I went there as an intern. A very big organization where you hardly meet the same people twice. In some institutions, they see you. They see you because you’re in a space as small as your own palm. Whenever you’re not around, you leave a vacuum. They look at your space and they see something is missing. You’re like a missing tooth. No one cares about you when you’re there but when you’re not there, your absence becomes so visible. Not with this company that I was interning for. The HR gave me to Mike. He told him, “Show her around. Teach her what she’s supposed to do. She’s an intern. Guard her and guide her.”
The first place Mike took me to was the canteen. “This is where we eat when we are hungry. You pay half the price of what you eat. The company pays the rest.” He was already ordering his food while talking to me. When he got his food, he told me to order mine too. I did. I simply requested exactly what he requested. We sat next to each other and he told me about the people who came in and walked out. “That bald man going, he’s Charles. He’s the chief accountant here. He won’t give you money until you defend your budget with a thesis of thousand pages. He’s a hard guy.” I looked at him and looked at how the light on the ceiling was shining directly on his bald head. I said to myself, “He’s a nice guy. He comes here to play hard but he looks like someone whose wife orders him around.”
One after the other, we gossiped about everyone who came in and left. That was the first day.
On the second day, Mike took me around to meet and greet the people in my department. We went from desk to desk and I shook hands with everyone there. You shake some hands and you’re happy. Others too, you’re in a hurry to disengage because their palms rub you the wrong way. Others have it too hard and they were the ones who held your palm long after you’ve finished shaking hands with them. By the end of the day, I knew everyone by face. I forgot all the names attached to the faces. I’m that bad when it comes to names.
On the third day, I sat next to Mike in front of his Computer while he teaches me the software I was going to use as an intern. There were a lot of buttons to click and a lot of pages to visit. I got confused. I asked him to take his time with me and he did. On the fourth day, we continued learning the software because there was so much to learn. On the fifth day, Mike said, “Thank God it’s Friday. What do you do on Fridays?” I answered, “I go home and sleep.” He laughed. He asked, “Who goes home to sleep on a Friday night? Are you mommy’s pet or dad would whip your ass if you go home late?”
The answer to both questions was yes but I wanted to play hard girl so I responded, “I’m a grown-ass woman. I’m beyond mom’s pet and my dad doesn’t care where I go because he knows I’m a big girl. I just don’t like going out. That’s me. That’s my character.” He tried to talk me into going out with him but I declined. On Saturday evening he called me; “How about today?” I answered, “I told you. I’m not the outing type. We can plan for another day but not today.” On Sunday he called; “Is there a place where you live that I can meet you there? I really want to see you.” I told him, “Tomorrow is Monday and I’m going to be with you all day. Why do you want to see me on a Sunday when I would be around you all day tomorrow?” He answered calmly, “That’s OK. We’ll meet on Monday.”
Monday I was sitting next to him in front of his computer when he said, “I think I’m falling in love with you. The feeling you’ve resurrected within me is so intense. I can’t handle it anymore. I want you. I want you to be my girlfriend before someone takes you away from me.” He was looking at the computer screen as he was talking. I heard him talking but I felt he was reading something from the computer. When he paused and didn’t get any feedback from me, he nudged me with his elbow. He said, “Akofa. Say something.”
“Say what?” Say something to what?”
“You heard me. You heard what I was telling you and I know you understand me so say something.”
“You were talking to me? I thought it was a monologue from online.”
“Stop joking with me. I’m serious”
“How can you be serious with something like that? We just met. Today is the sixth day. How can you fall for me in just six days? Mike behave yourself.”
He was thrown into lyrical ecstasy, combining words and scrapping pieces from Shakespeare’s blueprint. He had stopped what he was doing. He was looking deep into my eyes this time, asking me to look at him and not break the gaze.
“Awww, Mike. Why would you do this to me? I’m only here to intern and not to fall in love. You are supposed to guard and guide me through the work. That was your only mandate. Why would you go beyond that and take what was not given?”
But I said yes to him because there was this sort of genuineness in his eyes. Or maybe I was too naive. Whatever the case was, I accepted his proposal and became his girlfriend. I was only 21 years old. I didn’t even know his full name. I thought ‘Mike’ was the short form of Michael so sometimes I called him Michael. Not knowing his ‘Mike’ was the long-form of Mike. It didn’t have a short form. He was good to me. He treated me like a little sister instead of a girlfriend. I don’t know if that was a good thing but he was always looking out for me, asking what I needed so he could provide. It didn’t feel like a relationship, I must confess. He didn’t try to kiss me. He didn’t take me to his house one day and ask us to make love. It was all about me and what I needed. He would visit me but won’t let me visit him. I even thought he had someone in the house that he didn’t want me to see.
