“Ma’am, why don’t you sit? You look like you’re about to collapse,” I said, reaching toward a battered young woman with a toddler seemingly attached to her hip to help her sit in one of the chairs.

She roughly jerked her wrist away from me, glaring at me coldly. Her busted lip and bruised face made the glare seem even colder than it normally would have looked on a person. “Don’t touch me!” she shrieked in broken Korean. “Who do you think you are?! Coming around here and pretending to know what we’ve gone through. How would you know, huh?! You don’t know the pain and suffering we go through! None of you do! You just pretend you do, coming around here acting like you do. You think doing good deeds such as this will repent you for whatever sins you’ve committed?! Well you’re wrong! Nobody’s safe from their sins! I’ve never done anything bad and look at me now! Don’t you dare act as if you know how I feel! You’re all just fakers and liars and idiots, just like him! You have no idea!”

Her voice was so sharp; it could have cut through steel. The lady that was mainly in charge of the booth came up to me, but I shook my head at her. I wasn’t mad. I knew she was just hurt and scared. That’s how I used to feel all the time. I smiled gently at her and slowly kneeled in front of her after she took a seat on the chair, her little boy eating her hair. She had a glazed over look in her eyes, as if she wasn’t really there. Just taking one look at her, you’d know in an instant that she’d been out in the streets for quite some time now. Her hair was tattered, her clothes were in ruins, she looked gaunt and thin, and her baby boy looked as if he hadn’t had a good meal in a few days. This was so sad. I’m so glad I got out before something like this could have happened to me. She sat there, rocking back and forth slightly, her lower lip quivering. The poor thing. She couldn’t have been much older than I was.

“I know you think that I’m just pretending,” I said to her quietly. She snapped her icy glare at me, but I didn’t so much as waver. “But I do know what you’re going through.”

“How could you, huh?! You have no clue!” she half shrieked and half sobbed at me.

“Aiyaa, get away from her. She’s crazy!” the booth lady said to me in simplified Vietnamese. I’d been able to pick up a few simple phrases in the two weeks I’d been here already. I was quite proud of that fact(x

“Yah! Don’t you dare say something so foolish! She’s right! None of you here know what she’s gone through, so don’t talk!” I spat almost angrily. The lady receded and just drew her hands back from me, shaking her head and *tsk, tsking* at me. I ignored her and turned back to the girl. “What’s your name, unnie?”

She snapped her gaze at me, letting out a snort. “Unnie? I’m fifteen. I highly doubt I’m you’re unnie.”

My eyes rose in surprise and shock. Fifteen? She was still a baby! Her baby looked like he was two already! I swallowed carefully and let out a sad sigh. “You’re right. So I’m your unnie. What’s your name?”

She looked me up and down, a disgusted look on her face. “Ah Jin. But I go by Amanda.”

I smiled gently at her. “Well, Amanda, I’m Uki.”

“I thought you were full-blooded Korean.”

“I am.”

“Then why do you have a Japanese name?”

I paused for a second and smiled. “Because my mother had a thing for Japanese dramas right around the time I was born.” I saw a ghost of a smile flicker across her lips. It was so sad to see such a broken spirit at such a young age. “What’s your baby’s name?”

She smiled, looking at her happy baby still eating her hair. It was sad of me to think so, but it was probably very unsanitary for it to be doing that. “Siwon. I named him after the Super Junior member. I heard him sing once, and…” She just smiled, blushing slightly. That was so sweet!<3

“How about we give Siwon a bath, hmm? And maybe something to eat,” I said, a gentle smile on my face.

Her icy glare returned to her milk chocolate eyes as she started yelling again. “What are you trying to say, huh?! That I can’t care for my own baby?! That I can’t give him a proper meal, or a proper bath?! There you go thinking that you know how I feel again! How can you, with your pretty face and perfect features, eh?! You don’t know what it’s like! You don’t know!”

I just looked at her sadly and sighed. I heard what the people around me were saying.

