Too boujee to relate with my ghetto chargies, too ghetto to relate with my boujee brejins.

An existential conundrum of being caught in between two worlds but with permanent residence of neither.

In truth, I've experienced bits and parts of both—and even that, very minutely. Never in the extremes. Never having to step over running sewage first thing when I open the door in the morning, and not having the stench from the murky black water (and calling it water is a wild hyperbole) choke me because my brain is so acclimated that it no longer sees it as a health hazard. Rather, the sewage is just one of the many cards stacked against me that I have to work through, and I've made peace with that.

I haven't experienced that. Neither have I experienced the other end of the spectrum—being born into old money that allows me to live in the luxury of having multiple family homes (and parents that allow me to throw the occasional house parties, where doing narcotics is fair play), having a trust fund that was made for me before I was born, a dad who has close connections to the country's who's who, and perhaps he could make a phone call or two and he'll be speaking to the president himself. And having all this, all the while being utterly disassociated with the absurdity of it all because that's all I've ever known.

See, I have friends from both worlds, and the above-mentioned examples are their actual lived experiences. And while the difference in the social commentary is starkly clear, there's me—who's one foot in either and only just my big toe in each.

Bit of backstory on this: I used to frequent Kayole at one point in my life, when Gaza and Gully were a thing (scary hours those). Fast forward a few years, I lived in a kaghetto fulani in Kangemi, where the walls were rusted sheets of mabati, and I was basically privy to everything my neighbors were on (I hope hawajachana ju that marriage was on the rocks 💀😂😂). But I digress. I have also had the chance to live in an estate which was the former residence of Governor dimples, where an AP officer strapped with an AK, standing sentry at a gate, is a normal sight—a place with more Indians, KQ pilots, and foreign diplomats than I cared to count.

Yet I never felt like I belonged. Each interaction a farce. Side moja najiuliza kama Johnte niligotea asubuhi atanigeuzia magizgiz, na side ingine najiuliza if this close-knit community of kids my age will ever see me as one of them (they didn't).

My experience is not unique to myself alone—that's not lost on me. Like everyone else, life hasn't been holding back while handing me L's. Yet all my life I've been shielded from the true ugliness that my ghetto friends have lived through, and while I've enjoyed some pleasures it has given me over the years, they're modest to say the least, compared to my rich friends.

No love is lost between us. Our bonds go beyond our backgrounds, and I see them all beyond where they are from.

Yet one can never quite escape your upbringing. You carry it with you through life, with every new interaction, whether you will it or no.

There's a lesson in there somewhere.

So my friends and I will have a laugh as we trade stories, but there are times I'll hear some crazy shit and words just get stuck in my throat. Because how do you even respond to "huskii juzi kuna riomo wangu aliangushwa na mabongo." Because while I contemplate that charged statement, my brain is working overtime to remember what mabongo means—because contextually, no way you're referring to chibudi chibude, mzee mzima Diamond Platnumz rn. Must be the bloodthirsty cops you speak of. And now I'm just sad for you.

On the other side, my boujee friend says "my dad gifted me one of his petrol stations for my birthday" so flippantly, like it's just another Tuesday. Karibu nishike mf mashati nimuulize "na mbona tunakunywa ratish sai na you're making 6 figures daily?"

But c'est la vie, no?

It's all about balance. And maybe fitting in shouldn't be the end goal. Maybe having experienced both worlds, it's the joint experiences I'm meant to sit with.

In a perfect world, we have unbound love for each other. Words like "capitalism," "patriarchy," "victim," "war," "genocide," and most of all "racism" don't exist—because we see people for who they are, not the color of skin they had no say in. We see people—actually see them in their essence—and we connect beyond just transactions and "common courtesies." No need for separate spaces for marginalized persons, because we propagate love to all without judgment or impartiality based on gender biases.

In a perfect world, there is no homelessness, no street kids, no beggars—because we've created systems to accommodate everyone. Basic needs are available to all. Universal healthcare is as normal as your morning coffee. There are no civilization-threatening diseases to wipe us out, because we share knowledge without pursuing selfish ends—or creating said diseases to achieve said selfish ends. And maybe we discover the key to immortality (just kidding—I don't wanna do this being human thing again 😭).

In a perfect world, we don't need to perform for an imaginary audience. No inherent need for "likes." No need for filters to enhance our appearance—because we are content within our skin and are appreciated just as we are, in our naturality. We don't pick on people for having "inferior" phones, because we are above stupid vanity. We compliment strangers on the streets and have casual conversations without the assumed threat that something wrong will happen.

In a perfect world, there is no class system, because we inherently understand egoism leads to societal fracture and downfall. There exists no totalitarian, authoritarian, or fascist governments—because we know they don't exist to serve us. Matter of fact, we've hanged all politicians, khabusiye!! We are not separated by borders, because there is no need for them. We are all one people, and we were never designed to pay a toll to visit anywhere on a planet that was given freely to us.

In a perfect world, we venerate Mother Nature. We don't take from it more than we give. We have frequent, ceremonial, communal tree planting—where everyone everywhere contributes to making Earth greener, and not just for aesthetics either, but because we actually care for future generations past our own mortal lives. We don't hunt wild animals for sport. We create spaces to revitalize endangered species, and we don't hide behind facades like "conservation" to milk money off people.

It's gutting we don't exist in a perfect world. And as much as it feels grand fantasizing about it, the best thing we can do instead is, in our own little way, try to make this imperfect one we've got a bit better each day. Every evil conceivable in your head, I guarantee some sick bastard has done, is doing, or will do—at the expense of unsuspecting people (and next in line could be you). So be kind. Tell your friends you love them more often. Hug your mom tighter. And in the very least, just avoid being a shit person.

If it's not clear from the title, this piece is political—so allow me to take you on a journey to the very inception of Kenya.

From social studies, we all know how the story goes: mzungu arrives at our shores in the form of missionaries in the mid-19th century to soften our ancestors for the inevitable coming of the colonizer later in that century. Then, bam—British protectorate, yada yada. Fast forward to the mid-20th century: the Mau Mau uprising, led by Dedan Kimathi, Generals Mathenge, Baimungi, Kago, China, Mwariama, Muthoni Karimi, and the likes. To be clear, haikuwa tu wasapere or the GEMA block alone who were in the fight against mzungu—other communities, including Kisii, Nandi, Giriama, and Luo, were also in the fight.

Enter the eight-year state of emergency, where mzungu had converged and agreed that killing insurgents on sight was fair game. And boy, did they kill our people. The height of it came on March 3, 1959, in a bloodbath that came to be known as the Hola Massacre, which left 11 dead (disputed number) and scores injured. What's fucked up is that the bodies were never recovered—mfs had them flown out to Britain to hide the evidence.

But all that was just the backstory to what I was building to: how, after mzungu saw his grip on Kenya faltering and the country was in dire need of a change of authority, they couldn't just hand over the reins to the "rogue" and "violent" Mau Mau insurgents. Enter Johnstone Kamau Ngengi—alias Mzee Jomo Kenyatta. Him being picked to be president wasn't coincidental; it was as deliberate as it was a betrayal to the sovereignty of the newly formed state.

See, Kenyatta was pivotal for mzungu's interests in Kenya post-colonization because ceasing everything—the lands, the businesses—was just not an option. That's why they'd invested in their puppet, who'd play to whatever tune they wanted. Mr. Johnstone basically lived in Britain for the most part (1931–1946). He was oblivious to the struggle his countrymen were being put through. Hell, when he was lounging in the backdrop of fucking Sussex, getting tea served to him by his mzungu wife—do you actually understand how deep this shit is, that mzungu ALLOWED a black person to marry one of their own in that time?—his people back at home were fighting in the forests against imperialist killers and he was sipping fucking tea in bum fuck Sussex?? Mtu aniletee brufen ju mori inapanda the more i write this.

Anyways, he comes back, and mzungu arrests him on fabricated charges (to sell his martyr image to the public: "Yay, one of us!"). So much so that when Jaramogi was offered the position of prime minister, he declined, citing that Jomo be released first—a colossal mistake. So Jomo's out, but immediately he starts propagating mzungu's agenda and, moreover, rewarding loyalty to the crown—the home guards (Ngati) and other sympathizers—distributing tracts of land and unwittingly commencing such an ugly culture of corruption in our newly found nation. But that's a whole other article by itself.

This all doesn't sit right with Jaramogi, a true Pan-Africanist at heart. So he confronts Mzee and is met with disdain and jailtime. He eventually cedes his place in the ruling party because he couldn't stand to be part of the utter greed that had plagued the regime.

"You have not given any consideration to me as your number 2 in State matters. I have a conscience and this, in fact, does prick me when I earn public money but with no job to do... I cannot continue to hold this position any longer and I hereby tender my resignation."

(An excerpt from Jaramogi’s Not Yet Uhuru)

I guess the whole point I'm trying to make is how, for forever, we've been sold this image of Jomo being "baba wa taifa," while in fact, he is the cause of major political blunders we currently find ourselves in. It's the same story South Africans get told—that Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years on Robben Island. But mf was living like royalty, incognito, while the likes of Steve Biko were actually on the receiving end of deplorable living conditions behind bars.

I often wonder how different Kenya would be if we'd had better leaders. If necromancy were possible, I'd particularly love to have coffee with one Jaramogi Oginga Odinga and hear what his vision for this country had been. Najua he’s rolling in his grave seeing what came of us. In truth, as a nation, we don't lack for good leaders—people who'd have made genuinely good presidents: kina Robert Ouko, Martin Shikuku, Kenneth Matiba, to mention but a few. (All three, by the way, were silenced by Moi through his "total man," Nicolas Biwott—another entire article on its own.)

And looking back at our history, I can't help but think maybe we could've been better—much, much better. But we're still in the shackles of mzungu, albeit his reach being covert—it's undeniably there. He still owns our lands. Our houses of Parliament pass his policies. Oh, na kama bado hujajaa ngori, get this: British soldiers at the military base in Laikipia have, over the years, raped local women and sired children with them against their will—and the government does jack shit about it. They continue to violate us on our own soil, how bloody preposterous is that?

Ni hayo tu kwa sasa.

It's the mark of an educated mind to entertain a thought without accepting it. ~ Aristotle

It's okay to reminisce about the what ifs—hell, even smile at the memories y'all had as you scroll through the pics you took or the texts you sent. What's crazy is letting that reminiscence make your ass start typing to the person who decided to move on without you—on some "ni birthday yake" shit. Jiheshimu aise.

Shi reached the top of the stairs. The hallway stretched ahead, a throat waiting to swallow her. A quick glance—empty. It had the look of a cheap thriller written by someone who’d never seen a body: all it needed was a flickering bulb, a mask, a blade, and the slow creep of a killer. The snake lights along the floor edges offered no comfort—just low, cold witness. Her heart threw itself against her ribs. She had to do it.

The shadows in the corridor seemed to press closer, listening for the words she hadn’t yet said.

The third door on the left, Stacy had told her.

The carpet muffled her steps toward the study. To her left, a floor-to-ceiling window she hadn’t noticed before. An owl perched on a branch just outside. She caught her own faint reflection—then the owl rotated its head. Stared straight through her. Her heart lurched. She stumbled but caught herself, forced her gaze away from the creature’s unblinking judgment. Then voices—low, murmured. She couldn’t make out the words, but B was talking to a man. Max? Had he been here the whole time? A force she couldn’t name pulled her close. She leaned in, ear to the door’s gap, listening past the thud of her own pulse. A man’s laugh—not Max’s. Then B’s. Good. Her plan needed B agreeable.

She walked past the study, headed for the washroom at the end of the hall. Compose herself. Rehearse.

She opened the door, found the switch, flicked it. “Hello, sweet cheeks,” the framed quote read. Cute. She smiled—she’d have blushed if Max had said it. The door clicked shut behind her.

She walked to the vanity, mouthing her speech. She wasn’t this steady even when scrubbing up for surgery.

She reached for her lipgloss—then stopped. A door creaked open down the hall. A moment later, B’s voice climbed, sharp, uncharacteristic. Someone had struck a nerve. Shi cracked her door. Listened.

“Maybe it’s good he didn’t come to your rescue this time.”

“Please, B. I really need this.”

“The last time I went into business with you, I ended up in litigation for six months. So sorry—no sorry.” B’s voice cut through the music downstairs.

Shi smiled. Her plan was knitting itself together without her.

A thud. A door slammed. Footsteps hammered the hallway, each one a small hammer of anger. Shi had to know. Curiosity gnawed at her. At the knob, she paused. The air felt wrong—too still, too patient. Her hand hovered—millimeter by slow millimeter, as if the door might bite. It swung open without a sound. She peered beyond. Nothing. Just the long hall, the snake lights, the dark at the far end.

The faint wash of party music drifted up from below—a small, persistent flutter in her larynx, like a moth beating against a lampshade. The warmth that had filled the hallway a minute ago was gone. In its place, something cold pressed against her skin—not air, but presence.

She walked toward the study like a person carrying a full cup of hot coffee across a room that kept tilting slightly to the left—her shoulders hunched into a permanent, silent apology. She grabbed the doorknob with a sweaty palm, afraid of what she’d find on the other side. The metal felt cold against her skin, but finally it gave.

The room was dark, save for strips of moonlight bleeding through the curtains. She’d dreaded the lights. Her eyes clawed for focus. When they found it, she saw the papers first—scattered like startled birds. Fallen books. And a figure in front of the desk, lying prone, already no longer there.

“B?” The name came out a whisper, barely air. She crouched lower, each step a small betrayal of her nerve.

“B, you’re scaring me.” Her voice cracked. “Say something. Please.”

She knelt beside the figure. No need to check—she already knew. The turquoise sundress, the same one B had twirled in at the door hours ago, giving everyone that warm, easy smile. It was her. It was B.

She shook B’s shoulder. Nothing. No stir. No breath.

She reached for her face—both hands cradling the jaw—and turned it toward the light. Her fingers met warmth. And wetness. She snatched them back.

B’s eyes were open. Staring. Through the ceiling. Through the dark. Through her.

She scrambled up, stumbled toward the door. Not real. Not real.

The hallway light caught her halfway. She looked down.

Blood. Dark. Wet. Clinging to her palms.

Then the smell hit—iron, thick, clawing up her esophagus.

A voice in the back of her skull kept saying move, move, move — but her legs had unplugged. She tried to scream. Nothing. Her throat seized. Her breath caught.

Then the sound clawed its way out—frayed, jagged, scraping up her windpipe like rusted barbed wire. It didn’t sound like her. It didn’t sound human. It just was — a long, wet, splintered thing that hung in the hallway and refused to die.

The silence after the scream was tangible. It hung in the air, thick as a held breath.

Downstairs, the group—all but Dan, who had slipped off to the washroom—had heard it over the music. Jade killed the sound. The five around the dining table went still, ears straining. The looming danger sobered them instantly. Only the clock answered: its tick-tock, dead and patient. Then another sound—quick footsteps, rushing from the kitchen.

Rita and Max rushed past the dining hall, blind to the group inside. Lucy was closest—Rita bulldozed her, knocking a ping pong ball from her hand. By the time they rounded the corner, Max’s longer strides had pulled him ahead. They cut past the portrait, hit the corner, and vanished.

