So here I am, back at Sweet Waters – the small town where I grew up.

I’ve been away these past ten years. But sometimes it feels like a hundred! I was a different person back then, back in 2006. I was young, just starting Grade 10. And I was full of passion and hope and dreams. And oh, I just knew that all my dreams would come true. Of course they would! My future lay before me, bright and shining and bursting with promise.

Now – now in the autumn of 2016 – I don’t have many dreams left. How sad is that? I am twenty-five and my life is a dreary progression of days that I live through. For sure, there are good moments and bad moments, there are good days and bad days.

But when I think of my future now, all I see is more days stretching ahead. Days that I must live through, because that is what people do with days.

It was Dad who suggested I return to Sweet Waters. Just after the dreadful trauma I went through with my fiancé, Thuso.

My father said, “Palesa, this can’t go on! You need to say goodbye to the past. You need to put it behind you. Once and for all! You need to lay those old ghosts to rest, make peace with your memories. Otherwise how can you move forward? How can you create a happy future for yourself? You will be stuck in this limbo for ever, my girl.”

So here I am, back at Sweet Waters. In fact, here I am sitting in the school hall of Sweet Waters Secondary.

They are performing a school play here tonight: Romeo and Juliet. So I paid for my ticket and now I have the perfect excuse to sit here in this very place where all my dreams began.

But how the school hall has changed in these past ten years. Maybe as much as I have changed. Now it is filled with row upon row of soft chairs upholstered in tasteful blue. Back when I schooled here, we sat on plastic garden chairs – white or dark green or faded orange. During the week they were stacked ceiling high. But on Fridays, we spent the final school hour unstacking them, sliding them into rows for the Friday night movie.

Our Headmaster, old Mr Selepeng, was very keen on his Friday night movies. They were a way to raise funds for the school. But also – more importantly – they were a way for him to keep his pupils off the streets.

“Yes, my children,” he would say, “the streets are dangerous. On the streets you will pick up bad habits. On the streets you will be tempted to commit criminal acts. So much better that you stay safe, here on school property.”

I wonder whether Mr Selepeng is still Head here. But no – surely he is retired by now? Ten years is a long time. A whole decade. And many things can happen in that time.

A group of girls is sitting just in front of me. They are dressed in their school uniforms. And how the Sweet Waters Secondary uniforms have changed too. Back when I was a pupil, we wore ghastly, navy, box-pleated gym tunics over white shirts. Surely the ugliest, most unsexy clothing known to women!

(“Nonsense, Palesa,” Paul used to say. “Nothing can make you look ugly and unsexy!”)

Now these girls wear soft lilac blouses over deep purple, A-line skirts. And they look lovely. I tap one of them on the shoulder. She turns to me, smiling politely.

“Yes, ma’am? Can I help you with anything?” It is nice to know politeness is still a core value of the school. Mrs Makondo, the Deputy Head, was very big on politeness.

I ask, “Is Mr Selepeng still the Head here?”

I can see from her expression that she has never heard that name. “No ma’am,” she answers. “Mrs Makondo is our Principal.”

That makes me feel suddenly sad. I ask, “Do you still have movies here on Friday nights?”

She frowns, as if a Friday night movie is a weird concept. She shakes her head, then turns back to her friends.

And I feel sadder still. In fact, sadness weighs me down like a huge boulder. Perhaps my dad is mistaken? Perhaps this is a bad idea, revisiting the scene of happier times?

For sure we loved those movie nights! We couldn’t wait for Friday to come round. It was the highlight of our week. Especially for me. Especially when Paul and I became an item, back when we were both fifteen.

We would sit together, Paul and I. As close to the back as the Matrics would allow us. And once the lights were turned out, once the film began, we would link hands, our fingers entwine in an unbreakable knot. Believing that nothing would ever, ever split us apart. Not flood nor war nor sickness. Not even death. We were in love. Truly in love.

Well, of course, when Mrs Makondo came patrolling the dark aisle with her torch, we let go quickly. But apart from Mrs Makondo, nothing else could ever split us up.

Paul. Paul Lecoge.

Even now, his name shudders in my mind and in my heart. As if it is welded into the very fibre of my being. And all the words we whispered to each other there in the darkness of those Friday nights, echo still.

“I will love you for ever, Palesa. No-one but you!”

“And I will love you for ever, Paul. We belong together. For eternity. For sure!”

It seems like a hundred years ago. Like another life-time. But, strangely, it also feels like yesterday. Like last night’s dream, that still hovers.

And how will I ever be able to say goodbye to that, Dad? How will I ever lay those memories to rest and move on?

***

Tell us what you think: Is it possible to choose your life partner when you are only fifteen?