You told me that you loved me. I said I loved you too… I didn’t know the meaning of love. I was young and immature. I was not in love with you. I liked the idea of having you as my boyfriend. I liked the way people respected you and your family. I liked that every girl wanted you, and you wanted me. You made me feel special. You gave me your hurt. You asked me to marry you, and I said yes. I wanted to maintain my status.

My family was respected and I didn’t want to disappoint them. I was doing it for the people. I was not in love with you. I was the girl that every guy in our village wanted. Because of your status, I pretended to love you. I was committed to someone else already. I told somebody else that I loved him. I promised to love him no matter what. I promised to wait for him, because we were in different provinces.

Because of your good heart and the way that you treated me, I learnt to love you, and I fell in love with you. I made the same promises that I made to my other boyfriend. It was not a lie. I gave you my love, my heart. People were jealous of what we had. They tried to separate us, but they failed. Our family tried to separate us, because of the love that we had for each other. But they failed also. Your family forced you to marry somebody else, but you stood up, and you were even willing to choose me instead of them. That made me love you even more.

In difficult times, we were there for each other. Our love was strong, I was ready to break the promise that I made to my other boyfriend. I was madly in love with you. Every girl in our village envied me. Almost everyone was against our love, but we were strong and we fought for our love.

What went wrong? After all we had been through, we made sacrifices. I took beatings from my family and yours. There was a time when I was kicked out of my home because of our love. I was homeless. I had nothing. It was even difficult to go to school. I was in matric. You supported me. You encouraged me to hang in there. That was the most difficult time of my life.

What went wrong? You broke my heart. I thought you loved me. You cheated on me with my best friend, my roommate. I decided to keep quiet. I was depressed. I released my frustrations with alcohol. Then I decided to leave you and go to another province. I did not cheat on you. I broke up with you and moved on with my life. That is why I married somebody else instead of you.

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