Stolen Innocence

“I say who give you belle.” Mama Ngozi shouted as she inched closer to her daughter.

“I…I….” Ngozi stammered.

“You wetin.” She shouted as a resounding slap landed on her daughter’s cheek.

Ngozi looked at her step-dad. Hot tears dropped on her cheeks as she saw the look in his eyes.

“You no fit talk? I say who give you belle?” Mama Ngozi shouted as she pummeled her daughter who was now crouching.

Emeka stood back watching. “E don do.” He said quietly. “I say e don do.” He said raising his voice.

Mama Ngozi turned to look at him with blazing eyes. “Wetin do? Ehn, I say wetin do?” She ignored her daughter for a brief moment.

“No kill am nau!”

“I go kill am if she no tell me the person wey give her belle.”

As Mama Ngozi charged towards her daughter again, Ngozi opened the screen door and ran out of the house in tears.

It was 9.00 pm but she was not bothered. She continued running until she was confident she was far away from her mother’s house.

She walked to the bus park and sat down on a bench. She had three thousand naira with her. The money she had been given to take out the unwanted baby.

She bought a bus ticket and sat in the bus. The tears came again.

Only one person came to mind right now.

Tomorrow morning, she would be embraced by her paternal grandmother.

She would relay the events of the past six months.

She would describe how her innocence was taken away at the age of fifteen.

She would tell her grandmother how she became an object of satisfaction.

She would mention how she cried every night because her heart and her body hurt.

She would explain how hatred burned in her heart and how she had thoughts of killing him each night with the kitchen knife; while he snored loudly beside her mother after visiting her room.

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Photo Credit: https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk