A broken code of Promise

The Years that Followed

Cassie’s POV

My name became popular because the newspaper headlines didn’t change for weeks. Jaxon’s vanishing was a hard blow to everyone. He embarrassed his mother as a city mayor, and people wouldn’t stop asking questions. Despite what he did, my family didn’t stop their friendship with his family. The families were there for each other, except Jaxon wasn’t there for me.

When he left, he opened the door of darkness in my life. My parents couldn’t take the embarrassment. They had to hide wherever they were, even in their own house. It was a difficult phase that made me give up trying to call his number. However, my nights were no longer the same because I saw his face every time I closed my eyes. It’s true—love can be stubborn. Without caring how hurt I was, I still needed him. I tried to call him several times, but he never picked up my calls. Thereafter, his phone was unreachable, so I lost hope of his return. He was gone for sure. Maybe dead.

The questions remained in my head: why wasn’t he crazy for me like I was for him? Why didn’t he at least say goodbye to me? Maybe the answer to all of my questions was simple: he didn’t love me.

I deleted his number and began keeping myself busy by volunteering, either in the community or at church. My mother gave me the idea of planting flowers in our garden behind our house. I started small, but as the months passed, the whole yard was full of flowers, attracting all the town's butterflies. As time went on, I envied other students going to college. My parents didn’t want me to further my studies. My father wanted me to get married. He wanted the bride-price money to start a business.

For three months, something else was stressing me—I missed my period. I took a bold decision to visit the hospital. The results shocked me. I was three months pregnant. I couldn’t tell my parents the news because I wanted to terminate the pregnancy. Before taking any action, I met with Mary and Faith. They told me to keep the child. I tried to give my concerns to them, but they didn't care.

It was hard to give the news to my parents. They were planning to marry me to someone, not knowing the situation. While I was thinking of ways to tell them, my father died of a heart attack. He died without knowing I was pregnant. His death made it more difficult to tell my mother. Mary suggested I tell the news to Jaxon’s mother, which I did. Jaxon’s mother, surprisingly, became happy and didn’t wait to tell my mother. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the two ladies becoming excited and impatient for the birth of their grandchild.

When I thought no one was going to marry me since I was pregnant, Linx’s family was exceptional. They came with a proposal. My mother saw it as a breakthrough, as if God had answered all of her prayers. She didn’t even ask my opinion on the matter before going to discuss it with Jaxon’s mother. They saw it right that I should marry Linx, Jaxon’s best friend. They thought marriage was a new start for me, but it wasn’t. It was just another bomb waiting to burst my thin shell. I couldn’t even imagine Linx as my husband. In fact, things were then different—marriage was no longer my dream.

Linx James—my husband-to-be, the letter deliverer—was very delighted to marry me. He didn’t care that his friend Jaxon was about to marry me before disappearing. He even accepted the child in my stomach as his own. So the wedding happened with fewer people invited. I was officially married to Linx.

On the seventh day of March, my baby girl was born. It was the best night of my life, although on the same night, Jaxon’s mother was shot dead while driving to see me in the hospital. The police never found the killer, and Jaxon never came for the funeral.

After having my child, Linx started behaving unusually. He became a stranger, developed anger issues, and beat me up over simple arguments. My life became hard. I couldn’t accept what the spectrum of life had positioned for me. Loneliness came, the tidal of it growing into a gigantic wave every day. The nights were very hard, as pillows became salty with my tears, and pleasant dreams became impossible.

I looked at my little princess. She gave me hope of changing my fate. I named her Cathy after Jaxon’s mom. I needed to secure a future for her, so I looked for a job. Luckily, I got one.

After ten years, my little Cathy was going to school, and her abusive father was a drug addict. He had changed more to be a beast that sometimes I was afraid of him. Life with him was hard, but I survived for ten years. I was running my restaurant, which I started by asking for donations. Linx was no longer working, but he had a lot of money. I don’t know what he was doing. He would stay for weeks without showing up at the house. Sometimes he would come home drunk or bring other women while I was present. I ended up deciding to stay at my brother’s house, Mathew. Mathew was staying with his girlfriend along with my mother. My mother was then sick. She had dementia, so my aunt took her.

One evening, when I was preparing supper, the news said Linx James was dead. I felt shocked, like the world had stopped making sense. They killed Linx just like they had killed Jaxon’s mother. Fear gnawed at me; I don’t know why.