He cursed the architect. Every step was a small betrayal of time. He still hoped—foolishly—that whatever had happened could be undone. But with each bootfall, the light inside him guttered, leaving only embers that seared rage and grief into his chest.

Was B okay? Stacy’s insides were knots. But that scream wasn’t B’s—she was certain. She told herself it had to be Shi. Maybe she’d opened the wrong door, the one with the old Halloween costumes—skeletons and masks. The scare must have ripped the scream out of her. Her guts were a nest of live wires—but surely it couldn’t be anything else. Only that scream was otherworldly. Color left her face.

“And is that fucking Rita?” Stacy’s legs were already moving, following her sister’s ex-best friend. Wherever she goes, chaos follows. What the hell did she do now? Her Crocs hit the stairs.

“Babe, what’s going on?” Lucy’s phone slipped from her grip, clattering against her thigh. Frank was already moving—Muna and Stacy trailing behind Max and Rita.

“Nothing good.” He threw the words over his shoulder, nearly catching his flank on the stair railing.

Lucy’s throat sealed shut. Her hand flew to her mouth, but no sound came. Her feet had turned to lead. Move, she begged them. They didn’t answer.

Max hit the second flight of stairs, taking them three at a time—fists clenched, wild‑eyed, frothing with a rage he couldn’t name. Rita, a few paces behind, missed a step and caught the railing. She hadn’t noticed her tear-streaked mascara bleeding into the white t-shirt beneath her red jacket, or the tears still streaming down her cheeks. In that moment, she wanted the cross around her neck to mean something—not just a relic she wore for show. She willed any higher power to intervene. Please. Whatever this was.

At the top of the stairs, Max saw Shi on her knees, seated on her haunches. The air was thick with the iron‑and‑rot of death. Then he noticed her bloody hands. His pace slowed. He stepped forward like a man who had used every last step just to reach this point.

“No, no, no. Tell me it ain’t so.” His voice had no air left—each word a soft, deflated thud, like a fist punching a mattress.

His bones already knew. But some stubborn, stupid part of him still willed the world to rewind.

Shi looked up at him. Her eyes were two empty wells. She barely nodded.

Max walked past her into the now-lit study.

Dan stood over B’s body, his back to the door. Max understood—too late, always too late—that some things could not be unscreamed.

Outside, the leafless tree tapped the window in the breeze—one slow knock after another, like a finger counting the dead.

msiniue ju ya izi sumni zangu mbili: closure is not always what will bring you peace. Not that it's wrong to want it—naturally you would, especially if you dated for a while. But sasa ukikosa kupata outcome ulikuwa unataka?

Bc let's keep it a buck—ulikuwa na agenda from the jump. What you wanted was a chance to entertain the "what ifs." Ten minutes of talking to that ex of yours, and you find out they've been seeing someone—dating even—and they seem happy too. You reach out across the table, cupping their hands in yours, planting a smile that doesn't reach your eyes, and tell them, "I'm happy for you." Saa izo huku ndani unaskia kama unaweza commit murder suicide right there in that café. But you don't want to seem jealous. You get up, mustering every ounce of self-respect you have left. Y'all hug, walk out, and watch your air castles deflate as your person leaves. You still hold back your tears—can't do it here—so ni guu moja guu pili hadi adi where mat za kwenu ziukuwa na apo it's where your vision starts getting blurry, wiping the drops before they form streaks.

Worse if the attempt at this "closure" you seek was over text. Sasa they won't even see how much you've glowed since the breakup—ju that woulda given your flimsy plans legs, as you hoped his hands would remember to trace the outline of you. Now you're in your room, sad, unachukua pillow unapiga nduru moja safi.

Ona sasa umejivunja moyo mwenyewe—kitu ungeepuka by just moving tf on.

Twenty-five minutes before the scream, two figures spoke in the dark behind the servants’ quarters—adjacent to the empty main house. Their shadows hunched together, fingers twitching like spiders about to spin. The servants had the night off. He’d arranged that—talked B into it, citing privacy.

B had been an easy target. Years between them. Feelings, even—almost. But he never forgot why he’d latched on. She was a payday. Tonight was just business. No more personal than a bank transfer.

“Did you find any trouble in there? Anyone who saw you?”

“Nothing to worry about.” She tapped the weapon under her leather jacket. The moon caught the glint of her teeth, carving her smile into a crescent blade.

“Hopefully you won’t need that. Today needs to be clean—too many witnesses. In and out.” He pulled her closer.

“Sure. In and out.” Her pupils swelled—dark, feral.

“I mean it, Linda.” He’d seen what her hands could do when they got bored. Tonight he needed her still. Controlled. Not the version of her that smiled when the safety clicked off.

“Have I ever failed you? I took a bullet for you on the Patel job. That bastard would’ve painted his foyer with your brains.” She held his gaze. Didn’t blink.

Their life demanded he get close to his marks. Learn them. Sleep beside them. Nights away from her piled up like unpaid debts. It scraped her like a rusted blade. But she’d learned to swallow the scrape.

Not for much longer.

“Good. This next phase is critical. No one knows I’m here, and I’d like it to stay that way—unless absolutely necessary.” He whispered, then kissed her—passionate, brief.

“Still have your pager?” Something soft flickered behind her question.

“Yes. Have the jammer ready at go time.”

She kissed him again—slower, deliberate, breathing in the cologne from his three‑piece. He’d always been a sucker for formal wear. Even tonight, on a job, his suit was immaculate. Wrong for the mission, but sharp. She caught herself staring.

He winked. “See you on the other side.”

Then he slipped toward the secret escape door—laptop in hand. B’s father had built it, paranoia made real. Chris knew every hidden artery of the house. The passages. The veins no guest ever saw. He doubted even B knew about them; he’d found them after ransacking Mr. Bahati’s bedroom. His plan lived or died inside those walls.

***************************************************

Upstairs, Max searched for Rita.

Down in the cellar, the music thrummed through the floor. The living kept drinking. The dead could wait. A small group had gathered in the gaming room—for a cellar, surprisingly well-aerated, the ceiling lower, the air cooler. Orange-scented incense sticks struggled to drown out the musk of the marijuana in Frank’s hand.

Frank took a long drag, pulled Lucy closer, and kissed her—feeding the smoke into her mouth. She let it curl through her nose, eyes half-closed. They stayed locked together like the room had fallen away, like nothing existed beyond their two bodies.

“Don’t let his distraction tactics get to you, Shi. He’s my twin brother and all, but I know him—he couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a boat. Watch him miss this sitter.” Muna grinned, whisky bottle dangling from her hand, swaying like it was part of her.

Frank held the blunt between his lips, took aim, and cracked the white ball. The target went flying—bouncing off cushions, spinning, then dying near the pocket.

Shi walked over, studied the table, steadied her cue, and sank the last ball clean.

Muna shouted, wrapped her arms around Shi, and nearly sent them both stumbling.

“See? No macho strength needed.” Muna giggled.

Frank shrugged. “Easy shot. She should be thanking me for the setup.”

“Najua sauti ya mtu, anataka kulia,” Muna’s grin widened, like a shard of glass.

“Don’t worry, babe. You’ll get it next time.” Lucy kissed Frank, phone still in hand, still recording—a socialite with a following, her life a thumbnail, always waiting to be clicked. But her voice softened for a moment. “I’m sorry,” she breathed against his lips. Just for him. Then she pulled back, the screen still glowing.

Her phone’s lens didn’t blink. Neither did she. The live feed poured tonight’s chaos into the digital void while comments flickered and died without a glance. Her followers had stopped expecting her to look at them.

“I don’t think I have another game in me. Let’s rejoin the others.” Shi’s voice was flat, her mind already upstairs, already on what she’d come to do. The game had only been a place to steady her hands. She fed Muna a vague sketch—barely a plan, just enough to test her own nerve. A second opinion she didn’t need. Her mind was already made up.

Frank took Lucy’s arm and led the quartet out of the neon-lit gaming room, his smoke trailing behind them like a leash made of air.

Muna and Shi walked a few paces behind the lovers. Muna leaned in. “Audacious plan. Go get your man, girl.”

“Go big or go home.” Shi’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Besides, she won’t be a problem for much longer.”

Muna wasn’t sure whether to cheer or worry. A bit of both, maybe. Something chewed at the edge of her thoughts—a feeling that Shi was counting on more than she was saying. B leaving. Max’s attention finally free. Something like that.

They climbed the stairs from the cellar and emerged into the main living area. Shi scanned the room for Max. Nothing. No one. Just a smoldering cigarette in an ashtray, its smoke curling like a question mark.

Her chest tightened. Where was he? She needed him here. She’d rehearsed the words, the look, the pause—half the plan needed him. Without him, that half was a monologue.

Was he not coming?

“You coming?” Muna asked.

The question barely landed. Shi’s eyes had locked onto something across the room—a wedding portrait in a gilded frame above the fireplace. The couple smiled, arm in arm, locked in each other. She drifted toward it, her feet moving before her mind caught up.

“In a minute,” she murmured, already walking—her legs on autopilot, her head somewhere else entirely.

The background was a lake—too blue, too perfect. The bride in an immaculate white gown, diamonds at her neckline and on her ring finger, which she gleefully displayed. The groom in emerald green, looking at her like she’d invented the sun. Following his gaze, Shi saw it: not just longing. Hunger. Ownership.

That could be me. That will be me—my Max and me.

A low heat spread behind her sternum. Would Max ever look at her that way? With that kind of fire? She already knew the answer. She just had to be patient.

“Do you know where I can find a restroom?” The voice behind her yanked Shi from her fantasy. She nearly faltered, then exhaled, smoothing the irritation from her face.

“Sorry,” she said, turning. “There’s one on this level—through there. If you hit the laundry area, you’ve gone too far.”

“Thanks.” The woman’s dimpled smile flashed before she vanished.

Shi blinked. The others were gone. Her romantic trance had swallowed them whole.

Voices drifted from the dining room, a low hum of conversation. Her pulse skipped. Maybe Max. He had to be in there. A warm thrum spread through her chest—quick, bright, alive. She smiled. Hope dragged her forward, her plan already clicking into place. She rounded the corner.

Empty. No Max. Just Dan, Muna, Frank, Lucy, Jade, and Stacy hunched over a beer pong table. The man she’d rehearsed for—the one who was supposed to be there—absent.

Her smile didn’t fall. It froze. Then a cold stone slid into her stomach and stayed.

She scanned the room again. Nothing. Where was he?

She stood in a room full of people, yet she’d never felt more emptied from the inside—like a child who turns around on a crowded playground and realizes the face they’re looking for isn’t there. No one else notices. No one else cares.

She took a breath. Fine. She’d recalibrate. Start the second half of the plan. Let Max find her when he was ready. Her mind churned—cold, methodical, already moving. The others’ voices melted into a hollow drone.

“Doesn’t this remind you of weekends in uni?” Stacy asked Frank.

“I remember always besting you lot,” Frank answered as his shot found the tumbler. He whooped in celebration.

“Babe, how do you play this game?” Lucy asked Frank, phone still in hand—probably another live stream. That phone was a third limb, Stacy thought, watching Lucy perform for an audience that wasn’t there. Must be nice not to have real problems.

Over their uni years, Frank’s taste had been a slow-motion disaster. Stacy remembered the palm reader—sage smoke and talk of energies, weirding everyone out. Then the klepto: phones and wallets always walked off when she was around. Those two alone were cautionary tales. Lucy, for all her flaws, was practically a saint by comparison.

Just then, Shi slid up to her, whispered something. Stacy whispered back, tilted her head toward the far stairs. Shi moved—glancing over her shoulder. Muna was watching her, brow furrowed, like she was trying to read a sentence with missing words. Shi winked, flashed a razor-thin smile, and rounded the corner.

The skirt’s slit climbed past her left thigh, peeling back to show an octopus tattoo—its tentacles writhing across her skin, disappearing into the shadow of her hip. Yet the slit kept going—parting with every step to show a flash of skin. She’d worn it for him. Surely he couldn’t say no to all this.

“Now that the number of players is just right, we should play girls versus boys…” Dan’s voice faded as she started up the stairs.

Today, she was going to do something bold. Tired of loving from across a room that never got smaller. Envious of how B held his attention without even trying. She saw his unrequited love for B as pitiable. He deserved the best. She would give it to him. Whatever stood in her way. She didn’t need to finish the thought.

He’d be so much happier with her. She climbed, her stiletto heels marking time with the giant chrome clock on the first landing—each click a small, hollow promise, echoing up the stairs like a countdown she couldn’t stop.

This one's personal, and I felt compelled to do a piece on it. See, in one form or another, we all have a lore on addiction—an ugly beast that snuffs out hopes and dreams. Whether it's yourself, your friend, ama that one uncle who always shows up shit-faced drunk at every family function. He staggers into the compound—trousers soiled, shirt missing buttons, teeth missing too (though those went years ago)—belting "tuthie sherehe" at the top of his lungs. His sibs (your parents, uncles, and aunties) love him but have always used his "lifestyle" as a teaching aid, cautioning you to make better decisions so you don't end up like him. But in truth, it goes deeper than making better decisions, because let's be real—don't you think that uncle knows better than to be boozed up every waking moment? Don't you think he longs for the day he'd spend an entire day sober? Don't you think he'd sooner give up his vulgar insults—his only defense against the judgmental looks and convos hushed at his expense? Of course he would, and probably in the privacy of his home, he has tried and failed to give up the bottle—numerous times, no less. But with every passing day spent in a drunken stupor, the light in his eyes dims till he doesn't know where a good night out drinking ends and the monster that's got him in a chokehold begins.

Okay, enough about the drunk uncle. Now imagine a heroin junkie—a seasoned user who, for years, has had the morning tradition of shooting up his veins so much so that the literal whites of his bones start showing up on the surface of his forearm. But that doesn't deter him. He locates the veins in his legs and starts shooting there too, and it's not long until he can see the outline of his fibula. And it wouldn't take much effort either—he notices it's cracked—and you might think that would be his wake-up call. But no. He goes ahead and inserts the needle in between the crack. His health, at this point, is a secondary concern to the high he's chasing. And it's not that he doesn't care about himself—he does. In fact, on an uncountable number of occasions, he vowed to himself he'd quit. Once, he even burned his entire paraphernalia and swore on his mama he was done (and we all know swearing by your own mother is the epitome of commitment.) The two days that follow, he's on the upswing—hasn't touched a needle and isn't looking forward to either. Then one scent, one text (uko wapi?), one stroll back to his old spots brings the desire back, and inevitably, tomorrow late afternoon, he wakes up from an H haze, kicking himself for going back on his word. He's feeling shitty, and now he needs a fix. That's how fast he goes back to his old ways—his neuropathways, over the years wired for the negative feedback loop, firing with a whole new intensity.

The reality of addiction is that it takes more than recognizing a habit loop: the cue that triggers the craving, creating a routine with the end goal being a reward—the high. And what's sad is that anyone can be a victim—even intelligent mfs. In fact, I'd argue intelligent people are at higher risk of this. See, there's something deeply gutting about having the presence of mind to recognize you have destructive patterns, actively knowing you're getting caught up in a vicious cycle, understanding that your life literally hinges on you breaking the chains—and yet finding yourself indulging in the same old habits. The shame comes first, then counterintuitively you chase it away with a surge of dopamine from the very thing you're trying to avoid, then the rationalization: "Maybe this is me. It's always been."

