“Andy?” Macy asked in a small voice that showed she feared what was coming. She didn’t know where this was coming from or going and her heart told her that it won’t be good.
“I… I…,” Andy began but he couldn’t say anything else.
“Just tell them Andy,” Angela began.
“What do you mean?” It was their father, Christopher Philips who asked this time while looking at his adoptive daughter.
“Daddy, Macy slept with a random man when she got drunk that hight at the Gala and put it on Andy. Andy was just so nice that he didn’t want to tell the truth but now he can’t take it anymore,” Angela said and everyone’s eyes were how on Macy.
“Andy? What’s going on? What is Angela saying?” Macy asked with tears now in her eyes as she didn’t even have an inkling of what Angela meant.
“Oh, stop it! Stop pretending,” Angela mocked and that made Macy’s tears just fall heavily.
“Andy?” Macy asked again and Andy looked at her.
“I’m sorry Macy. That night after you got drunk you didn’t go to our room. You walked into a random room and I waited for you the whole night in our room and you didn’t return. So, when you came later that day I didn’t want to say anything because you seemed so happy.
Later, you told me you were pregnant and I wondered what to tell you. But I’m sorry M. I can’t lie anymore,” Andy said and Macy was lost.
“So… so… Are you telling me that it wasn’t you?” She asked with a disbelieving look.
“Macy, we all know you are a slut. I’ve been trying to tell you all but no one believes me. Now, do you see it for yourself?” Angela continued putting salt in the raw wound.
“Angela, stop it!” Old man Philips bellowed at her and by then, Macy was crying uncontrollably.
She couldn’t believe what it was she was hearing.
For eight months, she had carried that pregnancy proudly because she was sure that it was Andy’s.
Now, she didn’t know what to do.
Macy left the room disoriented while crying as everyone was lost in their own thoughts. It was like they didn’t even see her walk out.
She took the stairs as she wanted to clear her thoughts and she went down slowly as she was heavily pregnant and although she had learnt that it wasn’t Andy’s, she still wanted to keep the child. It was her child and it wasn’t even a question of whether she wanted the baby or not.
When she came to the last stair, after almost thirty minutes, she heard voices behind the stairs and she was sure that that laugh was Angela’s.
She walked slowly and she saw them, Angela and Andy. They were kissing and caressing each other.
“Where do you think she went?” Andy asked worriedly.
“Don’t worry about her love. At last, we are finally rid of her. You did well,” Angela said with a laugh and kissed Andy again.
“Don’t worry, after here, she won’t bother you anymore. Also, we can now tell everyone about us. Let’s go to your condo and I will give it to you the way you like,” she said as she very suggestively, glued her body to his.
Macy couldn’t take it and she screamed. It was pain. Pain like she had never felt before. This betrayal from the man who told her that he loved her and the girl she considered a sister was more than her heart could take.
The two were startled and looked at her. Andy wanted to go and comfort her but Angela held him back.
“Macy, stop pretending. Andy and I are in love and in fact, I am pregnant for him. The earlier you accept that the better,” Angela said and that just tore Macy’s heart open and it started bleeding.
“Angie, stop it,” Andy said but Angela was still holding to him.
Macy couldn’t take it anymore and she ran outside disoriented and she wasn’t sure what was paining her more: her heart or her stomach.
She ran and didn’t even check the road as she crossed and she was hit. She didn’t even scream. She wanted to die at that moment.
She woke up in the hospital and she was told that her child died while they were trying to save her.
Her father was indignant. He couldn’t believe that his own daughter was such a whore, as he put it. All he cared about what was the community would say when they discovered that the pregnancy she was flaunting around wasn’t even Andy’s.
She was released and went home but there, the situation was even worse. She couldn’t take it
The only man who was always on her side, her grandfather, was sickly and he could not help her.
She decided to fly to Wyoming because at least her mother, the woman who brought her up, would understand her but that also proved to be hard.
Her grandmother, her adoptive father’s mother, was always in her case.
According to the file that Richard was still silently going though, Macy was never loved by her grandmother. Her only mistake was being born a girl.
According to the aged lady, it was a waste of time to bring up a girl because she would leave them. It was better to give birth to a boy because then, the boy would inherit and take care of the farm.
After Macy decided to leave and live with her birth parents, her grandmother hated her even more.
“We fed her for eighteen years but what did she do? She left us. Without any gratitude. She left us for a richer family,” the old lady would always whine and Macy was told this and more when she went to live with then thinking that it would help her heal.
The only friend she had in that family was her younger brother who was twelve by then.
When she couldn’t take anymore, she called her father and asked to be taken to school. She wanted to forget.
“I can take you to school but not in the US. I will take you to Africa. Once you come back, though I hope you will never return, people will have forgotten all the shame you put us through,” her father said and that was how Macy found herself in Kenya.
Her father had taken her to a nameless college in Uswazi but using the money her grandfather used to send her, she transferred herself to University of Nairobi and enrolled in the school of performing arts.
By the time her father realised what was happening, it was when she was in her last year. This was because he didn’t care if she died or not.
He demanded she returns home for defying his plans but when she finished college, she went to China. It was in China she stayed for three years and during those three years, she had starred in a few movies through as a sporting character.
What she did well was act as a stunt double for most movies. This was because while studying in Kenya, she had joined taekwondo and karate schools and it was like she knew what she was doing because it was like she was preparing for her entrance into the Chinese movie scene which was very competitive especially for her, a black Chinese woman.
She had no plans to return to the US and the reason why she returned was her grandfather’s ailing health.
When she returned, she was serious about joining the entertainment industry and her father was against it at first.
It was Angela who convinced her family and that was how Macy found herself in the same management company with Angela and under the same manager.
But what Angela didn’t know was that this was a hardened Macy. She wasn’t the girl who left six or so years ago.
By how, Angela was already married to Andy and they still didn’t have any children. Apparently, she miscarried all the pregnancies she had conceived with him.
“How did you get all this?” Richard asked Asher who was playing with his niece on the couch.
“Brother, have you forgotten who I am? I eat and sleep gossip. This was nothing,” Asher said proudly and it was true.
He worked better than most journalists and paparazzi in Imperial House. This brother of his was a genius.
“Do you want to watch the videos now?” Asher asked Richard.
“You will tell me all about it after we send Melvin to sleep,” Richard said because he was Now interested.
He even didn’t want know what to think about the girl. At first, he thought that she wanted to get close to him because he was rich but that didn’t seem plausible after all he had learnt from Asher’s investigation.
She seemed like a girl who had been forced to harden by life. She was also hardworking and unlike Angela, she didn’t use her family’s name to get what she wanted. She did it all by herself.
Richard was now intrigued. He wanted to know her more. He wanted to tnow this girl who had survived in two continents and made a name for herself without her family’s help.
Maybe he had read her wrong. Maybe she was the female friend Melvin needed in her life.