Wounded warrior

Learning To Live Again

Days drifted by like slow, heavy clouds.

I spent most mornings staring at the same spot on the wall, trying to convince myself that time was moving, that healing was happening, that I wasn’t trapped inside the same broken moment repeating itself again and again.

My body still trembled in strange ways.

My right side still fought against me.

My tongue still refused to shape the words I wanted to say.

But the house…

The house stayed quiet.

And then, one morning, the silence broke.

A soft knock at the door.

Not the kind that demands attention — the kind that fears it.

My mother opened, and before I could fully lift my head, I heard a familiar voice trembling at the edges.

“Ngikhona … I’m just passing by to check on him,” she said.

Naledi.

Rebecca’s friend.

The same friend who used to laugh loudly in the kitchen, who used to shout, “Innocent, stop hiding your food from Rebecca!”

The same friend who once lived only three streets away — close enough to visit anytime, far enough that she never did unless it mattered.

She stepped inside slowly, holding her handbag like a shield.

When her eyes landed on me, her breath caught.

Her whole face folded into sorrow I didn’t expect.

“Sorry…” she whispered.

Her voice broke almost instantly.

Tears gathered before she could blink them away.

“Sorry about what happened to you, Innocent.”

Her words felt heavier than they sounded.

I tried to straighten my posture, tried to look less fragile than I was, but my body betrayed me — my right leg stiffened, twitching. My hand curled inward.

I felt exposed.

Not physically — emotionally.

As if she could see the parts of me I was trying to hide.

Naledi walked closer, each step hesitant, like she was afraid she might break me just by being near.

“I heard everything,” she said softly.

“I didn’t believe it at first. You know how people talk… But when Rebecca told me herself…”

She stopped.

Her throat tightened.

Her eyes turned glassy again.

“…I didn’t expect to see you like this.”

My mother offered her a chair.

She sat down slowly, wiping her face with her sleeve.

I wanted to tell her I’m still me.

I’m still innocent.

I’m still fighting.

But all that came out was a quiet breath, shaky and thin.

She noticed.

Her hand reached for mine, then stopped halfway — afraid to hurt me.

Finally, she placed it gently on my left hand.

“You didn’t deserve this,” she murmured.

The room felt heavier.

Because she wasn’t just speaking for herself.

She was speaking for everyone, too afraid to say the words out loud.

People who didn’t know how to face me.

People who didn’t know what to say.

People who blamed themselves in silence.

She sat with me longer than I expected — talking to my mother, asking questions, checking if I was eating, if I slept, if the seizures came back.

Before she left, she looked at me again, longer this time.

“I’ll come back,” she promised softly.

“You’re not alone, Innocent.”

And for the first time in weeks…

It actually felt true.

The afternoon light crept through the curtains in thin golden strips. I lay there quietly, still replaying Naledi’s visit in my mind — her trembling voice, her worried eyes, her warmth in a world that had suddenly turned cold.

I thought that was the end of the day’s surprises.

But life… life wasn’t done with me.

Naledi returned unexpectedly.

The door opened gently, and she slipped inside, closing it behind her with careful hands. Her expression was different — not sorrowful like in the morning, but nervous. Almost excited. Her fingers trembled, not with fear this time, but with something she couldn’t hold onto any longer.

She stood at the edge of my bed.

“Innocent…” she whispered.

Her voice carried something strange — a secret sitting on her tongue.

She reached into her handbag, her eyes locked onto mine, searching for strength inside me… or maybe courage inside herself.

Then she pulled it out.

A pregnancy test.

Positive.

Before my breath could react, she smiled — a soft, emotional smile that didn’t reach her eyes fully, as if she was hiding her own confusion.

“Congratulations,” she said quietly. “You’re a father again.”

My chest tightened. My mind turned blank. The world paused.

A father… again?

My right hand twitched. My heart raced in uneven, painful beats.

And then she said the name — the name that punched the air out of my lungs and dragged my memories to life:

“Olerato Manessah… your unborn daughter with Rebecca.”

My eyes widened. A name from high school days — a dream we whispered as kids, the kind of name two young lovers give a future they aren’t sure they’ll achieve. A name full of hope and innocence.

Naledi nodded slowly, tears glimmering.