RIP to everyone we've all collectively lost from whatever addiction. It's almost Sisyphean to break free from it, and it takes massive amounts of willpower. So the next time you interact with a recovered addict, know that you are in the presence of someone who conjured every fiber of self-will they had to claw themselves out of whatever abyss they were in. If you know of someone in your life actively trying to do the same, be there—offer support in any way—but they've got to put in the work themselves. You can't do it for them. And if it's you who's stuck in one form of addiction or another, believe that you've got it in you to fight it, because your life really does depend on it. ♥️

Dan followed Max’s gaze. “Everything okay?”

Stacy didn’t wait. “Yeah, you look flustered, Max.”

“Just need some air. Give me a minute.” He stood, downed his tumbler in one gulp, and followed in the direction he had seen her. Dan opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it.

Each step felt like stepping onto thin ice—tentative, rigid, his body unsure if the next floorboard would hold or consume him. He wanted to find her. He also never wanted to turn the next corner. Why was she here? Nothing good ever came from a question that answered itself.

The music began to fade. The taste of whisky on his tongue couldn’t anchor him—his mind kept snagging on the words she’d spat before storming out all those months ago: “He was mine first.” What had she meant? He knew little of B’s uni life. She’d only ever mentioned, in passing, that she met both Rita and Chris there. That was all.

He tried the stillroom first before making his way further toward the guest bedrooms. As he reached for the door handle, the toilet flushed inside. He’d cornered his quarry. He stepped in—and found himself staring at a stranger.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he said, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m Linda, Dan’s date. And you are?” she asked with a dimpled smile.

“Looking for someone,” was his gruff answer as he left the room.

He left Linda in the guest bedroom and continued down the corridor. The door to the laundry area hung open—just a crack, just enough to let the shadows breathe. He crossed the threshold. His heart hammered against his ribs, a fist demanding out. Moonlight poured through the unshuttered windows, patient for what was coming, spilling over the framed quote—one of many hanging in every room. This one read: Wash Your Troubles Away. He wished his troubles were that easy to rinse off. His eyes found two poppy plants that flanked the doorway, their petals closed shut for the night in nyctinasty—as if they’d already decided: they would not bear witness to whatever came next.

Nothing. Just the washer, the dryer, a few bottles of detergent—and the dark. The room smelled of sunflower and lavender, but the sweetness only made the bile rise faster. He crossed to the window, where a slight draft slipped through—carrying the sour breath of the ghetto and something else underneath. Milano cigarettes. Unmistakable. Only one person he knew smoked that brand.

She was just outside. On the balustrade.

He left the laundry room. Purpose in every step.

He found her exactly where he’d known she’d be. Back against a column, a long drag from her cigarette, smoke curling past her face like a second thought. She didn’t turn around.

“Took you long enough,” she said. Still didn’t turn.

A cold needle of unease pricked at him. Had she wanted him to find her? Was this a game? What was she playing at? He shook it off and rounded to face her.

“What are you doing here, Rita?” — unsure if he even wanted to know.

He studied her face, searching for what she wasn’t saying. Her red leather jacket hung unzipped, silver cross necklace glinting as she massaged it—nervous? Or just waiting. Her eyes floating into the dark, lost, while she pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

“Want one?” She extended the packet.

Max’s throat tightened. He sat beside her. “Only if I get answers.”

She lit his cigarette, then hers. The flame trembled—his hand, not hers.

“Isn’t that what we all want?” she said, finally meeting his eyes. “Answers.”

The night held its breath. Somewhere above, a leafless branch drummed against a window—slow, hollow, each tap a small sentence.

She took a long drag, exhaled upward, her gaze fixed on empty air. “Back in uni, nights like this, we’d stay up watching the stars. Talk for hours about nothing and everything.”

He followed her eyes, his pulse ticking. Where was she going with this?

“We promised—even apart—we’d always watch the night sky. Made the loneliness easier.”

He couldn’t wait. “I didn’t know B was into astronomy.”

“It’s not B.” She said it flat. “You know she’d rather bury her nose in a book. It’s Chris.” A pause. “We were dating.” Then, without a breath: “Were dating. Before I found out he’s a scheming, scamming, thieving cunt.” The last word she spat—venom, pure.

He couldn’t process it. Too much. Answers—but a floodgate ripped open. The cigarette butt had burned down to his fingers. He threw it aside, grabbed another from the packet, snatched the lighter from Rita’s hand, and lit up.

Then he stood, paced. “What do you mean—scamming thief?”

“Back in uni. He always had cash—flashy, even for a campus kid. I didn’t care about that. What got me was how invested he got in my family. My father’s estate. What it was worth.” She paused. “I thought it was caring.”

She flicked the butt to the ground, ground it under her rubber sole.

“My brother’s account got hacked a few years ago. Drained. I still didn’t connect it.” She met Max’s eyes. “But after what happened here in March—with Mrs. Bahati—I started paying attention.”

“I didn’t handle it well. But I didn’t see the bigger picture—until I found a blog. Twenty-six victims. And I know I’m right: B will be just another statistic.” Blood hammered at her temple, her fingers curling into the fabric of her jacket. “He finds rich women. Plays the part. Charm. Patience. Promises. Lowers their guard. Then he cleans them out. I tracked down twelve of them. Showed his picture. Heard the stories. The rest chose to forget. Every single one regrets the day they met him.”

Max sat in silence. Her words settled in his chest like wet cement. His thoughts churned—not just at what Chris had done, but at something worse: a sudden, awful clarity. He had loved B since their first year as residents. No—carried her. The way she tucked her hair behind her ear when concentrating. The tiny mole on her lower lip—she hated it, but he thought it accentuated her beauty. How she never said “I told you so,” even when she should have. He never acted. She seemed happy with Chris. And now she was leaving. And now—

“Why didn’t you go to the police?”

“I did.” Rita laughed—short, sour. “Circumstantial, they said. None of the victims would talk. Twelve women too scared or ashamed. And me? Just the jealous ex.” She pulled another cigarette but didn’t light it. “That’s why I needed to give B the proof myself.”

“You could have warned her sooner. Or called me.”

She held up two fingers. “Two problems. We haven’t spoken in six months. And I couldn’t risk Chris intercepting anything.”

Max shook his head slowly. The disbelief sat in his jaw like a cracked tooth. “So that’s why you came,” he muttered. “To warn her.”

“Yes.” She stood, brushed off her jeans. “It’s all in my car. Come give me a hand.”

She started walking, glanced back. “He works with a woman named Linda. A psycho.”

Max went rigid. “Linda?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I met her. Guest bedroom. Before I came out here.” Max rose to his feet.

Rita’s face went slack, then grey—like someone had pulled a plug and let all the blood drain somewhere she couldn’t reach. Her fingers stopped mid-gesture. Her lips parted, but nothing came out. Then: “Oh, that’s not good. Not good at all.”

The words hung there—thin, brittle.

From the treeline, an owl called—a single note, not loud, but it didn’t need to be. It held the note too long, as if the bird had all night and knew something they didn’t. The silence after was worse. Pressed against Max’s ears like a hand over his mouth.

He could feel Rita next to him, her breathing gone shallow, her shoulder barely an inch from his. Neither moved. The moon pressed closer through the trees, ravenous and still—the kind of witness who doesn’t need to lean. She just waits.

Max stubbed his cigarette.

They moved through the rows of parked cars. Every tire slashed. Rims resting on rubber carcasses. Max stopped, head in his hands. No one was going for help now. He hoped they’d kill Chris’s agenda before the night swallowed them whole.

Then, as if the night had been listening—the scream came.

It tore through the second floor—raw, wet, a sound that doesn’t ask for help because it already knows none is coming. Rita tried to stifle hers—failed—and ran past Max into the house.

Max’s heart stopped. Then it sank, heavy as stone. He knew. Even before they reached the door, he knew he was too late.

His insides felt like a house with all the lights left on.

Links to previous chapters;

https://open.substack.com/pub/ctrlmyhrt/p/the-night-that-the-moon-witnessed-aac?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=74r2rf

https://open.substack.com/pub/ctrlmyhrt/p/the-night-that-the-moon-witnessed-f25?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=74r2rf

https://open.substack.com/pub/ctrlmyhrt/p/the-night-that-the-moon-witnessed-67f?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=74r2rf

B’s family home was exquisite in a way that didn’t need to announce itself. The foyer stretched before him—a corridor lined with plant vases B’s mom worshiped. Their faint fragrance hung in the air, trying and failing to mask the party’s indulgence seeping from beyond. Every room on the first level had at least one plant, as if the house was trying to photosynthesize its own oxygen. He remembered that the foyer opened into a vast living area with a double-vaulted ceiling and Roman columns that didn’t shout old money. They didn’t need to.

Game heads and expensive art crowded the whitewashed walls. The furniture belonged in a palace—not some local landmark, but a place with throne rooms and treaties signed in gold leaf. The carpet felt like wading through butter—soft, obscene, and slightly unnecessary. The stairs wound like a question no one had ever needed to answer, and the chandeliers scattered light the way the estate scattered its lawns: generously, thoughtlessly, beautifully.

“The fiancée joining us?” Max asked as they headed toward the living area.

“Can’t make it. Family thing out of town,” B said.

“Shame. I was hoping to meet the guy who finally got the great Miss Bahati—strong, independent, utterly impossible—to settle down.”

“Probably for the best. You start sharing our past escapades, and he might just call off the whole thing.”

They laughed, easy and familiar.

“Touché.”

“You’ll meet him before I leave. Wedding’s still on, last I checked.”

They’d slowed their pace, walking abreast along the foyer—on purpose. It had been a while since they’d had time for each other. The last time was the incident with Rita. His eyes drifted to the staircase, and suddenly he was back there: six months ago, at her sister Stacy’s graduation party. A small ceremony. Mostly family. B had invited him, of course, and her university best friend and roommate, Rita. He let his mind slip into that night—the one that had opened an irreparable chasm between the two women.

It was around 2 AM. Most of the guests had gone home. The ones who stayed kept drinking, their speech growing slurred and tangled. Max and B had settled into the lazy boy recliners on the balcony, passing a bottle of Don Julio back and forth, each holding a lemon wedge. An old ritual. The reward after long shifts of opening chests and stitching up the wreckage of the day. They were catching up when a voice drifted up from the study directly above them—a normal conversation, at first. Just voices. Then the tone changed.

“Oh, I didn’t realize anyone was here.” Mrs. Bahati’s voice—calm, surprised.

She’d spotted Rita holding a framed portrait of Chris and B. Smiling, she stepped closer. “They make a beautiful couple, don’t they?”

Rita’s face twisted. She turned from the photo to Mrs. Bahati, her expression pure disdain. Then she threw the picture onto the mahogany desk—carelessly, deliberately—and the wine glass she’d been holding shattered against the floor.

Max and B heard the crash. They were already moving, back inside, up the stairs toward the study.

Mrs. Bahati flinched, then schooled her features. She summoned every ounce of her grace, her smile hardening into a thin line. “Perhaps you should rejoin the others downstairs.”

Two strides and Rita was on her. She grabbed Mrs. Bahati by the shoulders and flung her over the desk—no hesitation, no gentleness. Then she rounded it, her voice dropping to a venomous whisper. “He was mine first.” A vein pulsed at her temple. A beat. Then: “Perhaps you should ask your daughter about her ‘fiancé.’” She hooked her fingers into air quotes.

She didn’t wait for an answer. She headed for the door just as Max and B arrived.

“What’s going on here?” B hadn’t yet seen her mother crouched behind the desk.

Max followed Rita’s glare and walked around the desk. Mrs. Bahati was there, white-knuckled, scared shitless. Rita didn’t bother to explain. She stormed off.

Max checked Mrs. Bahati—unhurt, just shaken—then left B with her and went after Rita. His chest felt tight, some feeling he couldn’t name. But Rita was already gone. All that remained was the faint trail of her cigarette smoke in the foyer. Later, between sobs, Mrs. Bahati told them what had happened. The story left more gaps than answers.

They hadn’t realized how long they’d been standing in the corridor, caught in their own conversation. The memory left a sour film on his tongue, but he swallowed it down.

“I’ll join you in a bit. Got something to wrap up first,” B said, pressing a finger to her lips—a silent reminder to keep the secret.

Max smiled and mimed zipping his mouth shut.

He watched her head for the stairs, gliding toward the study with her mother’s easy grace. He didn’t know it yet—couldn’t—but this was the last time he’d see B alive.

He stepped into the living area. No one noticed him. Good. He’d hoped to slip toward the kitchen first—the side door where his quarry had entered—then circle back for hellos.

“Guys, look who finally decided to join us!” Stacy’s voice cut through the room, and every head turned.

So much for subtlety.

He couldn’t help but smile. It had been too long since all of them were in the same room. He tried to memorize the scene—Jade laughing, Dan gesturing wildly, Stacy waving a bottle like a trophy—as if some part of him already knew he’d need it later. But first, pleasantries. Then back to the problem.

He’d barely finished hugging Stacy when someone shoved a tumbler into his palm.

“Good you’re finally here,” Dan said. “Settle something for us. Jade thinks he can take five king cobras over one silverback.”

Max nodded along, only half listening. His eyes were already moving—scanning for red. Kitchen. Laundry area. There. A flicker of motion.

“So? What do you say?” Dan pressed.

Max blinked. “Huh?” The others were staring, waiting.

“Jade says it’d be easier to take on five king cobras than one silverback gorilla.”

Max opened his mouth—then something moved in the laundry area. Dan’s voice dissolved into static. Half a second of paralysis: heart stalled, jaw clenched. There. Red jacket. His quarry. The figure held his gaze, then vanished.

https://open.substack.com/pub/ctrlmyhrt/p/the-night-that-the-moon-witnessed-67f?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=74r2rf

https://open.substack.com/pub/ctrlmyhrt/p/the-night-that-the-moon-witnessed-f25?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=74r2rf

The moon hung low and bright, so bright that every pebble on the gravel driveway cast its own sharp shadow. The thick metal gates stood ajar, no one manning them—just two rusted hinges slowly giving up, the gap between them a dark throat waiting to swallow him. Max pulled into the immense gravel driveway of house 254, the tires crunching underneath doing nothing to ease his thoughts about the occupant of the McLaren. He wished his premonition wasn’t true as he scanned the parking lot in front of the mansion. Most of the group had already arrived—he could tell by the cars—but he still couldn’t find any trace of the black McLaren. Only the moon’s light, cold and unfeeling, spilling over the rows of parked vehicles.

Then, from his left periphery—on the far side of the manse, just beyond the moon’s reach—a shadowy figure emerged. The chirp of a car lock cracked through the night.

He squinted, but the face wouldn’t resolve—just a silhouette with edges blurred by moonlight. Then the moon slipped through a thin sheet of clouds and caught the figure: a flash of red—jacket, maybe a hoodie—and a way of moving that said I belong here more than you do. He muttered a curse—low, wordless—and pressed harder on the gas, testing the limits of his father’s old Impala. The sedan groaned, chassis protesting his crazy expectations. Max leaned forward, eyes locked on the shadow by the side door. It stood there, watching him. Or seemed to. Then it slipped inside.

The music swelled as he neared the house. He pulled behind Dan’s pickup—rusted bumper, cracked windshield, familiar—and killed the engine. He grabbed the package from the passenger seat and stepped out in one motion. First: find the driver.

