On the 30th of December, 2025, I was at the airport waiting for my mother. She had visited my brother in the United Kingdom and was coming back. I had a mixture of anger and envy about her being the one returning from abroad. It should have been me. Why would my brother take an old woman whose knees were weakened by rheumatism abroad while a young me was still in Ghana dreaming of the same opportunity?

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This handsome man walked up to me right after he came out of the airport. His cart was full of big bags as if he had come to Ghana never to return again. He asked me to help with his cart. A lot of guys were around so why me, a lady? I smiled and helped with it. He asked my name and what I had come to do at the airport. He gave me his number and said his phone had died, so I should call him so we could talk.

I saved the name as “Sammy Big Cart,” the only way to identify his number from the other Sammys on my phone. The excitement of seeing my mom and the unending stories she told about the UK made me forget about Sammy. In the morning, when I woke up and remembered I hadn’t called him, I quickly placed a call and he picked up.

“This is Akos, the lady who helped with your big cart at the airport.”

We talked, we laughed as if we were old-time friends. He said he was on his way to Kumasi, where he resides, and would only come back to Accra when he was leaving in two months’ time. He texted every morning and called me sunshine. “Good morning, Sunshine.” Or “Wake up and bring the sunshine,” or “Arise and shine, my sunshine.”

So one day, I asked if he was calling me sunshine because he didn’t see the sun a lot in the UK. I’d come to expect his messages every morning, and if he didn’t text, I would text him myself and ask if he was okay not seeing the sun in the morning. Some nights it was a long talk deep into the night, but sometimes he would disappear, and I would see him days later.

Sometimes on a video call, he would still ask me to send him photos of how I fully looked. Everything pointed in one direction: that he was in love with me and might propose soon. Was I in love with him too?

That was a question I found hard to answer. I found myself shamefully asking myself if I was giving myself to him because he came from abroad and was handsome and had big carts. I’m not a softie, but with him, it felt like I was letting myself go easily.

Yes, he proposed one night while on a video call, and yes, I accepted that very night. We had to make plans to meet, go on a proper date, and take it from there. All the times we fixed, he couldn’t make it because he was too busy and too tight. He said he would spend one week with me in Accra before he departed the country. I started counting the days. And then he disappeared for three days straight, and when he appeared, I was so angry I wanted to end the relationship that day. He said he had problems with the foreign number he was using and blah blah blah.

Finally, he came to Accra. I booked the hotel even before he got there. When we went inside, I was expecting a hug and then a kiss and then a lot of hand-holding because that’s what lovers do, but I got none of that. When I sat at the east, he would sit at the west. We watched movies all day and night and talked about the movies until there was nothing else to talk about.

We slept and woke up without him touching me. He didn’t even want his skin to touch mine. In the morning, when I left for work, I texted, “You’re not my brother, so why are you acting like one? Not even a kiss?”

We chatted about our lack of intimacy all day. He said he was dying to do things to me but was also careful because we had just met. I loved him for that, but I also hated him when, for three days straight, we hadn’t had a kiss even though we slept and woke up in the same bed. On the fourth day, I told him, “What’s the point? I might as well sleep in my own bed and see you as and when if this is all it takes.”

He apologized and said I should understand his need for time. On the Friday night before he would depart the following day, I took him to a spa. I asked them to work on us as a couple. I took him dancing so I could use dance as an excuse to touch his skin and push my ass against his flap. We did all that but still didn’t get a kiss.

When he was leaving the next morning, we hugged. I didn’t want to let go. When he got to the UK, he called. I asked questions, the hard ones, and asked him to be honest with me.

“You didn’t find me attractive? Maybe you loved me, but after seeing me physically the second time, you realized you had made the wrong choice. Be honest with me. I’m a big girl. I can take it.”

Then he spilled all the truth. I didn’t know how to feel, whether to die or wait and die the next day. He kept apologizing. He kept telling me he loved me too much to touch me and break me with lies.

You remember the big cart I helped him push the first time we met? They were all things for his wedding. You remember I said he disappeared for three days? That was when he got married and was on honeymoon with his new wife. He had come to Ghana to marry his old-time girlfriend and then met me, found me beautiful, and decided to keep me with him.

According to him, he had plans to be intimate with me and keep the lies going while abroad, but he said, “It was hard doing that to you. I’m a bad person, but not so bad as to treat a good woman this way. Forgive me.”

I think I suspected it, but I was too blind to see. The constant calls every night that he didn’t answer because he didn’t want the caller to disturb our moment. The constant texting while he was with me and the looking over his shoulder while we were out. They were all the messages I needed to see what was happening, but my head was under the water because of love.

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I was devastated but also relieved to know the truth. He asked me, “So what now? Are we enemies?” I answered, “Enjoy your marriage. Just forget about me.”

We still talk. He wants to take care of me. He still wants to be close. I don’t hate him, but I don’t give him the access he requires from me. I’m grateful for the truth, but I also know if I keep hanging around the barbershop, I will one day get my hair cut.

—Josephine

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