RESOLUTION...

Thanks to everyone for stopping by. It has been an exhausting while trying to keep up appearances at home, dodge Chinedu outside and maintain my sanity. I feel embarassed, stupid and drained.

I have done quite a few silly things...risky, but never irresponsible. With him, I don't know...I was like, "Whatever, I am down." Initially when I posted the blog, I felt a huge weight lift off my shoulder and almost imediately another one landed as I began to read the responses and comments. I had hoped for some empathy; had expected it even but not the hostility and damnation against him. I read my blog many times and thought of how to really explain to you our relationship, who he was to me, to the world and how I was going to resolve this. To do that I had to face him and face him... on my own terms.

We met in Bola's house because my house was a no go area and I did not want to go to his where he would be in the most control. Bola was riled and waiting to go. Right now, our friends have begun to suspect that something happened between us because when she saw him in public, she let him have it and after dropping my name and insults on his head in the same sentence, a picture has begun to be painted and so I needed to nip things in the bud before they escalated. I had to beg Bola to go out quietly and leave the house for us. I am not violent and so I knew I was not going to attack him...at least not without back up.

Bola still waited to see him before she left. I was watching through the window when he arrived and from her hand gestures and the way he was looking at her, she was not speaking English or politely either...waste of time because he does not speak Yoruba. I watched him walk to the front door of the flat; slowly, hesitantly and heavily. He had lost weight...alot of it. I tried not to feel sorry for him but it was hard. I realised in that moment that even if he had not fled like that, he would not have been able to keep us functioning. He has never been able to deal with stress. Ever since I have known him, he deals with his issues by brushing them aside or leaving them for someone else to deal with. This time, it was me.

He knocked. I opened the door. He nodded...did not speak...probably couldn't. I nodded...stepped back for him to come in. I moved into the sitting room and he followed me. I took a seat and motioned for him to take one on the opposite end. He moved closer o me. I looked at him. I am not even sure how I kept my face blank. I guess the past five months had numbed me...numbed us both.

He came right up to the chair and then he went down and postrated. For a full thirty seconds I just stared at him...stunned. I don't know if anyone knows but Igbo men do not postrate and definitely not to women. I savored the gesture but asked him to please get up. We had to talk.

I wanted to know if maybe he saw something in his sleep that chased him not out of the house but out of the country. I wanted to know how even if he was so scared he would think that somehow, I would have made the situation worse. Did he not know that I was the one who stood to loose the most? I had a doctor who felt that because I was young and unmarried,I did not deserve a standard of medical care befitting of a human being. I could have taken a hanger on myself or wolfed down some pills if my plan had been to checkout from this earth but I listened to you and went with you to your so called friend who had the audacity to call me weeks later to ask me out after he nearly rearranged my reproductive system. What about my parents? What if I had died? Was this the way to go? In disgrace? How didn't he know that I would have been hurt? How did he not know that if he left me on my own like that, I would have been devastated? Did I have to walk around with a billboard before he knew how much I really cared for him? Did he not know that I overplayed with my reputation to fit into his world?

I was hurt because for once I had to let it show how much I needed someone...how much I needed him. I was hurt because he did not know that.
I was so exhausted, I just started crying. I cried even while he talked. i understood everything he said because I knew him somewhat.
I knew him because I loved him