It’s been three months since I arrived here. And I’m almost due. Popeye is kicking a little stronger now.

When I first arrived I couldn’t stop being amazed at how beautiful this place is and I was happy that they accepted me as one of their own, but it came with a price: my friends. I haven’t seen them since.

The first three weeks, I used to walk downstairs and sit in the lobby, waiting for one if not all of them to come passing by. Every time visiting hours were announced, I’d be the first to go wait for my visitors – but they never came. I don’t know what I was expecting. I stayed with them for four whole months. I thought we were family, if nothing more.

This place is still amazing, but every day I feel a part of me waver with the winds. I feel myself becoming detached from things around me. Life has taught me that nothing is forever, and that no one will stay for as long as I would like them to. I feel alone all over again. I have no one to turn to or talk to except the psychologist who visits us every Tuesday.

“Your turn,” Tracy, the blonde girl I share a bunk with, announces as she walks out of the psychologist’s room.

“Thanks.” I unfurl myself from the cross-legged position I am sitting in on the floor, paging through a You magazine.

“Should I wait for you outside?” she offers sweetly. Her voice is small and hopeful.

“I don’t know,” I shrug. I don’t mean to be rude to her, but I have learnt the hard way to not get attached. I’m tired of regarding people as friends, only for them to just as easily leave me when I need them the most.

“Yenzokuhle.” The psychologist acknowledges me as I walk in and close the door behind me. She is holding a pen and with her free hand she motions for me to take the chair opposite her.

“Hi,” I greet nonchalantly, taking my seat across her. My fingers fiddle with each other. I don’t know why I’m nervous. I guess I always am when I have to talk about my life.

“How are you feeling?” Dr Swiss asks. Her face lifts from her notepad to gauge how I’m feeling.

“I’m fine,” I say dryly, my eyes scrolling to check the plastic clock on the wall. I still have forty-five minutes. Each of us at the centre is allocated an hour and a half to talk to Dr Swiss.

Dr Swiss looks a little over twenty. She wears glasses like most doctors and professionals I have come across. She is immaculately dressed. She always brings notepads to each of our sessions. I think I have seen her about five times now, if not more. I don’t understand how this is supposed to help me. All I want is to give birth to a healthy baby; none of this can be helped by talking to a stranger about my feelings.

“You have to understand that I can’t help you if you don’t let me in on what has happened to you, you know?” she says after a while of silence passes. I can see that her patience is wearing thin, but it is part of her job description to remain professional no matter what. I look outside the tiny window and watch the other girls who are sitting laughing in the sunshine in the quad. They seem so carefree and so happy, yet I couldn’t be any more miserable. I thought coming to this centre was what I wanted. I thought being here would help me a great deal. I didn’t really expect the others to keep their word, but I had trusted Luntu – she had shown me many times that I could.

The clock ticks away and Dr Swiss and I still maintain our silence. She studies me silently as I get lost in the distance. She doesn’t say a word. She lets me be.

“I’m scared,” I tell her after a while and she seems to be caught off guard. My voice comes out in almost a whisper. This is the first time since I came here that I have said something that I actually feel.

“What are you scared of?” she asks carefully, scribbling on her notepad again.

“I’m scared of the inevitable.”

“Elaborate,” she says finally, knitting her fingers together.

One of the things I promised myself was to feel. I have been trying to block out all emotions and the only time I ever feel something is when my baby kicks. I smile when I think about the little hands, little feet and small smile. It’s the only hope that keeps me alive – to see my child smile one day.

“Yenzokuhle.” Dr Swiss calls me out of my reverie.

“A lot of things have been happening,” I say, aware of how vague I still am about what’s going on with me. I just don’t know where to start. I don’t know how to tell her that I have decided to have the baby adopted, even though it breaks my heart. I don’t even know if I am sure yet. It feels like life is one big question mark. But how can I raise a child at my age? I think of Luntu and feel guilty, but Luntu has let me down. She promised to visit me and she didn’t.

The doctor gives me a new set of options to consider. My baby kicks almost on cue. I have bonded with him or her over these couple of weeks, even though I am still unsure of the gender. I don’t want to know too much and get too attached; at the same time, I can’t help but feel something for the life that calls my broken body a home.

“I just … I just I don’t know.” I shrug my shoulders when she probes for me to continue. I feel tired and weak all of a sudden. “They were the only real thing I had, my friends,” I tell her. She nods approvingly at the progress I seem to be making. She scribbles again on her notepad, and then lifts her head to ask her next question.

“And where are they now?”

“They never came to visit like they promised to. I waited every day for them, you know?” I wipe a stray tear off my face. I hate these counselling sessions; you always have to relive all the traumatic things you’ve been through. Sometimes she asks me about my parents but I never really answer her. I don’t want to walk down that road. “I waited every day to see them, and feel the same way I did when I was with them. Like I belonged somewhere, like I am a part of something.”

“You can be better if you let yourself, Yenzokuhle. You can heal if you want to. It’s all up to you.”

***

“Hey,” Tracy greets excitedly again when I get back to our room from the counselling session. I have been living with her for a couple of months now. Her belly isn’t anywhere close to being as big as mine is. I feel like a hippopotamus really. She moves quickly to my side, and helps me sit.

“Thanks.”

“Do you want to play a game,” she asks cheerfully.

“Look, I am not interested.” I rub my swollen calves.

“I won’t take no for an answer.”

Eventually, I relent. She gets out a box of playing cards from the top drawer of her cupboard.

I have to smile when I realise that this set of cards is complete. I remember how Bonga and Simon loved to play card games, even though their set was never complete.

Crazy 8, I propose, thinking of how this game was the only one the boys ever played and also happens to be the only game I know so well. Simon always had these unheard-of rules that he would always propose, with Bonga dismissing them discordantly. As bad as times have been of late, those were good times.

“I’ll start,” Tracy says after she finishes giving us each a share. We hold eight cards each. She smiles coyly as she withdraws a card from her set. This is the first time in a long while that I have committed to playing a game of cards. Even at the crib, when the boys played, Luntu and I never once played with them, or even together. The last time I played cards was with Nozi, back when I was still at school. I have to admit, I miss her sometimes.

“Play,” Tracy waves her pale hands in front of my eyes. She has played a two of spades.

“A two?” I laugh as I recall Simon’s ridiculous rule that an ace could block whatever power the two holds, which is not true.

“What are you laughing at?” Tracy inquires, confused.

“Just thinking about something.” I answer.

“Friends you had, maybe?”

“It’s none of your business.”

“You can’t always keep yourself locked up, you know. You have to move on,” she says as she places her next card down on the pile.

“You don’t know anything about me,” I glare at her. “So you leave me alone.” I enunciate every word just so she understands clearly. When I stand to walk away a blistering pain cuts through my abdomen. I scream. Bending over, I clutch at my stomach instinctively. Tracy rushes over to my side.

“Are you okay?”

“Of course not, you idiot!”

Her face blanches as I begin shouting profanities at her.

“Sister Zimi! Help!” Tracy calls desperately as she leads me out the door. The pain becomes unbearable. I kneel down, clutching my stomach tightly.

Sister Zimi comes rushing to my side, abandoning her duties. She takes in the state I am in and begins pushing people out of the way.

“Call an ambulance, quick!” Sister Zimi calls to the other staff, who come rushing to my assistance. The splintering pain strikes unbidden again.