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

Zina no longer lived in fear of the past, Her mornings started with soft sunrays sneaking through the curtains, a quiet house, and the familiar warmth of Stan's presence by her side, Peace, the kind she had never felt before, and though healing came slowly, it came anyway, in little ways that didn't ask for permission or validation. She no longer cried herself to sleep, instead, she cradled hope in her palms alive, breathing, and kicking softly beneath her ribs.

Not the kind that stirred panic or shame. This time, it was sacred, a promise fulfilled... a wanted one.

A redemption song echoing in tthe empty paces once filled with regret.

The first time she saw the baby's heartbeat flutter on the scan, something inside her healed, she didn't say it out loud, but tears rolled down her cheeks, not from pain, but from the overwhelming truth that she made it. She had feared she wouldn't conceive again, that Richard's damage would be her final script,

But God, had a different plan, he showed mercy ,the same God she had cried to on the 31st night under the dry Harmattan sky, had rewritten her story and her destiny in the .lst beautiful way.

She held Stan's hand tighter during one of the antenatal visits.

"Are you scared?" he asked gently.

She shook her head. "Not anymore." because how do you fear life when you've already survived death in pieces?

Stan was attentive, soft-spoken, supportive. He would rub her back during her mood swings and whisper prayers over her belly when she was asleep, Zina watched him every day and marveled at how someone else's son could choose to love her this right , in so many different ways and completely, He never asked about her past, not once did he use her brokenness as a weapon, and maybe that was the magic: he loved her forward, not backward.

Months passed, her belly grew round and heavy, and her joy matched its weight, She took pictures, wrote letters to her unborn baby, Sang lullabies into the mirror. She documented everything, because every kick reminded her, I am alive... I am worthy... I am whole.

She began sharing her story with young girls in her community, not as a victim, but as a survivor, she spoke of heartbreak, deception, guilt, healing, forgiveness, and grace, With every word she shared, someone else found the courage to walk away, to rise, to begin again, Zina became a woman she would have admired years ago, not perfect, not without scars, but powerful in her truth.

The day her baby arrived, it was raining gently, like the heavens were washing away every past sorrow, she screamed through the pain. Prayed through the hours. And finally, when her body gave its final push, a loud cry pierced the room. "It's a girl," the nurse whispered, placing her on Zina's chest, Zina looked into her daughter's eyes and whispered, "You are the sunrise after my longest night."

She named her "Kamara", meaning beauty that comes from pain.

In that moment, Zina didn't see Richard. Or Ada. Or shame. Or years lost.

She saw only grace, wrapped in a blanket, sleeping on her chest, and that's how her story ends, not with regret, but with redemption, not with scars, but with stars.

She had finally found her soft place to land.

Epilogue: Sunrise in Her Arms