As he scanned the parked cars, a yellow Dodge Viper caught his eye—further down, unfamiliar. Going to be a long one, he thought. Just beyond it sat Shi’s silver Range Rover. She was a nurse in Max and B’s hospital—and she’d always had a thing for him. The winks as she handed him instruments during surgery. Brunch invitations. Trips to her place. He’d dodged every advance with a convenient excuse, but tonight would be harder. She was pretty enough, kind in her way. But his heart belonged to another—a fact she either didn’t see or didn’t care to accept. He peeled open the bag. The trophy caught the moonlight—his name beside B’s on the plaque, frozen in that cold, ravenous glare. Countless late nights in the lab. Her laugh. How she bit into biro caps when she was thinking—going through a pack at a time. He’d fallen for her then, and he was still falling—right into the wall of her wedding. She was spoken for. Just not by him. And here he was, on both ends of unrequited love: chasing B while dodging Shi. The tragedy of it sat in his chest like a piece of fruit left too long in the sun. He longed for a world where the heart’s arithmetic didn’t leave him on the outside, but tonight he’d swallow it and stand by her. He pushed the thought down, knowing it would claw its way back later, harder.

His own shadow stretched ahead of him, long and twisted—a distorted version of himself that seemed to know something he didn’t. It slid across the gravel, then up the wall of the mansion, bending at odd angles as if trying to break free. In the moonlight, it looked less like a silhouette and more like a verdict. He tried glancing through the massive windows as he walked by them, searching for his quarry. All he could see were his friends engaged in animated conversations. With every step, the music built—the panes rattling in their putty with contempt.

He pushed through the main entrance, and the foyer devoured him. The scents arrived before the sound—cigarette smoke, spilled liquor, and something sweeter underneath, the chemical perfume of a night already promising to go off the rails. Then the music hit, not loud but thick, the kind of bass that vibrated behind his eyes.

He glanced at the family portrait: B, her parents, her younger sister—all in white, all wearing the same practiced smile, as if they’d rehearsed happiness in the same mirror. He never understood why rich people stopped at one or two kids. They had the money. The space. The nannies. Back in his neighborhood, families multiplied like a survival strategy—more hands, more chances. The math worked opposite here, and it still didn’t add up.

From where he stood, Dan’s voice cut through the music—a sudden shout, then laughter. Drinking games, probably.

He was still unlacing his shoes when B materialized beside him. He straightened, and she was there, grinning.

“Hi there, Doctor Max.”

“Jesus, B. You almost gave me a bloody heart attack.”

“That’s no way to greet your best friend—the one leaving the country soon.” She pulled him into a tight embrace.

“You’re last, by the way,” she added, her voice muffled against his shoulder.

Her tone was light, unguarded. No hint of alarm. She hadn’t seen her. Good. The night was still salvageable.

“Here, I got you something,” Max said as they pulled apart.

“You didn’t have to.”

He reached into the bag and produced the globe trophy, its bronze base catching the light. “I want you to have this.”

“No. You deserve to keep it.”

“I insist. Your name’s on there just as mine is. Think of it as something to remember me by when you’re gone. Besides, I’ve had it all this time—now it’s your turn. I will not take no for an answer.”

She took it. He flashed the smile—the one she knew had leveled every new intern at the hospital.

The trophy was a token from the president himself. Their paper—the one the WHO now recommended worldwide—had earned it. She traced the globe’s curve with her fingertips, then smiled back at him.

“I’ll miss you, you know.” His voice had gone soft at the edges.

“Wipe that look off your face. No one died. I’m only a continent away. We’ll still talk. And you’d better visit—you know you’re always welcome.”

They hugged again. But his mind was elsewhere. Over her shoulder, he scanned the room—turning her slightly, subtly, searching. Nothing. Not a trace.

She rubbed his arm. “I’ll miss you too. But tonight? We celebrate.”

She linked her arm through his and steered him toward the living space, calling out to the others.

He drove well below the speed limit, as if the estate demanded a slower pulse. In early spring, the jacarandas showered the blacktop with purple—a soft, fragrant carpet under a bleeding sunset. But this was summer. Now the shadows stretched long and yearning, reaching across the road like fingers about to close. He lowered the window and let the night air—cool, thin, indifferent—fill his lungs.

He’d marked this weekend on his calendar for weeks. B had invited the old crew to her parents’ place—though her parents were off at their other home, the one with the lake for a backyard. He’d only seen pictures, but even those made this estate look modest.

Tonight was a farewell. Exactly two weeks until the wedding. Then she and her university sweetheart would vanish into Eastern Europe, to a world‑class hospital—a name that opened doors, the kind that recruited from continents away. He was proud. And already mourning her.

The others had no idea. She’d planned it as a reveal. She’d told only Max, made him swear. The secret sat in his chest like a stone he couldn’t swallow, couldn’t dissolve, couldn’t cough up.

She’d called him the night Chris proposed. Max had met the man once, but he still remembered the way Chris held B’s hand—like she was made of mist and might drift away if he loosened his grip. B’s voice started light, almost weightless—then it pulled taut. “Rita shouldn’t catch wind of the party. We don’t want a repeat of last time, do we?”

His foot eased off the accelerator, the memory already pulling him under: Rita’s face, contorted. A wine glass shattered on the floor. B’s mother—usually so poised, so put together—weeping in the corner, her face crumpled like a letter you’d never send.

“No, we don’t,” he said. Then B’s giggles, and the line went dead. He’d kept his word. Left Rita out of the loop. Or so he thought.

Twilight deepened. The mostly cloudless sky turned the color of an old bruise—deep purple, then black. Stars pricked through. Then the moon rose, full and hungry, drowning everything else in the night. Max was grateful. A welcome sight, she was. Her beauty promised a night that would carve itself into him.

His left thumb tapped the steering wheel on its own, keeping time with the Sauti Sol track pulsing from the speakers—“Tujiangalie.” He knew every word. The song lived in his chest, and tonight it sounded like prophecy and warning wrapped in the same breath. He sat straighter, willing the feeling away, and let his eyes drift across the estate. Even having been here before, the sheer scale still made him feel small – a feeling that never dulled—not just the mansions, but the land they swallowed. Acres that could bury a village in grain. This was where the country’s who’s who tucked themselves in at night. Wenye nchi, the common folk called them. A sad joke. The punchline was always the same: the rich, and everyone else.

Then the wind shifted from the south—a sudden gust that set the fallen, chlorotic jacaranda leaves skittering across the blacktop. With it came the low, sour exhalation of the slum, the biggest in East and Central Africa. Garbage. Sewage. Lives packed so tight the stench had become a second language. The estate didn’t acknowledge it. The estate didn’t have to. That was the point of wealth like this: it didn’t compete. It simply existed, and the rest of the world learned to look away.

But Max couldn’t look away. He knew the math of it personally. Some people had so much wealth they could lose a mansion and not notice. Others, just on the other side of the estate’s wall, counted coins for a single meal. He remembered two weeks as a young man—no proper food, just the market’s discards. Fruits with soft spots, the ones the vendors couldn’t sell. He’d learned which bruises were harmless and which meant rot. That scent pulled him under like a riptide, straight back to those days. He still knew people living like that. Worse, even.

Then, as if on cue: a black McLaren Artura screamed past, ripping him from his thoughts. The driver was laughing—that high, sharp laugh. The one he’d recognize anywhere. It was a blur, but in the half-second the car drew alongside, Max caught the silhouette of a side profile. Then the McLaren was gone, its tail lights shrinking to two red eyes narrowing to pins, heading the same way he was. His stomach coiled, and the steering wheel groaned under his whitening knuckles.

We've all been there, where your mom, your highschool maths teacher after they randomly picked you to solve the quadratic equation on the board, a supervisor at work even that donda majioni when you board his mat pale fire station, yells at you “unapoteza wakati.” But that statement couldn't be further from the truth bc time is an infinite entitity that when you sit back and let it register, you can never “waste it” bc it isn't within us to do so. The concept of “being on time” or “being late” is just another ugly offspring of capitalism and the core of deconstructing it lies with how our African cultures view time.

EXHIBIT A;

Kenyan philosopher John Mbiti argued that the traditional African view is distinctly event-centered rather than mathematically measured.

You and I cannot count the sheer amount of times we use the word SASA. A very rudimentary word, is it not? Tunaitumia so casually in everyday convos without deeping it and how John Mbiti puts it is SASA is the "micro-time" of lived experience, encompassing the present, the recent past, and the near future. It's the active period of events directly affecting one's life, often extending only about a year. An event is considered "real" only when it is within SASA, the sphere of conscious experience.

Another word is ZAMANI another word we're so conversant with yet we don't entirely grasp its meaning. He argued that ZAMANI is the "macro-time," an unlimited ocean of the past. It is the final repository for all events, containing the history, myths, and ancestors that form the foundation for the present. As events fade from living memory, they move from SASA into the ZAMANI, becoming part of the permanent, collective past. This structure suggests a "movement backward in time," as current events join the ever-growing reservoir of the past.

EXHIBIT B;

From the Akan ppl of Ghana.

They have a quite interesting concept called SANKOFA which translates to—"return and get it"—and encapsulates a cyclical view. The whole idea behind it is in order build a strong future, one must learn from and "retrieve" the wisdom of the past.

Yamaanisha it's all an interconnected spiral where past, present, and future are in constant, interdependent dialogue.

EXHIBIT C;

From the Yoruba ppl of Nigeria.

They view time is an event-based cycle leading to ancestorhood. Which in turn means death is not an end but a transformation, allowing the future to extend into an afterlife. And therefore the future is demystified as it not being a distant void rather that it reaches "beyond the end of this life".

Metaphysically it means the future is an experiential continuum (Asiko) of relationships and transformation that includes the spiritual realm.

EXHIBIT D;

FROM the Igbo ppl of Nigeria.

Their view is that Time (Oge) is understood as "another word for continuity," defined in layers: individual (birth, marriage), community (festivals), and ecological (seasons).

So it narrows down to a multi-dimensional, non-linear model where different spheres of time (human, ecological, spiritual) operate simultaneously and are interwoven.

EXHIBIT E;

The Ankole ppl of Uganda.

Probably one of my favorite breakdown in the way it relays the whole argument in a simplistic manner. What they have is a classic example of event-based timekeeping. A day is organized around significant daily happenings, like the time when cattle are brought out for watering.

So time in their pov is concretely tied to the rhythms of daily life and work, with no meaningful existence apart from events.

EXHIBIT F;

The Swahili ppl of Coastal East Africa.

They largely share Mbiti’s views and vice verse where the interplay of Sasa and Zamani is formalized in Swahili language and culture. Sasa is "now," Zamani is "the limitless past" that includes the era of myth and creation.

And to reiterate, the past (Zamani) is not gone but serves as the foundation and "storehouse" for present and future experience.

Notice how all the above takes don't use the societal backed view of time. Hakuna cha “nikona meeting ya saa moja”, “masaa ya lunch” or “chai ya saa kumi” (yes I had to use that example). They all agree that time is not an abstract container but a participatory reality, intimately connected to life, community, and the spiritual world. A Spiral, Not a Line: their notions of time are often described as a spiral that integrates both linear and cyclical dimensions, reflecting the natural rhythms of life. Ergo you "Make" Time, Not "Spend" It: bc time is the product of human and environmental activity. You don’t watch the clock; you experience time through events like births, graduations and other ceremonies. This challenges the idea of "wasting" an abstract substance because time is not a commodity to be spent.

This entire breakdown in my opinion removes all the pressures that surround how we view time and the take away I feel should be being free to “make” time on what we deem fit and yes I do realize the contradiction of it all, we all have places we have to be at at different times of day and obligations to meet, but what I'm suggesting is on a more personal level, that little window you have to yourself, don't spend that too worrying that you're “wasting” your time bc try as hard as you will, you can’t.

If you've reached the end consider subscribing, I write about random intrigues mostly from convos I have with myself 🤝🏾.

She spent most days alone, but not by choice. Word of her crimes had spread through the maximum-security prison like a stain. Even the most brutal killers wanted nothing to do with her. Some inmates went out of their way to steal whatever they could from her cell. Once, she almost got shanked in the shower block. For her safety, they segregated her to a wing filled with child molesters and organ traffickers—a company that only deepened her isolation.

The prison guards offered no mercy. They subjected her to random strip searches, their gloved hands rough and clinical. They berated her at the slightest hesitation, twisting her compliance into defiance. None of her church friends ever came to visit. The only letter she received arrived a week ago—cold, official, informing her that she had been stripped of her canon status. Even Jax had written her off entirely. He hadn’t visited once.

She cried herself to sleep most nights, the weight of her actions settling deep into her bones. In the darkness, she would sometimes think: If only I had treated Reya differently. If only I had accepted her as she was. But the thought never lasted. The guilt swallowed it whole.

Her cell was a grim box of concrete and rust. The sink in the corner was stained brown, its basin crusted with layers of filth from previous occupants who had used it as a toilet. The drain gave off a low, sour stench that never left, even when she scrubbed until her knuckles bled. The toilet barely flushed; when it did, it overflowed, spilling a dark, foul water across the floor. She had complained once. The guard had laughed.

In the beginning, she had told herself she was strong enough to face the consequences with God guiding her. She knelt beside the reeking toilet each night, hands clasped, lips moving in prayer. But gradually, the prayers grew shorter. She had begun to wonder if God was even listening. Now, six months in, she had shed half her weight. Her cheekbones jutted like blades. Her skin hung loose on her frame. She was a shadow of the woman who had once stood before a mirror, adjusting her earrings and shrugging off the death of her daughter.

One random morning, she said her final prayer—a whisper to a ceiling that gave nothing back. Then she tied her bedsheet to the grilled door and stepped off.

The guards found her swinging, her body limp, her face already slack. They cut her down without ceremony, dragging her by the arms and ankles through the corridor toward the morgue. Her body bumped against the concrete floor, her head lolling, one shoe falling off and left behind.

From their cells, the other prisoners watched. Some leaned against their bars, their eyes cold and amused. Others sneered, muttering under their breath. A few laughed.

She was gone.

The prison swallowed her name like it had never been spoken.

This is the final part of my book A LOVE THAT WOULD KILL HER.. came by in retrospection bc I felt the reader, ya’all, needed to see Dorris pay penance to what she out Reya thru. Maybe I was to harsh with her character lol, but it's fitting, no?

Also a reminder is the whole book is based off of a real story, a Kenyan girl Reina who her own mom did actually send men to assault her bc she was gay. So this was my attempt to increase awareness on the matter and reduce the stigma around it. If you fw this, lemme know if you'd buy it if I published.

“Mom, we’re running late,” Jax called out.

Dorris stood before the TV screen, using its dark glass as a mirror to adjust her kitenge. She was smoothing the fabric over her hips, making final adjustments for a church function, when her phone buzzed.

“Just a minute, baby,” she said, picking it up. She put it on speaker, freeing her hands to fasten her earrings.

“Is this Dorris, Reya’s mother?” A voice came through—flat, bureaucratic, stripped of warmth.

“This is she. Who is this, and what is this about?” Her reply was clipped, impatient, as if the call was already a nuisance.

“It’s regarding your daughter, Reya.” The voice continued, a practiced monotone that had delivered this news too many times before. Jax moved closer, his neck craning toward the phone, his sister’s name snagging his attention.

