I’m 25, but my heart feels heavier than the years I’ve lived. My childhood wasn’t a place of love. It was a battlefield. I didn’t learn to receive affection; I learned to survive. My therapist says I have a Fearful-Avoidant attachment style. If you ask me, I would say, “I just don’t know how to trust love, especially when it starts to feel real.”

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The truth is, I’ve always been scared of love. Scared of how much power it gives someone over me. Scared of letting someone see me, only for them to leave me. So I built walls around my heart and called it discipline. I told myself relationships would distract me from school. But deep down, it was just my fear of intimacy, rejection, and heartbreak getting in the way. 

I lived in my safe world until I met Favour. She didn’t break down my walls. She walked through a crack I didn’t know existed. Right from the beginning, she warned me she was not good with people. “Everyone who got close to me left eventually.”

It didn’t matter her warning. I was already too deep in the fantasy of what we could be. I was obsessed with the idea that just maybe, I could love her enough to change everything. That’s why I was happy when she gave me a chance to be her man.

Our relationship was intense, but it was also unstable. One moment it felt like heaven, the next I was walking on eggshells, apologizing for things I didn’t even know that I had done. I was made to feel too needy, too emotional, too much.

Regardless, I kept trying to fix us. Oh, we broke up and got back together so many times. Every breakup felt like a death, and every reconciliation like resurrection. Still, I held on. I poured every ounce of love I had, and perhaps even the love I never received. When that wasn’t enough, I began to doubt myself. I started saying, “Maybe I am the problem. I loved her too much, that’s why this is happening.”

While I was struggling to figure things out with Favour, Ella came along. She was never meant to be anything more than a friend. We connected through a mutual friend.

From the start, she felt like light. Pure. Gentle. Real. I admired her kind heart and her sincerity. She wasn’t pretentious. She didn’t play games. She was just there when I needed someone to talk to.

I helped her in small ways as appreciation for her friendship. For instance, when her phone got spoilt, I got her a new one. When her rent was due, I helped her with some cash. I didn’t do all these with any expectations in mind. I just liked who she was, that’s all.

She liked to shower me with praises. “Kofi, you are a good man,” she would say. She believed in me when I could barely believe in myself. She never judged me for being in a relationship that brought me pain.

When my relationship with Favour broke apart again, it was Ella who picked up the pieces. She was the one who sat with me in the silence. She told me I deserved better.

I wanted to believe her. I tried. But love isn’t always rational. And trauma doesn’t let go just because someone better comes along.

Even after I tried walking away, I couldn’t forget Favour. We live in the same compound. I see her almost every day. Each sighting a wound, each memory a storm. I wanted to move out, but I was just four months away from graduating, and moving would cost money I didn’t have to spare. So I stayed, even though my proximity to her didn’t help with my healing.

Out of pain, I decided to go back to Favour. I thought maybe I could find peace if we tried again. That if I gave it one last push, one final effort, I could leave with closure. Or maybe still win the love I always dreamed of.

When I told Ella I was going back to Favour, her heart shattered.

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She said she couldn’t stay and watch herself be sidelined. That she wouldn’t be a second choice. She said that all she did wrong was love me. She was right. She deserved better than this confused version of me. But I wasn’t ready to let her go either. I know I am selfish, but deep down, I care for her in a way I can’t even explain. I don’t know if it’s love, but I know I hate the thought of losing her.

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Her last message to me was a goodbye. She said she would rather lose me than stay and watch me love someone else. I haven’t replied. How do you explain to someone so pure that your heart is still stuck in a place that keeps bleeding?

So now I’m stuck. Torn between Favour, who my heart wants, and Ella, the one my soul needs.

—Jack

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