DAY 1 - No Man in 100 Days

12:10PM

It has been raining all day. The puddles of water on the ground have a reflective sheen to them as the water mixes with grime and dirt accumulated through the week.
I'm sitting straight back on an armless plastic chair trying to concentrate and not worry about all the house cleaning that I now have to do.
The dogs have been fed. That takes off a load of responsibility for the next couple of hours. 

I feel as though my head has been reset by some force unseen. There is a sudden calmness borne of the fact that I am quite sure I have just made the right decision.
Breaking up with him had almost become the norm between us, and I'd never understand why, but it seemed as though we broke every couple of months for the past year, only to get back together as quickly as we had broken up.
"I'm so sorry," I'd say and he'd tell me he has no intentions of ever leaving either.
Then we'd kiss passionately and relish the fleeting pleasure that the warmth of our bodies and the carnal heat that our kisses afforded.
It always seemed as though everytime we broke up in the past, a part of us knew we would get back together again. Two days out, then a phone call, a text message, and all was back to normal.
Except of course it never really was normal.
A part of me wrestled with the idea of being with him. It was like a tug of war in my chest and head.
It was almost as though my more sensible self knew I was better off without him and my reptilian brained self could not agree.
All he had to do was laugh in that way that he did, or tell me something completely new about life that set me in awe of his intelligence and I'd be right back drowning in a pool of physical attraction.
I had been unhappy for so long and had mindlessly dragged him into my unhappy foreboding place when he reached out his arms to save me.
You can't save an aching heart. It has to heal itself, quench its own thirst and be set free again.
I didn't know that.
Not until I watched as day after day it seemed as though he was losing himself as he selflessly helped me find myself again.
And so I'd run away, telling him it was over with the easiness of one swallowing eba. But he never completely left.
A phone call always brought him right back, cleaning my wounds as though he had none of his own to tend to.
I was selfish.

We had to be apart, my spirit said. And I never doubt my gut.
So this morning at about 11:00AM when I said goodbye to Chris, I knew I meant it. Well like I thought I did all those other times.
Except of course, today was different.
Like I said, a part of my head feels like its been reset and its almost as though I can see clearly now. No really, I mean it.
I was wrong to have lunged myself into yet another relationship after my last, knowing how that had ended. I was barely two months out of that one before I fell in love with Chris. That's if you can call that falling in love at the time. It all happened so fast I barely even thought to watch my step. I fell right in, too deep and too quickly.
My heart tells me I should have been more cautious.
But I think back to it and I couldn't help myself.
At the time I had already begun to work on my emotions and on myself generally following my breakup with Iche and I was finding my happy place again.
It was a time for me to finally reflect on myself, build my already booming career and business and maybe even workout at the gym some more.
I had begun to like myself again, my face was bright and flushed from my self-induced happiness and I walked as though afloat in the air.
In retrospect I should have enjoyed this time with myself for much longer.
Should have.
The words you say after you have all but messed up.
But Chris was different. His eyes held me spell bound, his voice was alive with rhythm and when we kissed on the third day I thought his lips felt like satin against mine.
Soft. Tender. Yielding.
It wasn't long before we had run through four dates, kissed countless times and even did the unthinkable.
I hated myself like I always did But I said I was in love. 12:30PM

****

9:03PM
Yaba was always heavy with the hustle. You didn't have to walk very far before you began to feel as though you were doing nothing with your life yet. Everyone was in a hurry, shoes barely touching the ground as they moved their feet a little to swiftly. The okada riders squeezed in through the tiny opening that was left between vehicles on the two lane roads that now catered to four lanes of cars and trucks driven by impatient drivers. I was on one of these okadas, my hair in flight by the wind above my head and grateful to have a scarf holding down my weaves in a single knot.
It was a hot day. The sun beamed authoritatively in the sky and burned through my exposed skin.
I shouldn't have worn a tank, I remember thinking to myself.
I really did love tank tops those days. They were so easy to wear and I was too lazy for fashion.
I don't think I ever really cared for fashion growing up. I was what you'd call a tom boy, with my hair cut short and my clothes just the same as my brothers' as I refused to wear dresses and skirts.
It must have been easy on my mother, to just walk into the stores buying all things for boys and not having to worry about the girly and most certainly tedious-to-shop-for clothes.
But even as I grew older it never really occurred to me to become a bit more expressive and feminine with my clothes.
A tank top and a jacket was always fine by me.
However I had no jacket today and it was the only thing I could do, to run myself a cold bath in the shower as soon as I reached Fathia's hostel in Unilag.
My intention was to shower and get my makeup on just in time before Dafe arrived.
It was the first time I was meeting him in the past three weeks we had spent getting acquainted on the phone.
And although it is silly that I am thinking about all of this now as I try to remember how that relationship with Dafe began many years ago, I guess it is also a nice memory to have. To remember what he was like before the rage, before the sudden bursts of anger and the threats to take my life. 9:24PM

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