“Yes? What about her?” Dorris’s voice was ice.

“I’m sorry to inform you that she passed away earlier this afternoon from a drug overdose. My condolences for your loss.”

The line went dead.

Dorris sniffed. She set the phone down, then stepped forward to get a better look at herself. She tilted her head, adjusted an earring, ran a palm over her kitenge.

“Well,” she said, her voice flat, almost bored. “At least I don’t have a gay daughter anymore. I can always make another one.”

The news hit Jax like a blade slipping between his ribs—cold, sudden, deep. He staggered backward, grabbing a chair because his legs had turned to water. His twin sister was dead. Hot tears carved tracks down his face without his permission, each one a small admission of something he’d tried to bury. Guilt coiled in his chest, heavy as wet sand, pulling him under. And beneath it, something else—a slow, building heat. Rage.

His mother’s callousness disgusted him. It resurrected Reya’s accusations from days before, screaming at him now, louder than he could ignore. Could it be true? He wiped his tears away, jaw clenched. He wouldn’t let his mother see him mourn the sister she had demonized.

From his seat, his heart hammering, his hands trembling, he spoke. “Mom.” His voice was tight, strained. “Do you know anything about Reya being raped a few days ago?” He held his breath, dreading the answer.

“No.” She didn’t even turn. She walked to the fireplace, adjusting the stupid award on the mantel, smoothing her headwrap as if the conversation was an inconvenience. “I was teaching her an important lesson. That she couldn’t be a homosexual—not in this house. I guess she decided to end her pathetic life rather than conform to my perfectly reasonable request.” She shrugged, indignation thick in her voice, as if she had been the wronged one.

Jax’s stomach turned. A cold, hard certainty settled in his bones. She had sent them. His own mother.

He couldn’t speak. He could barely breathe. He just sat there, staring at her, as the world tilted and refused to right itself.

Without a word, he forced his legs to carry him outside. Then the dam broke. Jax sobbed—a raw, ugly sound that tore from his chest and scraped against the still afternoon air. Reya hadn’t deserved any of it. Not his failure to support her. Not his mother’s cruelty. Now, stripped of the poison his mother had fed him, he saw it clearly: her only crime had been love. She and Teana had been happy, hurting no one. Their love had been pure, inspiring—something to be cherished, not destroyed.

It was too late to save his sister. But it wasn’t too late to do something about it.

He called Tee. He heard Ray’s voice in the background. Through tears, she confirmed the worst—every gory detail—and spilled the contents of Reya’s note. The weight of it all pressed down on him, a crushing mass that pinned him to the spot, each memory a fresh stone added to the pile. If only he had believed Reya. If only he had been there.

But regret was a luxury he couldn’t afford. A new resolve hardened in his chest—cold, sharp, and unyielding.

He wiped his face, steadied his breathing, and went back inside. “I’ll drive. We’ll get there faster than with your slow driving.”

“Just get us there in one piece,” Dorris replied as they headed for the car.

Wasike opened the gate, and off they left.

They drove for a while before Jax made a hard right turn, the car wobbling before settling back onto the road. “Where are you taking us, Jax?” Dorris’s voice carried an edge of anxiety.

“It’s much faster this way. Just relax, Mom.”

Her apprehension eased for only a moment before Jax pulled into the entrance of the Central Police Station—the afternoon sun beating down on the concrete yard, the gate groaning open, the smell of diesel and old paperwork drifting from the open doors.

“What is the meaning of this?” Dorris’s tough mask finally cracked, her voice rising into something raw and unfamiliar.

“I’m sorry, Mom. I can’t let you get away with what you did to Reya.” His voice was thick with pain, each word a shard of glass in his throat.

Through the windshield, Ray approached with two officers. Dorris saw them and snapped. Her palm connected with Jax’s cheek—a sharp, stinging crack that echoed in the car. “How could you?” she hissed.

He took the blow silently. It wasn’t enough. Not for the brother he’d been. Not for the sister he’d failed. But it was a start.

A female officer opened Dorris’s door, her voice flat and official as she read the charges. A moment later, cuffs clicked around Dorris’s wrists. Her screams cut through the afternoon air—high, ragged, a sound that had never lived in her polished, church‑going voice before. She thrashed, her kitenge twisting, her earrings catching the harsh midday glare as they dragged her toward the station’s heavy doors. Her shrieks faded into the fluorescent hum of the building, swallowed by the cold, indifferent walls.

Ray leaned into the driver’s side window. “Thank you for the call, Jax. We’ll grill her for the accomplices. I’ll do everything in my power to make sure they all serve the maximum sentence.”

Jax stared ahead, his hands still gripping the wheel. “Reya deserves that much.” His voice was firm, but his eyes were wet.

Wasike had given his account—how the three men, now handcuffed alongside Dorris, had come several evenings to confer with her inside the house before leaving. The investigation had been a public spectacle; cameras flashed, journalists crowded the hallway, and even international organizations had followed the case. Now the court had adjourned and reconvened for sentencing.

The courtroom fell into a hush as the judge banged his gavel.

“The details of this case are harrowing,” the presiding judge began, his voice rolling through the packed room, spilling into the hallway where onlookers pressed against the doors. “In all my years on the bench, I have rarely encountered a mother capable of such monstrous cruelty toward her own flesh and blood. Young Reya’s life was stolen not in a single moment, but in a slow, deliberate dismantling—by the very woman who should have been her protector. She was hunted, violated, and finally broken by the one person who was meant to shelter her from harm.”

He paused, letting the weight of his words settle over the silent courtroom.

“My heart breaks for the promise of Reya—a life cut short, a future erased. The brutality she endured is not merely a crime against her, but a stain on all of us. It is a profound shame that we, as a society, sometimes love our children only when they fit our image of them. Shame on us.”

His voice dropped lower, now trembling with restrained fury. “Let this verdict serve as a warning: a mother’s love is not a weapon. And those who wield it as one will face the full weight of the law.”

The room was still. Not a single cough. Not a single whisper.

Will the defendants rise,” the court clerk instructed.

The courtroom held its breath.

“In the case of the first defendant, Dorris Mbaya, this court finds you guilty of one count of aiding and abetting rape. The court sentences you to twenty‑five years in prison without the possibility of parole.”

Dorris broke down—a sound Jax had never heard from her before. A guttural, wrenching sob that seemed to splinter something inside her polished shell. His own tears fell freely now, for Reya, for the sister he’d failed. Beside him, Bobo reached for his hand and rubbed it gently. Across the row, Ray pulled Tee into a tight embrace, her shoulders shaking against his chest.

“In the case of the second, third, and fourth defendants, this court finds you guilty of one count of rape and one count of aggravated battery. The court sentences you to life imprisonment for the first count, and ten years for the second—sentences to run concurrently. Get them out of my courtroom.”

The gavel fell—a crack like a whip, final and absolute.

The three convicts were led away through the farthest door, their faces blank, their shackles clinking with every step. The judge rose and exited. Then the courtroom erupted—a clamor of voices, the shuffle of feet, journalists jostling for position.

But Tee, Jax, Ray, and Bobo remained seated.

For a long moment, no one spoke. The victory felt hollow, its weight too heavy to celebrate.

Then they rose and stepped out into the hallway. It was almost empty, save for a handful of journalists hungry for a headline. Camera flashes streaked their faces as they walked hand in hand, a small, defiant unit moving toward the waiting crowd outside.

“What does this sentence mean to you?” one asked.

“Do you feel justice was served here today?” another followed.

The friends strode forward, ignoring the questions, a tangle of emotions knotting in their chests.

“We did it,” Ray said, his voice barely a whisper—a sound that seemed to surprise even him.

Jax nodded, staring at his own hands. “It doesn’t bring her back.” The words came through gritted teeth, each one a sliver of glass.

“No,” Tee said softly. “But it means her story doesn’t end with her.”

“She lives through us now,” Bobo added.

They stopped, drawing into a tight circle. Arms wrapped around shoulders, foreheads almost touching. For a moment, they held each other—not as activists, not as survivors of a trial, but as four people who had loved one woman and refused to let her become a footnote.

A camera flashed somewhere behind them, but no one flinched.

They didn’t break apart. They held on, and the flash faded into the hum of the afternoon.

Now in front of them, outside the courthouse, a living tide of people had gathered—waves of white t‑shirts and rainbow flags, handwritten placards bobbing above the crowd like prayers.

Jax broke away from the group. He walked down the steps and disappeared into the throng, his head turning, scanning. Tee, Ray, and Bobo followed him with their eyes until they saw what—who—he was looking for. Their jaws went slack when Jax grabbed a young man by the front of his shirt and kissed him.

Tee thought she recognized the boy—one of Jax’s work buddies she’d met once, briefly. She smiled. Beside her, Ray and Bobo did the same. The crowd erupted—a swell of cheers or a roar that rolled through the streets, carrying the moment into something larger than any of them.

Reya’s story had made her a symbol. Supporters from the LGBTQ+ community and its allies stretched out before them, filling the streets, spilling onto pavements, choking traffic. Motorists honked and waved. People wore white t‑shirts emblazoned with messages: Love is love. Happiness is all that matters. One tribe, one pride.

Tears pricked Tee’s eyes. All this love—posthumous, but real. Reya would have been moved to see it. To know that her life had brought all these people together. To know that even Jax—who had hidden for so long—was no longer afraid to be himself in front of the world.

The trio atop the stairs raised their joined hands in solidarity. The crowd below answered with a roar. Cameras flashed, a thousand brief suns. And from the masses rose a single, unified chant, growing louder with each repetition:

Reya. Reya. Reya.

The chant still hung in the air as Tee approached the podium. The crowd hushed. Motorists, stranded with no way ahead, climbed atop their vehicles and joined in—some recording the historic, one‑of‑a‑kind event unfolding before them.

“It is deeply gutting that the woman I loved, Reya, had to die for the plight of people like me to be heard,” Tee began, her voice clear and strong, reverberating over the PA system, carrying four blocks into the city. “Today’s victory was born from backward, primitive bigotry. But today, we say, ‘No more!’” She thrust a fist into the air, and the crowd answered with a roaring wave of approval.

“Therefore, I urge you all—live your truth, as Reya did. Love truly and fiercely, in her memory. She is gone… but she is never forgotten.” Tee looked up toward the heavens, a soft smile breaking through. “Reya, I know you’re watching, smiling down on us. I love you, baby. I always will.”

She turned her gaze back to the crowd, her expression fierce with determined love.

“Say her name!” she urged.

The crowd answered, a thousand voices rising like a single wave.

As Tee, Ray, and Bobo made their way through the throng, the setting sun spilled its golden haze over the scene, painting the white t‑shirts in amber and rose. Strangers reached out to touch their shoulders, to clasp their hands. Tears and smiles blurred together. Ray kept a steady arm around Tee. Beside them, Jax walked between his partner and Bobo, hands clasped, his chin lifted—the weight of the years finally sliding from his shoulders like a coat he no longer needed.

Behind them, the courthouse stood quiet, its walls hollow now. Ahead, the crowd parted like a sea, and the sun sank lower, bleeding gold and crimson across the sky.

Somewhere in the warmth of that light, a voice from the crowd began it—soft at first, then swelling:

Long live Reya.

And then another. And another. Until the whole square echoed with it, a promise carried into the dusk.

Long live Reya!

The next two days bled into each other—a thick, grey slurry of hours that refused to sharpen into morning or night. Reya had emailed work, asked for time off, then drifted between the bed and the bathroom, and sometimes just the floor, where the carpet fibers etched their pattern into her cheek. The mirror had become a stranger’s face. She started taking the long way around the dresser—any path that kept her from catching her own reflection: the matted locks, the cracked lips, the dark smear on her hoodie from the noodles she’d heaved back up.

Sleep refused to stay. She’d jerk awake, her sheets soaked, skin clammy with cold sweat, the three vile faces crowding behind her eyelids every time she dared to close them. Each breath was a shallow, grudging thing—air that had already been breathed, empty of anything that could fill her. The walls of her studio apartment held the outside at bay, but they also held her in—a lock she’d turned from the inside. What lay beyond her door had turned into rumor: sunlight, traffic, the distant bark of a neighbor’s dog—none of it real enough to touch. Even the birds, whose morning songs had once lifted something in her, now sounded like a needle stuck in the same scratched groove, grating and endless.

Last night, she’d finally reached Tee. She blamed her drained voice on a flu—lied through her teeth—and prayed Tee believed her. Reya couldn’t bring herself to unload any of it over the phone. The only thing keeping her tethered was the weekend, when Tee was supposed to come back. But then Tee’s parents decided to extend their trip another week. Visit other relatives. Reya hadn’t thought her spirit could sink any lower. It did. She needed Tee here—her hands, her silence, her just being there. The ache in her ribs clawed back to life. Whatever scraps of joy had survived the past days withered and fell away, leaving behind a hollow that buzzed with nothing.

Ray and Bobo came the second day. They brought bags of groceries—vegetables she wouldn’t cook, bread that would go stale, oranges she’d never peel. Bobo set them on the kitchen counter, then stood there, her hands hovering over the clutter, unsure where to start. The apartment had turned feral. Dishes in the sink, clothes on the floor, the smell of unwashed sheets and stale sweat hanging thick in the air. For someone who once washed her hands after touching a doorknob, the squalor was its own kind of rot—the smell of something inside her dying by inches.

Bobo picked up a sweater from the floor and folded it. Ray tried to coax her outside. “Just for ten minutes. Air.” Reya shook her head against the pillow. She didn’t say that outside was where the field lived, where the dark had teeth. She didn’t say that her bones still remembered hands.

They stayed an hour. Maybe two. Bobo scrubbed the bathroom sink until it shone again, washed the dishes that would likely stay clean and untouched. Slowly, the apartment began to resemble something other than a crime scene of the soul. The grime retreated, the clutter sighed into piles, and for a breath, it almost felt like a home again—not the kind of sterile, unlived-in space she’d once kept, but a truce between her former self and this hollowed‑out version.

Ray sat on the edge of her bed, not touching her, just present. He mentioned something about a new job in the courts—or maybe he hadn’t, and her fractured mind was filling in the gaps. When they left, they kissed her forehead—two pairs of lips, two different shades of worry. The door clicked shut. The stillness rushed back in, thicker than before.

She didn’t turn on the lights. She didn’t open the curtains. Evening was still leaking through the blinds, but she lay in the dim, watching shadows crawl across the ceiling, letting the hours bury her deeper.

Something dark pulled her up from the floor—not a thought, just a current. Her limbs moved without her permission, carrying her to the dresser. She sat in the chair in front of the mirror, then flicked on the small lamp, its light barely pushing back the gloom. Behind her, the room stayed in shadow—the shadow of everything she was running from. She didn’t look back. Afraid it would grab her.

Her hands reached for one thing, then another. Then her eyes met the eyes in the mirror.

She was really going to do this.

The weight of the past days pressed down on her, and the present, and the future she couldn’t imagine—like Sisyphus with the rock, but the hill had no top. Moving on felt impossible. This was the only way.

She wasn’t sad for herself. Her mind had already made peace. She was sad for Tee. For Ray. Even for Bobo, a little.

A tear dropped onto the paper she’d scribbled on. She set the note aside, then picked up the bottle of oxycodone left over from her arm injury. She shook the pills into her palm—enough to send a horse into a dreamless void. Enough to silence everything.

