Kora

I took a deep breath immediately the engine started and the car took off after I got down from it, saying a short prayer in my head that my mum was out grocery shopping like she always was every Saturday afternoon. That was the only reason I was able to ask the driver that had dropped me to stop me in front of our house. I knew I wasn't going to risk it if Mum was home. The front gate opened after I had knocked and I walked inside. It was barely five PM and I could already write a full note on how crazy my day went. It was legit insane. I could hear tiny whispers as I walked up the stairs and headed to my room. Something was wrong, something was weird. My door was open.

My door was never open especially when I was not inside. I had made sure I closed it before I left the house that morning but then, it was open. It made me walk slowly to it, wondering who could be inside.

"Aunty Veronica?" I came to a pause the moment I entered into my room and saw the really Chubby woman sitting in my bed with her eyes on the window.

My Aunty Veronica.

The chubby and older version of my mother. My mother's only sister and sibling. A lot of years had passed since I saw her but we always talked on video call so I was able to recognize her. I had no idea she had come over to visit but most importantly, I couldn't understand why she was in my room. She slowly turned to look at me, a wide smile appearing on her face as I watched my step while I walked to her too.

"Kora," she gasped. "My baby, look at you." She pulled me into her embrace and hugged me hard, tapping my back loudly. "Oh my goodness, you've grown so well from the last time I saw you."

"What are you doing here Aunty Veronica? I thought you weren't visiting until Christmas?" I managed to smile so it didn't feel weird at all.

"Oh, don't mind me. I'm only here for a few days to deliver a special message from your grandmother to your mother."

My grandmother? A special message? What was so special that she couldn't talk on the phone? Not that I could blame her. My grandmother and my mother weren't really fond of each other. They weren't best of friends. My mother never talked about her or let me see her. I didn't even know she was alive until last year when my aunty told me and it had caused a huge rift between her and my mother. They didn't talk for months. My mother never really told me why she ran from so many people in her past. Why she wanted to disassociate herself from all of them so badly. I wouldn't have known about my aunty Veronica if she hadn't reached out to me first on Facebook and I intentionally didn't tell mum I did until after seven months because I knew exactly how she was going to feel about it. My aunty squeezed my hands. She looked really happy to see me.

"Where have you been Kora?"

I froze.

I slowly turned to the window where my mum stood, staring at me. I had barely even noticed she was there. OMG! My mum was there! She hadn't gone grocery shopping today, she was standing right there. Did she know? Had she seen me get out of that car from the window? I could see the stern look she gave me. She was upset, really upset.

"M-mum? What are you doing in my room?" I tried to brush off her question.

"That's not an answer to what I asked you. Where have you been and whose car did you just come out of?"

"Mum," I forced a really awkward chuckle. "Mum since when did you care about-"

"Does it look like I'm playing with you?" She glared at me now. "Does this look like a joke to you Kora?!" She raised her voice at me and at that moment, at that moment, I knew this was more than what I thought it was. My mum wasn't just upset, she was furious.

"I went to the library." I had to keep up with my lie. "I told you I was going to the library didn't I?" It was the best thing I could do. It had been a long time since I saw my mother so upset. She didn't get upset like this when I did the worst things. At that moment, I was getting terrified.

"Library?" She asked me. "I called your school's library and was told that it was closed for reconstruction the whole day."

"Lilian-" my aunty tried to step in. I had been caught. I had realized that at that point, there was no point in lying.

"Mum, Mum I can explain," I took a step towards her.

"What's this?" She pulled her hand from her back so she could show me the little book in it, my diary. Why on earth was she holding the only thing that contained everything that ever went on in my life. "What is it you wrote in here about being bullied in school? I don't even want to get to that right now but I surely will later. Where were you yesterday and the day before? Why do you have that bandaid on your hand?"

I hurried to her as fast as I could and grabbed my diary from her.

"Mum," I flipped it over. "Mum did you read this?" I raised my head so I could look at her closely. I was starting to feel so embarrassed and totally upset. This was so not cool. "Mum did you read my diary?!" I raised my voice just a little bit asking her the same questions even when the answers were obvious. She did, she read my diary.

"Why didn't you tell me?" She asked me. "Why didn't you tell me about everything that was going on in your school? Why didn't you tell me about how they hurt and bullied you? About how Racheal constantly abused and humiliated you?"

"No reason." I told her. "I didn't tell you because it didn't have anything to do with you. I could take care of myself. I did."

"You didn't. Kora you didn't."

"I did. I don't get bullied anymore, Jeremiah made sure of it. He protected me and now no one bullies me anymore."

"Jeremiah?" She asked me. "The same Jeremiah that caused all of this? That Jeremiah? That boy?"

