Hermixedmuse

At 18, Zina returns home divorced and unloved. Her father seizes her phone and calls her everything her ex-husband ever accused her of. Her few friends don’t understand her silence. Her family doesn’t either — and the villagers? They whisper her name on market days and cross the street when she walks by. 

Alone in her pain, the only person who stands by her is her mother. 
But when Zina gains admission into university, she sees it as more than freedom — it’s her chance to feel again. To live again. Even if love keeps breaking her open, and healing doesn’t come easy.

Scars Between Semesters

Love had always been Zina's soft spot. It wasn't just about companionship, it was about finding refuge, that one person who would make all the broken pieces feel like art. And with Richard, it seemed like she had finally found it, but the truth about illusions is… they shimmer hardest right before they shatter.

The signs came slowly.

First, he stopped calling as much. Texts took hours, sometimes days, to get a reply. She thought he was busy, after all, he had told her once that he was trying to "put his life together." But when love is real, do you forget to check in? Do you stop showing up? Zina brushed her doubts aside, maybe he was just overwhelmed, maybe he would return to her, softer. Sweeter, Like before.

But then came the nausea, the late period.

The whispers from her body that something had changed, she didn't want to panic. So she waited. Waited for a week. Then another, until she finally bought the test and held her breath in a tiny campus bathroom stall, praying for one line, bargaining with God, until her eyes landed on the two faint pink stripes, her hands trembled, her chest hollowed, she was pregnant.

When she told him, he didn't scream. He didn't accuse. He simply went quiet, the kind of silence that isn't peace, but calculation, and then he asked the one question that stole the air from her lungs:

"Do you know how much a diaper costs in the market?".

He didn't "how are you feeling?" or "we'll figure this out."

Just that, She stared at him, waiting for it to be a joke. A misunderstanding. Something, but he only continued, voice calm, like they were discussing a project deadline.

"I'm still trying to settle myself. I can't afford a child now, You know that."

Zina swallowed hard. "So what are you saying?" his next words came like bricks against her chest, "You should take care of it."

He didn't even say the word. " "D&C." "Pregnancy." He left them hanging, unspoken, like dust in the corners of the room. But his meaning was clear. She couldn't breathe.

She remembered all the soft things he used to say the way he held her after kissing her under the moonlight, the birthday cake, the music they shared, was it all just… preparation for this? She told him she needed time, to think, to process. But he was already ahead.

He brought the pills the next day, handed them to her like a parcel, told her the instructions, and walked away.

She cried that night not just from fear or guilt or pain but because the boy she gave her heart to, the one who painted her skies blue, was standing on the sidelines while she crumbled alone and yet… she took them, her hands shook. Her heart felt like lead, She felt less human that day than she ever had in her life, And still, a tiny voice inside her kept whispering: "Maybe this is what love demands."

Afterwards, he came back. Apologetic. Quiet. He held her like she was breakable, only this time, it felt more like guilt than love. "I'm sorry," he said.

And like many girls who believe too hard, love too deep, and want to be chosen too badly… she forgave him but something inside her had already died.

Chapter 9: The Diaper Question