Chapter 2: Not that kind of honesty
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The rain had started sometime after sunset — not heavy, just that steady, curtain-like drizzle that made everything feel softer, sadder. Dodo and Thabiso sat on the couch, their takeout finished, the smell of soy and ginger still lingering.
Henry was glued to his PlayStation in the room down the hall. Portia was in the shower, humming something offbeat.
“You’re miles away tonight,” Thabiso said, nudging her thigh gently with his knee.
“I’m here,” she said, eyes still on the flickering TV screen.
“But you’re not really.”
Dodo sighed. “It’s nothing.”
Thabiso stood, stretched. “Mind if I use the bathroom?”
She nodded absently and walked to the kitchen to toss out the food containers. When she came back, he wasn’t in the bathroom — he was in her bedroom. And her journal, the one she kept half-buried under a stack of old magazines, was in his hands.
“Thabiso,” she said sharply. “What the hell are you doing?”
His face was pale, mouth parted. He turned a page and looked up slowly.
“You think I’m—what did you write?—‘a cultural fence-sitter hiding behind prayers and bones’? Is that really what you think of me?”
She froze. “You had no right—”
“No, you had no right. To sit in my car, kiss me, sleep in my arms, and write that crap behind my back.”
Her voice rose. “It’s my journal, Thabiso! My private thoughts. You went through my things.”
“And what I found was the truth you don’t have the guts to say to my face.”
She blinked. “You want the truth? Fine. I don’t trust men who say they love God and then start talking about appeasing ancestors. I’ve lived that confusion before. I don’t want it around my children.”
His face twisted in disbelief. “So now I’m confusion? Because I love both? Because I honour where I come from and where I’m going?”
“No, because you want a woman who’ll keep quiet while you juggle both. And I’m not that woman.”
“Oh, but you are the woman who can write about a man’s flaws like you’re a columnist in some relationship advice column? Without even talking to him?”
Dodo’s voice cracked. “You wouldn’t have heard me.”
“Try me!” he shouted, then lowered his voice sharply. “You think you’re protecting your kids, your faith, your peace? What you’re doing is hiding. Behind journaling. Behind that fake smile. Behind that ‘independent woman’ script you recite like it’s gospel.”
She stepped back. “I don’t need this. I don’t need to be picked apart by someone who doesn’t even know what he believes.”
“You don’t need anything that makes you feel,” he spat. “Because real love would force you to be seen. And you're terrified of that.”
Silence fell between them like a dropped glass.
The rain hit harder against the windows now. Henry’s game buzzed faintly in the background.
“I need you to leave,” Dodo said quietly.
Thabiso stared at her, his chest rising and falling. Then he tossed the journal on her bed and walked past her.
Before he opened the door, he paused. “You’ll end up alone, Dodo. Not because men aren’t good enough. But because you won’t let anyone close enough to see you bleeding.”
And then he was gone.
Later that night, Dodo opened her journal — not to write, but to reread what he’d seen. The words still stung, even though they were hers.
But maybe they stung because they were hers.
She finally picked up a pen and added beneath the last entry:
“Maybe I was unfair. Maybe he was too. But at least he saw me. That’s more than I let most people do. And maybe... maybe it’s time to stop hiding behind ink.”
From the hallway, Portia’s voice drifted in.
“Is he gone?” she asked softly.
Dodo replied without looking up: “Yeah. He’s gone.”
“Love shouldn’t feel like a wound. But tonight I learned — honesty cuts too. And maybe it has to, if anything real is going to heal.”"
- Writer