Soon my internship was over.
When I was leaving, he promised to look out for me and even visit me on campus. He didn’t do any of that until one day he told me he was leaving the company; “They didn’t retain me. I can’t keep staying around so I’ll go home and start looking for a job.” He came from the Ashanti region to do his service in Greater Accra. When he left, we tried keeping in touch but the distance kept working against us. I couldn’t see him when I was on vacation and because he was unemployed, he couldn’t come around to see me. Gradually, communication broke down and we were reduced to seeing each other’s posts on Facebook. I didn’t write often on Facebook and he didn’t write anything at all on Facebook so that link was also broken.
I moved on without even knowing that I was moving on. It didn’t hurt. I didn’t feel like I’d lost anything. I continued schooling, fell in love with someone else along the way. Broke my heart and got it fixed. Broke it again and because it was hard to fix this time, I tapped it together. Tight enough to be able to pump blood through my system.
I completed school and was sent to the Western region to do my national service. It was a mining company around Bogoso. After my national service, I got lucky to be one of the few service personnel that got retained. I fell in love with a Kenyan expatriate. That guy was so sweet I thought he was my forever love. Whenever he traveled to Kenya, communication ceased. He made excuses about the network. Even Whatsapp chat became difficult but when he was in Ghana, he was all over me promising me heaven on earth. I tried to dig a little. I didn’t understand his behavior when he went to Kenya. A year after dating, I found out that he was married. Had been married for six years and had three kids with a woman who has the forehead of a Kenyan. Very beautiful.
That heartbreak was my hardest. The pieces were so many I didn’t know how to piece them together. After gathering everything, I realized I was missing some pieces. For so long, I was walking around with a heart that had a piece missing. Depression became my friend and I even took some days off. My off days made the pain severe.
I was on Facebook scrolling through my timeline around 1am. I came across a notification that said it was Mike’s birthday. I whispered to myself, “Eiii that guy, is he still alive?” I wrote happy birthday on his timeline. It was something I just did for the sake of doing it. I didn’t invest any thought in it because I knew he wouldn’t read or respond because he wasn’t on Facebook. I woke up the next morning and he was in my inbox asking for my number. “It’s been ages,” he said. “Where have you been? Can I have your number?”
I did the maths and it was six years since we talked. I responded, “Yeah I’ve been around. Call me, this is my number.”
He called and we talked as if we hadn’t missed a thing in each other’s life. He said, “I’m in Accra now. Full time. Why don’t you tell me where you are so I come around to see you. I responded, “Too bad. I’m no longer in Accra. I’m in a village around Bogoso. Working with this mining company.” He was quiet for a while. He said, “Hmmmm, so from Accra to Bogoso would be like how many hours?” I started doing the maths for him, “Five hours to Takoradi. Two hours to Tarkwa. One hour to Bogoso and from Bogoso to the village should be about one hour too. Do the summary.” He said, “Tomorrow is Thursday right?” I didn’t need to answer that question.
On Friday around 6pm he called me. He said, “I’m in Bogoso. Where do I get the next car?”
The next hour he was there with me. This is a guy who wouldn’t take me to his place when he had the chance. Who wouldn’t act like a boyfriend when I had accepted his proposal. But he could travel that long distance to come and see me. We had a normal weekend together. He said we should take it from where we left off. I told him my heart wasn’t in the right places; “It got broken not too long ago. It’s yet to heal.” He answered, “This is what happens when you give your heart to the wrong people. I’m here now. We can make things better”
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The distance was my problem. It was too far to ignore so we talked about it. He was so sure it wouldn’t be a problem. I reminded him of how the first one ended because of the distance. But he said we were too young to handle the distance; “We were not on our own. We didn’t have money to travel the distance. It took me just a day to decide to come here because I can. Now tell me, what else can’t we do?”
Nothing.
That’s why we’ve been married for five years and still growing in love each day. That’s why when my first pregnancy threatened my life, we didn’t give up but still went ahead to get pregnant again for our second child. What can’t we do when two hearts determine to go all out to conquer what’s in front of them?
It wasn’t obvious that we would end up together. The kind of Mike I met in that institution didn’t look like a man who could go all the way with me. I was naive and didn’t know myself too well too. It’s the reason I gave my heart out often and ended up broken. It wasn’t obvious at all that Mike would be the one. My Kenyan boyfriend looks like the one until I got to know about his marital status. The other guy also felt like the one. But the second coming of Mike pushed the boundaries for me and opened my heart up again. So when he said we should get married, I had no doubt in my head about him. All I said was, “I’m ready. Let’s do it.”
And we did it after dating for just a year.
—Akofa
#MyHappyEnding
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