She sobbed again. A wretched, guttural sound. Then she stared at the pills, weighing the irreversible.

She simply could not keep on living. Not like this. None of it was fair—not her mother, who had turned out to be something worse than cruel; not her brother, who had sold her out; not losing her father, the only one who ever saw her. Yet all of it had happened. How was she supposed to win a game that had been rigged from the first move?

Her eyes found the mirror. Her hand found the silver locket. She stroked its cool surface, the metal a tiny anchor to a time when she’d still believed in soft things. At least this way, she’d see her father again. At least this way, the pain would stop—every bad feeling, every knot in her chest, every bruise that wouldn’t fade. Nothingness held no memories. Nothingness couldn’t hurt her.

She dropped the pills into a cup of water. Swirled. Drank. The liquid was bitter, but no more than everything else she’d swallowed over the past days.

Her eyes rolled back. She slid from the chair, her body folding, and was unconscious before she hit the floor—the impact a dull, distant thud she never felt.

Just minutes away, in the back of a cab, Tee was closing in on Reya’s place. She hadn’t called—wanted to surprise her. She’d lied to her parents about ongoing classes, but the truth was simpler: ever since that phone call, something had felt wrong. Not just Reya’s voice, which had been thin and hollow, but her whole presence, even through the line. Maybe the flu she’d claimed was worse than she’d let on. Tee didn’t care if she caught it. She just needed to be there.

She caught herself leaning forward in the seat, willing the driver to press harder on the gas.

Finally, the cab stopped. She took the stairs two at a time, her heart already pounding, though she didn’t know why.

“Baby?” she called out, just outside the door. She tried the latch. It swung open—unlocked.

“I’m back!” she announced, stepping inside. She bent to unlace her shoes, not yet looking up. When she straightened and took two steps into the dim room, she saw her.

Reya lay crumpled on the floor, motionless. The half‑empty bottle of oxycodone lay on its side beside her, a few white pills scattered near her hand.

Tee’s breath stopped. Then came a sound she’d never made before—a raw, broken cry that seemed to claw its way out of somewhere deep, somewhere she hadn’t known existed. The care package slipped from her hands as she scrambled forward, dropping to her knees beside Reya.

“Oh, baby, get up! Baby, please!” Her voice pitched into panic. She pressed two fingers against Reya’s neck, searching for a pulse—anything. There it was: faint, thready, barely there. She dialed 911, then Ray. Her words dissolved into hysterical sobs, each syllable swallowed by the next.

She scooped up the medication bottle and the piece of paper lying beside Reya. The medics would need the first. The second… she dreaded what was written on it. She folded the note into her pocket without reading it. In true Kenyan style, Ray arrived before the ambulance—braking hard, leaving rubber on the tarmac.

He heaved Reya onto his back in a piggyback and started down the stairs, just as the first faint wail of a siren cut through the night air. By the time they reached the ground floor, the ambulance was pulling up. They loaded her inside. Ray was fast, but the ambulance was faster.

They climbed into the back with her, and the ambulance tore off, sirens shredding the night. The hospital was only five minutes away, but each second felt like a held breath about to burst.

Tee clutched Reya’s limp hand. “Wake up, baby. Please.” Her voice was a cracked whisper, the kind that comes from a place already expecting the worst.

The EMTs worked fast—needles, naloxone, shouts. One of them pumped Reya’s chest, counting under his breath. The other ripped open her hoodie, placed the pads. “We’re losing her! Hand me the defibrillator!”

“Charging! Clear!”

The first jolt threw Reya’s body against the gurney. Nothing. A second. A third. The machine beeped a flat, final line.

“No! No, no, no! Do it again!” Tee lunged for the machine, wild‑eyed, her hand reaching for the paddles. Ray caught her, wrapped his arms around her from behind, and pulled her into his chest. She fought him for a second, then collapsed, her sobs muffled against his shirt.

He held her tight, his own face crumpling. His shoulders began to shake.

The paramedic straightened up, his voice suddenly empty of urgency, replaced by a sterile, practiced calm. “I’m sorry. There’s nothing more we can do.”

A pause. Then the words that would live in Tee’s ears forever:

“Time of death, 9:49 PM.”

The ambulance didn’t take them to the ER. It rolled to a stop at the back of the hospital, where the morgue entrance gaped like a dark mouth. Tee and Ray climbed out, their bodies heavy, their faces hollow—two figures carved from the same stone of defeat. They stood locked in each other’s arms, the night air cold and indifferent around them. Overhead, a single security light buzzed, flickering, casting their shadows long and broken on the asphalt.

Two attendants pulled the gurney out. Reya lay under a white sheet, already claimed by the stillness.

Tee broke free from Ray and rushed forward. She yanked back the sheet. Reya’s face was slack, lips already fading to grey. Tee pressed her palm against Reya’s cold cheek—the skin stiff, waxy—then leaned in and placed one last, impossibly gentle kiss on her lips. She felt nothing kiss back.

Her heart didn’t just break. It didn’t shatter. It turned to dust in her chest, fine and gray, the kind that would never hold together again.

Tee stumbled back to the bench and collapsed beside Ray. Bobo had just arrived—her face pale, her mouth opening and closing without sound. She sat down next to them, and the three of them leaned into one another, their shared grief a heavy, living thing pressing down on their chests. Each was a blanket for the other, thin and threadbare but holding.

Then Tee remembered the note.

She wiped her eyes and pulled it from her pocket. The paper was warped, streaked with dried tears, the ink smudged in places—a map of Reya’s final hours. She unfolded it with trembling hands and began to read aloud.

With every word, their faces changed. First confusion. Then disbelief. Then a slow, creeping rage that tightened their jaws and curled their fingers into fists. The note detailed everything. And at the bottom, Reya had written that she’d recorded the phone call—the one where she confronted their mother. The proof was out there, waiting.

When Tee finished reading, the silence that followed was not empty. It was thick and hot, filled with the weight of what they now knew.

“How can a mother do this to her own flesh and blood?” Bobo asked. The words hung in the cold air, not meant for anyone in particular, just the night itself.

Tee turned to Ray, her voice suddenly hard. “Did you know about this?”

He couldn’t meet her eyes. Guilt crawled up his throat, thick and sour. He managed a nod. Then: “She didn’t want to ruin your family time. She wanted to tell you face‑to‑face. I think she just… reached her tipping point. Me with the new job, you extending your vacation—she couldn’t take any more of it alone. I don’t support what she did, but God, Tee…” His voice cracked. “I don’t blame her. She’s been through more hell in the last two months than most people see in a lifetime.”

“Typical of her.” Tee’s voice softened, a sad, fond smile breaking through her tears. “Always putting everyone else before herself.” Then her voice splintered. “I’ll miss her, Ray.”

Beside Ray, Bobo was silently sobbing, her shoulders shaking.

“I know,” Ray whispered. He pulled Tee into a tight embrace, his chest heaving. “Me too.”

When they pulled apart, something had shifted in Tee’s face—the grief hardening into a cold, sharp edge. Ray’s expression mirrored hers, his jaw set like stone.

“Don’t worry.” Ray’s voice was low, steady, each word a small blade. “We’re going to bury that bitch and her accomplices in litigation. They’ll spend the rest of their miserable lives in a four‑by‑six cell.”

They sat there, the three of them, on the cold concrete bench outside the morgue. No one moved to get up. No one reached for a phone. No one called a cab. The night pressed in around them, thick and indifferent, the same indifferent night that had watched Reya fall. Somewhere behind them, the hospital hummed with its own quiet machinery—life going on, oblivious.

None of them wanted to leave. Because leaving would mean admitting that she was really gone. That the space beside them—on the bench, in the world—would stay empty. And they weren’t ready to say goodbye to the void her absence had already carved into them.

The stairs to the third floor stretched into an endless, punishing climb—each step a fresh wound, her thighs screaming, her bare feet leaving faint prints of dirt and dried blood on the cold concrete. Somehow, she reached her door. She fumbled with the padlock, her fingers thick and useless, the keys slipping twice before she managed to turn the lock. The padlock clattered to the floor. So did the keys.

As soon as she crossed the threshold, her strength failed. She crumpled onto the carpet—not a collapse, but a quiet giving‑up. Every sinew let go. She lay there, her cheek pressed into the coarse fibers, the smell of dust and her own sweat filling her nose. She couldn’t make it to her bed. The thought of climbing those few feet was a mountain she had no strength to scale.

She wept. Not the quiet, dignified tears of grief—raw, animal sobs that tore from her throat, leaving it ragged. She cried until her lungs ached, until her eyes burned dry, until nothing remained inside her but a ringing, empty silence.

Then she lay still, staring at the wall. The white paint offered no answers, no comfort, no god. It was just a wall. And she was just a vessel emptied of everything but the memory of hands and the echo of laughter.

Nothing right now would help. Nothing. She had died a little in that field—the part of her that still expected the world to be safe. It didn’t make the climb up the stairs. It wasn’t coming back.

She grabbed her phone, her fingers trembling over the keys. She dialed, hesitated, almost hung up—then pressed call before she could change her mind. Ray picked up on the first ring. The sound of his voice undid whatever had been holding her together, and she dissolved into sobs, raw and ugly, her whole body shaking.

“Ray,” she choked out, the word barely a whisper between heaving breaths.

“What’s wrong, Reya? Where are you?” His voice was tight with worry, already putting pieces together.

“H-Home,” she stammered.

“I’ll be right over, okay?” He didn’t wait for an answer. The line went dead.

She curled into a ball on the carpet, her face pressed into her arms, her eyes already swollen shut from crying. The silence of the apartment pressed down on her like a second weight.

Ray lived across town, but he made it to her place in five minutes—running red lights, swerving through traffic, his knuckles white on the steering wheel, every second a small eternity. He didn’t care about tickets. He didn’t care about anything except the sound of her voice on the phone.

The door was unlocked. He stepped inside, and the air hit him—stale, heavy, wrong. He took one look at Reya’s tattered clothes, the shreds of what had been a neat blouse and khakis, the apocalyptic version of the woman who’d smiled on her WhatsApp status just hours ago. Then his eyes found her face.

It was swollen. Bruised. Handprints still visible on her cheeks like crimson stamps. Fresh tears cut tracks through the mess of it all.

He crossed the room and crouched beside her, pulling her into his arms. She didn’t resist—just collapsed into him, her frame trembling as if the ground were still moving. He held her there on the carpet, his jaw knotted, his ribs filled with hot coals, as she whispered what had happened in grim, halting fragments. The details carved into him like a blade, each word a new cut. His face grew hot. His eyes stung. But he didn’t interrupt. He just held her tighter.

When she finished, he wiped the wetness from his own eyes with the back of his hand. Then he pulled her close again, and said nothing—because there were no words for what she’d survived, only presence.

He stood. “I’ll drive you to a hospital. There’s got to be one open, even this late.” She looked at him—straight through him, really. Her eyes were open, but she wasn’t there.

“You’ll need a change of clothes, love.” He walked to her wardrobe, grabbed a pair of sweats and a hoodie. He helped her up, and every movement pulled a small groan from her lips, a wince that creased her swollen face. I’ll get the bastards who did this to her, he swore to himself, his jaw tight, a fist of fury already tightening behind his ribs. He eased her into the clothes.

She could barely stand on her own, her body limp and heavy, he lifted her—cradling her against his chest, her head lolling against his shoulder—and carried her to his car. He drove off with no specific hospital in mind, just the nearest one that would take her, that would do a rape kit.

On the way, he kept glancing at Reya. She sat beside him, hollowed out—the night had already carved something out of her that she’d never get back. Her gaze fixed on the dark outside the window as if she were waiting for it to flinch first. The steering wheel groaned under his grip, and a low, steady burn in his chest—a wrath with no outlet but down the road ahead.

After the procedure and a dose of PEP, they drove to the police station to get an OB number. The moment they stepped into the reporting desk, a voice barked from the back: “Nyamazeni ama nije hapo niwanyamazishe mwenyewe.” An officer was banging his baton against a locked grilled door—behind it, the holding cells. Ray led Reya to a bench and sat her down. The officer turned but didn’t see them. His eyes were glued to his phone, scrolling, chuckling low at whatever video was playing. Ray caught the name on his tag: Private Abdi. Looked like a rookie. Had the demeanor of one. And from the looks of it, he was alone on this graveyard shift.

“Ofisa,” Ray called.

“Mwataka niwasaidie vipi?” The officer barely glanced up, his face a mask of indifference, then went back to his phone.

Ray’s patience curdled. He’d seen it before—public institutions draped in the same languid apathy, the same contempt for anyone who walked through their doors.

“My friend needs an OB.” Ray pointed behind him to Reya. The officer didn’t look up. His finger kept swiping. Something hot and tight coiled low in Ray’s stomach. He kept a lid on it—barely.

“OB sio? Ukona shi ngapi?” The officer finally walked to the desk, sat down, and put his phone away. His gaze drifted past Ray, and his features softened at the prospect of a bribe—a few shillings to grease his own conscience.

“Huh?” The word escaped Ray’s mouth before he could stop it. Rage boiled up his throat, thick and sour. The officer looked at Reya, then back at Ray, and shrugged—the gesture a silent reprise of his demand.

Ray had the money. Hell, he’d have paid the bastard his whole year’s salary right then. But he was in no mood for this normalized rot.

The officer didn’t see it coming. In one step, Ray was around the desk, both hands gripping the man’s collar, hauling him up onto his tiptoes—and still Ray towered over him.

“OB. Now.” Ray’s voice was low, flat, the kind of calm that sits just before a fist connects. He didn’t give a damn about the CCTV cameras. That was tomorrow’s problem. Only Reya mattered now.

The officer tried to pull free, then saw the futility. “Sawa basi kaka, nishakuskia.” Ray loosened one arm but kept the other clamped tight—just enough to let Abdi reach for the document. Ray fed him the details, and the officer, eager to be rid of them, scribbled with shaking hands.

Ray snatched the paper from Abdi’s outstretched arm, then helped Reya out of that godforsaken lobby. Above them, the “Utumishi kwa wote” sigil on the wall read less like a pledge and more like a suggestion. From the cells, the prisoners cheered—rising in a wave of hoots and whistles that followed them all the way to the door.

Reya couldn’t stay alone that night, so they drove back to his place. As he replayed her account in his head, one detail kept curdling in his gut—the possibility that her mother had a hand in it. Reya hadn’t wanted to tell the police that part yet. Ray respected it. She’d said she wanted to call Jax in the morning, confirm something first.

Bobo heard them pull up and met them at the door. She didn’t plague them with questions. She knew better. One of the many things Ray loved about her. Their brief exchange at The Hub had grown into something real—new, but steady. He couldn’t remember ever being this content with anyone, this devoted.

Bobo ran Reya a bath and washed her while she sat in the tub like a mannequin—limp, vacant, letting herself be handled. She made soup too, but Reya couldn’t bring herself to eat. After Bobo went to bed, Ray kept watch. He sat on the floor beside the futon, watching Reya drift in and out of fitful sleep. She kept flinching, small twitches, as if her nerves still thought the assault was ongoing. But he knew it was her mind that was the real warzone—a chaos she couldn’t wake up from.

