Chapter 132

As the days went by, Mpumi was slowly shutting down. Looking into her eye, Thabo could see lifelessness. Very often he would find her in the garden standing still (almost frozen in time), her eyes staring into empty space and her arms folded.

Thabo knew not what to do for her. He often tiptoed back into hiding, each time he found her like that. He learned that he found solace from his family—being around them would always pump-up his strength.

Thabo knew what he had to do but he would not bring himself to do it.

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It was finally, the next day at school. Vincent had his swim-coach yelling at him for his lacking progress. “You don’t practise enough! I told you, crawl, crawl! What is wrong with you?”

“I’m sorry, coach.”

“You’re sorry? You’re gonna cost us a medal,” Coach finally left the boy, Vincent, alone.

The other boys and girls threw Vincent pitiful eyes.

Chrisy and Jonat