FOUND HIM WITH MY SISTER

I FORGIVE YOU BUT LEAVE

*CHAPTER 9: I FORGIVE YOU, BUT LEAVE

I didn't sleep that night. Even in that big soft mansion guest bed, with silk sheets that felt like water, I couldn't sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Lindiwe's fake pillow belly. I saw Sipho laughing. I saw my mother's disappointed face.

At 6am, my phone rang. It was Mama.

"Nandi! What did you do? Sipho came here! He said you hired bouncers to beat him! He said you are now sleeping with a white... a rich man and you forgot your family! Lindiwe is crying outside my house! What is happening!"

Mama was shouting in Zulu, fast fast.

"Mama, it's not true! Lindiwe faked a pregnancy! She is still with Sipho! They wanted to steal Liam's money!" I cried.

"Nandi, Lindiwe is your sister! Even if she wronged you, she is pregnant! You cannot throw your sister on the street! What will people say? That I raised animals? Come home now!"

She hung up.

Liam was standing at the door with two cups of coffee. He heard everything.

"Your mother wants you to go home?"

"Yes. I have to go to Umlazi. I have to fix this family thing. Before Johannesburg."

"I will drive you."

"No, Liam. This one I must do alone."

He gave me his G-Wagon again. "Take it. So they know you are not small anymore."

When I arrived in Umlazi, the whole street was outside. Lindiwe was sitting on the ground, fake crying, holding her fake pillow belly. Sipho was there with a bandage on his nose from Liam's punch, telling everyone, "This rich man from Umhlanga beat me because I asked for my child!"

My mother was crying.

All my neighbours were looking. "Nandi thinks she is better now because she got a rich man! She forgot where she comes from!"

My heart was beating fast, but this time, I was not scared.

I stepped out of the G-Wagon. Wearing Liam's sister's designer dress that he gave me. Looking like a million dollars. The street went silent.

I walked to Lindiwe. I knelt down. I pulled up her shirt in front of everyone. The pillow fell out onto the dusty ground.

The whole street gasped. "Yoooooh!"

Lindiwe's fake pregnancy was exposed.

"Lindiwe, stand up," I said, loud so everyone can hear. "Mama, everyone, look. There is no baby. It was a pillow. She faked pregnancy to scam me and my boss. Sipho and Lindiwe are still together. They want money."

Sipho tried to run. My uncles held him.

My mother fell down, shocked. "Lindiwe! How could you?"

I looked at both of them. Sipho and Lindiwe. The two people who destroyed me.

Then I said the words I had practiced all night in the mansion.

"Sipho, Lindiwe, I forgive you."

Everyone gasped again.

"Yes, I forgive you. Not because you deserve it. But because I am tired of carrying hate. Hate is heavy. For 3 years I carried love for you, Sipho. Now I carried hate. Both are heavy. I want to be free. So I forgive you."

I looked at Lindiwe, tears now falling from my eyes for real.

"Lindiwe, you are my sister. I will always love the little girl I carried on my back. I will give you R2000 from my salary to go start over in Joburg, far from Sipho. For real. But you cannot stay here and destroy me again. Forgiveness does not mean you can stay in my life. It means I free MY heart, not yours. So leave. Leave Umlazi. Go heal. And when you are truly sorry, maybe one day we can be sisters again. But not today."

Lindiwe cried for real this time. No acting. Real tears. "Nandi..."

I turned to Sipho. "And you, Sipho. I loved you. I gave you my last R50 when you said you were hungry. I washed your underwear. And you sold me. I don't hate you. I pity you. Now go. And never come near me or my family again."

My uncles dragged Sipho away. The neighbours chased him with stones. Lindiwe ran after him, crying.

My mother hugged me. "My child, you are so strong. Like your grandmother."

That afternoon, Liam came to Umlazi with flowers for my mother. The whole location was shocked. A rich man from Umhlanga in Umlazi with flowers.

He knelt down and said, "Mama, I want to take Nandi to Johannesburg tomorrow to meet my family. And I want to ask your permission to make her my girlfriend. Not my staff. My queen."

My mother cried and said yes.

But that night, while packing for Johannesburg, I got a message from an unknown number: "If you go to Johannesburg with him, you will die. That family kills poor girls. Ask what happened to his last girlfriend. - A friend"

I showed Liam. His face turned white.

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