“Yes… that child.” “The one you named together before life became complicated.”

I tried to swallow. Nothing moved.

The room began to spin. Not violently — but enough to blur the edges of the moment.

Pregnant. Rebecca. Another daughter. Olerato Manessah.

A life continuing… while mine was falling apart.

Naledi leaned closer, whispering:

“She didn’t want to tell you yet… not in your condition. But you deserve to know. And I couldn’t watch you suffer without hope.”

Her hands shook again, and suddenly she panicked — footsteps echoed in the passage, my mother’s voice approaching.

Naledi’s eyes widened.

She quickly slid the pregnancy test under my pillow, her movements fast, guilty, urgent.

“Don’t tell anyone I told you,” she whispered breathlessly. “They’ll think I interfered.”

She stepped back. Her body stiffened with fear of being caught.

Then she slipped out the door as quietly as she came — leaving nothing behind except the test hidden beneath my head… and a storm inside my chest.

I lay there, frozen.

A father again.

Another daughter coming into this world…

And I couldn’t even stand up to welcome her.

My pillow felt heavy — as if it now held the weight of my future.

My heart beat painfully, fighting the stiffness in my body, fighting the reality that my life had changed again…

Without warning. Without my permission. Without giving me time to breathe.

And for the first time since the attack, a new fear crept into me —

Would I live long enough for my unborn daughter to know me?

The news of my unborn daughter didn’t just shock me — it ignited something inside me.

For weeks, I had been drifting between pain and survival, barely holding on.

But now…

Now I had a reason to rise again.

A child.

My blood.

Another daughter who would one day call me “Father.”

The thought alone lit a spark deep inside my broken body — something doctors couldn’t diagnose, something medicine couldn’t supply.

Hope.

But while hope grew inside me, trouble was growing inside the house.

My family wanted answers.

My family wanted justice.

My family wanted someone to blame.

And they chose Rebecca.

Not the men who attacked me.

Not the night that went wrong.

Rebecca.

They pointed fingers without hesitation:

“She was the last person with him.”

“She must know something.”

“How do you live with someone and not see danger?”

“She didn’t protect him.”

The words turned harsher every day.

Rebecca was no longer welcomed anywhere near me — not in the yard, not in the house, not even in the same conversation. If her name came up, voices rose and tempers flared.

To them, she was the reason I lay in that bed.

To them, she represented failure, carelessness, betrayal.

But to me…

She was carrying my child.

The mother of Olerato Manessah.

A woman holding a piece of my future inside her.

Every time someone cursed her name, my chest tightened.

I wanted to speak.

To defend her.

To tell them to stop twisting the truth.

But my tongue betrayed me.

My voice was still trapped.

My words locked behind the damage in my brain.

And they mistook my silence for agreement.

“If Innocent could talk,” they said,

“He would tell us himself that she failed him.”

They didn’t understand.

They didn’t see the pain in my eyes when they rejected her.

They didn’t feel my heart racing when I imagined her crying alone.

They didn’t know that at night, when everyone slept,

I held the pregnancy test under my pillow.

…as if protecting it meant protecting her too.

I wasn’t strong enough to walk.

I wasn’t strong enough to talk.

But I was strong enough to think.

Strong enough to feel.

Strong enough to know the truth:

Rebecca didn’t hurt me.

Life did.

Circumstance did.

The wrong place at the wrong time.

But guilt is easier to place on one person than on an invisible moment.

So they built a wall around me —

a wall Rebecca was not allowed to cross.

My mother refused to mention her name.

Sibusiso shook his head every time he heard it.

Even Joyce stayed quiet, not wanting to ignite more flames.

The tension grew every day.

Arguments whispered behind closed doors.

Phone calls ended abruptly when her name came up.

Family meetings where decisions were made without me.

Yet every morning, when I open my eyes,

The thought that kept me alive was simple:

I need to get better.

I need to heal.

I need to fight.

Because I have a daughter coming into this world…

And she deserves to know her father.

And even if the world turned against Rebecca,

Even if every door was shut in her face,

I knew one thing with painful clarity:

She would find a way to see me.

Because a woman carrying your child doesn’t disappear…

She becomes the storm that knocks until the door breaks open.

And that storm was coming.