During my service year, I met a handsome young man. We were about the same age but he was a bit older by months. He was a fellow corp member and we all lived at the corpers lodge provided by the Local government. His name is Ekene and we got talking in the most awkward of ways.
Lanre, who was accommodating me at his lodge, had just kicked me out because I refused to be intimate. I ended up in the common room of the overcrowded corper’s lodge I had dreaded so much. There was gossip because unknowingly, Lanre has gone to say all sorts of degrading and malicious things about me. But I didn't really care because none of it was true.
Given the circumstances that I had returned back to the corpers lodge, I kept my distance and people just let me be but never failed to make mockery of me when they thought I wasn't listening. But somehow, Ekene didn't judge me by all that he has heard, he came close and would always say to me, “people don't see you for the sweet soul that you are.”
My relationship with Ekene was magical but it met a lot of rejection especially from Lanre who accused him of snatching me away from him. According to Lanre, we were both having a little misunderstanding and taking a break. Seeing Ekene and I together angered him so much that he did not fail to report lies to all and sundry. He went about telling everyone of our colleagues how Ekene took advantage of our quarrel and moved in on me. In no distant time, Ekene's friends started keeping their distance as they accused him of breaking the bro code.
There were times that Ekene and I would be together, he would look me in the eye and ask, "are you sure you had nothing to do with Lanre?" He would give me this look like he was begging for all that Lanre has been saying to be false. Everytime, I look him back in the eye and say, "I had nothing to do with Lanre." He would hold my hand, kiss it, rub on it and say, I believe you.
As time progressed, our bond grew stronger and despite his friend's opinions that I'm using him for a rebound, he stopped asking about my relations with Lanre. But that didn't stop him from caring about what people thought of our relationship and that caused problems for us. We were managing the whole affair and tried to remain strong. We stood tall against all adversaries. Everything was sort of being handled well until one afternoon we were together.
At the time, Ekene was about to round up with his ICAN classes to become a chartered accountant. I was super proud of him and was also motivated to start up my own ICAN classes so it would be like a couple goals kinda thing. We had both gone to the center to collect the form for me. I filled it and also submitted it. The date of the exam was fixed and Ekene had invited me over to his room one afternoon for some revision.
During the course of learning, I could not help but be distracted by how good he was with teaching. He was a natural and everything just flowed. At a point, it was obvious I wasn't paying attention as I was lost in thought thinking about how Ekene and I would make such a lovely couple. I thought about the ideal number of children that we would have and how they would look like. I was already thinking about us becoming a power couple in the corporate world, building an empire and crushing our competitors. I thought with an intelligent mind such as ours, we would be unstoppable. At that point of my day dreaming, nothing else mattered as it seemed time stood still for a moment and it was my world.
The whole Fantasyland quickly faded away when Ekene threw a question at him. I wasn't paying attention and I really couldn't comprehend what he had just asked. It was so obvious from the look on my face and he was forced to ask, “where was your mind? Where did it travel to?” I was hesitant at first to tell him about all that I had fantasized about but I felt, if I would want to spend the rest of my life with this man, I can as well start sharing with him my dreams and visions of the future.
Excitedly, I quickly closed the textbooks that we were studying with. I asked him to come close because initially, he was standing by his white board of which he was tutoring me on. He came and joined me on the bed, like a little girl who just got her Christmas present from Satan, I was excited. I jumped on him and as he yelled get off me, playful screaming, I asked him, “do you think we would make a great couple? He paused and then looked at me, he didn't think twice before responding, “of course, we would make a great couple.”
My happiness knew no bounds with that response of his. I was assured he felt the same way that I did and I did not hesitate in filling him in on all that I had dreamt about that got me distracted during his lecture. I talked about how I had envisioned our lives to be, the number of children that I had thought we would have, the type of luxury car that would fit our social status and how I wished more than anything that we would climb to the top of the social ladder together.
I saw him share in my excitement and it made me really happy. He gave me some textbooks to study on my own and I was sure to put in my best not to fail to disappoint him. Everything was going on fine and smoothly until he just changed, we started quarreling too much and he would always pick offense in any little thing that I do. He started judging me and started treating me like some random person. I immediately took the cue and treated him back just as such. I did hope it was just a phase we would overcome and go back to how we used to be but Nah, it got worse and I couldn't deal.
He relocated to the city, leaving behind few of his belongings. Moreso, I had returned his text books to his roommate because he was at the end of his service year and he would be passing out. So one day he called me and formally told me that he needed space, he needed to be close to Jesus and I am a distraction. As much as I had wanted to contend with all that he had said to me, I didn't, instead, I let him go. I was really hurt, I was even more hurt because I didn't know what I did wrong. One minute we were happy and planning our future together, the next minute we became total strangers.
I licked my wound and tried to get out of the situation. I could not sit for the ICAN exam as I was too heartbroken to process anything. Plus I knew I would see him there and I didn't want to fail so I thought it best not to show up.
On the day of his clearance marking the end of his service year, he had returned to the lodge and came to my room to speak with me. I was already 50% over him and didn't want to relapse so I told him off as rudely as I could. “If you don't leave my room this instant I will make a scene” I had yelled at the top of my voice.
“Can you just hear me out please?” He pleaded with me, giving me that sorry look he knew would get me to melt but I wasn't going to be weak. I kept pushing him out, we got close to the door and when he saw that I wasn't even going to look at him or entertain whatever he had to say, he yelled, “fine! They win”. He turned to leave and I wanted to more than anything break down to cry but like I said, I wasn't going to be weak so I hardened my heart and watched him leave.
Fast forward later on, he called for closure. I entertained him, made him comfortable enough to tell me what I did wrong. We talked about the good times we had and laughed about our silly moments. From nowhere, I dropped the bombshell, “why did you grow cold, why did you push me away.” For a while, he couldn't say anything to me. I had to call his attention back into our call, “hello are you there?” I asked twice before he responded, “yeah… yeah I am”.
“So why did you change, why did you leave?” I asked again. I wasn't prepared for his response but I was glad he spilled anyway because I learned. Ekene told him that aside the fact that his friends later got in his head, I was moving too fast with the dream I had of us. He just wanted a relationship at the time and I was talking about marriage and children. He didn't think that he would fit into the future that I had fantasized about and he got scared.
“Thank you” I said to him.
“For?”
“Opening up to me and teaching me never to be too forward.”
