I was nineteen years old when I found him. No, he found me. He’s the one who bumped into my life that day. A man who was twenty-two years older than me. When he got to know my name, he asked that we talked sometimes. I nodded my head, thinking that would make him leave. He asked about my number. I told him I didn’t have a phone. He looked at me as if I’d said the weirdest thing he’d ever heard from a woman.

“A beautiful lady like you? Or you don’t want to give me your number?”

“I don’t have a phone. I have a number though. Just that it’s not in a phone. The phone I was using got spoiled many months ago.”

He walked backwards to his car while looking at me. He sat inside, put the key in and turned on the ignition. All the while, he was still looking at me and I was also looking at him. He told me, “I will be back.” I smiled and he drove away. A couple of hours later, he was back. He got out of his car, walked towards me and placed a rubber bag in my hand. He said, “Now, what’s your number?”

It was an iPhone. I didn’t know much about iPhones. I was living with my struggling parents. I shared a bed with my two brothers at the centre of the hall every night. Yet I had an iPhone. I hid it from everyone. Not even my friends could see that I had a phone. I kept to myself often so I could text and talk with my newfound man. His name was Albert. A smallish looking man who wanted to do bigger things in my life if only I could give him a chance.

He gave me money. He brought me food sometimes. I couldn’t go out with him when he requested because of my parents but he understood me. I loved how he was patient with me and loved how he understood my situation.

To date, I don’t remember when Albert proposed to me but I remember our first kiss. I remembered the question he asked me that day in his room; “Have you done it before?” I didn’t answer. I lay flat in his bed as I watched his happy face while having sex with me. He kept asking if I was enjoying it. I didn’t answer. I was conflicted at that moment.

That’s how our relationship started. When I got admission to the university and I told him, he said, “I will make sure you lack nothing. I’ll make you an object of envy among your friends. Tell your parents not to worry about how they would pay your fees, I would do all that if they would allow me.”

So a few months after I’d come to campus, I told my parents I’d gotten a job with a company on campus that allows me to work and also go to school. “Now I can help pay my fees and buy the things I need. It’s God.”

Albert took over from there. He rented a single-room self-contained and furnished it for me so I wouldn’t have to be on campus. At that time, his wife had returned from abroad so I couldn’t go to his house again. He was the one coming over to see me.

I found myself a friend. Rose. She was also struggling. She came from a background like mine. I think it was our common background that brought us together. When she complained about hostel fees and the difficulty to pay, I asked her to move in with me. She already knew Albert and understood that Albert could come around sometimes. Albert also knew I was living with a friend so whenever he was coming around, he announced it so Rose could excuse us.

Rose has suffered. She could stay outside for hours, talking to the moon while mosquitoes make a meal out of her. I would apologize to her and she would tell me, “I’m grateful for your kindness. Had it not been you errn, like it will be hard.”

At level three hundred the relationship between me and Albert got intense. He was fighting a lot with his wife and each time they fought, he would come and spend the days with me and sometimes the night. He took me to parties. Whenever he had a trip, I tagged along. We could be gone for days. Sometimes I even forgot that I was a student. The good thing was, I could pay some lecturers to give me good marks.

After school, I didn’t go anywhere. I was still living with Rose, waiting for our NSS placements. We did it in Accra, somewhere very close to our house. We counted ourselves very lucky because we didn’t have to travel outside or look for another place to live because of service. A couple of months before the end of service, Albert came to tell me it was over. I was like, “Where’s this coming from? Is it about something I did wrong? Tell me and I will apologize. If you leave me how would I survive?”

He didn’t want to give reasons. He wasn’t picking up my calls. I was crying every day. He came around one last time and we talked extensively. I was begging him to come back. I even begged him to break up with me slowly. That once was killing me. He told me it was about his wife. Their marriage nearly collapsed so they sought help. They both came to the conclusion that they would let go of every load that was sinking their marriage so they could float. I was one of his load and he had chosen to be honest with the process so he could save his marriage.

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That was our final conversation. I wasn’t healing. Rose, that girl has suffered. She would stay up all night to comfort me. We would go to work the next day looking like we were troubled by spirit. If she wasn’t around, life would have been very hard for me.

What didn’t help my healing was the space I found myself in and everything I had in that space. Everything came from Albert and everything reminded me of him. From the bed to the carpet and even to the frames on the wall. They all had their roots and stories from Albert. I looked at them and I miss him. I will pick up the phone and call him knowing very well that he wouldn’t pick up.

A few weeks before the end of national service, I made a decision to go back home and start life afresh. I wanted a new beginning that didn’t include Albert or his memories or his name. I didn’t want to go with anything that came from my relationship with him. I asked Rose, “What are the things you want from this room? Make your choice before I start giving everything away.”

She thought I was joking until someone came for the fridge. “Are you getting mad? Why would you give something like that away? Do you know the price of a fridge today?”

Mirrors, wardrobe, shoes, bags, curtains, jewellery, I gave all of them away. Rose was fighting a losing battle so she was forced to put her hands on the rest of the things in the room. “I like everything. Leave them for me.”

When service was over, I picked what was left and left the room to Rose. I had six months left on my rent.

Two years later, I’ve been able to make life happen for me. I had a job offer and I took it. I won’t say my life has totally changed but I’m making moves and making waves. Then came the old devil. Albert. I didn’t even have his number. He wants me back in his life because, after two years, the marriage didn’t work. “We are getting a divorce,” he told me. I responded, “That’s your problem. Please deal with it while I deal with mine.”

He’s back chasing me the way he did when I was nineteen years old. The differences now are, I’m mature, I’ve healed completely from the past, I have a job and I know what I want from life and what I want is not him. He’s trying his best but my heart won’t open up for him.

We Agreed To Be Friends With Benefit | Silent Beads

Last time I told him, “You can’t jump from one bad relationship to another hoping that will solve your problems. It doesn’t work. You jumped from your wife to me and jumped back to her when things got better. Now, you want to jump back to me because things are bad. How long would you keep jumping? Stay and solve the problems of your life. I did and you can do too.”

I’m not going back to him and everything in me is so sure about that. I’m talking to a guy. He looks like the one. It may work. It may not work. Whatever the case, Albert is not the option.

—Audrey

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