All Her Fault

PACED LOVE

Back in school, University felt like air. Real air. Not the kind that sat heavy on your chest and reminded you of rooms you should never be alone in. On campus, I laughed louder. I talked too much. I became the girl people liked easily, the one who always had gist, the one who would borrow you her charger without thinking twice.

My friends said I was friendly. Too friendly.

“Chiamaka, you no dey ever vex?” Ifunanya asked one afternoon as we sat under the almond tree close to the Mass Comm building.

I shrugged. “Why I go vex? Life is already hard.”

She laughed. “This girl eh. See her mouth.”

We were four that day. Me, Ifunanya, Zainab, and Kosi. Different girls, different homes, different pains we never really discussed. University friendships were built on survival, not confession.

Zainab was eating gala and pepsi. “Howfar you go take am easy sha you too dey laugh. Make person no feel say you be one of these mumu girls. Them go con de see you finish.”

I smiled because smiling was easier than explaining. Humor had become my defense. If I joked first, nobody would ask questions.

Kosi leaned closer. “Guy, you fine o. Ahi una no dey see am?”

“I swearrrr, the girl yansh just dey big anyhow. I sure say guys go don de disturb you.” Ifunaya said amidst laughter.

I rolled my eyes. “Abeg shift. I no get strength for man wahala.”

They all laughed.

But that was a lie.

I wanted love the way thirsty people want water. Quietly. Desperately. Without pride.

I craved it without knowing how to ask for it properly. Or how to recognize when it came wrapped in lies.

I met Daniel on a Thursday.

It was after GNS class, the one everyone complained about but still attended because attendance mattered. He tapped my shoulder as I was stuffing my notebook into my bag.

“Sorry, abeg are you in Mass Comm?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I thought so. You were asking that question about framing.”

I laughed. “Because the lecturer was confusing everybody.”

He smiled. A calm, soft smile. The kind that made you think of safety.

“I’m Daniel.”

“Chiamaka.”

We walked together. That was how it started. No thunder. No warning.

He bought me malt the next day. Sat with us under the almond tree. Laughed easily. Listened. When he looked at me, it felt like he saw me, not the girl I pretended to be, but something softer underneath.

“You’re funny,” he told me once.

“I hear that a lot.”

“And kind.”

That one stuck.

I had never been called kind like it was something valuable.

When he asked me out, I said yes too quickly. I didn’t pray about it. I didn’t think. I didn’t pause. I said yes because he made me feel chosen.

He held my hand the first time we walked together. I remember thinking, is this how it’s supposed to feel? Light. Easy. Normal.

I didn’t tell him about my house. I told him I stayed with my parents and my brother. That was all. Some truths were too heavy for new love.

Daniel liked quiet places. His off-campus room smelled like detergent and books. He kissed gently at first. I told myself I was safe.

When he crossed lines, I didn’t stop him.

Not because I wanted to, but because I didn’t know how to say no without sounding difficult. I had been trained to endure. Silence had been carved into me from childhood.

Afterwards, I lay there staring at the ceiling, wondering why love always felt like something being taken.

He changed slowly.

Replies came late. Calls became excuses.

“Chiamaka, I’m busy.”

“School stress.”

“Let’s talk later.”

Later never came.

When I asked him if I had done something wrong, he sighed.

“Omo you too dey ask question. I’m just busy with school work.”

The day he broke up with me, he didn’t even look guilty.

“I’m not ready for a relationship,” he said, standing near the door. “I think we rushed things.”

Rushed. As if my heart had legs.

I nodded. “Okay.”

He left.

I sat on his bed long after, holding my bag, wondering how someone could enter your life so quietly and leave such noise behind.

Back on campus, my friends noticed.

“Guy, you don slim,” Zainab said.

Ifunanya frowned. “That stupid boy broke up with her na.”

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry amaka. He doesn’t deserve you.” Kosi said softly.

“Before you know it she go bag another one, na she de hot.”

I laughed. “Abeg Zainab no start.”

But at night, the questions came.

Was I too easy. Too available. Too eager.

Did I deserve to be used because I smiled too much. Because I wanted love too openly. Because something in me felt broken already.

I wrote everything in my diary because paper didn’t interrupt.

Sometimes, when I was laughing with my friends, a part of me felt like an impostor. Like if they knew the truth, they would recoil.

I still cracked jokes. Still helped people. Still listened.

Being liked had become my survival skill.

When holiday came, the thought of home made my chest tighten. University had shown me a version of myself I liked. Home especially with him around would remind me of everything I wasn’t allowed to be.

Sometimes i prayed to God that he would go out and maybe get into an accident or something —anything to make him stay far away from me but i guess God had other plans.

I didn’t know then that love and violence often wore the same face in my life. That the kindness I searched for outside was what I had been starved of inside.

I didn’t know that every unanswered question was stacking itself quietly inside me, adding weight.

Weight I would carry all the way to the spirit world.

And still be told it was mine to drop.