It had been months since the girls last went home. They did not have the privilege to go home during every school vacation, so they would wait for the end of the year holiday. It was hard to stay for months without seeing their families. Some days were bearable and some were not.

Nyasha lost her mom at a very young age, which left Mr Mukombe miserable. Nyasha was the only child they managed to bear which resulted to Nyasha being the apple of his eyes. Mr Mukombe worked really hard to give Nyasha a better future, it is what him and his wife wanted for their daughter.

It was quite evident that Kudzai was not escaping Nyasha’s madness behaviour. Trying every trick in the book to reason with Nyasha was not helping her in any way, instead it made things worse. She was defeated, her hopes and dreams for independence flew out the window, and she could feel her freedom slowly following suit. She felt numb, her whole body was slowly but surely wearing off. Her hands were tightly tied to the chair so much that she struggled to feel her hands.

“Baby, do not be sad OK? I did it for us. I can’t leave without you Kudzai, already I lost my mother, please tell me you understand my love. I love you OK, I can’t afford to lose you. If I let you go, you will run away with those men that do not deserve you. They don’t know you like I do and can never love you like I do. Listen I will remove the tape from your mouth so I can feed you. See how much I care for you? I am feeding you.” With a firm tone she added, “Do not try to scream again, you do not want my friend ‘blade’ to leave a mark on that beautiful face of yours.”

Nyasha was not a normal homo sapiens, her actions proved to Kudzai that she was just a stray animal that needed to be caged.

Days passed, there was no change in Nyasha’s behaviour and Kudzai was still held hostage in their room but something was different about that day. The morning birds chirped joyously louder than ever, the sun shone so bright it almost left a few blinded. A loud knock on the door brought back Kudzai into her reality, again there was a knock on the door but this time it was much louder and faster.

Who could it be Kudzai wondered. Nyasha is not around to chase this away as she usually does with our visitors. Kudzai thought of screaming but it was useless, maybe it was Nyasha trying to give her false hope. So she did not even bother to moan until there was absolute silence again, except for the birds chirping. After an hour the knock was back again, this time Kudzai was convinced that this was not one of Nyasha’s crazy games so she started to try screaming for help. Vut unfortunately for her, the screams were not loud enough as she would have loved them to be.

She tried for some time, each time after the loud knock on the door. She had not eaten any breakfast that morning because Nyasha did not have time to feed her, she had to rush to class. There were two people talking outside the room.

“There is something happening inside this room. I demand you to open this door immediately!” again silence became too loud. Mr Mukombe could hear moaning and groaning coming from the room, however the house keeper was not so convinced until they both heard a loud noise coming from the room.

With no questions asked, the house keeper quickly took out his master key to open the door. The smell of the room was not welcoming at all, it was a pigsty. The curtains were closed, only a small amount of light peeped through the curtains. As Mr Mukombe was tip-toeing around the room not knowing where to place his feet, he could not believe his eyes. His bag jumped out of his hand and rushed to help poor Kudzai who was faced up with her legs floating in the air.

“Kudzai!”

***

Tell us: Do you think Nyasha needs help? What would you do if you were rejected by the one you love?