📝: BEAUTIFUL BETRAYAL
.
.
.
CHAPTER ONE
.
.
.
Zarachi and Emeka had been in a relationship for seven years and still counting how they got to meet would shock. Their love was usual and very intriguing. How we met and how we ended was involved. I’m going to take you guys on a ride with me and I’m sure you would love it.
I, Zarachi, was a student of government college, Umadu. I was in my final year and that’s Ss3 to be precise. I was finally happy that I was going to be rounding up school and moving into a better life. Wearing uniforms and doing morning functions and all that boring stuff was really tiring for me. Coupled with the fact that I had to trek kilometers just to get to school.
So that day, while waiting for one of our mates to come out from class so we could go home, a junior student who was in ss1 walked past us without greeting any of us. Without being told, we were visibly annoyed and had to deal with that boy so as to teach him a lesson. As I was the smallest one amongst them, I kept quiet and allowed my mates to do with him as they pleased.
“Hey, you. Come here!” Nkechi commanded the young boy.
“Who? Me?” The boy asked after being caught unawares.
By merely looking at him, I could sense the heavy cloud of fear written all over him. His leg began trembling and he was sweating profusely even without knowing what he did. There and then, I began feeling pity for him, I knew my friends and I’m sure they won’t take it easy on him.
“So we are too small right? ” Mary asked him and this boy couldn’t answer.
After that incident, I began drawing closer to him and eventually we got to be bonded together. Before I knew what was happening, I began having feelings for him without even knowing. My friend ls discovered that before me and began making jest of me.
It was a village school, I wasn’t much into education. We just attended school as of that time, so that people won’t say you father or mother didn’t train in one. After I had finished my secondary and left my new friend, Emeka there. I wanted to go further but my father couldn’t afford to sponsor the 9 of us in a tertiary institution at once and then we came to the conclusion that my 4 elder ones go while the remaining 5 will go and learn one trade or the other.
Some years passed and we relocated to the main village where almost everyone lived. Surprisingly in our neighborhood, my secondary school friend, Emeka, was living beside us with his family. It was almost 3 years since we saw each other and then I told we would have lost the chemistry going on between us.
“Senior Zarachi, good evening.” Emeka greeted while going inside with a rubber paint filled with water on his head.
“Hey, Emeka. I’m just Zarachi and not senior.” I cautioned him, smiling from teeth to teeth.
“Pardon my manners, just that I’m used to that but anyways I will adjust.” He promised and kept the bucket down and then we began talking about how life has been for us and so many things. We talked for a very long time until we lost track of time and became alarmed the moment our both parents began calling our names.
We quickly left the well side and went home using a different routine in order not to arouse unnecessary attention, mostly especially that of my father. My father never allowed us to hang around with the opposite gender.
My elder sisters, Joy and Amara made that mistake one day and the result was really darstric. It was Friday evening and they prepared themselves to go for a party along the road. I wanted to follow them but they refused, thank God for that Sha. So after they went with their heavy and ridiculous makeups and funny big girls dressing. Our father returned home and as being unlucky would have it, they were the first set of people my father asked about and my mother didn’t hesitate in telling him how they had left her since noon time and left the cooking for only her.
That alone got my father angry and he waited outside for them, so some minutes after 6pm the both of them being escorted by male friends came home and didn’t answer them. They even greeted him and he responded as usual with the way he answered, one wouldn’t think he was the one who was ranting on how he would deal with them.
Since my father didn’t answer them, we all kept quiet and went to bed. The sleep was so sweet until I began hearing my father’s voice and sisters loud wailing coming out from there room. I woke my mother because at that time we both slept together, my mother warned me not to disturb her and allow my father inconcate sense into their feelings.
Nobody in our vicinity went to their aid, my father so dealt with them that if not for Mama Olu timely intervention, he could have seriously injured them. With this and many other reasons, I and Emeka kept our little relationship a secret and within some time space, I had an uncompleted building where we go and tell each other how we felt and play together, please don’t think otherwise.
“You must be joking, where’s Zarachi?” my father inquired from my mother one day when he called to send me an errand.
“Papa Zarachi, I sent her to go and get me salt and other soup ingredients from the market and till now she’s not back.” My mother reported me to my father after I had delayed coming back from the market.
“Anywhere she has gone to, she will still come back here. And then we will know who’s the head of the house. Zara has started behaving like your daughters.” My father complained.
