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"I'll take care of you, I promise," Mark assured Mandie during one of her visits.
However, as time passed, they both found themselves succumbing to their emotions. Mandie longed for Mark more frequently, and Mark couldn't go a day without asking Mandie to visit him. After a few months of exhilaration, Mandie visited Mark with news:
"I am pregnant." She broke the news, her voice trembling with fear.
"What are we going to do?" She asked when she noticed Mark was just staring at her without saying anything.
"But how can you be pregnant? You just graduated high school. You are too young to be a mother," he said.
"I'm already on a journey to becoming one. We should be thinking ahead," said Mandie.
"Alright then. I will always be here for you, Mandie. Let's meet tomorrow evening to discuss at length," he said, hugging her goodbye.
Mandie felt relieved, her fears of Mark denying responsibility fading away. She was happy, unaware that the hug would be their final farewell.
The next day, Mark was nowhere to be found as promised. Mandie searched the village and neighbouring areas, crying and broken, feeling stranded and traumatized.
"How could our love turn so bitter?" she lamented, wishing she was never pregnant; then Mark wouldn't have run away.
Stacy, Mandie's daughter, came to the world with a dark birthmark on her neck just like her mother. She grew up fast, with grace, smartness, and humility. Her mom did three jobs to make sure she went to school, just like other kids.
One day, as she was walking home from school, the familiar path became unusually shrouded in a cloak of silence. The whisper of the wind was the only company she had, or so she thought, as the other kids followed the express way by paying by taxi or by the school bus.
Despite the brightness of the day, a shadow seems to loom over her, unseen but undeniably present. Every rustle of leaves, every distant sound, feels like a whisper of a presence just beyond her sight.
The feeling intensifies...
"I think I'm being followed!" she panicked.
As she turned and glanced around, searching for the source of the unseen gaze, the world seemed to hold its breath. The feeling of being watched without seeing the watcher creates a sense of vulnerability, a primal instinct urging her to move faster, to escape the invisible gaze that follows her every move.
"Mum. A spirit was following me on my way back from school," she cried upon arriving home.
"I don't think so, my dear. That road is very safe. You should stop watching horror films," Mandie said as she gently rubbed Stacy's back to soothe her.
The following day the same thing happened, and on the third day, Mandie took to her smartness; she ran fast, hid somewhere, and watched if she could see the spirit following her.
"Mum, I saw who has been watching me,"said Stacy during dinner.
"Who?" enquired Mandie, showing little concern.
"It's a dark, tall man with big round eyes, pink lips, and curly afro-black hair," Stacy detailed and Mandie felt a shiver down her spine, her hands gripping the cutlery tightly as fear flickered in her eyes. The description resembled someone she knew.
"No. It can never be him. I'm just overthinking it," she reassured herself.
A few days later, the man in the shadows approached Stacy.
"Hey, baby girl," he greeted.
"You are the man that has been following me. What do you want from me?" Stacy screamed, attempting to flee, but the man grasped her arm.
"I'm not here to harm you. It's just that you have the same birthmark as a girl I knew," he explained.
"Well, as you can see, I'm too young to have been her. So please leave me alone and never follow me again!" Stacy demanded firmly.
"Please take me to your mother" the man pleaded.
"No!" screamed Stacy. However, the man persisted, and she felt that letting him meet her mother would prove that someone had been following her all along.
As the man followed Stacy, a mix of nervousness and hope filled his being.
On arrival, the door creaked open, revealing a small sitting room with a lady sewing a dress in one corner. The lady turned, and a whirlwind of emotions flickered across her face.
"Who are you? And what are you doing here?" asked Mandie as she jumped up, and quickly shielded her daughter behind her back.
"Mandie, it's me, Mark," he said, trembling.
"I don't know you. Please leave and never return!" screamed Mandie.
Hot tears welled up in his eyes, and his knees grew weak. He fell on his knees and began to confess his fears and regrets.
He explained that he had run away out of fear of being a father at such a young age. Without a source of income, he didn't know how to care for her and the child. He admitted his foolishness and shared how he had returned to the village in search of her and her family but couldn't find them.
He pleaded for another chance to make things right.
Mandie's emotions were a whirlwind—from shock to anger, forgiveness to longing. Through tears, she shared her struggles of raising Stacy alone for nine years. They both cried and embraced other.
Stacy, who had eavesdropped on the whole conversation, was hurt by her father's abandonment.
But seeing her mother forgive him, she ran forward and joined in the embrace. As they hugged, Mark repeatedly apologised and cried.
"Don't cry, Uncle Mark. We've forgiven you." Stacy said.
Mark, though feeling unworthy of their forgiveness, was moved by Stacy calling him uncle, he knew that one day she would call him daddy.