Hello Beautiful!!

Shadow

I was nine when he first touched me.

He was supposed to be my uncle and someone I trusted till he pushed my panties aside and began caressing my bottom while I was asleep.

The tingling sensation awoke me. Groggily, I opened my eyes and turned my neck to the side to see his creepy, smiling face looming over mine.

Tiredly, I drew my panties back up and immediately went back to sleep.

But he didn't stop. I was too tired to react the second time but by the time I woke up again, he was sweaty and breathing heavily.

Till this moment, the details of that day have remained a blurry memory. One that I cannot decipher or pick apart no matter how hard I try to.
...

I was thirteen when the stalking and cat-calls began.

It all started with my discovery of a social media website.

With the limited screen time I managed to get, I would log into the account I had hastily created with the help of my friends, and begin browsing through the many hidden wonders.

Meeting new people was fascinating till I started meeting the wrong ones.

The first and most memorable out of all of them was a thirty-nine-year-old man who told me that I was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

At first, the compliment made me blush and feel all giddy inside but slowly, I began to grow irritated with how he would speak to me.

He always wanted to know where I was, what I was doing, the people I visited, and what I was wearing.

Foolishly, I would entertain his questions and answer his frequent calls in my bathroom.

Until he asked me to meet him in a hotel. I may have been stupid but I wasn't so stupid to meet a middle-aged man in a hotel room.

Even if I was crazy with no wise thought in my head, my parents would never let me go anywhere.

I blocked him everywhere.

However, two days after I did that, he called with a different number, and as soon as I found out that it was him, I blocked the number as well.

It didn't stop there though. He found ways to call and message me at odd hours of the night to the point that I had to switch off my phone to avoid his calls.

One Saturday morning, I switched on my phone, and immediately, a call from an unknown number came through.

Shakily, I answered the call.

There was only heavy breathing.

"Hello?" I said, my voice wavering.

"Nancy, my wife, why do you treat your husband this way?"

I didn't respond.

"You don't want to talk to me? That is okay. Nancy, I lay this curse on you. You will never find anyone to love or marry you for as long as you live. For using my emotions and feelings for you to play games, someone out there will do the same to you."

From that day, he never called or texted me again.

I had always been taught that curses were potent. If someone laid a curse on another, it was very likely that it would work.

Weeks after that, I continued to pray to God to free me from the curse even though I was sure I didn't do anything wrong to him.

A month later, I became confident that God had heard and answered my prayers, so I moved on with my life and reduced my interactions on Facebook.