He’d eventually fallen asleep—a couple of hours, maybe. He woke to the sound of Reya stirring. The sun was just beginning to rise, its first weak rays struggling to light the living room. Sometime in the night, Bobo had draped a blanket over him. She was already by Reya’s side, a glass of water in her hand.

“How do you feel?” Bobo asked after Reya swallowed the pills.

“Like a train ran over me. Over and over.” Reya’s voice was hoarse, but her face was less swollen than the night before.

Ray moved closer, his voice soft. “Do you want me to call Tee?”

Reya’s eyes flooded—tears welling, clinging, but none fell. “No. Not yet. She’s at a family function. I can’t ruin that with… this.” Her voice cracked, and then she broke. Ray wrapped her in a warm embrace. Bobo rested her head on Reya’s shoulder, the three of them holding the silence together.

On her insistence, Ray took Reya back home—though every fiber of him wanted to refuse. He promised to check in every hour.

When she was finally alone, she climbed into bed and pulled the duvet up to her chest. Her limbs begged for rest, but her brain refused to comply. Flashes of the previous night replayed on a loop—a bad tape in a broken VCR, each frame a fresh cut. She mustered what little composure she had, fighting back the nausea and fatigue from the medication. Then she called Jax.

“Is Mom home?”

She heard Dorris’s voice in the background. Before Jax could answer, Reya added, “Hand her the phone.” Her tone left no room for argument.

Jax handed it over. Dorris didn’t bother with hello.

“Did you get my gift?” Her voice dripped with something close to pride.

Reya’s knees buckled. She had to sit—her legs had forgotten how to hold her. So it was true. Her own mother had sent those men to defile her, to prove a point. Her already fractured heart crumbled to ash in her chest.

“What gift?” Reya managed, desperate for a denial she knew wouldn’t come.

“The three men were the gift. So that in nine months, you’ll either give me a grandchild, or at the very least, I’ll know you’ve corrected your ways.” Dorris’s voice was cold, indignant—a mother passing judgment from a throne of twisted righteousness.

Reya’s sorrow turned volcanic, swallowing her whole—then collapsed into a dumbfounded silence. She couldn’t find the thread that connected cruelty to any kind of logic.

“Mom, did you really send men to rape me—to teach me a moral lesson about who I love?” The words tore out of her, raw and bleeding.

The irony was lost on Dorris. Her homophobia was a wall so thick no reason could breach it.

“I didn’t send them to assault you,” she corrected, her tone icy. “I sent them to teach you that being a lesbian is not acceptable in this household.”

Reya hung up. No point in listening anymore—no need to let her mother’s words keep scraping at a wound still wet and open. She sobbed, her chest convulsing, each breath a blade. The hurt, the treachery, the violation—all of it piled into a single, crushing weight that pinned her to the bed. A grief without bottom, without name. The kind that doesn’t pass; it just waits.

When her body finally stopped betraying her—when the tremors eased and her throat went raw from crying—she called Jax again. He needed to know what his betrayal had unleashed. She got up from the bed and paced, her bare feet cold on the floor, waiting for him to pick up. After a few rings, he did.

“Why did you tell Mom about Tee and me? She sent three men after me.” Tears stung her eyes. She stopped pacing, standing frozen in the middle of her room. “They raped me, Jax.” Her voice came out flat, scraped clean by contempt and grief.

“No way.” His tone was dismissive, almost bored. “Mom would never do that. Sure, she’s not your biggest fan, but this is a reach—even for you. Sounds like one of your attention‑seeking dramatics.”

Reya’s mind refused to accept what she was hearing. Her twin—her own blood—stood on the other side of that phone, wrapped in their mother’s version of truth, refusing to see the wreckage at her feet. Who would invent something like this? Who would claw open their own chest for attention? The question hung in the air, unanswered.

“Mom can be a bitter pill to swallow? Fine. But she isn’t capable of that kind of depravity.” He snickered, then added, “If you’re calling to pit me against her, don’t waste my time. Stop slandering her and get your act together, Reya.”

He hung up.

Her blood family had failed her. But she still had the family she’d chosen—Ray, of course, but especially Tee. She wished Tee were here. Even if her presence couldn’t undo what had happened, it would be something. But right now, her voice would have to suffice.

She dialed. Already, she could hear Tee’s voice in her head—warm, steady, the only anchor she had left. Instead, an automated recording told her the subscriber was unavailable. She tried again. A third time. Same dead, empty message.

She cursed at the phone, flung it onto the table. Cursed the shitty connection in the countryside. Cursed the gods she didn’t even believe in. cursed her own existence—the sheer useless cruelty of living through loss after loss, only to find there was always more waiting.

When her father died, she thought she’d hit rock bottom. Now she knew: rock bottom had a basement. And it was dark down here. Cold. Rank with the smell of her own despair. No light creeping through the cracks. No savior coming. Just her, the silence, and the quiet, terrifying thought that maybe—just maybe—there was a way to stop the noise in her head for good.

She didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just stared at the wall, and felt the idea sink into her marrow like a second skeleton she’d been carrying all along.

A week and a half after the altercation, Reya returned to her studies. The cast on her arm was a stark, jagged reminder—but not enough to let the semester slip away. Her mother’s parting words still echoed in her skull: “This is the last semester I pay for unless you abandon that disgraceful lifestyle.” As if loving Tee was a bad habit she could drop like a cough you could choke down.

So Reya seized the only way she knew how. Her mother’s ultimatum wasn’t an option. There was a thin cushion her father had set up for her—enough to keep her head above water, but not enough to breathe easy on. She’d need more. She switched her classes to night sessions and found a day job at a local golf club, landed through one of her father’s old connections. Even in death, he was still looking out for her.

The employers didn’t seem to mind the cast. They put her on payroll anyway. The pay was good—good enough that she wouldn’t have to depend on her mother’s stipend for much longer. Yes, the new schedule would chip away into her time with Tee. But they’d figure it out. They always did.

For a stretch, life had almost started to feel normal. Her cast finally came off. Her humerus hadn’t healed perfectly—the bone had settled at a slight angle—but it held. More importantly, she could work again. And she worked so well that she earned a promotion: better pay, and junior staff under her. She paid for her third‑year first semester tuition after her mother cut her off—and she was floating. Everything felt like it was inching toward solid ground: she’d grown used to night classes, carved out moments with Tee whenever she could. Weekends now meant double dates with Ray and Bobo—Bobo, who had somehow stuck around longer than any of Ray’s previous flings. Reya didn’t know how long it would last, but she could see a different swagger in him now. They could go out like real people: lazy afternoons in hidden courtyards, dinners where no one checked their phones for a better offer. No more random girls whose names Ray forgot by the time the bill came.

Then a sinister pattern began to coil around her life.

Over the last couple of weeks, the messages began to slither in. A private number. A stranger. The harassment campaign materialized out of nowhere—texts and emails, each one venomous than the last. At first, Reya tried to bury it under daily noise. Then she recruited Ray’s help. Then she went to the cops. A detective assigned to her case sent warrants to her mobile provider, hoping to unmask her digital tormentor.

Weeks passed. Silence from the tech company. No name. No face.

Reya lived beneath a dread that never fully slept. Tee and Ray helped her move apartments, but the person seemed to know her every move. How? The question gnawed at her.

She sat alone in the now‑deserted lecture hall, the fluorescent lights humming overhead, casting the empty seats in a sickly glow. Her phone buzzed. A new text.

“You can run, but you cannot hide, pretty lady.”

Her stomach lurched in her throat. She’d blocked the number three times already. He always switched lines—like a hydra, cut off one head and two more grew back. She was running out of shadows to fold herself into.

Her fingers brushed the cold shape of the stun gun in her bag. She’d bought it last week from a sketchy online store, after waking up at 3 AM convinced she’d heard someone trying the lock. She’d never held a weapon before. Never thought she’d need one. Now she checked the charge every night, half‑hoping she’d never have to use it, half‑terrified the moment would come anyway.

She ordered a cab, her thumb trembling over the app. What next? She had no answers. Only the weight of the stun gun and the echo of his laugh in her head.

A push notification sliced through her bleak fog, buzzing her phone alive. These days, she seemed stuck in an abyss she couldn’t claw out of. She grabbed her belongings and headed for the campus exit. Her every step on the unforgiving pavement echoed in her skull like a clock she couldn’t stop, each tick bringing her closer to the shape gathering in the dark ahead.

The cold night air bit her skin, raising goosebumps—a prickle of something she couldn’t name. She glanced up. The stars were outdoing themselves tonight, scattered like promises she couldn’t keep. Tee had taught her a few of the constellations. On any other night, this would have been perfect—the two of them, a blanket, the wide sky above. But Tee was halfway across the country, at her centenarian grandfather’s birthday. Another week before she’d feel whole again. Reya already missed her like a missing limb.

Outside the gates, the street was alive with revelers laughing, someone stumbling out of a bar, oblivious, with friends, couples holding hands. A girl walked past her chatting on her phone about a date, her voice light, unafraid. Reya watched them, a hot, bitter knot twisting in her chest. How did they get to live like that? Like the dark didn’t have teeth.

She forced herself forward. On high alert, she peered into the driver’s side to match the face on her app, then slid into the back seat. A sigh escaped her—she hadn’t realized she’d been holding it.

Her home was only a fifteen‑minute walk, but she wasn’t taking chances. Better safe than sorry. The cab pulled away, and she buried herself in TikTok videos, trying to drown out the static in her head.

When she finally looked up, the streets were wrong. Unfamiliar.

“This isn’t my way home.” Her voice came out thin, each word tight with dread.

“Avoiding traffic. We’ll be there soon.” He didn’t turn back. His eyes stayed fixed ahead on an unfamiliar dirt road.

She gripped her bag tighter, feeling the outline of her weapon. Still there. So was the knot in her stomach.

Finally, the driver took a turn into an open field. She squinted past the tinted window—and there, in the distance, the outline of her apartment building. The same field where, from her balcony, she sometimes watched local football matches on weekends. Her shoulders dropped. Her breath, which had been trapped somewhere beneath her ribs, finally eased out in a slow, silent exhale. She allowed herself to sink back into the seat, her stiff muscles unclenching one by one.

Then the car stopped dead in the middle of the field. The headlights went dark.

The right rear door swung open.

“Hi there, pretty lady.”

She knew it instantly—her tormentor from the texts. His brown, disfigured teeth looked even more grotesque in the moonlight. His cigarette‑charred lips curved into a blade, and his massive frame seemed to swallow the night around him. Another shadow appeared on the other side of the car—the man with the mouth full of ruin reached in to grab her just as her hand dove into her bag.

She started to scream, but a callused hand clamped over her mouth. She bit down. He only grunted. A blow to her ribs followed, knocking the air out of her. He flung her to the ground. Her bag skittered a few paces away, out of reach.

The heavy‑set man pinned her down, his leg a stiff, crushing weight across her back—she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. This field, where by day laughter echoed and bodies glistened with sweat from friendly matches, now lay silent and suffocating. A rough hand seized her shoulder and flipped her onto her back. She thrashed, tried to scream—but the sound died in her throat, swallowed by the dark.

No. No. No. She wasn’t dreaming. Nightmares didn’t leave bruises you could feel before they even landed.

“Let go of me.” Her muffled voice pleaded, tasting iron in her mouth. Her own blood? No—his. She’d bitten down hard enough to draw it, and now it was sliding down her throat.

“We come bearing gifts from your mother,” the driver said as he rounded the car, meeting her stare blank with disbelief. A cold weight dropped in her chest. The choice not to walk home—she’d played right into their hands. How had they known to get her on the exact day she’d veered from her routine? And what did he mean, gifts from her mother? A cold shiver raked through her as she thrashed in the dirt, powerless.

“She sent us to check on you. See if you’ve changed your ways.” The third man joined in. Confusion pricked at her like needles. A thick fog settled over her mind. The stun gun lay out of reach—not that it could help her fend off all three of them.

Her phone rang beside her. Tee. Probably calling to fill her in on her day, as she always did. Only Reya’s day was falling apart in real time. The fake cab driver picked it up, showing the screen to the others. The phone’s glow briefly illuminated faces carved with ulterior motives—cold, patient, hungry.

“Clearly you haven’t changed. Still talking to that Tee bitch, huh?” One of them flung her phone—she heard it clatter somewhere in the grass. “Time for your lesson.”

The field was pitch black, save for the half‑moon hanging overhead—a cold, indifferent witness. It watched, frozen, powerless to her plight. Silent sobs carved wet tracks down her cheeks.

They flipped her onto her back, one hand still clamped over her mouth. The third man pinned her thrashing legs. The driver stepped forward, grabbed her blouse, and tore it open—buttons skittering into the dark. Then her bra. The cold night air hit her bare skin like a slap. She felt their gazes crawling over her before a hand actually touched her chest. She winced. The back of a knuckle split her lip, the sting blooming before the taste of copper flooded her mouth. Now the blood in her mouth was her own.

“Please don’t do this.” Her voice was even more muffled now, swallowed by the palm over her lips. Tears dripped down her neck in a steady, silent stream.

A moment later, her khaki pants were yanked from her waist—panties with them—in one brutal motion. She fought, kicked, twisted, but their hands were everywhere, iron and unyielding.

“Your mom said you like women,” one grunted, then added, “Let’s see if this makes you rethink that.”

She heard jeans unzip—one by one—the metallic clink of belts hitting the ground, a sound that would haunt her forever. Then came their laughs. Low, thick, shared between them like a secret. Laughs of condemnation.

Her eyes fluttered open, then shut. In the distance, apartment lights flickered like tiny, indifferent stars. People were living their normal lives. Watching TV. Eating dinner. Safe. And here she was, swallowed by the dark, about to be unmade.

Then they took turns violating her. Their words were as brutal as their hands. Every grunt, every blow—a knee to her thigh, the flat of a palm cracking against her ear—every time she tried to close her legs only to have them forced apart, she felt herself slipping somewhere else, somewhere her mind could pretend this wasn’t happening. But her body knew. Her body would remember.

The lights in those distant windows never went out. No one came.

They must have knocked her unconscious at some point. Because when she came to, they were gone. The field was empty. Only the soft hiss of the breeze remained, slowly erasing the tire tracks from the patch of bare dirt that had held them—but it couldn’t touch the brutal memory now carved into her bones. Her bag lay a few feet away, its insides clawed out—chapstick, pens, a crumpled receipt strewn in the grass like the aftermath of a tiny, personal tornado.

She was a broken heap on the cold grass. Her phone still lay where they’d thrown it, screen cracked but glowing faintly. She cried until her voice gave out, her body seesawing between bruised and numb. She didn’t know how long the assault had lasted. It felt like an eternity of relentless horror.

She pulled herself up, every joint a scream. She gathered the rags of her clothing—what was left—and pulled them over her raw skin. She found her bag and crushed it against her chest, her shaking arm the only lock. Her shoes were gone. She swept her eyes over the trampled grass, the shadows at the edge of the field. Nothing. One must have been swallowed by the struggle; the other had simply ceased to exist. She gave up. Barefoot, she staggered toward home, each step a small, bleeding victory, her mind a scatter of broken glass.

Everyone deserves at least once in their lifetime to experience being wine drunk with their person on a random Wednesday afternoon, and later stroll into an exhibition uptown—even though the location itself is outside both your tax brackets. Yet, with the false air and sense of belonging, and shared courage, both of you saunter in and gawk at fine art, all the while slightly staggering between pieces in fascination, making observations and jokes in an alcoholic excitement. Sure, there are curious gazes being thrown in your direction, but you pay the randoms no mind—your person is all that matters.

