He’s in school. A university student who has a dream to save the world. Unfortunately, his family doesn’t have the money to support his dream. He’s scrapping through. A little here and a little there. He puts what he gets together to support himself through school. When he met me and proposed to me, I wasn’t enthused. I’m a hustler. I was looking for a man who’ll take care of me. I looked at him from hair to toe, he had none of the qualities I needed in a man, except that he was a beautiful boy. I said no.

I came to Accra with a master plan. I came to learn to be a fashion designer and I’m in school for it. He’s just like me. My family doesn’t have the money to support my dreams so I did little work here and there, got a little money and travelled to Accra to pursue my dream. There’s another dream I was pursuing. To get a man who has something in his hands to help me through life. A lot of men had come my way and I had said no to them because they didn’t match up to my expectations.

And then Hubert came with his university dreams. I said no but my conscience pricked me at some point. The voice said, “Life is not all about now. He’s in school. He can make it someday. He may be the rescue hand you’ve been looking for. Maybe not now but in future.”

I listened to my conscience and said yes to him. As I said a few paragraphs ago, I’m a hustler. If there’s something I need, I hustle for it. Before Hubert came along, I was hustling to get a place I would lay my head. I was living with a friend I met in fashion school. She was doing me a favour by living with me. I didn’t want to overstretch that favour so I woke up every day thinking about how to get a place of my own.

Hubert couldn’t visit me because I didn’t want to inconvenience my friend. He made mention of it every day. He wanted to see where I live. He took me to his friend’s place so I could also take him to mine. I didn’t. I told him, “Until I get my own place, there’s no way I will take you to my friend’s place. I know her. She won’t like it.”

He told me, “I have some money saved. It’s not enough to rent a room but if I get a little push I can rent a room. If you think it’s urgent to get a place, then contribute a little so both of us can get a place where we can stay and go to school.”

I laughed at the idea. I didn’t want to live with my boyfriend. I wasn’t about that life. The only man I saw myself living with was my husband. I told him it was a bad idea. When he pushed, I resisted until the friend I was living with started giving me attitude.

I went home tired one evening and she was inside with her new boyfriend. I couldn’t join them so I had to stay outside, waiting for the guy to leave. He left around midnight. It didn’t stop there. It became a daily affair. He would come while I’m inside, sit for a while, start doing things that don’t require my presence, I’ll leave and they’ll close the door until somewhere around midnight. I couldn’t stand it so I called Hubert and told him, “I have some money saved, let’s get a place of our own.”

A few weeks later, I said goodbye to my friend and went to live with Hubert in a place we rented together. Life got a little easier. I had a space I could call my own. It was small and had a man in it but it was better than waiting on the outside forever.

Hubert was mostly home. He only went out when he had lectures. I would leave early morning and come late in the evening. He didn’t have issues with it until later he started complaining. He wanted me to be home earlier. He talked to me like a husband would talk to his wife. He demanded things husbands demanded from their wives; service, submission and sex. The triple ‘S.’ He didn’t have money but had the guts to play the head in a house both of us had rented. I don’t know where men buy their guts and audacity. I would have gone there to check how Hubert pays for his own because he had no money.

He woke me up one dawn and asked me to stop snoring. Another night, he woke me up and asked why I was talking in my sleep. It was crazy how often he did that. One night it turned into a fight; “Can’t a woman snore in her own room? I’m a manual worker. I get tired. I’ve earned my snore so please allow me.”

He exaggerated the problem so he could have something to complain about or fight about. And I realized these things happened only when I’d denied him sex.

I came home one evening and the door was locked. I went into my bag for my keys and I didn’t have them. I called his phone and it was off. I stayed out of the door until around 11pm when I heard him opening the door from the inside. He was in all that while. I got angry and we fought. The next thing I saw, he was throwing my things outside. “Leave here. A woman who snores like you can only be a witch. Only God knows the kind of weird creatures you talk to when you talk in your sleep. Leave my life alone. I’m tired of you.”

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That had been his plan all along. To kick me out of the house we’d both rented. He stole my keys so he could leave me stranded and powerless. We had lived together for only five months. I didn’t touch the things he threw outside. I went back to my friend and spent the night with her, thinking the morning would bring calm to his mind.

I went back and saw my things packed on the veranda. He won’t pick up my calls and won’t come outside to see me. Later he told me since I came into his life, his grades have suffered and he had forgotten about his dreams. I asked him to pay me my part of the rent and he said, “I don’t have anything to give you. Take it wherever you want to.”

I’m a hustler. I know places. I know people who can retrieve things, who can deal with people like Hubert. They are men like him, men who can cause havoc to other men. I spoke to one of such men and he told me, “It’s easy. Leave it to us.”

It took them only three days. They brought me my keys and also the most important property Hubert owns; his laptop. The guy said to me, “He was there with a woman when we got there. He couldn’t even put up a fight. You can go back to your room. He’s no longer there. The laptop is your compensation.”

“Another woman? I’ve been replaced so soon?”

I didn’t go back to the room immediately until Hubert called me. He pleaded for his laptop. I asked him to meet me for it. When he came I told him, “I know you want peace because you can’t stand a snoring night. I’ll give you your laptop but that should be the end of it. I will be in that room. If you try anything funny, those guys know where to find you.” He said, “Then pay me my part of the rent. I need that money.” I responded, “You can collect it from those guys. I paid it to them.”

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Currently, I live here all alone. It gets boring but peaceful. I have enough space to practice my fashion lessons. But I think of Hubert some nights. He wasn’t all bad but he was greedy too soon. He’s back to where it all started; campus, begging for a perching space each night. I wish him well. He can still make it. His dreams are beautiful.

—Dede

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