Jade’s Tale

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Jade

She woke up panting in the middle of the night with sweat dripping down her forehead, her night dress completely drenched sweat, she glanced over her right shoulder to see if she had woken Thami up, but he was snoring deep in the trenches of lala land.

“Shxt”

She murmurs and jumps off the bed to clean herself up. She quickly runs to the bathroom because suddenly she has the urge to pee.

“Fxck”

She whispers to herself as she drained her bladder.

She’s still shaken up by the dream. She’s been having this dream for years now and she doesn’t seem to understand it. It always leaves her confused and terrified.

“This can’t be my fate.”

She thinks to herself. She needs to pray but doesn’t want to wake Thami up because he doesn’t like that. He doesn’t like that she has a gift he says is madness. When they first got together, he seemed supportive but now he has changed, a lot has changed about Thami. She wonders if did she ever truly knew him? She knows she no longer loves him, but Thami needs her.

Maybe those are the lies she tells herself so she can cope with the decision she has made; everyone was against them being together, a part of her is holding on because she doesn’t want to hear any “I told you so’s”.

“Uzokbulala lomfana”

She covered both her ears with her hands like that will stop her from hearing the message. She doesn’t want to respond. Her grandmother has been warning her about Thami. First, she used to come in dreams but now she appears as a vision or like today hear voices. The voices sound like an echo, they don’t scare her anymore.

She doesn’t flush the toilet and tips toes back to bed. She slides in as carefully as possible trying not to make any noise or sudden movement, but she knocks on the bedside lamp,

“Shit”

It tumbles to the floor making noise as it reaches its final destination.... the wooden floor.

In no time Thami was up and he didn’t look happy. She’s been standing there frozen like she just saw a ghost, but she has seen ghosts before and she has never been this scared. She’s more afraid of Thami than she is ghosts.

“I’m so.. “She tried to speak.

It was too late, Thami was already on his feet and had a handful of her hair in his fist, slapping her with his left free hand. She was trying to apologize but he was not having none of it. She was now on the floor begging for her life again.

Thami doesn’t care no amount of tears or begging will make him stop and he knows she won’t leave him after all who is going to love her? Men want skinny light skinned woman. She was none of that and Thami always reminded her.

He took the lamp and smashed it on her head, breaking it completely. A gush of blood mixed with sweat and tears got into her mouth as she collapsed and lost consciousness.

When she came to, Thami was on top of her having his way with her. He finished and kissed her check.

“My sweet love making brought you back to my life….. I thought I lost you my love”

Nathi

He has been up since 4am, its now 8:30am and he is still in unbearable pain, he wants to forget what happed to him, but his limp, cane and occasional pain serve as a constant reminder of the shit his family put him through, if it wasn’t for Jade he doesn’t know how he would have healed and pieced his life back together.

He knows something bad is looming whenever he feels this kind of pain. When he got shot his leg grew an infection that couldn’t be healed by CC’s top surgeons, but Jade took him to the sacred Mountain River, made him lay down while she poured the water over his leg.

They stayed in the mountain for 7 days and after 7 days he was completely healed, no scars, just a limp.

If he wasn’t there to experience it for himself, he would never believe it if anyone told him this. He knows a piece of that sacred river flows in his blood. He is connected to it for life….he is connected to Jade for life.

He chuckles to himself thinking about it. He never says these things out loud, only when he is with Jade because she understands, after all she does see ghosts from time to time.

He tries to call her again but goes straight to voicemail.

“Mxm”.

He wants to get pissed but he is worried a little bit. He contemplates calling her father, but he doesn’t want to alarm her parents only to find out she just forgot to switch her phone back on.

The pain persists, it’s relentless like the constant chatter in his brain. He limps to the kitchen to look for some medicine Ms. Crystal (Jade’s mother) had concocted for him earlier in the month when he was experiencing the same level of pain. That same day he found Jade unconscious next to the CC dumpster.

Thami had beaten her up so bad, he got one of his friends to help carry her to the dumpster. They thought she was dead. He left her for dead and didn’t care.

When he found her, she was naked and bloodied. They took her to the sacred river for healing. He had assumed she was never going back but he was wrong. He had hoped she would choose him this time, but she didn’t.

To say he hates Thami would be an understatement. He never says much because he doesn’t want to hurt Jade’s feelings, he respects their friendship and does not want to be “weird”, he lost too many close people in his life already losing Jade would just kill him, so he stays in her life even when he does not agree with her lifestyle…. Or her stupid abusive cheating ugly boyfriend.

What can he do? except for killing Thami but that’s not what he wants to do. Not because he is not capable of doing it…. He just wants to do things differently this time around and he besides Jade will know he did it.

He phones the community center where him and Jade volunteer, Well Jade is the volunteer, his family owns the center, so he is like her boss at the same time.

They inform him that Jade has not reported to work which is unlike her. She is always on time unless something happens that prohibits her from even reporting she will be late.

He was gut wrenched; his fear grew and was left with no choice but to go to her house even though he promised that he would never set foot in that mans one bedroom apartment. He took his key and headed out.

“Please protect your daughter, zindlondlo, I promised that I will take care of your child this time, I will not allow him to return to that village or he will hate me”

The clouds formed and it started to rain. He felt tears forming in the corner of his eye. They have spoken.

TO BE CONTINUED