Beckoned Through The Dark

23 // Lesego // Custody

I couldn't take it anymore.

This place was cold. The detective had deliberately left the air-conditioner on so that I could speak up.

It had been three weeks since my arrest, and I still couldn't believe it. I couldn't even speak; I had suddenly lost my voice due to the shock and heartbreak.

At first, I was talkative; always demanding answers about why I was here, pleading my innocence, and asked why my mother had not visited me.

My mother. I will never forget the look on her face when they cuffed me, or her cries when they took me away. I still remember how Nomalanga had to hold her back while she screamed for her daughter; me.

The kind of emotions she showed me that evening, scared me out of my mind. I was not used to her having a soft spot for me. Yes, we fixed things before dinner and everything was fine, but that was all too sudden. After the stunt she pulled at the hospital last time, I had come to believe that my mother had no heart; that she had no emotions whatsoever, but her episode after my arrest had changed everything.

My mother loved me, she loves me; and I blame myself that it took so long for me to finally realize it, and that is something I would never be able to forgive myself for. I wanted to see her, to hug her and tell her how sorry I was, but that was impossible; I was not allowed any visitors.

I didn't even have a lawyer, and the detective was doing everything in his power to force information out of me, but to no avail. I bet he still regretted the day he told me that I was a murderer, I will never forget that day, or what it did to me; it broke me into tiny pieces that I couldn't pick up.

I was sitting in the exact same room as I was now. It was a huge room, probably two time larger than my bedroom. It had dark walls painted in navy blue, how convenient that this was a police station. It had three small windows aligned at the back of the room, a huge glass in front of the room, right next to the metal door.

A large metal table like those in ancient Britain movies stood in the middle of the room, with two old brisk chairs adjacent to it. I was seated on one of the chairs, facing the door, and the detective was standing on the opposite side, with his hand grounded on the table.

His face was stone cold, and he was slowly losing his patience. We had been in here for more than an hour, and while he demanded for answers; I demanded to see my mother. "I am going to ask you for the last time; why did you set the school on fire?" He asked sternly, and I stared back at him with a tear-stained face. "And I'm going to tell you over and over again; I want to see my mother."

"And what is your mother going to do? Get you out of here?" He asked, "well, forget it, Miss Medupe; you are not going anywhere. There's nothing your mother can do for you, or all those families whose children you killed." He slammed his fist on the table, causing me to jump in fright.

I honestly didn't know what he was talking about. He kept going on and on about how I set the school on fire and killed some of the students and lecturers. I kept telling him that I didn't know what he was talking about and that I didn't do anything, but he never listened. He knew the thought of having killed someone scared me, and with that he tormented me.

The scary part about this accident was that it happened on the day my friends and I went to visit Zack in prison; right after we had left the school. “I told you that I did not do anything! I was here to visit my friend, Zack on that day. You can ask him, and our friends, or the officer that was sitting at the front desk on that day!" I snapped, tears rolling down my face. I don't know when Detective Daniels left, but I heard him slam the door.