felisha

RUTENDO
Episode 5A: The Morning After
Sleep never came.
The house remained dead silent long after the echo of tears had faded.
Tawanda sat motionless on the edge of the bed, staring blankly at the floor. The sharp sting on his cheek from the night before was gone, but the crushing weight in his chest had only grown heavier.
Across the room, Tadiwa remained seated against the wardrobe, her knees pulled to her chest, her eyes swollen and bloodshot.
Neither of them spoke. There was nothing left to say.
For years, Tadiwa had lived in fear of another woman—imagining secret texts, late nights, or hidden encounters. But now, the cruel truth lay bare. The woman haunting their marriage wasn't hiding in the shadows or standing between them. She was living her life somewhere else, completely unaware of the storm carrying her name.
The problem had never been Rutendo.
It had always been the permanent space she occupied inside Tawanda's heart. A space Tadiwa had spent years trying to fill, sacrificing her own peace to build a home on shifting sand.
And she had failed.
Slowly, Tadiwa rose to her feet.
Tawanda looked up immediately, panic piercing through his numbness. "Tee..."
She raised a hand. Not in anger. Not to strike him again. Just a quiet, final gesture to stop him from speaking.
"I don't want explanations," her voice was hoarse, stripped of all energy. "I don't think I can listen to them right now."
The quietness of her words landed harder than the slap. Anger meant she was still fighting for answers. This felt different. This felt like surrender.
Tadiwa picked up a blanket from the chair and walked toward the bedroom door.
"Tee, please..." Tawanda pleaded, his voice breaking.
She paused briefly, her hand resting heavily on the handle. She didn't turn around to look at him. She couldn't.
"The saddest part is that Rutendo isn't even fighting for you," she whispered, her shoulders dropping. "And somehow, I'm still losing."
The soft click of the door echoing through the room felt like a final door closing on their life together. And just like that, she was gone.
Tawanda lowered his head into his hands, the silence rushing back to swallow him whole. For years, he had convinced himself that some mistakes stayed buried. That enough time could silence guilt. That moving on meant leaving the past behind.
Tonight proved otherwise. The past had never left; it had simply waited. Patiently. Quietly. For the exact moment everything he built would be forced to face it.
Alone in the darkness, a choked sob finally broke through his chest. He stared at the empty space where his wife had just stood, the words he should have said suffocating him.
"Tee... you need to understand," he whispered into the empty room, his voice trembling violently. "Nyasha iropa rangu. Ndakarasa ropa rangu..."
He turned his eyes to the phone lying on the bed. The screen remained black, but he already knew the ghosts waiting for him if he unlocked it.
A woman he couldn't forget. A daughter he had cast aside. And a life he could never get back.
To be continued...

With The Chefs Table – I'm on a streak! I've been a top fan for 5 months in a row. 🎉

With Chef Rue Cooking and baking – I'm on a streak! I've been a top fan for 5 months in a row. 🎉

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Michael Kapiritu, Cudzy Washe, Cudzy Condo Senzere, Vimbai Mukondo, Popo Ruu Bee, Emmah Mayengo

RUTENDO
Episode 4B: The Midnight Mirror
The bedroom was pitch black, saved only by the harsh blue glow of Tawanda's phone screen reflecting against Tadiwa's face.
The moment the screen unlocked, her breath caught.
The phone was paused right on a video of Rutendo's recent speech, frozen on a close-up of her face. Rutendo looked breathtaking—confident, powerful, and completely untouchable. Tadiwa stared at the glowing face of the woman she used to look down on, her chest tightening before she slowly swiped the video away.
But what lay underneath was worse.
It was his messaging app, open to a long list of unsaved drafts all meant for that same number. There were three or four different versions of the same desperate plea. One draft started with a blunt apology. The next was a long, painful paragraphs-long confession of his cruelty from years ago. The third was short, just a man swallowing his pride and begging for one conversation. He had tried using different words over and over again, searching for a way to ask a billionaire icon for a chance to explain the boy he used to be.
With shaking fingers, Tadiwa opened his gallery, and her heart completely broke.
Dozens of recently downloaded photos of Rutendo at gala dinners. And right next to them, a picture of Nyasha—a little girl smiling brightly, carrying Tawanda’s exact eyes.
A painful sob escaped Tadiwa's throat before she could stop it. She covered her mouth, but another followed.
The memories rushed back like a slap. She remembered Rutendo standing outside this house years ago—pregnant, humiliated, and rejected by Tawanda's mother. Tadiwa had laughed back then. She had felt a cruel satisfaction because Tawanda chose *her*. She thought she had won.
But looking at the glowing screen, the brutal truth choked her. The girl she had laughed at was now a billionaire icon. And the husband she thought she won was secretly kneeling in the dark, writing uncopied apologies to her shadow.
The sheer humiliation and grief boiled over, and she burst into heavy, broken tears.
The sound filled the room, waking Tawanda instantly. “Tee? What's wrong—”
*Smack!*
Before he could even sit up, Tadiwa's hand flew across the dark, striking him hard across the face. Tawanda gasped, clutching his stinging cheek in complete shock.
Tadiwa stood over him, thrusting the glowing phone into his face with trembling hands. “*Nhai Tawanda chiii ichi?!*” she cried, her voice cracking. “*Chii ichi?!*”
Tawanda froze as the photos of Rutendo and Nyasha reflected right back into his eyes. His throat went completely dry. “Tee... *teerera*. *Handizvo zvauri kufunga.* Let me explain.”
"Explain what?!" she sobbed, throwing the phone violently onto the bed. "Explain how a married man spends his nights watching another woman's life and drafting messages to her? For months I've been sitting here blaming myself! Wondering why you wouldn't touch me, thinking I wasn't enough, while you were busy mourning a woman you threw away years ago!"
Tawanda opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
"Every night you looked at me like a stranger," she choked out, her voice dropping into a ragged whisper. "You never loved me, Tawanda... *Wakangondishandisa.* You married me to run away from your shame because I was the easy option. But you left your heart in the dirt with her."
Tadiwa's knees completely buckled. She slid down against the wardrobe, burying her face in her hands as her shoulders shook uncontrollably.
Tawanda sat frozen on the edge of the bed, staring at the floorboards. Her sobs echoed in the quiet room, and he knew she wasn't wrong.
From the floor, Tadiwa stared blankly into the darkness.
The jealousy inside her was terrifying because Rutendo wasn't even fighting for him. She wasn't calling or texting. She probably wasn't even thinking about him. Yet she occupied the exact space in his heart that Tadiwa had spent years trying to fill.
How do you fight a memory? How do you defeat a ghost?
Tadiwa finally understood a truth she had spent years avoiding. If Rutendo ever turned around and asked for Tawanda back, he wouldn't hesitate to leave.
She had won the man, but she had lost the war to a woman who didn't even know she was fighting.

