BROKEN BUT BEAUTIFUL

Forever Roses

Now that you have a little peep into my life growing up, I guess you now understand why I never take anything in life for granted. Don't you?

Anyways, enough with the digression, let's go pick Emem up from where we left him. (Winks)

I was distraught, didn't know how I survived the weekend. I felt betrayed .. why didn't he at least tell me about her!

' Anyways Idara, this is what you get for letting your guard down especially in a place of work! I kept chiding myself.

For the first time in my life I understood the term 'heartbreak' my gawd, it was the worst feeling ever!

Everyone in the home noticed my mood, I was withdrawn and easily irritated, I snapped at everyone at the slightest and they all kept trying to make me feel good, poor them(LAFFS).

Nothing in the world interested me , I just wanted to curl up in a corner and never go out ever again.

But Monday came bright and early, even though I hated every bit of it, I had to show up at work.

My internship was gradually coming to an end and these last days count, if I wanted to leave with impressive remarks from my supervisor.

I got to the office, put up a bold face , smiled at everyone, did my task diligently and pretended all was well. But deep down I wasn't.

Late into the afternoon, Emem appeared at the newsroom door. My heart sank when I saw him. He had lost some weight, his eyes were sunken. I shrugged it off to it's none of my business.

But as he came to my seat , my legs wobbled. 'Hi, how are you?' he asked.

' what do you care?' I muttered.

' hmm, that was brash but I deserved it, he said. 'So when will you be free, I really want us to talk' he continued.

' please as you can see , I'm very busy; I don't have time' and I started working towards the end of the newsroom.

He held my hand, I quickly push it away like it was scathing. ' don't do that, please!!'

He looked around the newsroom but luckily we were too far away for the others to listen in on our conversation. Then he whispered: ' why do you want to kill me, do you know I haven't slept in days.

Please stop tormenting me like this, This is not cool at all,

the thing is...I wish I could stop caring about you but I can't! Don't you get it. He stuttered.

It was at that point I really looked at him. He was disheveled. ' okay, what do you want from me, I hope you've taken permission from your girlfriend because I don't want trouble'. I said arms akimbo.

' She's not my girlfriend, how many times will I tell you!!! His tone rose several octaves.

'shhhhh!! Please bring down your voice, people would start wondering what's happening here? I pleaded. '

isn't that what you want? Maybe if

everyone wades in , you'll stop being impossible. I love you and I can't imagine anyone else in my life besides you!' I couldn't believe what I just heard.

I responded with 'huh, you say wetin abeg?'

He pulled my arm: ' yea, you heard me , I love you silly girl and I'm not afraid to shout it to the world'

My heart was almost jumping out of my chest. This was too good to be true…Emem said he loved me..wow!!!

I was overwhelmed.

But the 'Ajegunle' in me would not let me savour the moment. I just told him I wasn't in the mood for any of this, that I was very busy and went over to the secretary's corner to proofread the bulletin.

..When he saw I wasn't going to listen to him, he quietly left.

As he walked away, I stared at his back with a smile on my face, the secretary gave me a conspiratory wink and I giggled.

He actually loved me? Did I hear right or is my mind playing tricks on me? I kept asking myself. Well, whatever it was , I wasn't going to wait until they make me another body count before I 'wised' up.

As usual he waited for me after work and our nightly rituals continued. He kept telling me how his life had no meaning without me and how much he loved me. Finally, my brethren, I I succumbed. I think that was the very first time we kissed. I was madly in love with this man.

After that big fight, we understood each other better,, our bond became tighter, it became a case of Siamese twins.

It was at that point I found out a lot about the . Man, Emem Udoh'

Apparently, he was a twin and he and his twin brother looked nothing like each other. His parents were separated and had been like that for more than a decade.

He told me his dad was very prominent back in the day before he fell on hard time and how his mom loved his dad selflessly but he threw her out one day on grounds that she was a witch and never allowed her see her six children for more than a decade.

I couldn't fathom how anyone would do a thing like that and I insisted on meeting his mum who coincidentally had a soups ware shop at Tejuosho market at the time. We arranged to meet her the next day at her shop but on getting there met her absence.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to see her again until some weeks before her death. She had an accident, when I visited but from the very first time she set eyes on me…she told her son not to ever let me go, that I was his wife.

Even though I didn't know her for long before her death, she was the kindest human with the most beautiful soul I ever met, she opened her home and self to me no questions asked and I wished she met her grandchildren (Shawn and Alvin).

Emem and my relationship grew by leaps and bounds but in all that time , funnily as it might sound, we have never been to each other's homes. He had invited me severally, told everyone in his life about me and offered to come to my house but for fear of my dad and the promise I made to him about never falling pregnant and all his threats, I couldn't do it.

After much persuasion from Emem's end and my adamancy, he let the subject be.

Months later, my IT was over and it was time to leave the NTA.

Nobody in the newsroom wanted me to go.

I had become a part of the family, according to the head of news…'we are going to lose an asset' I was an intern with a difference.

On my part, it was hard to pull away too, this has become my safe place and Emem was my Oasis.

On our last day together, we both cried. We did what we both knew to do best (Talk), that has always been the basis of our foundation: effective communication , looking at all sides of an issue and drawing our conclusions in the end.

In this case, we were looking for a way around no home visits, no telephones and long distance. It was hard.

We just kept walking the length and width of Surulere, holding hands, kissing and talking. Alas, it was night and inevitably we had to part ways.

It was like our hearts would burst open. He kept asking me: ' is this really the end of the road for us?' and I kept nodding. I didn't see any other way to salvage this.

On the one hand there was my father but most importantly, my education which I had vowed to complete come rain or high waters.

I just had to let him go.

We hugged and kissed at the bus stop, didn't even care who was watching, the rest of the world didn't matter. I got in the bus because I had insisted he didn't follow me, it would make it less painful for either of us, we waved at each other till the bus left it's station.

A part of me died that night. How do people cope? I was shattered beyond words. I wanted to be with this man with every fibre jn me but the odds were definitely not in our favor. I kept telling myself it was better this way, I had nothing to offer him anyways, it was best...

I let him go.