Broken | ✓

CHAPTER THIRTY:: FALL

                        Ireti

His lips were salty, they tasted like tears, my tears. Jide said he loved me, he said it with surety. There was no iota of doubt in his eyes. He didn’t just throw those words loosely like it was a ticket to have sex. He meant them.

I pulled away and held his face, his precious face with the perfect pointed nose and luscious lips. I caressed the sides of his face and let my eyes inscribe every inch of his face, from his forehead to his chin.  I smiled, then, I kissed him. It was a kiss fueled by pain and longing. I kissed him like it was the last time, my tongue memorizing all the corners of his mouth and truly it was.

I detached my lips from his and took one last glance at him.

“You should go” I told him with tears streaming down my cheeks.

“What do you mean?” he asked, stress lines taking shape on his forehead to show his confusion.

“Leave Jide, don’t ever come back”

“Ireti” he grabbed my hands “I love you; I can’t leave you”

“You can’t love me Jide” I shoved his hands.

“But I do”

“Leave Jide. We both knew this thing we had wasn’t going to last long”
I had hoped it would last long, I pictured a future with him but after the incident at the hospital that picture started blurring out till it was all gone. I had seen how worried he was, too scared to touch me for fear that I would break. So he just sat with me in silence. To think he had only seen a part of my setback not the whole and he was this frightened, the full view would make pieces of him.

“Ireti, I don’t understand” he moved to touch me but I backed away. He stopped in his tracks. “You don’t mean this”

“I do”

“I will be back tomorrow when you are feeling better” he ignored me.

“Jide…”

“You can’t just listen to my traumatic experiences, hold me when I am crying, be there for me, make me feel things then end it. You can’t!” he interrupted me.

“You don’t understand”

“Then make me understand” he barked, it startled me.

“This is who I am, broken, insomnia stricken, nightmares plagued and suicidal”

“We both have garbage, give me another excuse”

“You don’t deserve this” I pointed at myself.

He needed someone who would love him completely not someone who relied on pills to live, someone who wrestled her demons in the daytime. He had enough baggage to add me to his list. I was unfit to occupy his heart.

“Leave Jide”

“No”

“Leave now!” I yelled.

“I am not taking a step” he responded.

“Get out! Leave!” I hit him repeatedly on the chest, pushing him.

“Stop, stop” he commanded, gripping my shoulders.

He looked me straight in the eyes and said “I love you” like it was his last resort.

I held my groanings inside. “Leave”.
His hands fell off my shoulders and I immediately missed the warmth of his hands.

“Okay” his voice broke, his eyes were filled with tears threatening to spill out.

“Okay” he nodded and walked out. His shoulders sagged, they never sagged.

I collapsed on the ground, wailing. It hurt so much, like my heart was being electrocuted. My mother rushed in; I could tell she had been listening to our conversation. She embraced me, my head on her chest as I wept. The pain was like an immovable tent mounted on my chest, no matter how hard I cried it just wouldn’t go away.

Somewhere between when we danced in Lagos and when we had ice cream and he listened attentively as I told him about my life, I fell, and I fell hard. I finally understood why it was called falling in love and not flying in love because flying in love should be a more appropriate phrase. When I was with Jide I felt like I could touch the clouds, I could be everything and anything I wanted to be. A fall is unexpected, there is no coming back from a fall. When you fall and you stand up, it doesn’t change the fact that you fell. Like the Nigerian adage what has happened has happened and like most falls, it leaves bruises

I fell for him without knowing it and there was no coming back. All I knew was I liked it when he wore his stern face, my Mr Stern-face. I liked it when he smiled, when he was tongue tied. I liked the way his lips moved when he talked and how they commanded the hair on my body to stand on edge. I liked the feel of his palms on my face and the way they made me weak in the knees. I liked his tight embrace; it was like a nest where security laid. I liked the way he said my name.

I loved him and I never got to tell him. I never told him how he shined his light he thought was nonexistent in mine. That since I met him, I had less setbacks and didn’t have to pretend that I was okay because for almost what felt like a century, I was okay.

“I love him” I muttered, further staining my mother’s t-shirt with my tears. I held onto her tightly like a new born cradling his mother’s finger afraid of his new environment.

“I know” she responded. She had noticed how big my smile got when I talked about Jide and how happier I had become. She never asked me why I pushed him away. She could see through me. She knew I didn’t do it for him, I did it for me. Terrified, that one day he would wake up and decide to not love me anymore because I was a handful. I was sure I would never recover; I could try but I would stagger and fall again and again.

“It is going to be okay” she brushed my hair. It was never going to be okay, I would  walk the earth with a much deeper hole but that is what you say when you don’t know how to comfort a broken person and sometimes the person catches the word and renders a faithless prayer asking the almighty to make things okay.

I don’t know how long we stayed in that position but the sun had begun to set preparing for his next shift on the other side of the globe.

Hey guys it’s been a while. Hope you have been fine? School is stressing me. I would have continued but I don’t write the story the story writes itself through me and it decided to stop here. Omo I want to cry😥💔, they just started dating. This girl just broke his 💔💔. Has someone broken up with you before and have you broken up with somebody? I have done both.

Please comment and vote, see you next week. I will try to keep my promise. Thank you for sticking with me. I am beyond grateful.😘😘