Forbidden Love

The wrong number text… The "I miss you" was meant for Thabo. Instead, it went to +27 82... a number one digit off from his. I only realized when my phone buzzed 2 minutes later. Unknown: I don't know who this is, but I've been missing someone too. My stomach dropped. I typed fast: So sorry!!! Wrong number. Ignore that pls. Three dots appeared. Then: Unknown: Too late. Now I’m curious. Who were you missing at 11:47pm on a Tuesday? I should’ve left it. But it was that kind of night - empty bed, empty fridge, SASSA grant still pending. I typed back: My ex. We ended 3 months ago. My brain forgets sometimes. Unknown: Mine doesn’t. My brain remembers every stupid thing. I’m Lungi btw. I’m Naledi. And just like that, we didn’t stop. Day 3: Lungi sent me a voice note of rain in Thohoyandou. “You said you miss the sound of summer storms. This one’s for you.” I’d never told Thabo that. Week 2: We had rules. No pics, no calls, no real names until we “earned it”. Just texts at 11:47pm. My favorite: Lungi: What would we be doing if this wasn’t a wrong number? Me: Arguing about who makes better magwinya. Lungi: You. Obviously. But I’d still pretend mine were better so you’d prove me wrong in my kitchen. Month 1: I caught myself smiling at my phone like an i***t. Thabo texted once - “u up?” I deleted it. Lungi’s 11:47 text came right after: Tell me one thing you’ve never told anyone. I told her about the R2.9K app scam I fell for last year. She didn’t laugh. She said, “Brave people try. Scared people judge.” Month 3: The rule broke. My data ran out on the 29th. No 11:47 text. At 11:48, my phone rang. Unknown number. “Are you okay?” Her voice was soft, Venda accent, worried. “I’m fine, just… broke,” I admitted. “Same,” she laughed. “Want to be broke together? The taxi rank at Elim. Saturday. 10am. I’ll wear a red beanie.” I spent R50 I didn’t have on taxi fare. Elim rank was chaos — taxis hooting, vendors shouting. Then I saw her. Red beanie, nervous smile, holding two magwinya in a brown paper bag. “You’re real,” I said, stupidly. “Yours are better,” she said, handing me one. They weren’t. But when she kissed me right there between the Tzaneen and Louis Trichardt taxis, tasting like oil and sugar and second chances, I decided I’d spend the rest of my life pretending they were. Thabo never texted again. Lungi still texts at 11:47pm. But now it’s just: Home safe? And my reply is always: With you? Always. The Wrong Number Text — Episode 2: The Right Silence 11:47pm came and went. 11:48. 11:52. No text. By 12:03am, I was refreshing w******p like it owed me money. Lungi hadn’t left me on “read” in 3 months. We had a rule: even if it was just “bad day, talk tomorrow”, we sent something. Day 1, I told myself she was busy. Day 2, I typed “You good?” and deleted it. Double texting was against the rules we made up. Day 3, I stared at the two magwinya I’d frozen from Elim rank, and thought: Stupid. You got played again. Different scam, same Naledi. Day 4, at 11:46pm, I cracked. I called. It rang once. Twice. Then: “Hello?” Her voice was small. Tired. Not the 11:47pm Lungi who sent me rain voice notes. “Lungi? It’s me. It’s Naledi. Where—” The line beeped. Call ended. My chest went tight. Not heartbreak tight. Fear tight. The kind you feel when SASSA says “declined” and rent is tomorrow. I didn’t sleep. At 6am I was at the taxi rank. R50 again — my last R50. “Elim Hospital,” I told the driver. It was a guess. She’d mentioned her gogo lived near Elim once, complaining about the clinic queues. I found her on the 3rd floor. Red beanie off, hair in a messy bun, eyes puffy. She was curled in a plastic chair outside Ward 5, holding a polony sandwich she hadn’t touched. She saw me and froze. “How did you— Naledi, you shouldn’t—” “Your phone’s been off,” I cut her off. I shoved a brown paper bag at her. Inside: vetkoek from the rank, a R12 Coke, and a R10 1GB Telkom voucher. “And you didn’t text.” Her face crumpled. “Gogo collapsed Tuesday night. Stroke. I’ve been here since. I was going to text but…” She looked at the voucher like it would bite her. “I didn’t want you to think I was like them.” “Them?” “The people from your R2.9K story. The ones who only text when they need something.” Her voice broke. “You told me brave people try. I was scared if I said ‘my gogo is sick’ you’d think I was starting a scam. That I’d ask for money next.” I sat down hard in the plastic chair next to her. The hospital smelled like Dettol and bad coffee. A baby was crying somewhere. “Lungi,” I said. “The night we met, you bought the magwinya. You let me kiss you with taxi dust in my hair. You don’t have to be brave with me. You just have to be here.” I peeled the Telkom voucher and loaded it on her phone myself. Her w******p exploded — 63 messages. 