Memori Sibanda
Good morning family

RUTENDO
Episode 4A: The Cold Shoulder
The coffee shop had emptied out, leaving only the low hum of the espresso machine and the weight of Tawanda’s confession hanging over the table.
Sean rubbed his forehead, his fingers dragging down his face as if trying to wipe away the lingering tension.
“Man... forgiveness is not access. That line is a bullet.”
“And she fired it straight through him,” Ryan added quietly, looking at Tawanda, whose gaze hadn’t shifted from his cold cup. “But Tawanda, let’s be honest here. It’s been years. You are sitting here watching her speeches over and over like a man possessed. Let me ask you straight—do you still have feelings for Rutendo?”
Tawanda’s shoulders tightened. He swallowed hard, the silence stretching so long that Sean and Ryan exchanged a worried glance.
“It’s not about feelings like I’m a teenager, Ryan,” Tawanda said, his voice a cracked whisper. “It’s... it’s a sickness. When you realize you threw away a diamond because you were too blind to see its value, every rock you pick up after that feels like dust. I look at who she became, and then I look at myself. I didn't just lose a woman. I lost the best version of my own life.”
Sean leaned forward, his tone dropping into a hard, protective seriousness.
“Listen to me, Tawanda. You need to wake up. Rutendo is gone. She is an empire now. But you have a house, a wife, and two kids at home who are waiting for a father. If you keep looking backward while driving, you are going to crash the car you are currently in. Let it go, bro. For your own sake.”
They left it there. No long goodbyes, just heavy pats on the shoulder before they split up into the cool night air.
The drive home was a blur of streetlights and shadows. Tawanda steered the car mechanically, his mind completely detached from his body. Lately, this was his routine—driving slowly, taking the longest routes possible, skipping dinner because the food tasted like cardboard anyway.
He arrived home well past midnight, the house dark and suffocatingly quiet. He walked past the closed door of his children's bedroom without checking on them. He had become a ghost in his own house—a cold, silent stranger wrapped in a cloud of invisible grief.
He quietly pushed open his bedroom door, expecting to slide into bed unnoticed.
*Click.*
The bedside lamp cut through the darkness. Tadiwa was sitting up against the headboard, her arms crossed, her eyes red-rimmed and tracking his every movement. She hadn't even touched the blankets. She had been waiting.
“Tawanda, look at the time,” Tadiwa said, her voice tight, vibrating with weeks of suppressed anger. “Every day? Every single day you come back when the kids are asleep, you don't eat, you don't talk to me. What is happening to you? Look at yourself! You are physically here, but your mind is somewhere across town. Who are you running from?”
Tawanda didn't look her in the eye. He loosely unbuttoned his collar, letting out a tired, dismissive sigh as he reached for his phone and placed it on the nightstand.
“*Hapana apa Tee*, it's just work stress. *Usangofunga zvisina basa*,” he muttered flatly, turning his back to her to get changed.
Tadiwa’s jaw clenched. The lie was so thin, so insultingly lazy, that it made her stomach turn. But she didn't argue. She didn't have the energy anymore. Without another word, she lay down beside him and stared into the darkness.
Within twenty minutes, Tawanda's breathing slowed into a deep, heavy sleep. But Tadiwa remained wide awake.
*"Work stress."*
The words echoed in her head. Work stress didn't explain the untouched meals. It didn't explain why he barely looked at their children anymore. It didn't explain why every conversation felt forced. It didn't explain the sadness that seemed permanently carved into his face.
Slowly, the anger inside her began to give way to something worse: fear.
For months she had watched her husband drift further and further away. Every attempt to reach him ended with another excuse. Another wall. Another silence. She turned her head and looked at him sleeping beside her. The man she married was right there, yet somehow he felt impossibly far away. Like a stranger renting space in her life.
For a moment, she almost convinced herself to leave it alone. Maybe she didn't want to know. Maybe whatever was hiding behind his silence would hurt more than the uncertainty.
Tawanda shifted slightly in his sleep. Tadiwa swallowed hard. The distance between them suddenly felt wider than the mattress. Her heart pounded against her ribs.
Slowly, she slid her hand across the bed and picked up his phone from the nightstand. Her fingers trembled. The familiar passcode appeared on the screen.
She hesitated. Just for a second.
Then she entered it.
The screen illuminated her face in the darkness.
And for the first time in months, Tadiwa was about to step inside the place where her husband had been living without her.

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