📖 Chapter 1: Burnside Dreams
I remember how she was looking at me — that intense stare full of betrayal, pain, and a truth I didn't want to face. It made me want to take back my words, to undo everything. But the deed was already done.
The officers let go of my hand and started walking toward her. Their heavy boots thudded on the polished tile, echoing through the dead silent cafeteria. Every student's eyes were watching, but none more than mine. I couldn't even look at their backs as they led her out, past the rows of shocked faces, toward the van waiting outside.
The guilt? It hit like a fist to the chest. My stomach churned. My throat tightened.
Whispers started to rise. The air changed.
I couldn't take it anymore.
So I grabbed my bag and ran.
My name is Makanaka.
It's a Shona word that means beauty, though I've never really felt like it describes me. Maybe on the outside, sure — people always said I had a pretty face. But on the inside? I was just a girl trying to survive a life I didn't choose.
I grew up in Mpopoma, one of Bulawayo's roughest neighborhoods. Crime. Poverty. Nights without power. Days without food. It was the kind of place that taught you to fight, lie, or disappear. Being a girl child there meant you had to be sharp, tough, and invisible all at once.
But everything changed after my Grade 7 exams.
My father's older brother — Uncle Tinashe — offered to take me in. He lived in Burnside, a place so rich and peaceful it might as well have been another country. When my parents agreed, I felt like I had just won the jackpot.
My new home had shiny tiles, running water, working lights, and a housekeeper who ironed even socks. I was enrolled at Girls College, a top private school with well-dressed girls, proper accents, and books I'd never touched before. I had new clothes. A phone. A warm bed. Hot water every day.
I made friends quickly. I laughed at jokes I didn't understand. I hid my roots and learned how to blend in. I was finally free from the weight of being poor, forgotten, and ordinary.
Then Julia appeared.
She was my childhood best friend — the girl who used to share sadza with me in plastic containers, who held my hand when I cried, and danced with me under the broken streetlights. Now she was at Girls College too — on a scholarship.
I never asked how. Honestly, I didn't want to know. I didn't want to be reminded of who I used to be. So I avoided her. I didn't wave. Didn't greet. I became someone else. And to me, she became just another girl.
But that silence ended in the library.
I was sitting alone at a corner table, pretending to revise for History, when Julia walked in. She didn't say a word. She sat down, slid a folded note under my textbook, looked me dead in the eye, and walked out.
No smile. No anger. Just that stare again — like she knew something.
When I opened the note, my hands shook.
"I know what you did.
Meet me at the old school yard.
5 p.m."