I met him in 2013 when I was in JHS 1. His family had just moved to our town so he was a new student in our school. We started as friends but when we got to our second year, he asked me to be his girlfriend. We were both very young then but I was in love with him. I am a Christian and he is a Muslim but that didn’t matter to me. The only things that occupied my thoughts were the sound of his voice, and the way his presence always made me giddy with excitement. I didn’t think too much about it before I said yes to him. 

We became quite the duo. Everywhere he went, I followed. And everywhere I went, he also went. Our colleagues asked questions and whispered gossip about us but we didn’t care. The fact that we were friends before we started dating only made our bond stronger. There weren’t any surprises. We knew every basic thing about each other so we barely had problems in the relationship. Oh, and we did things. Things we were too young to do. We went very far but shuperu was where we drew the line. We decided to save that one till we were older. 

Our love grew stronger even after we wrote our BECE. Though we were inseparable in JHS, we were separated when we got to secondary school. I had to go to a boarding school while he stayed in town and attended school as a day student. We made it a point to spend as much time together when we were on vacation. And when I was on campus, I tried to get my hands on a phone and talked to him. Our lives were progressing well until an unfortunate accident happened to him in 2017. We were in our second year then. The nature of the accident was so severe that he almost lost his life. He spent many months in the hospital before he was finally discharged.

All this while, I tried my best to visit him the least chance I got. Sometimes I even had to run from school to go see him. In January 2018, I went to see him at home. By then he had made an impressive recovery and we were so happy about it. That day there was no one else at home. Through our expression of joy, we ended up crossing the line we vowed not to cross. We had our first shuperu. A few weeks later I started feeling unwell. I didn’t think I was pregnant because I was getting my period. I took medications for malaria but I never got better. This sickness took a toll on me and affected my studies. The timing was very bad because I was preparing to write my WASSCE. I had to leave school and stay at home for a few weeks to manage my health.

While I was home, I took the time to visit my boyfriend. That day he told me, “You’ve stuck with me through my worst moments, and I love you so much for that. I don’t think I would function properly if we ever fell out of love.” I replied, “I don’t intend to stop loving you ever. Haven’t you seen just how much I love you?” He looked at me and said, “What if there was a way we could keep our love forever? Like a blood covenant?” I asked him, “A covenant? Isn’t that dangerous?” “It’s only dangerous if our love is not true. But that’s not the case so we have nothing to fear.” He persuaded. I was very much in love with him then so I said yes and we did it. 

He got better and went back to school but he had to be in the second year all over again. I also went back to campus to prepare for my WASSCE. I continued to fall ill until my period ceased flowing. That was when I panicked and took a pregnancy test. The result was positive, and per my calculations, I was four months along. I couldn’t do much about it because of school and my exams so I waited till I finished school and got home. My mum got suspicious and started asking questions but my boyfriend and I had planned to get rid of it so I lied to her about it. 

I was six months along the line when he got me the abortion pills. I took them at his place before going home. Unfortunately for me, my mother and my siblings had confirmed that I was pregnant that day. When I got home they started asking me questions but the cramps had kicked in so I couldn’t talk. I just walked away from them and went into my room. I was curled on my bedroom floor in a fetal position when my mum found me and took me to the hospital. The fetus came out but there were retained products of conception in my uterus so EOU had to be done to bring everything out. My mother was angry at what we had done. “I am going to get him arrested for this.” She threatened. I didn’t want the boy I loved to go to jail for something we both did. So I tipped him off and he skipped town.

READ ALSO: My Husband Doesn’t Talk To Me Again Because I Told Him I’m Pregnant

 He relocated to Ho, which was far from our town. But I was not deterred. Our love was stronger than distance and any opposition from my mother. I often cooked up lies and fed them to her so I could go and visit him. I did it so frequently that it became a normal part of my life. Somewhere last year, this guy told me something that rocked my world. He said, “I feel guilty about keeping this a secret from you but I’m scared I might lose you if I tell you the truth.” “I don’t think there’s anything you can do to make me leave you. Don’t you remember the covenant we made?” I asked him. At the mention of that he blurted out, “I have a child with someone.” I was surprised, “When did that happen?” “It happened before we did the covenant.” He replied. 

I felt betrayed and used after he made his confession. Here I was, thinking that our love would last for eternity. Not knowing that he had cheated on me and manipulated me into staying with him by suggesting a covenant. Not to talk about how I almost lost my life when I got rid of our baby. I was crushed. I told myself, “He took something as pure as our love and he tainted it with deceit. I can’t keep dating him.” So even though it breaks my heart to walk away from him, I have cut off communication with him. I know it hurts now but someday it will get better.

My problem is how to break the covenant we made. I can’t ask my mother for help because I’m scared of how she will react if she knows about it. If someone here knows how to break a covenant, let me know, please. 

—Akua

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