FREEWRITEMADNESS DAY #1: LET'S SEE WHERE IT GOES FROM HERE

So today is day 1 of the #freewritemadness, where I and 16 other participants aim to pen 50,000 words in the month of November. The other participants are as follows (please show them some love by upvoting and commenting on their post):

@amelin
@botefarm
@felt.buzz
@grow23
@improv
@kaelci
@kaerpediem
@linnyplant
@mariannewest
@ntowl
@stinawog
@carolkean
@byn
@kipswolfe
@bennettitalia
@aislingcronin

Synopsis:

This is work/novel is going to be a compilation of different short stories I will be writing this month.

CHAPTER 1

Love happens in strange places. Mine occurred in a place where I sorted refuge away from home.
It was a bloody war in Ghana. Screams as thick as the blood that littered the streets ran deep into the nights. I spent most nights under my bed with both hands glued to my ears. I lost all the family I knew. My eldest brother was cut down right in front of me by a soldier and our house burnt down into ashes. I had managed to escape with my life and that of my baby.

It wasn't the easiest feat--catering for a baby at the age of 16 in a country torn by war. At some point, I was living in the brushes with my child. We went for days without food, only water and I was a nursing mother. It got to a point where I could not bear it anymore, I ate anything from insects to raw vegetables.

I managed to get to the other side of town where the war wasn't so intense to meet my baby's father who denied ever knowing me or my child. It was not his first time.
It took the kind gesture of his father to welcome me into their home. I was so ashamed and heartbroken living in the same house with a boy who claimed to love me more than anything in the world--the foolish things a teenage girl believes. He was my first love. I remember the first time we made love. His light Lebanese skin pressed on mine gave me is an uncontrollable sense of pleasure. It was like one of those movies I watched then when I was a kid--the white boy falling in love with the ugly black girl and it seemed so perfect then. He was to be my Prince Charming who would rescue me from the iron fist of my aunt who made life a living hell for me. It was supposed to be my Cinderella story but it turned out to be a nightmare. I got pregnant and my life changed forever.

He totally ignored my existence in their house. Sometimes he went as far as being in different girls to the house just to spite me. I would sit at my door mouth crying my heart out as I listened to them moan loudly. It felt like a wound that kept on reopening every time I watched him humiliate me, watching him ignore me, watching him act like I met nothing to him. I had to leave--run! So I did. It was one of the hardest things because I had to leave my baby behind. It is the hardest thing I had ever done until today.

I found myself in a refugee camp in another Ivory Coast - about a month later, smuggled out like an illegal good. Here my broken English did not suffice because I was surrounded by French men and women. A foreign country and language.

Life in the camp was bearable. However, I missed my son and sometimes his father. I wondered if I had made the right choice by leaving. Probably I would have stayed a little longer, probably he would have learned to love me like he once claimed, or our child would have brought us together.

A while later I heard the news that the war had intensified in Ghana and foreigners were fleeing for their lives. I tried several times calling my baby's father and the only time I got through he threatened to kill me for abandoning him and our child. He swore I would never set eyes on our child again and that broke me into pieces. I was numb for days. I even made attempts of going back but I neither had the means or will to get back to my country.

Time went by and I slowly began to forget. I got a job at a bar and fortunately for me, that was where I found love again. Love indeed happens in strange places under precarious circumstances.

The love of my life happened to be a loud-mouthed Nigerian who had this unique ability to trigger every nerve in my body. He was only a stranger to me then. I hated the fact that he was loud and arrogant and drank too much beer.

Notwithstanding he was a gentleman. He never tried touching me inappropriately like some of our male customers would and he always felt nice tips. I don't know but there was just something lovable about him--something I couldn't place at first but got to appreciate later on and that was his directness. He never had time for small talks.

"Kome," he would say in his deep baritone voice, with his thick igbo accent infuse with the sensuality of the French language, "I want you to be my wife," I made it a high point of my day turning him down, but he was persistent--in a good well. However, I was only 19 and the thought of marriage any crossed my mind. I did not want to get married, especially not to a Nigerian with all I had heard about them. Often I would tease him by saying that the only thing an igbo man can really love is his money and he would laugh, almost knocking himself out.

We became close. From our little chit-chat at the bar to spending weekends at his place. It was a silly thing to do but I was in love. He made me feel safe in a foreign land, someone I never knew before now. Unfortunately, our late night rendezvous led to my second pregnancy. And it felt like history was repeating itself again.

I swore not to keep the baby this time, so I did not tell him. I tried different means of getting rid of it but nothing happened. Adoption was illegal so I had to devise my own means. My last attempt was a concoction of herbs which landed me in a hospital. He got to know about my pregnancy and it was not the easiest of things. I had never seen him as furious as he was that day. He said things--we said very hurtful things to each other, and he left angry. thought it was over--I had lost the man I truly loved.

We did not speak for a while. I spent time standing over the phone hoping he would call but he never did. I summoned the courage to visit his apartment only to discover that he had gone back to Nigeria. felt so sad the way I did that day. I couldn't stop blaming myself for what had happened. The thought of never seeing him again broke my heart. I wanted to tell him I was willing to keep the pregnancy and our love; I wanted to tell him everything about my past and hope he understands why I decided to take such a rash decision.

A month had gone by and I did not hear from him. I had gone back to the bar with my protruding tummy to work and drowned myself in my daily routine. The thought of raising a child with not support frightened me, but it was too late now, the pregnancy was already three months old.

One fateful Saturday evening after a tasking night at work I got a phone call. I was at the staff's room trying to to get some sleep before heading home in the morning. It was a familiar voice, one I had learnt to love.

"Ifeanyi!" I screamed. I couldn't stop apologizing. If acted him to know how sorry I was and how much I missed him. Whilst I saw crying on the phone I sensed a hot breath on the back of my neck and also a familiar scent. There is was, my Prince Charming, smiling from cheek to cheek.

"Will you marry me?" he said, but this time with a seriousness I have never heard before in his voice.
It was a nervous moment. I didn't when the word slipped out of my mouth: yes. I didn't need to think it through, this was the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. But unknown to me like half other plans.

We got married on the eve of Christmas and had our baby the following year. We were together for a solid twenty years, had more kids and built our lives today. I had everything I could possibly think of until yesterday.

To be continued

Total wordcount: 1422
Remaining: 49578

P.s I'm really bad at editing my own work so if you spot any typo or error please let me know so I can make the required changes

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