Water from the running shower pelted his bald head as he stood, bathing under it. Eyes shut with a palm against the bathroom wall, he sank into the happy memories of yesterday that made him smile. Dele was finally healing, maybe he’d give love another chance. For so long he had closed off himself from feeling anything for anyone given that all his previous relationships ended up a tragedy. Onyinyechi was a miracle that came into his life at the right time, reminding him of how it felt to let someone love him again.
Hurt should have been his middle name because Dele had survived more pain than anyone he ever knew. He’d endured what most people couldn’t. At some point, he started to think that he was cursed never to be happy in any relationship. His last two exes shattered his heart with unfaithfulness not minding that he never cheated on them, never purposely hurt them. Dele was the type of guy who would give his all in a relationship and still make up the percentage that his partner failed to put up. For this, he was always taken for granted. After Tolani, his most recent ex, Dele swore to never put his heart out there again. Hers was the height of it all, never had he felt this much pain before. Compared to this, the others were nothing.
It was the tenth of December two years ago that fate brought them together. Bright and early on that Sunday morning, he left his room to go help madam Patricia popularly called madam Pat with the Christmas tree decorations within the premises of the flat where he lived. She was his Landlord’s wife, a plump pretty woman in her late fifties who had developed a liking for this fine tenant who does not owe his rent.
She liked that he was reserved and respectful, never chasing women unlike her two sons Chike and Victor who were the perfect example of womanizers. Madam Pat was full of admiration for Dele and secretly used to wish that he was her son. Oh, how proud she would have been. But she was stuck with her reality, her boys weren’t the worst in the world anyway.
Read Also: THE HOWL: An Alpha’s Timeout
By the time Dele came downstairs to the compound, someone, a lady, was already up a short wooden ladder that was leaning on the tall artificial Christmas tree and was hanging the decorations. It was her back he saw first, she was wearing a casual sleeveless dress. Ash coloured. It wasn’t madam Pat, no. This one looked young and was slim. He knew all his female neighbors and could tell who was who even from their behind or the way they walked. Maybe this lady was related to the Landlord’s family.
As he approached her, she missed a step while descending the ladder and before she knew what was happening, she was already falling off. Dele had no idea he could run that fast, maybe because she was a damsel in distress. Everything happened so fast, the fall and the speed at which he caught her in his arms. It painted a picture like they were waltzing and had gotten to that part where the lady would bend backward with a foot stretched out in the air as her partner’s hand wedged her from under her back.
Madam Pat was looking at them through her window upstairs, she smiled at how the scene resembled one from those Telenovelas she liked watching. Both were strangers staring at each other in silence until she smiled, melting his heart. Dele helped her up and his pull accidentally brought her so close to him that her boobs pressed against his chest. They apologized simultaneously and chuckled at the unity of their words.
He introduced himself as Dele and said she was Tolani. He took care of the remaining decorations where her hands couldn’t reach. They talked for a while and spent hours decorating a tree that would ideally take less than thirty minutes.
They became friends from there on, always enjoying each other’s company. It turned out that his new friend was his next-door neighbour and wasn’t related to the Landlord’s family as he thought. Tolani was a comic book graphic designer and was working for a prestigious company specialized in that field. Dele on the other hand was a photographer who was great at his job. Over time, he fell deeply in love with her as she was with him. No unnecessary drama, no pressure from family, and most importantly no third party interfered, not even exes or an old flame. Everything was perfect. Too perfect to a fault.
Read Also:Joyville – A Tale of Three Lovers
Dele was happy at last, so happy that he bought an engagement ring for the most wonderful lady he’d ever met. Tolani was an angel God must have sent to him to ease his heart. Dele was too carried away by the smoothness of things and began to move fast, pressing towards settling down. He called home and told mum about her but Tolani did not seem happy that he had spoken about her to his mum. Even when Dele’s mum came over to his place for a day, Tolani wasn’t entirely cool that she was the main reason why his mum left the mainland to see. The moment Mrs. Makinde arrived, however, things changed.
Tolani could not stay unhappy around her, she was a funny woman who should have been a comedian rather than a retired banker. Dele knew that Tolani wasn’t okay with his mum coming to see her so he was concerned about leaving them both at his place while he stepped out to get some things from the supermarket. He would discuss with her when his mum had gone, maybe she would explain why it was a big deal to meet his mum. By the time he returned, the two women were swimming in a sea of laughter. Tolani hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time and she almost forgot how good it felt.
They had just finished making love and were panting heavily, both facing the rolling fan hanging off the ceiling. He turned to her and asked why she didn’t like the idea of his mum coming to see her. Tolani did not want to talk about it so she found a way to divert the topic. He insisted that she spoke but she ended up apologizing saying she was only caught off guard. She admitted that his mum was cool and she’d love to have her as a mother-in-law. He smiled, if only she knew his plans.
Dele didn’t propose until a couple of months later when he was fully convinced she was the one for him. He didn’t like to do his things in public so he did it privately.
She woke up one morning to his smiley face that put one on hers as well. Tolani loved the fact he enjoyed watching her sleep, somehow, it felt romantic to her. They greeted and he kissed her forehead and then her lips. Next thing she knew, he was singing her a sweet birthday song. She gasped, how could she have forgotten her own birthday? A few days would be their first anniversary, how time flew.
After the birthday song, came a well-written speech eloquently read to her making her blush uncontrollably. He presented his gifts to her, an expensive pair of necklaces and bracelets. She was so glad. He loved the fact that she appreciated the tiniest of kind gestures. He had bigger plans though. Dele revealed a small box the size of his palm and knelt on a knee before her.
