It Was The Demons, Not Me

It Was Demons, Not Me

It Was the Demons, Not Me

Chapter One

The Church Near My Room

I was young enough to believe that love could announce itself.

Not with a warning.

Not with hesitation.

Not with a list of questions I should have asked.

I believed love could simply arrive, look you in the eyes, and make you certain.

At the time, I was attending college and renting a small room not far from campus. My life was simple. Classes during the week, assignments that seemed to multiply overnight, quiet evenings in my room, and Sundays that often left me wondering whether there was more to life than what I could see.

I wanted God closer to me.

So I started looking for a born-again church nearby.

I wasn't searching for a husband.

At least, that's what I told myself.

I just wanted a church.

A place where I could worship, meet people who loved God, and feel like I belonged somewhere.

Then, one Sunday morning, I walked into a church I had never visited before.

I remember how unfamiliar everything felt.

The faces.

The voices.

The music.

Even the way people greeted one another.

I stood there quietly, trying not to look as lost as I felt.

And then I saw him.

He was dark-skinned and chubby, with a face that immediately caught my attention. But it wasn't his appearance that made me notice him.

It was his voice.

He was singing as though heaven was nearer than the ceiling above us.

There was something about the way he worshipped that made me look twice.

I didn't know his name.

I didn't know his story.

I didn't know that he would eventually become one of the most painful chapters of my life.

All I knew was that, standing there among strangers, I noticed him.

After the service, he approached me.

He greeted me warmly, and somehow the conversation didn't feel forced. He asked for my number.

I gave it to him.

That simple decision would change everything.

Within a week, we were talking constantly.

Messages became morning greetings.

Morning greetings became long conversations.

Long conversations became laughter.

And laughter became attachment.

I began waiting for his messages.

I began wondering where he was.

I began smiling at my phone.

Something was happening to me, and it was happening quickly.

I convinced myself that maybe God had answered a prayer I hadn't even known I was praying.

I looked at him and saw possibilities.

A husband.

A father.

A provider.

Someone who could build a family with me.

I wasn't thinking about the future carefully.

I was dreaming about it.

There is a dangerous difference between knowing someone and imagining who you want them to be.

I didn't know that yet.

I only knew that I was falling.

And I was falling fast.

The following week, something happened that made my heart race.

I saw him through a window.

He was at the same college as me.

For a moment, I couldn't believe it.

Out of all the people in the city, out of all the churches I could have entered, out of all the men I could have met, he attended the same college.

I took it as a sign.

My heart practically danced inside me.

I watched him from a distance and felt that strange, beautiful feeling that comes when you think life has finally placed the right person in your path.

I started fantasizing about us.

Young.

In love.

Studying.

Building a future.

I didn't even care that he was one year younger than me.

One year suddenly seemed meaningless.

I imagined us walking together after class.

I imagined introducing him to people as my man.

I imagined children.

A home.

A family.

A life.

I didn't know that imagination can sometimes paint over the cracks reality is trying to show you.

For those first days, I didn't look for cracks.

I looked for reasons to believe.

And there were plenty of things I didn't ask.

He had introduced himself to me at church.

He had sung beautifully.

He seemed confident.

He made me feel wanted.

But there was one thing I didn't notice until later.

He never really talked to me about God.

Not deeply.

Not personally.

Not the way I expected someone I had met inside a church to speak.

But I was already swimming in a pool of love.

And when you're swimming in love, sometimes you don't notice whether the water is carrying you somewhere safe.

You only notice how good it feels to float.

Then came the moment when our relationship became intimate.

I knew it was a decision I was making.

I knew there were things I should have thought about.

But emotions can make warning signs look small.

And he was good at making me feel wanted.

I couldn't resist him.

I thought intimacy would bring us closer.

Instead, it opened a door to a side of him I hadn't yet seen.

At first, the changes were subtle.

Then they became impossible to ignore.

When new people came to church, he would approach them.

That alone shouldn't have bothered me.

He was friendly.

He was welcoming.

He knew how to make people comfortable.

But then I noticed something.

He approached some of the new girls in exactly the same way he had approached me.

The same warmth.

The same attention.

The same effortless charm.

And this time, some of those girls spoke his language.

I didn't.

That became important.

Because suddenly there were conversations I couldn't understand.

Long phone calls.

Quiet conversations.

Words that disappeared from me the moment they left his mouth.

Sometimes he would answer a call while I was beside him and begin speaking rapidly in his language.

I would sit there silently.

Waiting.

Watching.

Wondering.

Then he'd walk outside.

At first, I told myself I was imagining things.

Maybe the calls were innocent.

