HIS NAME WAS BRUCE.......PART 5

“He is right now paying dowry for his fiancée. The wedding is scheduled in a few days.”

Becky took in a sharp breath.

“How do you know all these, Ruth?” Leleti asked.

“Like I said, we have come from far with Bruce. I still have contacts with some of his relatives.”

“Is the fiancée among the women you have shown us?” Becky asked with the smallest of voices.

“No, this one is from the USA. They have been dating for a while now. She came down the other day specifically for this ceremony.”

“How come you never told us this before, Ruth? Why now?” Leleti was livid.

“Everything has got its own time. This was the right time.”

Becky was shocked beyond comprehension. She wondered why Bruce would do such a thing to her. She had never done anything wrong to deserve such kind of treatment. If anything, she had been a loyal friend and girlfriend to him. They had shared so many good times together. Becky had never suspected anything. He was always available whenever she needed him whether physically or emotionally. He had become her go-to person every time she had issues at her work place or with her family. Her family! What was she going to tell them? They had come to grow very fond of him. Her parents and all her siblings knew him. Just what game was Bruce playing with all these women? What was his end game? Was anything he ever told her true?

Becky could not recover from the emotional onslaught she had just gone through. She felt like leaving but it was too late to be out at that time of the night. She went to her Instagram page and searched all the women Ruth had mentioned were involved with Bruce. She downloaded or took screenshots of some of them. Every time she scrolled through the photos, her heart broke a little more. She could recognise gate away places she had gone together with him. She felt sick to her stomach knowing that he had gone with his other women to the same places they went to. She was numb. The more she thought about it, the more she found explanations as to why some things were the way they were. All of Bruce’s social media pages were clean. There were no traces of the women or children anywhere. Becky had also never met any of them despite the many times she spent with him. She also had never met any of his family members. No brothers or sisters neither his parents. Could it because they lived in different towns so he could do his things without her noticing? She drifted off to sleep.

Early morning, she woke up and left without saying a word. She left the others behind. She just wanted to be alone to process her emotions. She cried. She cursed Bruce. She cursed love. She berated her heart for not being careful. She weakly lay on her bed as she composed a message to send to Bruce. She had a lot she wanted to ask him. She did not want to see him though. He repulsed her. In the end, she sent a couple of the photos she had previously downloaded with a simple message to his WhatsApp: “I know. I know E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G”. It was immediately blue-ticked. Bruce had read the message.

“I am sorry for everything,” Bruce typed back.

She waited a few minutes for more communication from Bruce. She was expecting some sort of explanation or a denial of it all. An elaborate apology, may be? Nothing was forthcoming. WhatsApp showed that he had gone offline immediately after sending that single message.

Was that all? Just a casual ‘I am sorry for everything’? Becky’s heart pounded out of anger and sheer hopelessness. Bruce’s message was cold and impersonal. Didn’t he feel any remorse whatsoever? No guilt tugging at his heart? Was he this callous? Becky was devastated.

 Just who was Bruce?