What Love Made Me Do

After almost a year of mental and emotional torture, I was finally ready to leave or at least I felt I was.

I wasn’t one who liked to talk about my pain, but the few times I managed to share my ordeal with Tomi, one of my two best friends, she begged me to walk away, to leave the situation before I became a shadow of myself.

She said I was hurting no one by myself by trying to change him. I could see the pity in Tomi’s eyes, the sadness, the fear. I had no doubt she adored me. She was my best friend and she would do anything for me.

‘Leave him, Chinwe,’ she pleaded, as she finally let the tears spill down her gorgeous face. ‘I cannot believe you have been going through all of this. And you didn’t think to tell me? Or Ada? We’re your best friends. Friends are there to share each other’s pain, to cry together and help each other’ she finished shakily.

‘I’m so s-s-sorr-rry’ I cried gently, ‘I just… I love him so much and I didn’t want you guys to worry. He’s not a bad guy. He adores me and he’d never hit me.’

Tomi was having none of that. I could see the conflicting emotions on her face, I watched them change from pain to anger and back to pain and then pity.

This is exactly why I hated talking. They’d feel sorry for me and then hate Gerald. I didn’t want that. I knew I’d always go back so I wanted them to love him as much as I. I would easily forgive, but would they?

That day ended with me talking Tomi into letting me deal with things by myself, exactly how I knew how, peacefully. No one understood Gerald as much as I.

I knew exactly why he was so tough on me, so impatient sometimes and so distrusting. He’d been dealt a terrible blow by his scheming ex who had been his first love.

But I believed him when he said he’d never felt anything close to what he felt for me. I understood that he was scared of loving, scared of giving his all. Every time I did something wrong, he’d accuse me of being a liar and a cheat, of being manipulative.

A few times I gave in to the need to argue, to raise my voice and walk away, but that never lasted. I’d always come back, pleading, asking for another chance.

Sometimes he’d welcome me with open arms, other times, he’d make me beg for days or even weeks. I would stay pleading because I knew how happy he made me, the good times made up for the bad.

I’d think of us walking down the streets with our ice cream cones in our hands, and I’d smile. I’d think of him playfully calling me silly every time I told one of my dumb jokes.

I somehow convinced myself that love hurt as much as it felt good and so I kept going back and trying to give my all. He wanted all of me and he was having nothing less. I would give my heart, and he’d ask for my body and then my soul, my feelings, my love. I gave it all to him.

On some days I would tell myself how stupid I was for going back, how naive, I was for putting up with him when he got it in his head that I deserved to be punished, that I deserved nothing better than what I was getting, but my heart just couldn’t stop yearning. My head knew, but no matter how much I pleaded with my heart to be sensible, it just wouldn’t. Oh, how I cried.

It was on one of those days when my will to live was stronger than my heart’s foolishness that I got the courage to leave. I’d finally packed up all of my stuff, with the intention of going to Tomi’s.

I hadn’t told her why I was coming over, but she was home waiting for me. I smiled at the thought of her shocked expression when she’d see all my bags. I needed a hug, I needed a friend to cry with.

I hadn’t bothered with a note or a call to Gerald, I just needed to be gone and total silence was probably the best way to go about it. Picking my keys I headed for the door but not as fast as I would have loved to as I heard him drive in.

I paused for a few minutes and was still contemplating my next move when he walked in. He looked so sad and still so so handsome. He stared at me and my bags and said those three rare words ‘Forgive me babe’ and I melted.