Fuck happiness! I’m done chasing you!

I’m done following you around like a lost puppy. I am now convinced that when God created me he made sure to include minimum scenes of happiness in my life. I just can’t hold on to it; it always slips out of my cupped hand like the butterflies we use to chase as children.

Every time I think I have it in my hands but when I open them I am greeted by the old worn-out paths in my palms. Every time I think I have my life all figured out and start thinking that nothing can go amiss but some someone up there in the sky is determined to prove who the boss is; the bossy scriptwriter who chooses when characters part ways.

Tee is not coming back; they are sending her to the village to “protect her from the shame”. She will continue with school anymore and I have lost my best friend.

Just when I thought had found a sister, a true friend, and then the universe feels that I do not deserve her. It takes her. The same way it took all the possessions of Job in the bible. I doubt you know him. He is this other wealthy guy whom God and Satan gambled with by taking all his possessions in order to test his faith.

“You must trust in God all the time; in bad times or good times like Job of the bible times,” Mrs. Mashego, our bible study teacher, used to tell us, her eyes gleaming and moved; close to tears. God gave Satan permission to take everything and but not harm Job — I’m talking children, servants, and livestock. But this is not a history lesson. I just hope you get the gist of this narration: like Job, my faith is being tested.

God gave Satan the go-ahead to throw me curveball after curveball. I don’t think I’m doing a good job in catching them.

I always knew that her parents would freak out when they hear about her pregnancy. In my simple- mindedness, this is logical and natural. I mean you can’t expect a parent to give their child a pat in the back for having a child; they’d be torn and disappointed at her. But as time goes by they’d make peace with it.

That’s how it usually happens in movies and story plots. But if you have a strict, staunch Christian who preaches that sex before marriage is an unforgiveable sin for a father then the whole script changes for you. You must be as sinless as Mary. You must be a faultless role model coz if you falter, even if it is once, then you are doomed for eternity.

Do they even have the right to do that? Oh yes, they do they are the ones who pay for her everything — fees, accommodation, food and the clothes she wears.

I can’t stop wondering: why must it be women who always take the fall? I mean this Simphiwe kid is living his life as if nothing ever happened. Meanwhile, Tee’s life is cut short. And what does he get? He escapes without punishment and probably gets a pat in the back from his dim-witted buddies.

“We will keep in contact, don’t you worry!” I could hear from her voice that she was choking back some tear. That’s how bad it was; when Tee is crying you just know that the shit just hit the fan. I am not pessimistic but I know in the end we will be poles apart. Don’t ask me how I know it, I just do! It happened with Noxy and Phoebe when I moved to Cape Town last year and left them in P.E.

Tee says we will keep the fire burning. I miss her already.

ZZ xxx

Dish it: What would your parents do if you got pregnant or got someone pregnant?