“That girl is crazy! How dare she talk to her unnie like that?!”

“Is she crazy?! I would have left her already!”

“That other girl is just as crazy for talking to her! They’re both crazy!”

I ignored them all and brought my sleeve up, it. She looked disgusted for a second, but her features softened once I wiped away all the makeup on my face, revealing the marring feature on the side of my face. I winced as I touched an extra sensitive spot and shrugged my shoulders a little, as if to say, “Well, here it is,” when all the makeup was gone. Amanda let out a little cry, reaching an uncertain hand up to my face. I nodded slightly, allowing her to touch the still black and purple bruise with her cold fingers. She swallowed and pulled her hand back slowly to her chest. Siwon started crying. Amanda turned her uncertain gaze to him, not sure of what to do. I reached my hands out, offering to take him. She was hesitant at first, but she eventually handed him over. I called one of the other workers over to me.

“Take this baby and give him a bath. And feed him a good meal! He deserves it!” I ordered.

The younger girl bowed and did as she was bid. I turned my attention back to Amanda, who was just sitting there whimpering, staring at her shaking hands in her lap. I kneeled in front of her again.

“H-how…How long…?” she shakily whispered.

“I dealt with him for two and a half years. He abused me for a year and half of the relationship. He just recently found me again and…Well, he broke his promise to me,” I explained.

She looked up at me, her eyes huge, magnified by her tears. “R-recently?”

I nodded sadly. “He broke into the apartment I was staying at with my brother while everyone was out. I told him to get out ‘cause we had recently broken up due to the fact that he cheated on me with my best friend. After finding out that I was dating someone else, he hit me.”

Her lower lip started quivering again as her tears pooled in her eyes. “Y-you’re dating again?”

I smiled, keeping my gaze at her shaking hands. “Mhm.”

“How can you trust others so easily? So easily after…”

“Because this guy is different. I know that girls like us would make up that excuse all the time, but…It’s true with this guy. The moment you see him, you’d know in an instant that he was different,” I responded. I reached toward her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. She looked at me, tears free falling at this point. “I know you may think you’re alone in this world. I know that all you’re feeling in your heart right now is anger and bitterness and betrayal and confusion. I know you may think that these people here can’t relate to you at all. Well, just know that I’ve been there, I’ve gone through that. I know exactly how you’re feeling. And I’m here to tell you that you do have the strength to move on from what that filthy bastard’s done to you. If you can’t find it in you to do it for yourself, then do it for Siwon. He already doesn’t have a dad. Can you be strong enough to provide him with at least a mother?”

Amanda turned her gaze to her baby, who was happily eating rice porridge one of the girls was feeding him. She let out a little cry, tears falling fast. She collapsed into my arms, sobbing onto my shoulder. Her whole body shook as she cried out all the pent up frustration she’d felt throughout the years. I just held her, telling her things would be alright, that all she had to do was just stay strong and think of the future, letting go of the past. Next thing I knew, I found myself crying, too. The things I was saying to her. While they weren’t impossible to do, they were easier said than done, that I would know. But I just felt so…So…So happy that I could help her with all that she’s gone through.

It was times like these that made me not regret being with Troy.

It was times like these that made me not hate Troy for hitting me like he had.

Simply because I knew that I could draw strength from these wounds in my past and pass it on to someone like Amanda, who needed it more than me. I thank Troy for that. Although he made my life a living Hell for a long time, I thank him because if hadn’t done what he did, I never would have been the strong person I am today, the strong person helping someone else in their weaker moments.

Thank you, Troy.

“Unnie!” Amanda kept sobbing. “Unnie, thank you! Thank you so much, Unnie! Unnie, thank you!”

I just held her, letting her continue to sob while I just kept saying, “It’s okay. Unnie will be here for you. It’s okay. Unnie will be here for you.”

For some reason, I really liked writing this chapter 'cause for once,  I actually knew where I wanted to go with it. :P

Pwehehe. Hope you guys liked it, too! FIGHTING!~