It is time to visit Sidney, the nerd down the road who is now doing third-year legal studies. I need to know exactly what I’m facing.

Sidney is a strange guy, behind his thick spectacles. He discusses my situation like it is no big deal, like it is some minor traffic offence. A little hassle. Impassive – I think that’s the word for it.

“No point getting upset, Lekoko,” he says impassively. “I mean, the facts are clear and uncontested. You screwed her and now she is with child. Simple. Cause and effect. Therefore you are liable for half the delivery costs. Plus maintenance for the offspring until the child reaches the age of eighteen.”

“Eighteen!? Eighteen frikken years? I’ll be paying and paying for that long? That’s my frikken life down the toilet. Just because of one stupid night. Hell, one stupid half-hour, that I didn’t even enjoy!”

“Yeah,” agrees Sidney without any emotion. Impassive, like I said. “It would have been a helluva lot cheaper if you’d just hired yourself a prostitute for the night of 8 November.”

“But don’t you see how unfair this is? I mean, she lied. She tricked me into this. Can’t she be done for committing fraud or something? False pretences? I should be suing her!”

Sidney shrugs. “I doubt if the judge would see it that way. It would be your word against hers, right? Bottom line: you did the crime, now you must do the time.”

Dang! The unfairness washes over me like sewage. I mean, that night of 8 November, how many other guys were busy doing the same crime? Doing exactly what I was doing? How many all around Gauteng? Around the frikken country? Around the frikken world?

So why am I the one getting zapped? Pulverised? Condemned to pay and pay for the next eighteen years? When the rest of them are getting off scot-free? Where is the justice?

I slam my fists down on my thighs, needing the pain.

“You have one hope,” says Sidney, still in that impassive tone of his. “One slight chance.” Like he’s going to tell me what he had for breakfast.

“Like what?”

“Like maybe it isn’t yours? I mean, does she have other boyfriends? Was she screwing around, hooking up with someone else at the same time?”

A dim light flickers at the far end of the sewage pipe I am stuck in. A very dim light, knowing Abigail. She has probably made sure I am the one and only target. The one and only fall-guy.

“How would I ever know?”

“Easy. DNA test.”

DNA – the letters flicker faintly like diamond dust beneath a coal mountain.

But it seems the DNA test can’t be done now. Not till the baby is born and a few months old. Not until after my first-year exams. So I’ll be studying, taking exams, in a state of panic and suspense. Hoping against hope. I will surely fail.

Already my assignments are coming back with D and E symbols from all the stress I am under. I don’t dare let my mother see them, though she keeps asking.

And in the college canteen, Precious asks me in that soft, sweet voice of hers, “Lex, what is wrong? You always look so down. I wish you’d let me help you.”

I just shake my head.

And then, one day in April, I come home to a horror more terrible than I even dreamed possible. In my worst nightmares.

***

Tell us: Do you agree with Lex that this is unfair? Or does he deserve his fate?