Fierce

Episode 10

Ehi was in a drunken haze for the next eight weeks. She went through her days like a robot. She hardly ate, didn’t care about her looks or appearance. Life seems to have stop having any meaning anything to her.

She kept hoping it was just a bad dream, one she would wake up from and find out that her life was still intact but it was not to be. She waited for Cicero to call her and tell her how big a mistake he had made by ending their relationship but he never called. When she got tired of waiting for him to call, she took matters into her own hands.

She tried his line but it was not connecting. It seemed he had changed his number. She called the agency that represented him and also his trainer trying to get his new number but to no avail. The people probably thought she was an obsessed fan or even worse a groupie, the only good thing was that she had been smart enough to give them a false name that couldn’t be linked back to her.

With each day passing she kept hoping he would miraculously reach out to her and when that didn’t happen, she started to really come in terms with the breakup.

At first, she started to cry and react to little things, later, came perpetual sadness and then her perspective of the world started to change. She wanted desperately to reach out to someone but at the same time she couldn’t.

She started going through periods where all she wanted to do was sleep, sleep and sleep more. She shut everyone out and spent her days in solitude. When Mani and Christian had tried to find out what was wrong she pretended like she was okay and when they persisted she ignored them until they gave up and let her be.

When she had been told by Simeon that she was to have her first fashion spread, she didn’t feel anything. She was numb and couldn’t even get herself to pretend to be happy about it. She would rather be left alone but she knew she couldn’t voice it out because this spread equals more publicity and more publicity equals more money and Simeon would not let anything come between him and his dear coins.

On the day of the shoot, she wished she was anywhere but there. They had been shooting since dawn and she was tired to her bones. When they had earlier had a lunch break, she had rejected everything since she had been feeling nauseous and smell of food irritated her.

She managed in her condition to continue the shoot but towards the end she started feeling dizzy. She used every strength she had within her to complete the shoot.

Once it was over. She tried to step away but was blocked by the art director. His name was Stanley, an Irish man that had pale skin with red hair. He was a short and plump man with protruding stomach. He had been making advances towards her for a while now but she had ignored him. She didn’t feel like being in a relationship with anyone at the moment and Stanley wasn’t really her type. He was notorious for making a pass on every female he works with. His favorite line was telling them how he could make them famous. A lot of women had fallen for the line and their career still hadn’t taken off.

She was in no mood for his games today so she ignored him and tried to follow another path. He grabbed her hand and pulled her towards him.

“Where do you think you are going miss?” He said in his annoying voice.

“A place called none of your business. Now excuse me.” She said and yanked her hand from his grasp. She gave him a stare down and continued “The next time you touch me again, best believe it would be the last time you make use of your hands… You feel me?”

She gave a long hissed and walked past him, she hadn’t gone three steps when she blanked out.

She woke up in the hospital to mind blowing news that she was nine weeks pregnant. She had collapsed due to hunger and lack of care for herself. The doctor had kept her for two extra days before discharging her.

In the two days, she had thought hard and well to see if she wanted to keep the pregnancy. She had never wanted kids due to how she was raised and also because she was terrified that if she gives birth, she might turn into her mother. She thought about raising the child. She didn’t have enough resources to look after herself and she doubted that she would be able to take care of the child well.

She knew within her that she would be doing the child a huge favour by not bringing him or her into this wicked world but there was this little voice that kept telling her to keep it. After all the child will be her only link to Cicero. While she might not have him in her life, she will always have the child and whatever love she had for him, she would transfer to their child.

At the moment, she made the decision to keep the pregnancy and go out of her way to be the best mom in the world. She wouldn’t let her mother’s mistake control her life. She was not sure about a lot of things but one thing she knew for certain was that she was nothing like her mother and she intended to make this work. She had no idea how her nonexistent career would survive this but she was willing to brave out the storm.

All hell broke loose when she went home. Simeon was having none of it and insisted that she had an abortion but for once, she was able to stand her ground and rebuff him.

The next morning she went out to shoot an ad and when she returned later in the evening. She found her things outside and the door was locked. She tried her key but the door wouldn’t open. She searched for a note for any explanation but she found none.

She sat on the floor next to her bags, waiting for Simeon to return. After waiting for four hours and there was no sign of him. She picked her bags up and went downstairs…