Irrevocably Mine

Chapter Two- Tears

I finally broke down. Tears streamed down my face unchecked, uncontrollably and unashamedly. The driver kept giving me pitiful looks from the rear view mirror but I did not care.

My hurt was breeding and in pieces. I kept getting fresh backs images of my husband having s*x with his secretary.

"Where to miss? "  I heard the driver ask. He was a young man probably around Twenty-five years, his hair was longer than it was conventionally required, he wore glasses and a watch that was as painfully fake as the golden bling on his teeth. 

"Eastern boulevard"  I said, my voice trembling. I wanted to get into a bus and go to a place that luke would never think to find me.

The dark had descended with a vengeance, the breeze hit my face unapologetically and without mercy driving me into a dose of morose that reminded me I had no one in the world.

The driver was talking, looking at my image on the rear view mirror. I didn't hear what he said but I thought I should nod in agreement to whatever he was saying.

After we reached at the Eastern boulevard,  Bale, which the name of my driver, opened the door for me. I noticed he had a limp; his right leg was shorter than his right. 

"Thank you"  I said, leaning inside to pull my bags out. He offered to help but I respectifully declined. I wanted him gone so I could walk the short distance to the bus station to start the journey to my true destination.

Waiting for Bale to leave was a cautionary measure. I knew Luke was going to try looking for me and my cab driver was going to be his starting point.

The day I met him, Luke, I mean, was one of the happiest days of my life. He had on a dark suit and shoes that probably cost everything I owned at the time or now to be honest. He was with another short guy whom I later learnt was his lawyer.

I wondered what his kind has been doing in that kind of a neighborhood, in a coffee shop that he probably would have bought and sold for nothing other than pin money. 

I had served him coffee which he had rudely spit on the same cup."That is the most disgusting coffee I have ever tasted"  he had said, his eyes glaring daggers at me as if it had been my fault. I had wanted to be rude as well, but I needed that job.

Looking back, I wish I had. Maybe he wouldn't have flirted with me afterwards, or came back to the coffee shop to see me which later led to our first date, our second date and all the subsequent ones that led to our marriage.

I would never have known how it felt to kiss him, sleep beside him, make love with him or build dreams around him.

Lifting my bags to my left side of the ticket counter, I took out my cash to pay for one way ticket to a small village where my maternal grandmother spent her final days.

A village where I knew Luke would never think of looking for me because I never got the chance to mention it. Neither, I think did he want to know anything more about me than he already did.

I had loved that man so much that I forgotten to safeguard my heart.

"If you ever fall in love," my mother had warned "Do not give your whole being, leave a part of you to yourself"

Oh mama, I forgot. I gave all that I was and I feel like every part of me is in pain, what do I do?

I wish you were here to tell me.

Please tell me what to do? please mama I'm in pain

What if I never get better?  what if my heart never stop hurting?

Please I can't take it anymore.

I cried until I succumbed to exhaustion, falling asleep while clenching my bags,but even sleep couldn't take away my pain.

By the time I woke up, rain was pelting loudly on top of the bus, wipers moved systematically and hypnotically across the windshield.

The braids on my hair felt heavy but so did every part of me.

Vowing to forget about my past and forge a new beginning filled me with some hope that it could be done.

My world would be right again without Luke in it. 

This too shall pass became my mantra the whole of my journey.

As the bus drove past other cars, landscape and sometimes through villages as seen through twilight, I got more scared of how far I was moving from Luke, from my old life and from the city where I had lived for almost a decade.

The rain finally stopped though the cold and the breeze remained. The scent of wet soil filled my nostrils, the sound of the bus kept me sane for I couldn't have handled silence very well. 

I love your food, you should be a professional chef.  I remember Luke saying.

"You think so?" I had asked shyly, unable to believe that this wealthy, confident man thought I could be a professional cook.

"Oh, I don't think so, I know so." he had declared confidently.

I had smiled again, looking at his face as he emptied his plate.

"How about I make some calls to the right people and see whether you can get job as head cook in one of the big hotels in this city?"

"You can do that?"

"I can do more than that but let's start small"

"Being a head chef in a city hotel is not small"

"It is small,  dream big"

"Like how big" I had questioned, my eyebrow furrowed waiting on what could be bigger than that.

"Having your own cook show and owning your own hotel"

My mouth fell then, unable to comprehend all that. Luke walked through life like he was in a race that he intended to win. He was as honest as he was arrogant, as rich as he was hardworking as proud as he was beautiful and as cynical as he was distrustful.