HOW I LOST MY VIRGINITY AS A CHURCH GIRL: EPISODE 27

HOW I LOST MY VIRGINITY AS A CHURCH GIRL: EPISODE 27

EPISODE 27: FATHER, FORGIVE ME

I couldn’t breathe.

My father was outside.

Chinwe looked at me, waiting for my reaction, but my body refused to move. A thousand thoughts ran through my mind—What was he doing here? Did he come to take me home? To curse me? To tell me I was no longer his daughter?

The knock came again, firmer this time.

“Adaeze,” my father’s voice called. “I know you’re inside. Open the door.”

Chinwe reached for the handle, but I grabbed her hand, shaking my head. I wasn’t ready.

“Ada, you have to face him,” she whispered.

Tears stung my eyes. “What if he—” My voice broke.

“Just open the door.”

With trembling hands, I stood up and walked slowly to the door. My legs felt weak, like they could give way at any moment.

I opened it.

And there he was.

My father.

The strong, proud man who had raised me. The man whose approval I had lived for all my life. But tonight, he looked… different.

His eyes were tired, his face lined with something I had never seen before—pain.

“Adaeze,” he said, voice low.

Tears rolled down my cheeks. “Daddy, I—”

I couldn’t finish. My throat closed up. The weight of my shame was too heavy.

For the first time since I was a child, I wanted to run into his arms.

But I couldn’t.

I had let him down.

“I know everything,” he said, his voice calm. “The video. The disgrace. The shame. I know it all.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing the ground would open and swallow me.

“I told your mother not to call you,” he continued. “Not because we don’t love you. But because we were waiting for you to come back on your own.”

I opened my eyes. He was watching me, his gaze soft yet firm.

“But you didn’t,” he said. “Instead, you ran deeper into the world.”

A sob escaped my lips. “Daddy, I—I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

He sighed deeply, shaking his head. “Meaning well doesn’t stop consequences, Adaeze.”

I wanted to break down right there, but then he did something unexpected.

He stepped forward…

And pulled me into his arms.

My body stiffened. Was this real?

“Come home, Adaeze,” he whispered. “We can fix this together.”

I gripped his shirt, crying harder than I had ever cried in my life.

TO BE CONTINUED…