CHAPTER 7: A COUCH AND A BROKEN MANI didn’t have a home anymore.Not in the sense that mattered.The apartment I stumbled into felt temporary, alien, like sleeping in someone else’s life. My friend, Sipho, had insisted I stay for a few nights, and I had taken it without argument. The couch was thin, worn, and smelled faintly of old fabric and beer. Not my mattress. Not my room. Not even my floor at Thandeka’s house — that mattress, at least, had belonged to me in some way.Here, I was a ghost.I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, tracing cracks I hadn’t noticed before. My arms felt weak. My hands shook intermittently. Every muscle in my body carried tension, grief, and exhaustion. I had been betrayed. Expelled. Condemned for sins I hadn’t committed. And now, I had nowhere to go, no one to lean on, nothing to hold on to.Sipho came in after a while, holding a mug of coffee. He didn’t say much — didn’t need to. He just handed me the mug, the warmth seeping into my hands, grounding
Last Updated : 2026-02-06 Read more