59 from me. 3 from her cousin. 1 from a number I didn’t know. She didn’t look at them. She looked at me. “I’m sorry I went quiet.” “I’m sorry I assumed the worst,” I said. “I’m… used to people leaving when things get hard.” We didn’t kiss. Gogo was behind that door. Instead, she leaned her head on my shoulder and we shared the cold vetkoek. For 20 minutes, the hospital noise faded. It was just us, and 11:47am instead of 11:47pm. When we walked out, her phone finally buzzed in her hand. She glanced down and her whole body went still. “What?” I asked. She turned the screen to me. Thabo: I saw you at Elim taxi rank on Saturday. With a girl. Red beanie. You move fast, hey. Was I that easy to replace? My blood went cold. He’d been there. Watching. Lungi’s thumb hovered over the block button. “Do you… want to answer him?” I took her hand. Interlaced our fingers. Calloused, real, not a 11:47pm fantasy. “No,” I said. “I finally texted the right number. I’m not looking for the wrong one anymore.” We walked to the taxi rank together. This time, I paid for both of us. That night at 11:47pm, my phone lit up. Lungi: Home safe. With you? Always. Me: Always. And tomorrow? Lungi: Tomorrow we figure it out at 11:47am too. The Wrong Number Text — Episode 3: The Right Fight Thabo didn’t stop texting. Thabo: So that’s why you didn’t reply to my “u up?” You already had a replacement lined up. Thabo: Does she know you fell for a R2.9K app scam? Or do you only tell strangers your embarrassing stuff? Thabo: We were together 2 years, Naledi. Don’t pretend I’m the villain. I blocked him Tuesday. He used a different number Wednesday. Lungi saw me staring at my phone at the taxi rank. “Still him?” I nodded. “He says I replaced him.” She passed me half her gwinya. “Did you?” “No,” I said. “I found myself. You were just there when it happened.” The peace lasted 6 days. Then f*******: happened. I’d posted a pic — me and Lungi at Elim Mall, sunlight in her hair, red beanie nowhere in sight. Caption: “Right number energy.” The like came at 2:17am from “Khutso M.” Joburg. Profile pic: him in a suit, holding a whiskey. Lungi went quiet when she saw it. “That’s my ex.” “The Joburg one?” She nodded. “We ended 8 months ago. He… didn’t like sharing.” My phone buzzed. Khutso M: Saw your post. You look happy. She glow different when she’s not with me. I showed Lungi. Her jaw locked. “He’s starting.” “Starting what?” “The game. He’ll message you next. Act friendly. Ask if you’re ‘taking care of his girl’. Then he’ll offer you money to leave me alone.” I laughed, but it came out sharp. “You think I’d take it?” “I think,” she said slowly, “you’ve been broke before. And R5K makes people do strange things when SASSA is late.” That stung. Because she was right. R5K would change my month. But it wouldn’t change the way she said my name at 11:47pm. 11:47pm that night, her text didn’t come. 11:52pm, mine did: You think I’m for sale? Three dots. Then: Lungi: No. I think I’m scared. Khutso doesn’t lose. And Thabo knows where I live now because of your f*******: pic. I don’t want you in the middle of my mess, Nali. Nali. She’d never called me that before. It sounded like a goodbye. I didn’t sleep. At 7am I was outside her flat in Louis Trichardt with two takeaway coffees. She opened the door in an old T-shirt, eyes swollen. “Khutso messaged me,” I said. “Offered me R7K to ‘stop confusing you’.” Her face went white. “Did you—” “I told him to add a zero and maybe I’d consider it,” I said. “Then I blocked him. Then I blocked his other 3 accounts.” She blinked. “You… what?” “I’m not Thabo,” I said. “I’m not Khutso. I’m the girl who spent her last R50 to find you at a hospital. I don’t want your ex’s money. I want your 11:47pm texts. I want your bad days. I want you.” She laughed, wet and shaky. “You’re insane.” “You liked that about me,” I said, holding out the coffee. “Wrong numbers are my specialty.” She took the coffee. Then my hand. “Gogo gets discharged today. She wants to meet the girl who bought vetkoek for her granddaughter.” My stomach flipped. “Does she know… about us?” Lungi sipped her coffee. “She knows I’ve been smiling at my phone at 11:47pm for 3 months. She said, ‘That’s not MTN network. That’s lehakwe.’ Lightning.” We didn’t see Thabo at the hospital. But as we were leaving, a black BMW idled across the street. Tinted windows. Joburg plates. Lungi didn’t look. She just laced her fingers through mine and whispered, “Lightning doesn’t explain itself to storms, Nali.” That night at 11:47pm, my phone lit up. Lungi: Gogo says you’re welcome for Sunday lunch. Also, she says your magwinya will never beat mine. She’s wrong. But you can try prove her wrong in my kitchen. Me: Only if you’re there to judge. Lungi: Always. Home safe? Me: With you? Always.