Writers 
I don’t even know how to start this confession without sounding like a monster, but this thing I’ve been carrying on my chest is too heavy now. It’s swallowing me from the inside.
I can’t sleep, I can’t think straight. I look at myself in the mirror and I see a man I don’t even recognise anymore.
A few years ago, I wasn’t the man I am today. I was reckless, angry, and drowning in pain I never spoke about. I was part of a crew that used to break into homes and rob spaza shops around our kasi.
At the time, it felt like survival. We convinced ourselves we were just taking from a world that had already taken from us. We were hungry and broken and thought crime made us powerful.
There was one night that changed everything.
We planned a hit on a house not far from where I stayed. It was supposed to be quick get in, grab valuables, get out.
But things didn’t go as planned. Inside that house was a young boy, maybe around 10. He wasn’t supposed to be there.
He woke up, saw us, and started screaming. One of the guys panicked and hit him hard. Too hard. The boy dropped. There was blood. And silence. I remember how we all just stood there then ran.
The next morning, the news spread like wildfire. A young boy had been killed in a robbery.
I couldn’t believe it. But what shattered me even more was discovering who the child was.
He was the younger brother of a quiet girl I’d seen around, very respectful. Just a few months before, she had lost both her parents in a car accident.
That little boy was all she had left. And I was part of the group that took him from her.
That was my last job. I walked away from that life not because I was brave but because I was shattered. I wanted no part of that darkness anymore. Guilt ate me alive. I couldn’t breathe. I was haunted by that boy’s face and what we’d done.
But life has its ways. I started seeing her around, the girl. At the shops. At church. Outside the taxi rank.
Something in me just wanted to help her, even if it meant doing it in secret.
I sent groceries through people she didn’t know. I donated money to her church anonymously.
I wasn’t looking for redemption, I just didn’t know how else to live with myself.
Somehow, we started talking. Bit by bit. She never knew who I was or what I had done. And as time passed, we grew close.
She’d tell me I brought her peace. That I reminded her that God hadn’t forgotten her.
That she never thought she'd smile again until I walked into her life.
I married her. I married her because I loved her. Because I wanted to protect what was left of her heart.
She tells me all the time that I saved her, that I restored her faith in family. But she doesn’t know the truth.
She’s pregnant now. We’re expecting our first child. She’s glowing, planning baby names, dreaming of the future.
But I’m slowly dying inside. One of the old guys from that crew came back into my life recently.
He was drunk and bitter, saying I think I’m better than them now. He threatened to tell her everything, said he’d destroy me if I didn’t pay him. And truthfully, he doesn’t even need to. I already destroyed myself.
I think about confessing all the time. But what would I even say? How do I tell the woman who calls me her miracle that I was actually her curse?
That while she was burying her parents, I was part of the nightmare that took her brother too? I imagine her face if she ever finds out and it kills me.
She sees me as her protector. But I was the danger she never saw coming. I don’t know what to do anymore. Every night I lie next to her and wonder if I’m meant to live in this lie forever.
I touch her belly and feel our baby move and think, “I don’t deserve this.” Maybe this is my punishment, living in fear of the truth.
Living with the guilt of pretending to be a good man when I know what I’ve done.
Please, pray for me. I feel like I’m running out of air. I’m scared I’ll lose her. But maybe I was never meant to have peace. Maybe telling her the truth is what will finally bury me.
