ture. The times he cheated on her with her friends and every time she tried to ask, he made her feel guilty about it. It was always her fault, he said. How dare she imagine that? How he would look into her eyes and say, “I love you and you love me and we trust each other so don’t doubt me.” He’d say. His kisses felt empty, dead to her. The times he’d accuse her of being insecure until she became insecure, mostly with herself, doubting her thoughts, her words, her actions, worshipping his. “maybe you should work on your body and be like other women then you would be thinking all that.” The times she tried hard to talk and stand for herself but he beat her up and silenced her. Every time someone asked her if she was okay after the horrible nights she’d still answer ... I am fine. The day she read a Maya Angelo quote ‘love liberates’ she chose to free herself. Something that she still hadn’t figured out but she was willing. Something in her shifted. She lay beside him every night plotting her escape. She knew she had had enough. The scars on her skin had become haunting. She wondered who was this man whom she partly recognized, sweet and bitter. Too bitter. How could she have ended up this way? did she ever miss anything? a sign maybe? she hated herself for feeling so much. For always saying too little and she knew she had to leave. The day she packed her things and booked a plane ticket from Nairobi to Kigali, she had hardly slept. He looked at her and noticed her tired eyes and asked her how she was, she said “ I am fine” He left for work and she prepared her things and wrote him a letter and placed it on their bed. That day she took longer in the shower, she remembers how the water felt on her bruised skin. How she sat on the bathroom floor and cried for him. Will she miss his soft fingertips on her skin, his eyes, all the love they made? is she strong enough to leave and never come back? whatever she had become was his doing. She was sure that she never wanted closure, to understand why he did what he did. She still loved him but she was sure she needed to leave for her sake. Every Thursday at noon she sits at the park in a new city that doesn’t remind her of anything. Just beautiful a thousand hills and a past she has to conquer. Its been six months now and she has not called him or replied to his pending mails. She is finding a home in a city that is slowly defining her. 50nd3k4 324 50nd3k4 325 50nd3k4 324 50nd3k4 325