"He's my boyfriend Mum, Jeremiah is my boyfriend not 'that boy'." I frowned. I really didn't want to argue with my Mum but with the way she kept throwing all those questions to my face, I was starting to feel really triggered. It was bad enough that she went into my personal space and read my deepest secrets, why was she trying to push and humiliate me and in front of a third party too.

"Lilian, that's enough." Aunty Veronica told her. "You don't have to do this right here, you don't have to do this today."

"Stay out of my business Veronica." Mum still had her eyes glued on me. "I'm talking to my daughter not you."

Wow.

"Mum, it's really not that big of a deal." I was trying too hard to keep my voice and emotions and check too.

"Is that where you've been lately?" She asked me. "All those times you lied about being in school and staying overtime at the library to study for your exams? Were you with him?"

I gulped slowly, keeping my lips shut. If she already knew it all, why was she asking? I watched her shut her eyes for a second, she could obviously read my mind. She drew a deep breath.

"Didn't I tell you Kora?" She asked me, slowly opening her eyes. "Did I not specifically ask you not to get involved with that family? To stay away from Jeremiah?"

"Why?" I asked her. "Why do I have to stay away from him? Why do I have to stay away from everyone in my life? There's always someone to stay away from when it comes to you. Grandma, aunt Veronica, Jeremiah, Ever since you got back from that club the other day you changed. You won't tell me what happened either and you wouldn't entertain me talking about Jeremiah in any way. What did he do to you? What has he or his family done ever done to you?"

"This has nothing to do with him or his family."

"Then what?" I asked her because I really wanted to know. "What is it about? Why do you suddenly hate him so much now? He has never done one wrong thing to you. You used to love him before, you used to ask me not to hold my feelings back and like who I just wanted and that was Jeremiah. What changed?"

"Everything changed!" She yelled at me. "My mistake was never reprimanding you. My mistake was encouraging you all the way, encouraging you to take what doesn't belong to you, to start having feelings for someone that's about to get married. Is that the life you want for yourself? To get involved with other people's husbands?"

"You make it sound like Jeremiah is married to Oma. He doesn't even like her and she knows. Everyone in school knows this. He's only engaged to her because it's what his father wants. He had no say in it before." I paused and then drew a deep breath. I needed it for what I was about to say. "Jeremiah loves me mum, and I love him too, so much, much more than I've ever loved anyone. He looks after me and cares about me, he always lets me know that I'm special, he compliments me. Why can't you let us be together? Why do I have to give up on him and end things when we haven't even started."

"And you think that's all? You think that's all you need to know about a man to convince yourself that he has feelings for you? You think that's enough reason to date him? What do you think you know about him? About that family?"

"I know enough. You don't know him, you don't know anything about how we feel for each other Mum, you can't judge us just because of something you must have heard outside."

"He's not the one for you Kora. He belongs to someone else. Someone you shouldn't go against, someone you shouldn't fight with or try to steal from. I don't want you talking to him anymore." She told me. "I don't want you meeting him him either. From today henceforth, I don't ever want to see you with him,"

"Mum!"

"Do I have to confront him? To tell him myself because I will." She grabbed my phone from my hand and placed it on my face so it could unlock and then she started to go through my contact list.

"Mum."
I tried to take my phone back but she kept stopping me. "Mum why are you doing this?" I was getting really frustrated. I could tell she had found his number when she clicked on the call button immediately and placed it on her ear.

"Mum." I grabbed my phone from her and ended the call as soon as I could before he picked up.

"Do you think this is a joke?" She faced me. What was going on with her? This was more serious than I thought it was. She had tears in her eyes and I had some in mine too.

"What exactly is your problem Mum? If there's something you feel I need to know then why don't you just tell me? Why do you keep all these secrets to yourself and never try to explain to me why you have to do the things you do? Why don't you tell me for once, the things I need to know, things like why I can't be with Jeremiah? Like what happened at the club? Like why I can't talk to my grandmother and who my father is?"

"Why are you bringing up your father and grandmother in all of this? This is about that boy and you not about them."

"It's because it concerns me. It's because you always ask me to do things without telling me why I have to. I never talk about my grandma because you asked me not to, I can't talk about my Dad because you never give me an answer as to who he is. You keep lying that you have no idea who he was but I can tell that you do, that you're just keeping all that information away from me for God knows why! And now you're asking that I break up with my boyfriend without telling me why I have to? What are you so scared of? Why do you keep trying to get rid of everyone in my life? What exactly is it you're hiding from me? Are you scared that I might end up like you did? From one man to another because of that's it Mum, you have nothing to worry about, Jeremiah is not like the men you've been married to and I'm not like you-"

She slapped me.

"Lilian!" My aunty rushed to us and stood right in our center.

I could hear everything go static as far as my right ear was concerned. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe she had slapped me again. I raised my head to her slowly.

"M-mum," I stammered.