And after annoying the crap out of those pretentious fucks, y'all stroll hand-in-hand about the city. Nine-to-fivers walking past y'all, grumbling beneath their breath about a job they will still get early for, but y'all couldn't care less. You're finding picturesque spots and snapping away memories of each other.

On the Uber ride home, y'all can barely keep your hands off each other. Every time your person's hand strays on you, the driver shifts in his seat, training his eyes on the rearview. So you bide your time. And by the moment y'all alight, it takes massive self-restraint not to rip each other's clothes off on your ascent to your shared fifth-floor apartment. Stealing kisses and salacious touches, bodies craving each other—with each erotic step, you eventually reach y'all's door, unlock it, and proceed to devour each other. Not on the bed, nor on the couch. Right there. Barely two steps in, door slightly open, but luckily your house is at the corner, so no wandering neighbor would walk past and see y'all.

You lay there spent in each other's arms. Eventually, your person gets up and warms leftovers from the fridge, and since they are an impulsive person, they tell you to get dressed—you'll be having last night's spaghetti on the rooftop. So you throw something on and follow them out.

It's 12AM, but time is just a social construct when you're both together. They hold your chin up, and now for the first time you notice the sky. The waning crescent moon is playing second fiddle tonight to the stars that are the main characters in the night sky—practically showing off. You stargaze for a while, and the cold is biting, so you snuggle closer to them and feel it all: the quiet pulse of their thrumming heart, the peace you're experiencing within—almost like a new feeling. You love it right here.

Two weeks had passed since the club. The ordeal still hung in the air like smoke after a fire, but life had settled into a quiet so thin you could put a fist through it. Reya hadn’t heard from Jax—didn’t want to. The crack between them had split into a ravine. The only news of his hospitalization came from his Instagram stories: a photo of his bruised face with the caption, “Y’all should have seen the other guy,” laughing emojis scattered like taunts. Fucking asshole. Trying to prop up his social image from a fucked thing he’d done. No regret. Worse, his lady followers lapped it up like milk—apologies pouring in, some even visiting with treats and get‑well cards.

Then the last slide: their mother hugging Jax on the hospital bed.

Reya nearly dropped her phone. Had he told her? But no call came. No explosion. She was safe. For now.

Jax’s parting words still rang in her head every waking moment—a splinter she couldn’t dig out. But she shook it off. No use in hypotheticals when she had a life to live, good friends to share it with. Most of all, Tee. They’d forged through worse when they’d started dating: the lingering eyes that screamed homophobia, the whispers. They’d trained themselves to ignore the hate and focus on their love. Two years now, and loving Tee was still the best decision she’d ever made. A smile pulled at her lips.

Now Reya lay in bed, the first light of dawn bleeding through the curtains, streaks of pale gold falling across the sheets. She brushed a lock of hair from Tee’s face. Tee slept so peacefully—angelic, innocent—the kind of peace you’d kill to protect. Over the past days, she’d seemed to move past the egregious events, mostly. She’d been spending most nights at Reya’s, to the point where they’d considered moving in together. But they’d thought better of it. Just in case Reya’s mother decided to show up unannounced like a storm front.

Above the headrest, a painting watched over them: two Afro‑ladies walking hand in hand, barefoot on a beach, the setting sun ahead of them, their shadows long and tangled behind. Reya had found it at a street market two years ago—the first anniversary of their relationship. It was the first thing she’d hung in this room.

Tee opened her eyes, smiling as she found Reya watching her. She leaned in for a kiss—neither of them minded the morning breath. Reya couldn’t get enough of Tee’s lips; she lived for the soft press of them against hers.

“Sorry, mama. Did I wake you?” Reya propped up her pillow and sat up.

Tee pulled closer, sitting up too, and laid her head on Reya’s bare chest. “No, not at all, baby. I had the most splendid dream. We were strolling through the streets of Como, enjoying the lake, with our baby in a carriage between us. It was the most beautiful—”

Reya’s phone rang, slicing through the tenderness.

She fished it from somewhere under the duvet and tilted the screen toward Tee. The caller ID read Dorris—her mother.

It had been nearly a month since they’d last spoken, which was normal for their relationship. Still, Reya’s stomach coiled. Had Jax made good on his threat? She crossed her fingers beneath the sheet—an old, involuntary habit. Growing up, he’d been full of empty threats he never followed through on. She’d count on that.

Tee felt Reya’s body stiffen and rubbed her belly in slow, grounding arcs. It helped—a little. Reya decided to give her jackass of a brother the benefit of the doubt. He was a bottom‑of‑the‑barrel double‑crosser, but even he wouldn’t stoop so low as to expose her to their mother.

Still, the clench in her gut refused to loosen as she swiped to answer the call.

“I need you to come home tomorrow.” The voice from the other end was cold as always—no pleasantries, no small talk. Just a demand.

“Sawa, Mom. I’ll be there.” Reya replied. The line went dead.

She pulled the phone from her ear and stared at it. Nineteen seconds. A new record for brevity and emotional vacuum. Her mother made conversing with a brick wall feel engaging. Against her will and better judgment, sometimes she wished for more in their monotonous relationship. She’d envied, in a painful way, the closeness Tee shared with her own mother. They had their little girl‑out days: shopping sprees, spas where they got their nails done together, sipping drinks. Once, Tee had invited Reya on one of their little getaways, and the concept of Tee being actual friends with her mom was baffling—something she couldn’t square with anything she knew. Even more so when Tee broke the news of their dating and was met with a warm, loving embrace from Tee’s mom. That had left her blinking back salt.

“What did she say?” Tee asked, tilting her body to look up at Reya.

“She wants me home tomorrow. Didn’t say why. Just that I need to be there.” Reya drew a breath, her mind churning, then added, “Let me text Jax, see what this is all about.”

She started typing, hit send, and watched the bubbles on her screen as Jax typed back. The two seconds stretched, elastic and cruel. The reply came.

“Jax says he doesn’t know either. Mom also wants him home tomorrow.” She put her phone down and absently stroked Tee’s hair, but her mind was a nest of live wires, sparking and dangerous.

Around noon the next day, Reya stepped out of her cab and paid the driver. Hearing the car pull up, the security guard opened the gate.

“Habari ya madam?” Wasike greeted her. He’d been their guard for over thirty years—a cordial, kind fellow. She loved him, and a dull throb settled behind her ribs seeing his now frail, aging body. But he still wore that same smile, the only thing in this bleak place that felt like home.

“Nzuri,” she replied, then asked, “Has my brother arrived yet?”

“Your brother has been here all week. He left an hour ago to take madam’s car to the garage.”

She thanked him—courteous as always to everyone, regardless of rank, just as her father had drilled into her—and started up the cobblestone path toward the two‑story house. A place thick with childhood memories. To her right, the now‑tattered tire swing her father had made for her and Jax. Beyond, the kennel where her first puppy had lived before robbers poisoned it one night. The tree where she’d smashed her face, knocking out her baby incisor while playing chako chako, and Wasike had scooped her up, rushing her to her father—who was already sprinting toward her.

Being back today felt like standing on a trapdoor. She couldn’t name the dread, but she felt it—coiled and waiting, low in her belly.

Wasike’s words echoed in her mind, refusing to settle. He’s been here all week? Something cold and hard knotted low in her chest. Why would Jax lie about being summoned? What the fuck, Jax? What’s going on? Her mind churned with questions she didn’t want the answers to—not really. The questions lodged in her throat like a fishbone.

She walked into the grilled foyer and kept going until she reached the heavy oak door. She paused a moment, then pushed it open. Its medieval creak amplified dread climbing her spine on slow, icy fingers.

She slipped off her shoes and stepped inside.

“Is that you, Jax? I didn’t expect you back for another half hour. But it’s good all the same if the car’s already done. We need to leave for my chama meeting.” Even from her bedroom, her mother’s voice echoed through the empty house.

Reya chose not to respond. She stood in the vast living space—it felt like standing inside a mausoleum, but worse: there were no plaques to honor the dead, no flowers, no memory. Only the cold, polished surfaces of a woman who had sanitized every trace of her husband’s warmth. She couldn’t even feel her father’s presence, something she always could. Only a few framed photos of her dad remained, shoved into the farthest corners, nearly hidden—as if his memory was something to be ashamed of. It was like losing him all over again, that hollow ache freshly carved.

Versions of Jesus on the cross dotted the living area—hanging on walls, resting on shelves, propped on end tables. If only he’d come to her rescue any of the times her mother had ridiculed her over the years. But he was always up there, frozen, silent—offering no solace. Reya thought, in more ways than one, their stories ran parallel: persecuted by the very people who were supposed to love them.

Her gaze drifted to the portraits lining the pale, unforgiving walls—walls that held no warmth, only judgment. Her mother’s gaze from the framed photos was a sentence—cold, final. Ice slithered down Reya’s spine. She didn’t see any of herself. Her mother had apparently taken them all down, stuffed them into storage—or burned them, the thought landed like a stone in her gut. The vast majority showcased Jax and his accolades: from a faded “Best in Science Fair” ribbon to his pristine business school diploma.

One framed picture on the fireplace caught her eye—it looked relatively new. She walked closer for a better look. It was of her mother, apparently canonized by the church for her outstanding humanitarian efforts. Whatever happened to ‘charity begins at home’? If they only knew what I knew, Reya thought bitterly, they’d sooner award a more deserving person. But what did she know about how the church worked, anyway? They’d probably condemn her gay ass until kingdom come. She couldn’t help the coy smile that tugged at her lips.

After getting no response, her mother strolled into the living room. The carpet muffled her footsteps, so Reya only noticed her when she spoke again—right behind her, nearly stopping her heart.

“Well, well, well. Look what the cat dragged in,” Dorris said, her voice dripping with condescension. Reya ignored the jibe.

“Good afternoon to you too, Mom.” Reya turned to face her, a smile curling her lips—sarcasm sharp at the edges. Her mother’s coldness had long since scarred over; she’d learned never to let it get under her skin. She wasn’t about to start now. Her mother’s makeup had been slathered on in a rage—lip liner skirting the edges of her lips like a child’s coloring book, foundation caked into a mask too thick, too pale, cracking at the corners of her mouth. The effect was cartoonish, grotesque—the kind of badly rendered animation that had given Reya nightmares as a child, the ones that sent her scrambling into her father’s arms, needing him to tuck the sheets tight around her.

Dorris took the armchair closest to her. Reya sat by the fireplace, crossing her legs to hide the faint tremble running through them.

“What is this I’m hearing? You’re bringing shame to this family!” Her mother’s fury went from ember to inferno in a heartbeat—spittle flying, a vein throbbing at her temple, her lips pulling back from her teeth in a snarl.

Reya had only slightly entertained the possibility that Jax had let the cat out of the bag. She’d hoped her instincts were wrong. But lo and behold. Something vital behind her ribs splintered—no, shattered at the betrayal. She didn’t show it—hid the shards behind a stoic mask. Her lips parted to respond, but her mother wasn’t finished.

“After everything I’ve done for you—paying for those… sessions… and this is the thanks I get?” Dorris was on her feet now, pacing. “If the church gets wind of this, my name will be ruined! Do you realize what you’re putting me through? I’ve worked so hard, for so long, to earn that recognition.” She pointed at the framed photo above Reya’s head. “And then you come along with your stupid, homoerotic nonsense, standing between me and my clergy!”

Her monologue showed no signs of stopping. Her voice rose in tempo, as if she wanted the whole neighborhood to witness the disgrace she was so desperate to conceal.

Reya had expected a version of this berating, but it still stung—hearing it aloud. Tears burned at the rim of her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them spill; she’d choke on her own blood before letting her mother see her break. “I’ve always liked girls, Mom. You were just too blinded by your beliefs and blatant homophobia to see it. Dad knew, and he accepted me as I was. Why can’t you?” It felt so good saying that out loud—her voice an equal measure of pleading and standing up for herself, maybe for the first time.

The words hadn’t fully left her mouth before Dorris was on her.

Reya saw a blur of motion, then felt the crushing weight of her mother’s hands around her throat. The world narrowed to that rage‑contorted face—her nostrils flared wide, her whole face twitching with the effort of her fury, a string of saliva stretching between her bared teeth.

She’d braced for words, not for her mother’s hands around her throat.

Her mother pinned her to the floor, driving a knee into Reya’s chest. Reya gasped, her lungs flattening, her mother’s weight crushing her sternum. The hands on her windpipe weren’t there to choke—just to press, to humiliate, to let her know who was in control.

“Of course your father was okay with it! He’d agree to any perverted thing you said! Frankly, if the cancer hadn’t taken him, I’d have done it myself—for letting you go along with this modern degeneracy!”

Dorris released her throat for a breath, then began battering her with wild, aimless fists—every blow landing. Ribs. Shoulders. Face. Reya curled, trying to protect herself, but her mother was relentless. Then Dorris rose to her feet and started kicking. Ribs again. Thighs. Stomach. Reya wheezed, trying to curl into a ball, but the kicks kept coming.

Jax burst through the front door—and stopped dead. The scene hit him like a wall. His mother, wild‑eyed and heaving, her jaw a clenched knot of rage, blood freckling her knuckles. And on the floor, his twin—a broken doll, her face a mask of red, one arm bent at an angle no arm should bend. She was still breathing. Barely. The sight nailed him to the doorway.

“You’re going to kill her, Mom!” he yelled, running to pull Dorris off the crumpled Reya. Dorris hissed, “You haven’t seen hell yet,” then turned and left, the door banging shut at the end of the hallway.

Jax stood over his sister, his face unreadable as he looked at her helpless form. A clump of Reya’s hair lay beside her, torn out by the roots. One tooth hung precariously loose, and blood streamed from her busted nose as she struggled to breathe. When he helped her up, she cried out—a short, sharp sound she couldn’t suppress—as his hand brushed her left arm.

This wasn’t how he’d expected things to go when he’d told their mother. He’d just wanted to get her back, thought their mother would deliver one of her famous lectures, and that would be that. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

“I need to get you to the hospital, sis. I’m sorry this happened to you,” Jax said, helping her to her feet.

“Don’t let my face fool you,” she rasped, tasting blood. “It was a close fight.” Even in unfathomable pain, she kept her wits, managing a smile that tasted like copper and didn’t reach her eyes. He had always secretly admired her resilience—when they were younger, she’d stood up for him against the neighborhood bullies, even when he’d given her plenty of reasons to let them have their way.

From his wooden shack, Wasike spotted the pair wobbling outside, Jax’s arm strapped around Reya’s waist. He tried to run, but his osteoarthritic legs had other plans—each step a slow, grinding protest, his knees groaning like old wood.

“What happened to her?” Wasike asked, panic etching fresh furrows into his weathered face.

“Long story,” Jax replied as they eased Reya into the backseat. “Get the gate, will you?” he added, almost shouting, as he rounded the car to the driver’s side.

Wasike hobbled back to his post, his joints creaking like rusted hinges, and managed to swing the gate open just as Jax sped through.

Jax threw glances back at his twin. He was responsible for the pain she was in. He wasn’t one to harbor regret, even though it nipped at him from a distance. Still, he told himself it was just the ledger settling. Now she’d felt what it was like to be the one bleeding.