HAPPILY EVER AFTER: my love story

I

    My name is Ukpono and this is my story. I'm from a small village in the southern part of Nigeria, I'm the fourth child in the family of five children. I discovered I had a flair for reading and writing stories at the age of 10, right from the beginning I enjoyed reading about romance, coupled with frequently watching Disney cartoons, I started dreaming of a happily ever after love life. Most of the books I read were within the range 50-70 pages, I never understood why someone would read a book of about 300 pages until I got into my senior secondary class and met a girl, Grace. We weren't that close but one thing I admired in her was her ability to finish a voluminous book of about 500 pages within 2 to 3 days and was able to narrate the story in details to the understanding of others. One day, I borrowed one of her books to read and surprisingly, I finished it within 3 days because it was really addictive. Since then, I became a "regular customer" at the book store near my house until I finished secondary School. 
   Fast forward to 2 years later when I was in my final year in secondary school, we were all preparing for the 2 major exams that will determine our admission into higher institution, West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE) and Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB), so we were all fighting to pass both exams. I've always aspire to be better than my older siblings, I've always wanted to accomplish those things they never could and my first step was to pass my exams in one go. Doing that would also make me the first member of the family to get into the University at the age of 16, so I wasn't like other students who just wanted to pass, I wanted to do better than anyone else in my family. While waiting for results of the exams to be out, another idea came to me, why must I attend the same University my brother and sisters went? Why even study in this country? I have a phone and I have access to the internet, I could easily search for scholarship abroad and see if I meet their qualifications. 
   For days, I searched and searched but I didn't find anything worthwhile, most of them that looked like they'll work out never did. I don't know if the fault was from me but I couldn't give up easily. A month later, results were out. I scored 233 out of 400 in JAMB and I had 5 A's, 3 B's and a C in my WASSCE result. It wasn't all that outstanding but I did beat my siblings, now what was left is to gain admission. I followed all the steps required and did all I was asked but at the end, I didn't get admission. What could have been the reason? My WASSCE result was perfect for the course I wanted to study and my JAMB score was ok, I mean, my best friend in school had 180 and she got admitted in the same school I applied for and the same course. Is it because I was trying to kill 2 birds with one stone by applying for admission here and applying for scholarship abroad? Was it because my parents refused to bribe any of the officials so that I can get admitted? I never knew what happened to this day.  
   I was devastated. My mom suggested I go learn a trade, she suggested I learnt how to make cakes and pastries and so I did that. I did have a boyfriend then, his name was Victor, but I wasn't really into him and I didn't want to hurt his feelings so I couldn't breakup with him. I never told him how much I wanted to leave the country, I never told anyone
Few weeks later, I overheard my sisters talking about their secondary school friend who studied in China and ended up marrying a Chinese man. An idea came to me then, instead of trying too hard to get a foreign scholarship, if I had a friend who is a foreigner, he could help me achieve what I wanted. And the only medium at that time was Facebook, I began typing random names and those whose pictures deemed "fit", I sent friend requests. It seemed to be working, I made a few Mexican friends but no matter how I tried, they were able to avoid the questions I asked them. I also met some people who had no morals and decency, all they wanted from me was a picture or video of my naked self which I vehemently refused.
    One day, a friend of mine made a post and I commented and a guy replied. When I checked this guy's profile, I was dazzled, he was so handsome. There were different pictures of him, in his house, in the pool, with an older woman which I assumed to be his mother and so many pictures of him with a little girl. I did not hesitate in sending him a friend request, two days later, he accepted my request and sent a message, "hello?" Just seeing that one word made me feel so happy.
"hello, good day", I replied trying my best to contain my excitement. "Who are you?" He asked, on normal occasions, I get annoyed if someone asked me that but this time, I felt elated because he really was a foreigner and not some imposter.
"My name is Ukpono and I'd love to be your friend", I replied.
"what do you want from me?" he asked again
"Like I said earlier, I just want to be friends with you but if you're not comfortable with that, I'm sorry, I'll stop talking with you", I answered now getting annoyed. Who the hell does this guy think he is? Just because I actually needed his does not give him the right to be rude to me.
   "Tell me about yourself", he said
" My name is Ukpono Udofia and I'm from Nigeria, I'm 16 years old, I just finished secondary school. I'm a baker and a writer. Well that's the basic, if there is anything else you need to know you let me know".
"Let me be honest with you miss, I hate blacks". Oh he's a racist! All I said to him was, "wow".
"What do you mean by that?" he asked
"You know I think I was aiming too high, I thought making friends with a foreigner wouldn't be so bad. But never in my life did I imagine I would come in contact with a racist. So what if I'm black and you're white, what makes you so special? You know what? Just forget it, forget you ever came in contact with me. I'm so sorry I almost stained your 'holy' white skin with mine."
I felt so infuriated, my head almost exploded in anger. I dropped my phone and did a 10 seconds breathing exercise to calm down because I didn't want to say something to him that I might regret later.
   I took my phone and continued chatting with my friends without saying anything to him again. A week later, he sent a message apologising for speaking rudely to me, "it's just that I've met with few blacks and I didn't have a good encounter with either of them", he said in his defense. 
"So what does that have to do with me?" I asked nonchalantly.
"I regret saying that to you, I admired the way you replied, you were angry but you still respected me by not insulting me. Ukpono, your different, you really are special and I hope you forgive me, let's start over again." He said.