"How dare you?" She asked me. "How dare you Kora? After everything? After all I've done for you how dare you?!"

"Lilian!" My aunty turned to her immediately, trying to hold her back from coming anywhere close to me. "That's enough Lilian."

My heart was racing. I was still in shock and didn't know how to feel about what had just happened.

"You'd disrespect me? You'd disrespect your own mother because of a boy? How dare you Kora?"

It was the first time I had ever seen my mother so upset in a long time, the first time we were ever like that. All my life I had grown thinking I was so lucky to be the daughter of one of the fewest cool african mums, the woman I was seeing in front of me was nothing in the definition of cool.

"Everything I've done, every choice I've made, I did so because of you, to protect you, to protect you from what used to be my life, to make sure you never lived the way I did and you're just going to throw it in my face? Why are you still here then, if you hate me so much then why don't you just get out? Why don't you just leave?"

Hate? Where in the world did I ever say I hated anyone?

"If I'm a bad example to you then why are you still here then? Get out! Get out of my house and go be with the father you want to know everything about!"

Now she was being overly dramatic. She couldn't be possibly saying all these things because of what I said. How did things get to this part? I drew a deep breath and pulled my hand from my face.

"I'm not breaking up with Jeremiah." I finally told her. "Not for you and not for anyone."

"What?"

"I'd give you space to clear your head." I told her, not in anyway trying to aggravate her any further. I needed to breathe and clear my head too anyway. I turned around and started to storm to the door, cleaning the tears off my eyes as fast as I could as it fell uncontrollably, my mother's loud yells still echoing around the room.

"Get out! Get out and don't you ever come back."

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Lady K

Crash!

The crashing sounds got even worse when Natalie rushed into the house. She had run as fast as she could out of her garden the moment one of the maids had told her that Christian was back and was doing the most making a mess out of his room. He was breaking things right from the hallway and now, everything in his room was falling apart.

Crash!

Natalie cringed when she heard the loud crashing sound as she got to the stairs. She didn't even have an idea that the meeting was over yet. All the maids were surrounding the stairs, scared to go up. They were all frightened. Not Natalie. She hurried up the stairs as fast as she could, finding her way to his room. She rushed in immediately.

Crash!

Natalie cringed. She was just as terrified and the crashing had become worse. She scanned the room immediately. It was a mess. There were broken shards of glass from vases. The feathers from the pillows were in the air and everything on the dressing table were on the floor. The paintings on the wall were broken and out of place, the sofa and couch were turned upside down as a matter of fact, the room was upside down. She watched the horror, she had never seen anything like it. She held her breath as she narrowed her gaze on Christian who slowly walked away from the window and past her.

He had a baseball bat in his hands and he was walking towards his dressing room. She took a few steps behind him when she heard another crashing sound followed by his loud yell. She increased her pace, hurrying past the glass slide that was partly broken. Christian yelled again, raising the bat in the air and swinging it on the huge mirror with a thud so loud that it shattered at once. Natalie could not recognize the man in front of her. He looked a mess and didn't even have any shoes on. His feet were bleeding from stepping on all that glass and it didn't even look like he had even noticed. He bent over screaming at the top of his lungs and letting it all out. All that frustration.

Natalie had had about enough of it. She hurried to him as quick as she could and took the bat from him immediately before he thought of ruining anything else. He raised his head and turned to glare at her.

"What is wrong with you?" She asked him. "Are you trying to break the whole house down?"

He scoffed. He didn't have to spell it out for her to know he wasn't in the mood. He pulled the bat from her hand, eying her without saying a word and then turned around, he still had more anger in him and a lot of glasses to break. Natalie knee that. She hurried to stand in front of him and then reached for his hand the moment she noticed the hurt in his eyes.

"W-what's wrong?" She asked him. "Did anything happen at the company?"

"Get away from me." He pulled his hand and then turned to walk away when she grabbed him again. She could see how shaky his hands were and how ragged his breathing was. "I'm not in the mood."

"At least clean your wound." She told him, pulling him back so he didn't take another step. "You're bleeding and your wound could get infected."

He scoffed. He was obviously getting really irritated.

"Didn't you hear me? I said get away from me!" He yelled as he pushed her away. Natalie fell to the ground immediately, crashing on tiny glass splinters. It hurt her a lot and she raised her hand to see the blood that was already coming out from it, holding on to her wrist. So much for trying to be the hero. She exhaled and slowly turned to him. Christian froze.

He had his eyes on her the whole second, speechless and when he saw that she was bleeding, he became scared, really scared that he had hurt her but he was too upset to admit it. He held his breath for a second and then started to chuckle, letting go of the baseball bat slowly.

Natalie sat still watching him until he started to laugh. He was laughing, why was he laughing and so hard too?

