Unmasked
Chapter 23

Today’s session took more of me than I wanted to give. I feel exhausted but if you were to ask what we talked about I can barely remember. This is what has been going on for months and I wish I could have an understanding but my therapist says it’s good for me so I have to listen to her.

‘We don’t have whiskey.’ Celine says immediately I enter the house.

I sigh deeply. I am too tired to get into any fight with her.

‘I have had a very long day Celine, I want to rest.’

‘Why is it that everything that concerns me doesn’t move you at all?’

‘Whiskey concerns you?’

‘It’s not even the whiskey, it’s how you are talking to me. How you don’t acknowledge my presence in your life. It’s how I have to continually fight for a seat at your table, how you will never recognize me as the woman in your life. Zac I am tired of begging to be seen, I am tired of pleading for attention which doesn’t seem to come.’

‘Then call it quits.’

‘Excuse me?’

I walk to the kitchen to grab myself some water. I wonder why she can’t read that I am not in the right frame of mind? I am trying really hard to keep my cool but it’s like she keeps pushing me.

‘Celine since you can’t read the mood I am in, let me spell it out for you. I am really not in the right frame right now and I don’t want to deal with you or the drama that comes with you. It’s been a very long day and I just want to get some rest. Is that too much to ask for? In my own house?’

‘Zac why do you keep throwing everything under the rug? I have been good to you, I have been faithful to you even when it wasn’t necessary. I know you don’t love me, I know you will never be capable of loving any other woman the way that you love Zara.’

I look at her. If she is trying to piss me off then she is succeeding

‘You know what, I think you should sleep at your house tonight. You have overstayed your welcome.’

She laughs; it’s a small laugh.

‘You think I am as stupid as I was when we started dating right?’

She pauses.

‘Zac I am not a fool and I will never allow you to treat me like one. You have wasted two years of my life and I would be damned to waste another year.’

I look at her, wondering where all this is going.

She removes a ring from her pocket.

‘What is that?’

‘You and I are getting married.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘You heard me Zac, I can never be with another man at this point because you have broken me. You have exposed me to things that normal people should not be exposed to. I know about the killings, the endless lies. Who on earth do you think can put up with such a broken person?’

‘Celine, I am not marrying you. I will never marry you.’

I see the hurt on her face.

‘So you were dragging me along all these years?’

‘From inception I told you that I didn’t want anything serious.’

‘For pete’s Zac we were engaged!’

‘And I called it off because you decided to go back and sleep with your ex.’

She looks genuinely surprised.

‘You think I don’t know that you have been sleeping with Musonda all this while?’

‘So why have you kept us as friends?’

‘The biggest problem with you Celine is that you are dull. If only you could use even half of your brain most of these problems would be avoided. I kept you close because I knew this day would come, I kept you close because I knew that a day would come when you would betray not just me but my sister too. I kept you close because friends are better kept close but enemies closer, whatever you and Musonda have been cooking up will eventually come to bite you in the back.’

Tears run down her eyes.

‘It has always been about Zara not so? Everything you have been doing has been for that ungrateful brat. You keep risking your life and yet she would never raise a finger to help you.’

‘You can say anything you want about me Celine but you will not speak ill of Zara.’

‘What? Because she is your secret lover isn’t she? Because the two of you have been having an incestuous affair that you don’t want to talk about not so?’

‘Celine shut up!’

‘I figured, you are messed up in your head Zac! You are so messed up!’

Feeling anger get the best of me, I slap her hard across the face making her fall.

‘You think hurting me will make you a better person?’

I move to where she is and start to kick her with my leg. I kick her hard as everything she has just said replays in my mind. I continue to kick her as I imagine my father raping my sister, I kick her as I think of the abortions she had to go through. I kick her as images of my mother come to my head, I kick her as I think of how she didn’t do anything to stop the pain Zara had to go through. And using the last bit of my strength, I kick her hard as I think of Gabriel raping Zara, how my sister has had no one to protect her but me. How she always needed me and now she doesn’t, how she seems to be doing fine when I am still battling with my demons.

…

Kwenje’s Girl

Winnie

🙇🏾‍♀️