The smile on her face immediately vanished when he flipped the lid and she saw a diamond ring. Before he would ask that question, the question almost every single lady ripe for marriage craved to hear, Tolani rose and left the bedroom. It was definitely not what he expected. Good thing he didn’t do it in public. That would have been embarrassing. He rushed after her as she left his place and headed for hers. He caught up with her by the door and blocked her way out asking what he did wrong but she did not say a single word. To shut him up, she did what she’d never done to him before, she yelled at him rudely with cursing words flying out of her mouth. She told him he was a mistake and that she would never be his wife.
“Why did you have to buy that damn ring?” she asked with a breaking voice, tear glands had charged up to the point of release, “why, Dele,” she added softly fighting back the tears that welled in her eyes.
“Because I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you,” he replied without hesitation, seizing her by the shoulders.
“Stop!” She knocked his hands off and shifted away from him, hiding the tears that were now overflowing, “just stop.”
“Don’t you love me anymore?” he asked, on the verge of crying. With one more blink, a tear would drop. She replied amidst sobs that of course, she did but that she couldn’t marry him. She said it would not end well and that she didn’t want to hurt him which was ironic because rejecting him was worse. She wanted to leave but he locked the door. Tolani was crying. There had to be a reason behind all this.
“You’re not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on. What did I do ?”
“You didn’t do anything. It’s not you, it’s me -”
“Please don’t gimme that!” he yelled at her for the first time. He hated it when people used that as an excuse to exit a relationship.
“I’m serious, I-”
“-Tolani you better -”
“- I’m dying, Dele!” she screamed in his face.
A sudden cold gripped him. Voices fell silent. She was trembling, shaking, eyes were red from crying. Quietly he embraced her tightly, weeping.
Tolani had Leukemia but she found out too late, the blood cancer had already exceeded the treatment stage and she’d been living on borrowed time all this while. She must have ignored the signs from the early stage most likely thinking it was just normal joint aches, fever etcetera. Now, it was too late. The doctors said she barely had a month to live. Dele’s heart was shattered into a million pieces.
He wasn’t sure which one annoyed him more; that she knew she was dying or that she knew and didn’t tell him about her condition. He wouldn’t spend what little time she had left arguing on why she didn’t tell him earlier whereas he was mad at himself for missing the signs however perfectly she tried to hide them.
The doctor’s appointments, the meds in her cabinet that she never told him about, her constant subtle struggle with pains, the dizziness, the loss of appetite, how could he have missed all these? It made sense now why she was skeptical about meeting his mum. Dele was angry at life. At God. What was that essence of sending her his way when he knew he was going to take her from him?
As the months went by, her condition worsened and she was now admitted to a hospital. Dele walked with her through these dark times, and his love never faltered. She was losing weight by the day and he could only imagine the pain she was going through. Tolani was good at hiding her sorrow behind a smile even now in the face of death, she was still smiling.
Read Also: The Diary of Darwin James – Encounter with A Mermaid
When she passed, Dele shut himself off from the world, he stopped going out, stopped seeing other people, ruled out relationships from his life, and lost his faith. For five years, he was alone. Then came Onyinyechi, the miracle that pulled him out of the shackles of sorrow, hatred, and anger. She knew she could not take Tolani’s place and she didn’t want to, she just wanted to help him heal and teach him to love again. It took her more than a year to break through his wall. The process was gradual but it paid off.
She finally succeeded. She was beautiful and hard-working. He owed everything good that had happened to him these past years to her and bit by bit he fell in love again.
Their love blossomed slowly and she was very patient with him. When Dele was finally ready to settle down, he proposed at his favorite restaurant. She cheerfully said yes obviously and the wedding plans were made. Months later, they got married.
Dele had grown to love Onyinyechi as much as he loved Tolani, she was his saving grace, literally. Without her, he’d be drowning in sorrow, alone and depressed.
One cool evening, barely a week after their honeymoon, Dele insisted against her wish that they take a stroll around the street. He claimed he wanted to show her off as the newest bride in town. Onyin jumped out of the couch and slipped into her best casual dress. She loved it whenever he proudly showed her off and she wouldn’t let this one pass.
They walked down the street, fingers interlocking into one another’s as they shared a coned ice cream. People began to run helter-skelter, shouting at the sound of gunshots. There was a clash between two rival gangs who were now speeding their buses around pelting themselves with bullets. Dele grabbed his wife and they both duked their heads, running with the crowd to shelter then it happened.
The sound to him was louder than the others as a stray bullet whooshed past him, grazing his ear. Less than a second later, the sudden painful gasp that escaped his wife’s lips echoed in his head, forcing him to abruptly pause in his pace. Her hand slipped out of his as she fell back. She’d taken a bullet to the head.
Dele turned back and saw her lying lifeless on the ground. He screamed and bent to take her head in his arms. She was gone. He wept, calling for help but everyone was running for their lives. Dele wished at that moment that another stray bullet from the rounds being fired would hit him too but then the police arrived with blaring sirens and both gangs fled.
Dele blamed himself for her death, if he hadn’t cajoled her into going out that evening she’d still be alive.
It wasn’t his fault, he was only going about his life like a regular person but there was no one left to convince him otherwise, not even his mum. Dele didn’t want any more heartbreak or death on his conscience, so he again shut himself off. Maybe he was jinxed, fated to be alone and maybe not but Dele had vowed never to love again.
Author: Francis Samuel
Very nice…hope dele has his happy ever after