His house wasn’t far from mine. I didn’t like it. It was the reason I said no to him several times when he was head over heels in love with me. I didn’t want to be in love with an area guy. They are always in your face. They don’t give you the chance to miss them, think about them and wonder what they were doing.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder but with an area guy, your heart won’t get the chance to grow fonder because they never go away. Roland kept convincing me with words and actions. Each outing with him was better than the last. I was in love but too scared to let myself go.

Love is a sneaky dangerous thing. If you don’t love someone at first, don’t stick around. If you do, one day, you might find something to love about them and that thing you’ll love about them will be the end of you. Roland kept coming at me. I told him, “I would have said yes to you but you’re an area guy.”

He laughed while calculating the distance between our houses. “You know it’s a lie. You’re finding excuses to say no. You live on top of a mountain. I live below. There are many curves and turns before I get to your place. Stop doing this.”

So I ended up in his bed weeks later, a dangerous attempt to apologize for keeping him waiting for that long.

I was living with my parents. I didn’t tell them I wasn’t coming back home that night so they left our doors open. At dawn, my mom called. I saw it but didn’t pick it up. My dad also called. In the morning, I called back to lie. “I went out with Jennifer and it was too late so I decided to sleep here.”

Every evening after work, Roland would drive up the mountain to see me. Some evenings, he would drive up with me by his side, park next to our house and I’d step out. Soon, his red pickup became famous in the area. My dad talked about it. Mom had a funny way of calling him. My siblings and neighbours came to expect the pickup every evening. Some even saw him in town and came to tell me, “Today I saw your pickup in town.”

For eight months all was well until one evening, he asked a question that changed the texture of our relationship forever. “You’ve given birth before?” He asked, while looking shocked. I nodded my head and said, it’s a long story.”

I didn’t tell him because, to me, it was history. It belonged to the darkest part of my past and I didn’t want to bring it up until it was necessary. When he asked about it, it became necessary for us to talk about it.

I had a child for a married man. He didn’t tell me he was married until the pregnancy. The pregnancy happened from the one time that we had sex. He asked me to abort. I didn’t want to. He confessed that he was married and me giving him a child wouldn’t make him marry me.

His words broke me into pieces. Writing about it today still sends shivers down my spine. I told him, “I will have the child. Go and nurture your marriage. You don’t owe me anything.”

He went away and never came back until I was seven months pregnant. He came with his elder brother to see my parents. They apologised for his absence and promised to take responsibility of the child. I didn’t see him again until months later when I delivered and lost the child. I didn’t take my baby home. I went home deflated yet with nothing to show for nine months of suffering. He came to say sorry. maybe he was happy. I didn’t see him again until today.

When I finished telling Roland my story, he gave me the impression that he had understood me. Weeks later he changed. He wasn’t the man I used to know again. He was no longer driving me up the mountain again. He was giving me excuses upon excuses. I’m not a child. I needed to know what was wrong. He told me, “I didn’t know you had a child. Knowing it now changes a lot for me. I need to think things over and see what I can do.”

Days turned to weeks before he sent me a text telling me he couldn’t do it anymore. “I’m sorry.” That’s all he said. He was sorry for breaking up with me but he did it anyway. I met him twice, thrice actually to talk about it but he still was sorry for breaking up with me. He wasn’t coming back.

Heartbreak is a dangerous thing. I know this because I’ve experienced it twice on a large scale. First was losing a baby I carried for nine months. And then this one. The sad thing was, when I tried to move on, everyone around me kept asking me about the red pickup truck. “It’s been long since we saw him here. I hope everything is alright.”

I woke up one dawn, walked down the mountain to his place. I walked around his window to check if I could hear any voice coming from his room. When I reached his pickup, I realized how much I’d missed sitting in it. I stayed around for a while and later walked back home.

That wasn’t the last time I did that. I stalked his place consecutively for two weeks. Sometimes I would be around before he drove home. I would check from afar and see if he came home with someone else. When he was already home, I tiptoed around his window to check if I could hear a voice.

It wasn’t healthy but it gave me hope that there was no one and if I stayed patient enough, he would come back to me.

One late evening, I went there and his car wasn’t in the compound. I stayed around, waiting to see if he would bring someone home. Around 12am he wasn’t home. I was worried. “Should I call and ask why he isn’t home?” “Something bad happened to him?”

While on my way back home, I texted him, “I hope you’re alright. Just checking up on you.” I closed my WhatsApp and walked slowly home. When I got home my dad was at the gate waiting for me. He asked, “When you leave home late at night like this, where do you go?”

He had been monitoring me since I started but didn’t say anything. When I walked past him, my phone beeped. A message from Roland. He said, “You came here today too? What do you want to see before you stop coming around?”

My dad knew what I was doing. Roland also knew but all along I thought I was hiding. Heartbreak is embarrassing. While I thought my dad didn’t deserve any better explanation, I stayed in bed for the rest of the night looking for a perfect response for Roland. I wrote and deleted what I’d written until I finally settled on, “I’m only worried about you. That’s all.”

His response was, “I’m not your child. Stop going around looking out for me. I’m fine. I will be fine. Care for yourself instead.”

I took his advice. It’s the reason I’m here telling this story. I cared for myself. I governed myself out of the heartbreak and gave love another chance when it came. This man I’m currently with knows my story, the one who died and the one who made me walk down the mountain every night. He found it funny and still loved me all the same.

— Vivien

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