By SYLVIA MUYATWA –

SYLVIA MUYATWA met her first love who disappointed her and moved on to find a substitute who was no better and she came full circle by returning to the first man who had still not changed his ways. Read on…

DANIEL (not real name) and I met in 2008 when I was doing my eighth grade and Daniel had completed his high school a year before and, coincidentally, at the same school- Namununga.
We met through a crazy, sweet and loving friend Debra (not real name) who was in Grade 11 by then.
With great difficulty Daniel and I worked hard to make our relationship work, especially that we’d both not attained dating age.
To make matters worse, there was something that we both lacked, we were not able to make up for each other.
That year, my parents were going through a divorce and Daniel was my only shoulder to lean on as my parents went through their painful experience, which affected me.
Daniel was simply an angel I’d ever met.
I never really got along with mum and most people called me daddy’s girl.
And as mum and dad went through their split, I was so mad at both of them, but Danny was always there for me.
After passing my ninth grade examinations, I was taken to a boarding school in Southern Province were I completed my high school from 2010 to 2013. However, that did not stop or hinder our love.
One time when I was in Grade 10, Danny came to see me at my school and ended up sleeping in a near-by village with people he didn’t know.
Only God knows how he made it.
The school authorities punished me for that.
That same year during the holidays, I decided to repay Danny and slept out, but then I noticed some change in his behavior.
When I asked him what was worrying him, he said he had cheated on me!
I was heartbroken!
I cried the whole night and my tears would fill a bucket.
But Daniel apologised and convinced me that we could start afresh.
As days went by, however, I was hurting inside so much that I could not pretend to be happy any longer and, finally, I ended the relationship.
However, although the affair was over, I found that my love for him was deep-seated and so we gave it another try.
But then it was not the same again.
I had met other men in the period we were apart and I was seeing this other guy Joe (not real name).
Despite the situation, Danny wouldn‘t let go; he made it back to first place in my heart.
Danny was even badly beaten up once by a certain guy who was obsessed with me.
This person couldn’t stand seeing me with any other man, but Danny was adamant and stuck with me.
At this time, dad was living with my step mum and I was staying with my siblings and cousins in the house dad left for us.
So it was easy to sneak out for days and sometimes weeks.
Meanwhile, my ups and downs with Joe went on till I completed high school.
He, too, did not want to let go of me.
There were other issues and infidelity was one of them.
Call it shipikisha club, we both had our share of cheating, but in spite of all this, we still made it through.
After school, I decided to try to take my relationship with Danny seriously, but little did I know that things were turning for the worse.
That year, I fell pregnant for him and we decided to try to keep the baby.
No one at home knew about this.
However, Danny‘s behaviour changed so drastically that he stopped picking my calls, let alone coming to see me, always using work meetings as a scapegoat.
He often got back home around 21:00 hours; he usually returned before 18:00 hours before.
When I decided to terminate the pregnancy out of anger and frustration, he was mad about it.
But I guess it was for the best, we would go for weeks without talking, but miraculously still get back.
Later that year in 2014, I started staying with dad again and decided to go back to school.
It became hard for Danny and me to see each other because dad had moved into a bigger house and the place was far.
There were times when I would call Danny, but he would ignore my calls.
Calling his brother whom he lived with was worse; he would just leave the call on hold.
I got sick one day and told Danny about it and he spent about 20 minutes, then left.
That was the last I saw of him.
My illness worsened and I was transferred to Levy Mwanawasa Hospital where I was supposed to undergo an operation.
Despite informing him, Danny never responded.
November 20, 2014, was supposed to be our friendship anniversary and Danny sent me a text only saying how he had watched me grow in the last six years we were together and how he had to grow as well.
It was completely over between us now.
I spent six years of my life with Danny. Was the text the best he could do?
I would really like to have an explanation from him, but he‘s gone.
There is always something that holds me back regardless of how much I try to love again.
There‘s nothing more I would love than to completely rip Danny out of my heart and love whole heartedly again.
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