MISJUGDED 4

EPISODE 4

It had to be Sandra or Joyce.

Sandra had been taunting me for as long as I could remember.

“The pastor’s kid who still manages to mess up” that was her favorite insult, always thrown with a smirk. She was relentless, but petty enough to land me in trouble? I didn’t want to believe it. After all, we came from the same village.

Then there was Joyce. Quiet Joyce. The type who never spoke much but always seemed to know everything happening around her. If anyone could throw me under the bus with a straight face, it would be her. My mind spiraled with accusations, and I felt the sting of betrayal, sharp and unrelenting.

And yet, what was the point? The deed was done. No amount of overthinking could undo the humiliation already written into my story.

My parents were on their way. The dreaded summons had been made, and I could already hear the heavy footsteps of judgment heading my way.

The verdict was as final as the sound of that cane against my back.

Expelled.

I was expelled. Do you know what that meant for a pastor’s child? For a girl already expected to be perfect in a world where perfection is the only option?

While the strokes of the cane rained down, my mind played a different kind of torment.

“God is the worst,” the thought screamed in my head.

No tears fell. I couldn’t cry again. I couldn’t even feel the sting of the cane anymore. My heart was too hardened, too bitter.

“He chose to humiliate me when I needed Him the most. They said He was merciful. Where is the mercy now?”

I spent my day on the field, cutting grasses that gave me blisters. I could have been the second Cain if I just slashed the throat of any of the other girls who were in that punishment with me.

We were all given the same degree of punishment, but of course, we don’t have the same life. Sandra kept blabbing how her parents were already making provisions to take her outside of the country for her to start a new life. Joyce was quiet, as always. She’d just sniff and wipe the excessive mucus from her nose, she was in deep thought like Sharon, who just sat by the gutter regretting following them that night. She kept lamenting that she had never done that before, and the one time she tried, she got caught. Doris was already used to this kind of life, but the punishment was also too overwhelming for her, then there’s me – the one who didn’t even follow them to jump the fence, but somehow found herself in the mess.

My aunt had come with my dad’s driver to pick me and my belongings. Of course, my parents wouldn’t have much time to come pick up a black sheep from the incident she had done in school. I didn’t give it much thought, but whatever that had happened and was happening to me right there and then was leaving a deep scar that wouldn’t fade in the coming years.

That year became a prison sentence – it was the worst I had ever had in the whole 16 years of my life.

“Paying for the humiliation I caused,” my father called it. I stayed home while my peers moved on. My classmates had their graduation photos, their new beginnings, their laughter. I had nothing.

Each day, I did something that required a little shout, I was reminded of my failure. “Why can’t you be like your sister?” my mother would snap. I stopped answering. It didn’t matter what I said. I wanted to run away.

Have you ever thought your parents weren’t your real parents? I did. At 17.

But where could I go? I wasn’t speaking to anyone from school, and the thought of finding out who betrayed me terrified me. I was too afraid of the truth. Afraid of how much more it would hurt.

One quiet afternoon, my curiosity got the better of me. Everyone was out, as usual. I became the unpaid maid after that. No phone, no TV – just books. Other than learning how to braid hair at the neighbor’s shop downstairs, I had read everything in the house, even product labels, but that day, I ended up in my father’s room.

It was there that I saw it.

My file.

It had been sitting in his drawer for months, untouched. But on that particular day, it was on his table. I hesitated before picking it up.

Was he planning something? Another punishment? Some church retreat to “cleanse” me? My hands shook as I opened the file.

“LETTER OF THE EXPULSION OF MISS JOHNSON STELLA.

With a heavy heart…”

Liars.

I muttered the word, and tears – those tears I thought had dried up forever spilled over. I wanted to rip the letter apart, to shred it into oblivion. But something stopped me.

What if the name of my accuser was in there? What if I could finally know?

My eyes darted down the page. There it was.

“…as stated by Miss Meredith Ike, who witnessed her leaving with her mates…”

Meredith?

My bunkmate. My friend. My betrayer.

The pain surged like a fresh wound. I clutched my chest, gasping for air. The ache was unbearable, a mixture of betrayal, loss, and anger. For the hundredth time in 4 months, I thought about ending it all.

How could she?

How could someone so close, someone who knew me better than most, destroy me?