HER TEARS....

It wasn't the first night. It wasn't the second night. She had lost count. She sat at the corner, watching as he buckled his belt, packed his shirt and fled into the darkness. She had heard this story before. She had never dreamt she would be a victim. The tears that came down her sweaty face were all she had, all she could express in hating this uncle and then her own vulnerability. She was also afraid. She was too afraid. She didn't know who tell if she wanted to tell. She looked forward to mornings every night. She looked forward to the cockcrow screaming shrilly in her ears and an alarm clock playing its annoying tune. She looked forward to the sun, casting its brightness into her always dimly lit room. She looked forward to hearing the bustle of a new day and the hustle of the outside world. There was this assurance that came with the new day and there was this tingly feeling that made it all disappear as the evening approached.

She would talk to the gods or to herself or so it seemed, holding back the tears as the hour approached, sitting at the edge of the bed, feeling ashamed for what was yet to come. She would tell the gods to stop her uncle from coming to her room. She would ask the gods to strike him. She would ask them to make her dead parents come out of their graves—the eternal slumber. She would ask so much and command so much and if and when he didn't come, she would close her eyes and slowly drift away into an abyss of hunted dreams of the very brutality of an uncle.

It first started two months ago and she'd known that he only came when he was drunk. He wasn't even her uncle properly so called. He was just one of those people we called uncle for convenience. They shared no blood ties whatsoever and she thought, hence his brutality and wickedness.

She had thought of running away but since the death of her parents, things had been hard and he was the only one willing to take her into his home. She remembered the night he came and took her to his home. It had been just a month after her parents died in the June 2012 Lagos plane crash. No, the relatives didn't care about identifying the body or other technicalities; they came in and took the house and the beautiful things. What did she know? She couldn't defend herself, her father hadn't thought of a will and neither had he planned to die and so, she herself had to accept the inevitable.

Then, this uncle, a brother in her mother's protestant church which she dreaded going to but any which way had had to go to once or twice over the years had seen her wandering the streets after her father's brother's wife had beaten her and told her never to step foot in 'their' house. Yes, she didn't think twice before she sat down at the passenger’s seat and buckled her seat belt. She didn't think twice before she allowed him to take her to a restaurant to get good food. And she didn't mind when he's said I'd take care of you, you don’t have to worry anymore.

Because she was still vulnerable, though stupid was a much better word she had accepted it all with that blank stare lingering in her eyes. Fifteen and cursed with the best features one might say. Unaware however of the heads she caused to stare as she walked past. When in this house which she had been staying in for the past eight months--without education, she would fetch water from the neighbor's tap, a life she had never been subjected to, then the boys many of them would come out deliberately to look. They would also make passing comments like 'so round, that behind'

She would ignore. She didn't care. She and her mother had never gotten far with the 'boy-talk.' As an only child, they'd spoiled her beyond words, hence her father had once remarked 'she wouldn't be dating for a while,' he'd adjusted his reading glasses 'any boy who comes through to this gate to see her, I would kill' of course he'd been joking but she'd taken a cue and faced her books.

So, with the unfolding of events, being a quick adjuster, she'd adjusted. However this one thing, the taking of what most women value, desecrating her, making her feel dirty, she could never adjust to.

But who was she to tell? who?

Sometimes she blamed herself, other times she blamed her parents, most times, she blamed the gods if they did exist. She wondered how exactly she would run off. She wondered exactly whether she would ever heal from this pain that threatened to tear her heart opened, even if he died, even if he never came to her room again.

She always wondered about these, a harsh pain creeping up her neck and ears. It was the sort of pain that came with hatred. A newly born passion in her. She could kill him. She had killed him many times in her dreams. She had killed him many times in her thoughts. But she was too afraid to hold the kitchen knife in the physical.

Then there was the innate desire to be free even though she knew she would always be a caged bird at heart because of this experience. She was going to leave but she didn't know how. Despite all that happened--they said should make you stronger, other than hate, she was vulnerable and afraid. The fear plagued her and most times overthrew the hate.

She sat still in the corner remembering the blood that first night, remembering that she and the girls from her school had wanted to wait till they were married. They ranted on and on about how guys preferred virgins. They gossiped about non-virgins--it didn't matter if they were raped, non virgins were still sluts to them.

Grandmother before her death in that small white house overlooking the hills in a tiny town in Ogun state had gone on about the value of a girl's virginity. She told stories about the old days. How a girl who wasn't a virgin was shamed when her fiancé or husband found out. She told stories about girls who were raped in wars. She said they brought it on themselves, wearing those short skirts, using tiro, applying lipsticks--'shame on them' in her exact words.

So, she felt shameful of herself the way one felt when they had a stigma or better still, wore clear ugly clothes out in the public. It was how she felt. Like she wore only a dirty linen.

He had a girlfriend which was worse and sometimes, with that stern look when she came over for 'bedroom' prayer meetings, she was nice, as if she knew he had raped her. But she didn't know. She didn't even suspect.

After the first night she had been unable to look at him. As she swept the floor that morning she felt his eyes around her and then he'd said 'don't forget to wash the plates' as if nothing had happened. The nights were for the nights, the days for the days. He acted normally everyday but came to her room with soothing words at night like 'it wouldn't hurt, you can’t tell anyone about this, it’s because I care a lot about you' she was flabbergasted.

She was also afraid of getting pregnant or infected with an STD, even though he used a condom. She spent most of her day crying. She spent the hours in thought. She prayed for death a few times and had comforted herself with slashing her wrist.

Her face was grey, and thinning, the way a dying woman lost her color and energy. She lost her words. She lost herself. The tears were her only comfort. So where the prayers, channeled to the gods or said to herself.

Even if, she was going to leave when there were no tears and no words and the fear was weaker than the hate. Then she would run unto the streets like a bird let go to fly. She would fly away but still ask herself if her life could ever be different if that first night had been different.

TO BE CONTINUED....