David never planned to raise a child alone. But when his wife passed away during childbirth, leaving him with a newborn daughter, he had no choice. He learned to change diapers, braid tiny plaits, and hum lullabies he barely knew the words to.

What he didn’t expect was that his little girl, Claire, would grow up to be extraordinary.

By the time she was three, she could read fluently. At five, she was solving math problems that left grown adults speechless. By seven, she had memorized entire encyclopedias, answering questions even Google would take a few seconds to process.

But raising a genius wasn’t easy.

"Sir, we need to move her to a more advanced class," her primary school principal had said one day. "She’s far beyond her peers."

David sighed. "How will she cope emotionally? She’s still a child."

"She needs a challenge," the principal insisted.

And so, at eight, Claire was sitting in classrooms with students nearly twice her age, solving equations that made teachers rethink their careers.

Yet, being different came with struggles.

At home, she was his little girl, the one who still hugged him tight and asked for bedtime stories. But outside, the world wasn’t always kind. Her classmates whispered behind her back. Some teachers treated her like a threat instead of a student.

"She doesn’t belong here," one parent had murmured at a school meeting. "She’s making the other kids feel stupid."

That night, David found her curled up in bed, eyes red from crying.

"Daddy, why can’t I just be normal?" she whispered.

He knelt beside her, lifting her chin gently. "Who told you normal is better?"

She sniffled. "Everyone treats me like I’m strange."

He sighed. "Claire, you have a gift. The world may not always understand you, but that doesn’t mean you should dim your light."

"But it’s lonely."

Emeka’s heart clenched. He had done everything to make her life better, but he couldn’t shield her from this.

"Do you know the stars shine brightest alone?" he said softly. "You’re not like everyone else, and that’s okay. One day, they’ll realize just how special you are."

Years later, as he sat in the audience at a prestigious science conference, watching his fifteen-year-old daughter take the stage to receive an award for her groundbreaking research, he knew—

The world was finally catching up to what he had always known. His daughter was a star. And she was born to shine.