"It's over." He told her still laughing and gesturing with his hands. "Can you believe it? Half of my life and all those years sacrifices, all those years, all gone."

He was referring to the company and Natalie knew that. She knew something had definitely gone wrong at the meeting.

"Everything I did, all my sweat, every drop of my blood and effort, all gone down the drain, just like that!" He yelled and then yelled again, this time , even louder. Natalie exhaled, she found herself pulling her up from the ground slowly. Christian was barely paying attention to anything. He was so busy trying to let off steam to even be bothered by anyone or anything. Natalie could see he was in pain, she knew he was in pain. Everything was becoming so obvious now. She slowly started to walk towards him.

"Chris," it was the first time in a really long time, first time she ever called him Chris. "Chris I need you to calm down," she took slower steps towards him. "I need you to calm down and talk to me." She could see how his voice broke and the tears in his eyes as he slowly turned to face her. She was getting even closer, her voice was breaking too and she could feel her tear glands getting to work. "Talk to me please."

"I've lost everything." He told her. "You were right. Are you happy now? I'm a nobody now. I have no company, I barely have any shares. I let my greed get the best out of me and now I'm done for. I'm nothing." Natalie placed her hands over her mouth, she couldn't believe it. She watched him spread his hands so he could laugh again amidst all the tears that fell from his eyes. "I am nothing! Are you happy now?" His last words came with little sobs.

"No." She whispered.

"I bet it feels so good to know that you were right. I bet you can't wait to laugh at me and gloat."

"No," she shook her head. How on else could she convince him that she had never wished for him to fail at anything.

"Go ahead, laugh." He told her as a frown covered his face immediately. "Laugh at me!" He yelled at her and it made her jump in fright. "Laugh at me and throw me away like everyone else. Abandon me like everyone else!"

"Christian, you need to calm down." She took more steps to him.

"Go on, get out. What are you waiting for? Leave me!"

"I can't." She told him as she tried to grab on to him. She needed to hold him if that was the only thing that could bring him back to his senses. The only way he could feel he wasn't alone. He pushed her hand off immediately.

"I said get out!" He yelled at her. "Leave!"

"I can't!" Natalie yelled back at him. She couldn't leave him, not like that, not at that moment. "I can't leave! I'm not going to leave."

Those words took every ounce of energy he had left and at moment, he realized that he was tired. He was tired of acting so tough. He was tired of acting like he had everything under control when he obviously didn't. He let out a shaky breath and then raised his hands to rub both sides of his nose bridge. He needed time. He needed to breathe and Natalie could see that.

"I was so close." His voice was breaking but he wasn't yelling anymore. He was...sobbing, crying. "I was so close to getting everything I ever wanted, everything they took from her. All I wanted was to take things back to the way they were. I haven't paid her a visit in a long time because I had promised her that the next time I was going to visit, I was going visit her as the CEO of the company she sacrificed everything for. I was going to show her that I had grown into a good man. Into a responsible man even when she wasn't there. I wanted to show her that I grew well and I was everything she wanted me to be but I'm not. I don't have anything anymore. I can't be CEO anymore, I can't be anything. I've lost everything and everyone." He slowly went on his knees and he didn't even intend to but at that point, his emotions were getting the best of him.

"It's over. My life is over. Everything is over."

Natalie exhaled and then slowly went on her knees too right beside him. Her hands were trembling and she had given what she was about to do enough thought and decided to do it anyway, even if he pushed her away or hated it. It was all she could do. All she could do for him. She reached for his bruised hands and then rubbed her fingers around them.

"It's not." Her voice broke. Christian slowly rose his head to her. "You might have lost the company but that's only a small portion of who you are. Benoil didn't make you, you made Benoil and you can do it again. Start your own empire, your own company. It's time to let it go Christian, it's time to let Benoil go."

"I can't."

"Yes you can." She raised her head to him. "It's all you've done ever since you were a kid; build, grow. You've given meaning to everything you touch. Benoil would have been nothing without you. You did it and you can do it again. It's going to be tough but I can help you. I can stay by your side and we can get through this side by side. You don't have to go through this alone, I won't let you go through this alone. I won't leave you, I won't ever leave you. For better for worse. Remember?"

"For better for worse." He whispered after her.

"Yes." Her voice broke as she nodded in agreement, rubbing his hands gently. Christian sniffed and then pulled her close. He hugged her tightly.

"Don't leave me." He told her. "You're all I have left, please don't leave me. I don't know what I'd do if you leave me, don't leave me please." He tightened his grip on her as he cried on her shoulders.

For the first time he felt it, he could feel what it really felt like, loneliness. For for the first time he felt like was alone and it terrified him. Natalie held on to him.

"I won't leave you." She was crying too, even though she was trying to make it less obvious. She gave him soft pats on his back.  "I'd never leave you."

And she meant every word.