I fell in love with Alice the very first time I saw her and I made it a point to let her know. I worked my way into her life as a friend and later told her the intentions of my heart. I told her, “I’ve been in the corners with my feelings for so long and I think it’s about time I told you. I like you. I mean I want you. I want you to be my girlfriend. I’ve loved you from the very start. Too bad I’m able to tell you now.” She laughed at my proposal and in the end said, “Thank you for being honest. I like you too but can’t accept your proposal. I have someone already and we are planning to get married.”
I was crushed by what she said. If she only said no, I would have entertained the hope that someday, when I do things right, she would say yes. She said she had someone else and that put a nail in the coffin of my proposal.
We continued talking and even got more closer to each other than we used to. At some point, my hopes were revived again; “Who knows, if she finds me more suited to her desires than the other guy, maybe she’ll leave him and come for me.” I put on my best attitude whenever she was around and she always complimented me for being a gentleman. I wasn’t faking it. What I had for her was genuine and told myself always that I would marry her if she says yes but she was so in love with Francis that she could barely look at me.
One early morning, I met her just at the entrance of her house. I approached her with all smiles and gay but she didn’t respond in kind. Her face was weary and looked like she hadn’t slept all night. I asked her, “It’s everything alright with you?” She forced a smile and said, “Yeah I’m fine. Slight headache but I’m good.” We spoke for a while and we parted ways. Later that day, she called me on the phone and said, “A friend of mine is facing some challenges with her guy. She discussed it with me but I want an opinion of a guy. My friend is suspecting that her boyfriend is cheating on her. There’s always one particular girl with who he chats and talks to on phone for several hours. They always fight about it but her guy says there’s nothing between them. So last night my friend read some messages on her boyfriend’s phone and saw the way the two of them were referring to each other as dear, my love, and the rest. When she approached the guy with her findings, the guy got angry and beat her. Do you think the guy is being truthful?”
I’ve seen her in the morning wearing a long sad face. In the afternoon, she calls telling me a story she purports was for a friend. I’m not a child. I’ve lived long enough to know that trick. I asked her, “Was that the first time the guy had laid his hand on your friend?” She took a long breath in and said, “No, he’s fond of beating my friend at the least provocation.” I asked her, “So why is your friend still staying with someone who abuses her?” She answered, “Hmmm, is it not love? She loves the guy so much. The guy has a temper but apart from that, he’s a cool guy.” I told her, “Tell your friend to decide for herself what she wants. If she’s happy being beaten at the least provocation, then she should stay but if I were her, I’ll leave because there are so many men out there who are ready to love her right.”
From that day going, she kept asking for my opinions concerning the happenings in her “friend’s” relationship. I tried to give her my honest opinion, knowing very well that she was telling me about her own relationship. One evening, she had closed from work and rushing home when I met her. There was a mark just beneath her left eye. It was almost a scar. I asked her jokingly, “Did you fall?” She touched the scar and said, “Oh say again ooo. Some slight accident.” The look on her face and the answer didn’t match. She was hiding something. I walked her to her house and sat with her for a while. I told her, “Alice, just be honest with me. What’s going on between you and Francis? All the stories you’ve been telling me about your friend, I know that friend is yourself. You’re going around looking for help but you won’t come out openly. What’s wrong with you two?”
She said, “He loves me today, he beat me tomorrow, that has been the trend for some time now but it’s all my fault. When he’s not angry, he’s the sweetest person on earth. He says all the nice things and treats me like his queen. As for the anger, everyone has it so I only have to try not to get him angry.”
I was so shocked I didn’t know what to tell her. How could she think that way? I tried telling her not to overlook the red flag; “Don’t be so blinded by love. A man who beats you when you’re just a girlfriend will end up beating you when you become his wife.” She asked me, “You don’t believe people change? You don’t believe I can help him to change?” I said to her, “People change, but red flags don’t turn to white just because you’ve dated for so long. Think about it.”
People in love are hard to convince, especially when they think they’ve found their soul mates. My situation as someone who loved her also didn’t help. She processed everything I said to her through the filter of someone who’s in love with her and would do anything to destroy her relationship. Far from it. I loved but I wished the best for her too.
One day she ran to me crying and cursing. “I’m tired. I’m tired of this relationship. Today this tomorrow that. I can’t die just because I love him. No, I won’t. I’m too young to die. I give up. He can go to hell for all I care.” I calmed her down. I asked her what the problem was. She said, “Is it not that stupid boy. He thinks I love him so he can treat me anyhow but I’ll prove to him that I’m nobody’s fool. She found that girl they’ve been fighting about in Francis’ room and it turned into a scuffle. Francis pushed her out of the room and threatened to beat her up if she stays around creating a scene. She found her way to me to complain. I didn’t say a lot. There was nothing I hadn’t said already. She did all the talking and concluded that their love was over. She wasn’t going to stick with someone who will choose a sidechick over her.
I knew too much to believe her. A week or two later, they were back together, stronger than before. She told me, “There’s no love without problems and the mature thing to do when problems come is to sit down, talk about it, identify the faults and solve it. People live longer together not because they didn’t face problems but because they learned to solve their problems.”
A motivated fool is hard to deal with. They know all the good quotes about love and life, yet decide to apply it wrongly. From that day on, I decided to cut ties with her. I began suffering the pain she was going through and it didn’t help my sanity. I spoke to her less and less and gave all the craziest excuses not to meet her until one day she sent me a message, “I have a surprise for you. Would you be home tomorrow? I would like to see you face to face and tell you. I know you’ll be happy to hear it.”
My mind started racing; “Has she changed her mind? Is she going to say yes to me? That means she had been able to leave that good for nothing boyfriend of hers.” When tomorrow came, she walked through my door with the wildest of smiles. She looked very happy and contented. Immediately when she sat down, she dipped into her bag and dropped a card in my hand. She said, “That’s yours. Open it.” I opened the envelope and the first thing I read was “Francis weds Alice.”
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I checked the date and checked the venue. At the bottom of the invitation card was written; “A virtuous woman, who can find? Proverbs 31:10” I looked up at her face and she said, “We made it. All the troubles we went through had a light at the end. This is it.” I said, “Congratulations. I know you’ll be a good wife.” She smiled and said, “Thank you.” There was silence. Long silence. She said, “I know you think I’ve made the wrong choice but trust me, Francis is a good person. He has his bad side but time and tide change people and I believe he’ll change for the better.”
They got married. I was there at the wedding, to support and cheer them on. One thing I know, every wedding is beautiful. It’s usually not the decorations or how much the couple spent that makes the wedding beautiful. It’s rather the thought of love combined with the good wishes of friends and family present that makes all things beautiful. Their wedding had it all and even more.
But some things never change…a year and a half later, Alice lives with her parents. No, they haven’t divorced. They are too shy to break up a marriage that’s barely two years old. But they can’t live together because he still beats her. I was told the last time, it was Alice’s father who went to their house and dragged his daughter away. His daughter’s life was at stake. She calls me sometimes. She talks about regret and pains. She tells me, “I should have listened to you.” I tell her, “There’s still something you can do. Decide for yourself what you want and go for it.”
