Days later uncle Jobe took him out shopping in order to liven him up. They were just about to exit the Total Sports store when two girls entered. At first Themba could feel like he was on Facebook. But his phone was in his pocket, the girl was not a picture now. Wait a minute. Themba stopped walking. It’s really her.

“Zoey!” He called out.

The girl turned and looked at him. That smile he had when he first saw her picture some weeks ago emerged and glowed up his entire face, a smile that revealed the teeth. It was really her.

“Zoey, hi,” he said.

The short delicate hair, shine of her yellow skin, the chubby pink lips you wouldn’t know they were wet or have been applied lip gloss; she looked so beautiful in person, way more beautiful than she appeared on a picture. Themba couldn’t stop blinking, as though he was having a hard time believing what his eyes were showing him.

But there was a look of confusion on that pretty face: “sorry, who are you?” She said.

“Who am I?” The confusion jumped to Themba’s own face. “I’m…I’m Themba,” he took out his phone. “We met on Facebook.” He showed her the chats. He kept scrolling.

She then told him that she doesn’t know him; that account he’s been chatting with all this time is not hers.

Themba felt like he didn’t hear her well, from not believing his eyes to not believing his ears. “Wait, so you telling me this is a…catfish?”

“Maybe,” she shrugged, “I don’t know.” She told him that this account belonged to her dead twin sister, Zoleka Nkosi, who died two years back in a car crash. She apologised, said someone was obviously using the account to impersonate Zoleka and that maybe someone used her pictures to create a fake account because it always happens when you are pretty. They steal your pictures and pretend to be you. “I think it’s best if you report the account and block it,” she said, then she and her friend got inside the shop. They felt like laughing but they held themselves.

Themba just stood there at the entrance next to the security guard, phone in hand, mouth wide open. He felt like the world isn’t real anymore and the ground will open up and swallow him. He just started to feel dizzy all of sudden, uncle Jobe had to lay a hand on him and walk him out the mall. Twin sister? The confusion never left his face that day. Grandam Nozi and Uncle thought he might be slipping back to depression again.

 > plz be honest with me. Who are you?

He texted her that night.

Somewhere in a double storey house in her room, she was putting on her new Nike shoes which she bought at Total Sports with his money, accompanied by her friend Gugu. Her phone beeped his message’s arrival. She glanced over it and texted him back:

Can’t you read? I’m Zoey Nkosi >

Then she laughed, she laughed so loud the next door neighbours might have heard her. And then she blocked him. 

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