A few days ago I was going through a stark of old documents looking for my school certificates to complete a job application when I stumbled upon a picture. This was an old picture of Mark and I. We were smiling into the camera.
Sometime in the year 1997, Mark and I had been dating a few months. He was gorgeous and my friends liked him. I was hooked. I played laid back when he was doing the chase. I intentionally missed his calls and waited by the phone for him to call back. And when he did I will pretend to be sleeping, or busy. It was all tricks of the trade.
Eight months on I was in love. I would stand by the gate waiting to see the lights of his car come down the road. It was during the load-shedding period. There were no mobile phones so if he wasn’t at home then home girl just had to wait and so I waited.
One night he was supposed to pick me up for a party at 9pm. At 11pm I was still waiting. I called his house every five minutes. My future father in law, who didn’t remember my name by the way, was beginning to get irritated. They didn’t know where Mark was.