My mother didn’t even answer, rather she laughed and went back inside her room to rest. Emeka and I were in our love palace having our gist as regular and forgot about time. It wasn’t until I noticed that the skies had darkened and it was getting quieter, I then asked someone who was passing for the time and then she told me it was past 5pm. I knew I was in hot soup. I urgently needed an excuse to escape or I’m doomed.
“Her excellency, has the market closed abi you’re robbed?” my father inquisitively and then brought out his “Koboko” And asked me to kneel down before him.
I did and I then knew I had to find an excuse but none was coming at all, I cracked my head but it wasn’t coming. All my reasoning came to an end immediately when the fresh whip landed on my back. Forget, no matter how big you’re and you’re still a child of my polygamous father, you’re not above disciplinary action. Except you have planned to leave his house that day.
Fast forward to the years later, we both had lost my parents and were all grown up and by then in the village everyone had begun calling me and Emeka husband and wife. Our relationship was one of a kind. Even though we weren’t legally married I accept the title of being called his wife by people. I was madly in love with him till the point that I acknowledged him as the head of the house even though we weren’t living together but we’re close neighbors.
Emeka was supportive and the best and because of him I refused many proposals from different men of different status, there was one who was my mate back then in our secondary school, Ralph. That guy had been drooling over me but I didn’t give in. So now that we’re quite mature enough, he came again and asked for my hand in marriage and instead of refusing immediately, I told him I wanted to think about it.
I waited for Emeka to return back home from his farm, and I foolishly told him about the proposal by Ralph. Emeka, my love without wasting time, didn’t hesitate to tell me not to get married to the guy. And I agreed and told the guy bluntly that I wouldn’t be getting married to him. Most people who knew about my relationship with Emeka concluded we were going to get married in the possible future both, no. Emeka wasn’t saying anything about getting married.
I remained patient, maybe sooner or later he would do the needful. To me I thought his family members were cool with our relationship since we all knew each other for so long. My step-brother who was now rich decided to renovate our family house and because of that I had to go and squat in with him, his siblings got to know about it.
When he told me that they were coming back, I quickly prayed within me not to encounter them and then I hurried to leave the house two days after. They later came back and got the full gist of everything happening from her aunt, who also lived in the same compound with them.
I wasn’t aware that my matter had been discussed already, so I went to visit his sister, Grace, where she was selling Akara-beans cake. She greeted me and I replied to her. I sat and she gave me some to eat, we ate and I thought we had bonded.
So one day I was passing over and then decided to go and greet them and then I overheard Grace telling her brother about me and how she disliked me and so on. Her brother tried to defend but she refused, she kept telling him of how lazy and unfruitful I was and how I would be a burden to him.
I was heartbroken and angry at the same time, and then I went in to confront her about what she was saying. I tried explaining to her how good and helpful I had been to her brother. But this woman wasn’t buying it and complained of how I was her brother’s and of how I was blocking other girls from seeing her brother just because we were claiming to be in a relationship.
Before one could know what was happening, we began quarreling and then I was thinking Emeka would support me, only for him to leave me in the middle of the heated argument and defend his sister, benching me to one edge. Surely I couldn’t defeat two of them and I had to allow the insults. It was when me and Grace began fighting after she called me a witch that people knew it was that serious.
Neighbors began rushing in like when someone would say a tap had been opened and water was gushing out, so after we had been separated from tearing each other into bones. I went home and my own family people quarreled with me for being so stupid.
From that day onwards, Grace and I became salient enemies and we avoided each other like the Egyptians and the plaques. Grace kept spoiling my name before people and because of that, some people had me in mind.
Her brother, Emeka came to meet me and apologized for not standing up for me and he came up with the excuse that he didn’t want his sister to think otherwise and that he did what he did so that she would believe we were done and leave for us to continue from where we stopped. And then he begged me to ignore his sister and anything she would try to do.
I used everything I had within me not to answer her, on every occasion while passing to go out she would be outside using indirect speeches to rain abuses on me. I had reported the issue to her brother but I’m not too sure he took it seriously because the girl, Grace, didn’t change a bit.
So on this very day, while minding my business as demanded. Grace was in their own compound bathing me with abuses and wasn’t even bothered to know whether or not I was hearing her at all. I tried keeping mute and avoided everything, to me, she wasn’t worth my attention but she wouldn’t stop. My step sister came out and I told her to hear what Grace was spitting out and she asked me to calm down. I was trying to calm down and then there was a particular statement she made that broke me and she said was……
.
.
.
Tbc
.
.
.
© kiononiawrites
