YOURS - ALWAYS

There are some things you don’t say out loud. Not because you are afraid of how they will sound but because once they are real, they cannot be taken back.

That is how I saw it before my husband Mwaba.

I always believed timing was everything. That love was less about sparks and more about rhythm, the kind that either matched or missed. The kind that either carried you forward or left you in the cold alone.

Mwaba told me that he loved me. Like he should have, I didn’t have to beg him or plead for signs - he just showed me how deeply he felt and I believed him.

And then one day I woke up to letters.

Some I found tucked into my old books. Others arrived by mail, months apart, with no return address. All signed with the same two words that felt too late and too much all at once.

“Yours, always.”

I didn’t know how many they were and when I kept looking I found a package wrapped in brown paper, weathered at the edges. My name written in a handwriting I could never miss like it had never left the back of the sender’s mind.

With shaky hands I opened it. Inside? A stack of letters and a single photo.

That was the moment I realized life had played me. That my story could have been different and in that moment I had the power to dance with the wind or chase a story that never was. This would either be the end or the beginning of everything I never got to have.

My name is Jade and this - this was never supposed to be my story.

..

Kwenje’s Girl