SMITTEN
I am still in my wedding dress.
The view outside, green grass, discarded trees, red soils and roaming livestock suggests that I am way away from Gaborone. God knows where I am. Maybe in the Kalahari Desert because I don’t think I have left the country yet. I wouldn’t know. I sobbed until I blacked out. And woke up in this strange house. It could be a hotel. It’s neat and beautifully decorated. It smells like cinnamon and chocolate.
My heels are gone and I pad barefoot around the house. My heart inside my throat. Right now I am more worried about my family than anything else. Mr. Abiwu and the uncles would think that they hid me and they would threaten them. I should have fixed this while I still had the chance.
A door opens and I turn to face Malcom. He has come in with a tray of food again.
‘Judith I need you to eat.’
I only stare at him blankly, ‘take me back please.’
He sighs, ‘you will appreciate what I have done for you someday Judith—I am not letting you return to that man who has corrupted you and threatened your family.’
My heart just breaks, ‘my family isn’t safe, you have to take me back.’
‘They will be fine—the last thing those people want is to be involved with the media and the police—they won’t lay a finger on your family.’
Cold shivers run down my every vein and artery, ‘what? What the hell did you do Malcom?’
‘What must be done Judith? What should have been done a long time ago—for people like Heather—I am getting you out before you end up like her.’
I narrow my eyes at him, ‘how did you--.’
‘Alex, one of the family member was kind enough to help me do all this—at least one of them is reasonable.’
My mouth drops open. Alex.
‘What? You have to be joking.’
‘He is out for a good cause.’
My heart breaks a thousand times more as I finally grasp the situation, ‘oh Malcom—Alex would never destroy his family, these people never do—you are being used for something else—why couldn’t you just let it go?’
‘I am not being used, I know what I am doing and that’s protecting the woman I love.’ Pause, ‘the right and clear way—no lies, no secrets and no violence.’
I just stare back at him. I have all these future scenes of how all this is going to end. The fact that Alex is involved in this secret rendezvous is not going to end well. I may just be a powerless character who will be watching all this disaster unfold before me.