He is thirty-four while I am twenty-nine. According to him, he fell in love with me during our junior high school days. However, life threw us in different directions when we completed school. It took fifteen years for us to find each other again. When we reconnected, it was all about friendship until I received a text from him one fateful day. The message read; “Hello dear, if you have the time can we talk about something serious?” I was curious to know whatever he wanted to talk about so I said okay.

He called and we spoke at length. At first, he spoke about our past. “Do you remember how I used to chase you back in the day? I would come to your house and your brother would chase me out.” We laughed about it as we reminisced more about the past. “So what’s this thing you want to talk about?” I probed after the laughter died down.

He went straight to the point; “My dear, since we already know we have feelings for each other, why don’t we just get married?” I didn’t expect to receive a marriage proposal from him. I was shocked. The only thing I could say was, “Eii!” He said he was serious and that we weren’t getting any younger. Wow!  

After a month of thinking about it, I said yes. He informed his parents, and in less than two days we performed the knocking rites. You could see the joy on the faces of both my family and his. Kingsley was not in the country so everything was reported to him. 

A few weeks after the knocking, I got sick. We were planning to run our lab tests before I got sick so we seized the opportunity to get everything done while I sought treatment. Because he wasn’t present, his father went with me.

I had a cough but upon thorough examination, the doctors didn’t find anything wrong with me. They said it could be allergies. We then went ahead to request our lab tests; HIV, Blood group, and Sickle status. I tested negative for HIV, my blood group is O positive, and my sickling test came out positive. 

My results were sent to Kingsley. Ideally, he was also supposed to run his tests and send me the results. However, I waited for his results but it never came. I asked him about it persistently until he told me, “As for me, I am not going to run the lab tests.” I asked why and he said, “Because I am the man. I am the one marrying you. That’s why I have the right to know your status before I decide to proceed with the marriage rites but you don’t have the right to know mine.” My jaw dropped as the word WOW rolled off my tongue.

Weeks after that conversation, Kingsley went completely quiet on me. None of us made any attempt to communicate with each other until I called him one day and asked, “What’s going on? Why did I stop hearing from you?” Only for this guy to tell me he was rethinking our relationship. His reason was that I tested positive for sickling. 

I didn’t have a problem if he didn’t want me anymore. My question was, why did he make a decision and not communicate it with me? So if I hadn’t called I wouldn’t have known the state of our relationship?

I spoke to him calmly, asking why my sickling status was such a deal breaker. All he said was, “My dear, I just can’t do this anymore. I am the kind of man who cannot be with you even if you have a cough. I don’t want to deal with any health problems in the future.” Once agin, I found myself saying Wow!

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When I asked about the knocking ceremony, he said he would tell his people to come and see my people for the drinks. After that, his dad reached out to me saying they would not come for any drinks. “My family cannot stand the shame Kingsley has brought upon us by behaving like this,” the man intoned. He sounded so disappointed. 

I have tried to speak to Kingsley but he has gone silent again. Now I am here wondering what to do next. To be honest, I won’t in any way convince him to stay with me. I just want to make sense of everything. The whole marriage thing started so fast and crashed the same way too.

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When I think about it, I still can’t get over the fact that he told me he was not going to run the lab tests because he is the man, and since he’s the one marrying me, he has to know my status as a woman before he can proceed with the marriage plans. And when he saw my results he chose to disappear. 

What is the best way to go about this? For my people, we are ready to give their drinks back to them. But how do we do that when his people are not willing to accept it?

— Ewura

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