Maybe I was becoming insecure.

Maybe love had made me possessive.

I didn't want to be the jealous girlfriend.

I wanted to trust him.

So I tried.

But suspicion is stubborn.

It doesn't always shout.

Sometimes it whispers.

And the more I tried to silence that whisper, the louder it became.

He started taking calls outside.

Then he began leaving me alone during events.

His attention seemed to move from one person to another.

And slowly, the beautiful picture I had created in my mind began developing cracks.

I just wasn't ready to look through them.

Not yet.

Because I was still in love.

And sometimes the hardest truth to accept is not that someone changed.

It's that perhaps you never knew them as well as you thought you did.

I would soon discover exactly how much I didn't know.

And when I did, my heart would never look at love the same way again.

It Was the Demons, Not Me

Chapter Two

Swimming in Love

The week after I met him felt like a dream I didn't want to wake from.

Every morning, I checked my phone before I even got out of bed.

There was always something from him.

A greeting.

A question.

A joke.

Sometimes nothing more than a simple, "How did you sleep?"

But somehow, those few words could change the entire direction of my day.

I had never understood how quickly a person could become part of your routine.

He was becoming mine.

When I went to class, I wondered whether I would see him.

When I walked back to my room, I wondered whether he would call.

When I attended church, I looked around for him before I even found a seat.

I had begun arranging my days around someone who had only recently entered my life.

And I didn't see anything wrong with it.

I was happy.

Really happy.

Then I discovered that he attended the same college.

I remember the moment I saw him through the window.

There he was.

Among students.

Walking as though he had no idea that my entire world had just stopped for a second.

I smiled to myself.

"God really sent him," I thought.

It seemed too perfect to be coincidence.

The church.

The college.

The conversations.

The attraction.

Everything seemed to fit.

I began imagining what our future could look like.

We were both young and studying. We could finish school together. We could find jobs. We could build a home.

I imagined him as my husband.

I imagined him as the father of my children.

I imagined him becoming a provider.

The strange thing was that I hadn't known him long enough to know whether he could actually become any of those things.

But love didn't ask me for evidence.

Love asked me to believe.

And I did.

I didn't care that he was a year younger than me.

One year meant nothing when my heart had already decided that he was the one.

I started imagining little things.

The meals we would cook.

The arguments we would have and laugh about afterward.

The way he might hold my hand when we walked.

The day we would tell our families about us.

The home we might someday share.

I was building an entire future with a man I was still getting to know.

I didn't realize that I was falling in love with a picture of him.

And pictures don't always show what is happening outside the frame.

---

Chapter Three

The Door We Opened

As our relationship grew closer, there came a time when our affection became physical.

I knew what I was doing.

I wasn't forced.

I wasn't confused about what was happening.

I wanted him.

And he knew exactly how to make me feel wanted.

The intimacy made me feel even more connected to him.

I thought it meant we were becoming one.

I thought it meant our relationship was becoming serious.

I thought perhaps this was another step toward the future I had already imagined.

But afterward, something felt different.

Not immediately.

At first, everything seemed normal.

But when I looked back, I realized that this was around the time the atmosphere between us began changing.

There was something I couldn't explain.

He still laughed with me.

He still called me.

He still made me feel special.

But there were moments when his attention seemed to drift away.

His phone became more important.

His conversations became longer.

And some conversations suddenly needed privacy.

I noticed it one evening when his phone rang.

He looked at the screen.

Then at me.

Then he stood up.

"I'm going outside."

I watched him walk away.

I told myself not to think about it.

But my mind had already started asking questions.

Who was calling?

Why couldn't he answer in front of me?

Why did he need to leave the room?

I tried to push the questions away.

I wanted to trust him.

After all, what kind of relationship could survive if every phone call became a reason for suspicion?

So I stayed quiet.

But silence doesn't always mean peace.

Sometimes silence is simply where suspicion grows.

---

Chapter Four

The Girls at Church

I noticed him approaching new people at church.

At first, I admired that quality.

He was friendly.

Confident.

Welcoming.

He seemed like the kind of person who could make strangers feel at home.

Then I noticed something that made me uncomfortable.

He was approaching girls.

Not just one.

Different girls.

And there was something familiar about the way he did it.

It was almost exactly how he had approached me.

The same smile.

The same confidence.

The same effortless conversation.

I tried to laugh it off.

Maybe I was being jealous.

Maybe this was simply who he was.

Maybe I was allowing my feelings to make innocent behavior look suspicious.

Then he started talking to girls who spoke his language.

That was when the distance between us became even more obvious.

They could speak to him in words I couldn't understand.

I would sit beside him though