This story is one chapter of a 5-part series entitled “A Familiar fraud”; a lived experience submitted to Liven Elle with bravery and courage. Please do visit the Trigger Warning page if necessary, before engaging with this piece.
CLICK HERE TO READ PART 1
CLICK HERE TO READ PART 2
Part 3: Re-entry
Time passed quietly, without asking permission.
When I heard about him again, the story had changed.
This time, he had found God.
That was how it was described. He spoke in scripture now. Prayed confidently. Used language that sounded convincing to people who wanted to believe that transformation erased history.
Faith became the bridge back in.
What unsettled me wasn’t belief, it was certainty. He spoke as though repentance required no reckoning. As though authority could be assumed rather than tested.
He was welcomed into family spaces again. Prayer meetings. Conversations about God. He spoke loudly. Led boldly. He returned behaving like a pastor, not like a repentant believer who understood that redemption begins with humility.
I was grateful I wasn’t there.
Until I was.
The first time I saw him freely (as an adult) was at a small family celebration. He hugged me.
My body froze instantly.
I didn’t want his arms around me. I never had. The memory had not faded; it had waited.
He asked for my number. Said he wanted to talk.
I gave it to him without thinking, already planning to block it.
I forgot.
The first call sounded like an apology. Sorry for being away. Sorry for not being a “good cousin.” The words were vague, unanchored.
The second call was calculated.
He said he’d heard I used to pray for others. That I carried something. That we should pray together.
Every part of me recoiled.
I said no.
The request returned, framed more gently, pressed more firmly.
Again, I said no.
My refusal didn’t stay private.
It travelled. Shared in calls I wasn’t part of. My name brought up in conversations I wasn’t added to, framed as concern, delivered as confusion.
My phone rang.
Why would you say no to prayer?
Why resist something good?
The questions weren’t invitations to understand. They were attempts to undo my no. Framed to suggest that something in me was misaligned and that my boundary was the problem, not the request that had crossed it.
I held my boundary anyway.
And that was when I understood: he was not confused by my resistance.
He was testing it.
Liven Elle 
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