MIND AT A CROSSROAD Part 2

Samantha was born from a religious family. Both her parents were pastors. They were well known and respected in community and the areas surrounding it.  This had shaped her life as she grew into a woman. From her childhood she had perfected the art of standing in front of crowds sharing the good ways to live. She had become a household talk in many homes. She would not be without a serious suitor to marry her when the right time to marry arrives. Her parents’ friends would always suggest their sons as would be husbands for her. As wise as they were they would respond “Samantha will have a final say who she settles for but she needs to complete her studies.

She settled fairly quickly in university but things started looking different. She learnt how to live on her own. There was a lot of freedom for her away from home. She could meet Robert often. Robert had become her first real boyfriend when she turned 17. They met at her friend’s birthday party. She could not resist his constant presence; she was discovering her sexuality and her body changes. Robert was tall and reserved. In a group, he would speak less than everyone but usually his contribution when he spoke was everyone’s final choice, he was sweetly shy and analytical. It was certainly why he was the best graduating student at university when Samantha was a fresh man. His beguiling character had earned him trust from Samantha’s parents, especially her mother; her father had doubts about his overly good behaviour often teasing him as lion in a sheep’s skin.

Robert had stayed for a year without working in a job he longed for but now he was moving to another town, to work there. This struck Samantha. For once she was palateless, happy he found a good job but she was not sure what would become of their relationship.

And true to her fears their relationship started to crumble. He rarely visited or called her. She only held on to his promise he made when he was leaving, a promise that nothing would separate them no matter the distance. And because she was so suffused of him she waited.

Her friend Mumba had started growing tired of Samantha’s relationship with Robert. “There is nothing here to hold on to because no sensible man would let her woman be alone for this long” she would often chasten her. This was the longest time they had stayed without any form of communication, the six whole months! Mumba would encourage her to at least look at senior guys from the other schools.

  “I have noticed you have been looking around, who would you date”? Mumba asked one day. And to her surprise Samantha at once pointed in the direction of male seniors who were having what would seem as a discussion on a very serious topic. Before Mumba could ask which of the guy Samantha was referring to, Samantha was already describing him, it was Jackson, the only guy in the group wearing sweat pants and white sneakers. It turned out she had a crush on him from the time they were doing registration, not a crush that would make her leave her man. “But why Jackson” Mumba asked. “Well because he’s different, he seems kind and nice and he often compliments me whenever he meets me” Samantha responded. She really didn’t know why she would date Jackson but she was sure it would be him, if only she could. Jackson and Samantha had shared a table in the library on a number of occasions. None of them was less interested to count how many times exactly. Without showing signs of bewilderment Mumba smiled for her friend. She was happy for her as she was able to notice other guys but she had hoped Jackson would notice her first.

Robert paid Samantha unexpected visit at campus in her third year. She had not found ways of escaping his charm even when he had been gone for such a long time. If anything, it made her give herself completely; she neglected the use of a condom and all the principles she had grown up with all those years were buried in the moment when she was engulfed in a rare moment of long lost romance.

She sat alone at the university ponds with paper and pen in her hands, the phone to her had become defective it could not show her the correct days, the way she wanted them to be. She could be wrong; she hoped she was wrong. The days were not adding up, these days she easily felt nauseated; she had been eating the same meal for a week and she became very sensitive to smells. It could only mean one thing. Pregnant?

A good karma had been with her from the time she fell pregnant. The university allowed her to proceed with her studies in her state; Robert agreed to marry her if her parents would allow it at short notice. They had to do it to save the embarrassing face of their proud parents. They were surprised at the announcement, but Robert and Samantha gave them convincing reasons for the unsuspecting parents to reject. They were married at civic center and had a small get together party to celebrate their new marriage.

His absence in marriage continued as it was during their dating days, from a distance relationship it slid into a distant marriage. Even after the birth of their child Dalitso and her graduation from university, Robert would not allow her to join him in his house. He would always say he’s in the process of relocating back to Lusaka where they both grew up from.  

Samantha’s life was going through a roughest patch at this time, things appeared to be turning upside for her, then she crossed paths with Jackson again, Jackson started working in the company she was working for. They were in different departments just as they had specialized in different fields. But often they would meet up. Luckily for Samantha, Jackson would say the right words to her even when he had no idea what she going through. Sometimes he would only say two right words that would change how she had been feeling. There were days she would look forward to hearing the words of affirmation from him. She felt the appreciation of being her. Other times she would walk around looking for him just to hear him say something. One day she walked up to him and he said nothing, she felt so distraught, she needed him to say something, even a single word. She could sense the way his eyes were so focused on her but she could not be so sure, he was probably focused on his own things. It frustrated her. She would not humiliate herself again this way. She stood up and started to walk away. “Samantha” he called, she turned back and looked at him, he was there standing, “you are beautiful” and he walked towards her and hugged her, she smiled. The smile lasted the whole day. She felt his warmth, his perfect strong embrace. Samantha held herself everyday trying to mimic the feeling she felt from the last hug. “He cannot still like me that much” she thought to herself, “maybe he’s just a nice guy or maybe...” He was consistent, consistently nice. She had to suppress any thought of emotional inclination. She had to, or she would misjudge the whole situation. One day she allowed herself to let the situation take its course. She let herself feel whatever there was to feel, just to open up her heart and all those things she was holding back came rushing in, like an ocean wave. And for the moment… albeit short but a moment, it was like the rest of the world didn’t exist. It was a happily ever after that wasn’t forever.

How can she reach out to him again She had hurt him more than once and had asked him to stay away from her on several occasions; she didn’t know if she meant it. Samantha would not stay a day without thinking about him. Sometimes when she closed her eyes she would see his strong arms holding her just right, his piercing eyes through hers, his eyes had their own language only them could understand but it was a good language Samantha loved it. She could feel his breath on her body, his sweaty muscular body on hers, when he made love to her it wasn’t about how he felt, he did it with purpose, to make her feel loved; she could see his veins full of purposeful blood rushing in different directions, she wished some would leave his veins and flow into hers. Sometimes she would look at the sky; she would remember the star he had dedicated to her. “You see that star he said, that’s you although you always shine brighter than it does”. They spent a lot of times in the moonlight; he always told her she looked more beautiful in the moonlight and that her eyes glowed while her teeth sparkled whenever the moon was shining. Every season that came and went had a special memory of him.

This time she was not sure how to show that she was sorry, but she was sure he was hurting. Especially sending him a breakup text when he was about to lead a team of experts in a presentation. She couldn’t forgive herself; she wouldn’t expect him to forgive her either. She didn’t mean to send the text on this particular day; she had wanted to send it earlier. Robert had come back and appeared to be trying to fix things, but everything felt flat. She didn’t feel the connection when they talked and when they had sex, it was so mechanical. She dropped a tear. The communication that had existed between her mind and her body was cut off, each part wanting something different. She felt Jackson would have said everything differently he would have touched her differently. The weather would have tuned to his command. She realized how much she had missed him and how good he had been to her and how badly she was treated by Robert. The only thing Jackson wanted was to make her feel happy all the time. As much as he was not always with her, partly because they no longer worked together, he always found little ways of showing that she mattered to him and she was constantly on his mind. She was so sure no one cared about her well-being than Jackson. She didn’t understand why he seemed to know what she wanted when they had not been together longer than she had been with Robert. She struggled not to put Robert and Jackson on scale, Robert was her husband she had to respect him. She pushed all the thoughts side and settled for what she had, her husband.

The more she tried to make her marriage work, the more miserable she felt, she was hurting inside, not once, not twice but on countless times. She was made to feel worthless and felt intoxicated, she was suffocating. But she couldn’t get the detox from the person who had a way of removing her toxins. Jackson was a like drug, an addictive drug with its own side effects