For a whole three years, I didn’t have a boyfriend. It wasn’t a choice I made. Life imposed it on me. It didn’t give me the luxury to decide for myself. 

Kweku left—or I should say he traveled and decided to forget about me. I tortured myself, pulling all the strings just to get him to be with me. For a whole year, I wasted my life thinking I could do a miracle for him to love me. It never happened. He sent the message a day before my birthday. He sent it at dawn. It’s the shorted breakup message I’ve ever read; “This is a waste of our time. I’m out.” I didn’t respond. I didn’t cry. Surprisingly, I was relieved. For a whole year, I had fought to keep things going when he had given me the red light. Jane was the person I called. I said, “Kweku called it quit.” She asked me, “So what are you going to do about it?” I answered, “Look at me. Do I look like someone who has the strength to do something about it?” 

She tried to motivate me; “Don’t worry. You have to let the old things go so something new and better can have a space in your life. He was blocking your sunshine. Now that he’s gone, another would come and make things whole again.” I was encouraged. I felt the truth in her statement. I woke up each morning telling myself, “Another man will come and make things whole.” A year later, there was no one. Not that someone came to me and I said no to him. For the whole year, no man approached me. I told myself, “Good things take time. I’m not in a rush. He will come and he’ll be exactly what I want.” Two years later I was still single—not by choice. For two solid years, no man approached to propose to me. “Am I cursed? Have I lost a limb? Or Kweku took the grace away when he quitted on me?”

I was in a trotro going to work when the preacher on the radio said, “You’re a beautiful woman but you never get proposals from men. All your ugly friends are getting married but no man looks your way. You think it’s normal? No, it is not. Something is after you. Come here on Tuesday. Come for counseling. I would use my special anointing and break the yoke on you. You too will get married.” I felt that. I was twenty-nine going to thirty but had no one in my life. I believed it was a curse. That day, I went to work and it was the last time I would ever go to that office again. I lost my job. I got laid off. I was one of the seven people the company laid off that month. The Covid was fresh and ravaging everything. No boyfriend. No job. There should be a special curse on a woman for her to go through that much at once.

On my 30th birthday, I didn’t make noise. Usually, I would do a photoshoot, post it on all my social media handles and make noise. But this time around, I stayed in my room, put the light off, and slept all day. I didn’t pick up any calls that came on my phone. I didn’t read messages and I didn’t go on social media. I was scared of what was happening to me. It had been three years without a boyfriend. A year without a job. No matter how strong a woman is, she would feel the sting of the pain I was going through.

One day I went to an interview. The interview was at 10am but I was there at 8am. I felt it was too early to go to the office where I was going to have the interview so I decided to hang around and while away time. I took a seat in front of a small store that sold breakfast to people. It was a busy store looking at the number of people who came by to buy breakfast. A gentleman came to sit next to me with his breakfast. He greeted and began eating. He ate slowly as if he had nowhere to go. I was looking at him every now and then. Our eyes would meet and we will look away as fast as we could. He asked me, “Are you waiting for someone?” I answered, “No.” He asked again, “You keep looking at your time. Going somewhere?”

We exchanged contacts and he left after eating. It was around 9:30am when he called me. He said, “I think you can go in now. I wish you all the best. I know you can do it. You’ll get the job, something tells me.” His name is Kennedy. I went to the interview, answered all the questions to the best of my knowledge, and left the premises. I called Kennedy because he asked me to call him after the interview. He asked me, “How did it go?” I answered, “It went well. They say I will hear from them within the week.” He said, “They will call you, I know. The job is yours.”

That evening he called again. We talked. Four days later, I was at the same spot where I met him. I called him and said, “I’m back. They called for another round of interviews.” After the interview that day, he bought me a lunch. We sat for an hour—an hour of staring contest. Previously our eyes would meet and we’ll turn away, This time around, our eyes met and we kept looking at each other. I liked him though I barely knew him. That evening, he called and proposed. I said, “We hardly know each other. How could this be?” He answered, “Just say yes and leave the rest to me.” So I said yes.”

After work each day, Kennedy would pass by my house and take me out. Sometimes he would come with food and drinks. We’ll sit on the porch and eat. He would wake up in the morning and ask what we should be doing. One weekend, he took me to his house and we spent the whole Saturday there, talking, watching movies, and eating. I called Jane. I said, “I’ve met someone. Kennedy. I think he’s the one.” She screamed, “Yaaaayy at long last. How long have you known him?” I answered, “Let’s say a week. I met him weeks ago but we’ve been in a relationship for a week.” “And you think he’s the one?” She asked. I answered, “Everything in me says so.” “Bring him for assessment,” she said.

Our relationship was two weeks old when I had a call. The voice on the other side was a female. She said, “Kafui, right?” I said, “Yes, this is Kafui.” She said, “I’m happy to tell you that you got the offer. Congratulations. You can pass by the office anytime today or tomorrow for your appointment letter.” I couldn’t hold myself together. I jumped here and there. I lied on the floor and lifted my two legs in the air and started shaking them vibrantly. I called Kennedy; “I got the job. Your girl is going to work next door. Now you’re in trouble.” He answered, “Bring it on!”

I started working the following week. I was assigned to an office closer to the manager. I didn’t meet him the first day but everyone warned me to be careful especially when he’s there. “He’s very strict and straightforward. Don’t let him see you idle. You’ll have questions to answer.” One of my colleagues warned. On my third day at work, he came to meet me. He looked my way and asked, “Are you the new girl?” I got up from my seat before answering, “Yes sir.” He said, “Welcome. I hope they’ve treated you very well.” I answered, “Yes sir.”

He’s a young man in his mid-thirties. I didn’t see anything strict about him. He smiled a lot and said “Please” anytime he wanted me to do something for him. I traveled with him and one other colleague. We spent two days. He took care of us as if we were his responsibility. He wouldn’t eat until we had eaten. He was the first to wake up and call to give us the itinerary for the day. When we were with him in his car, it was all laughing and happiness. So I asked my colleague ”Is it the same boss they were saying he was strict? or I should look forward to another boss?” He answered, “He can be a pain in the neck when he wants to. You just have to be careful.”

My relationship with Kennedy was only one month old when my boss called me one night and proposed to me. You didn’t see it coming, right? Yeah, I didn’t see it coming too. It wasn’t his first call outside the office hours. He called on weekends and asked how I was doing. I even told Kennedy about it and he said, “Are you not sure that your boss is interested in you? They said he was strict but he had never been strict on you since you’ve been there. I swear he likes you.” I called him a liar. ”He’s just being nice, that’s all.” So when he proposed to me I couldn’t tell Kennedy about it. He would feel right and that would make me embarrassed. I didn’t say yes to his proposal. I only said, “Boss I can’t. See how the working environment is. How can I date you and still work with you? I don’t do that. It’s against my professional etiquette. He said calmly, “Just say yes and you won’t work in the office again. You’ll be somewhere else.”

I started asking questions about him. I knew he was the son of the owner of the company but what else? He has his own company too and for a very long time, he had been working to create a shipping company that would handle the shipment of his father’s company. When he said I wouldn’t be there, he knew what he was talking about. He didn’t stop asking me out. Finally, I told him I had a boyfriend and I met him not too long ago. I even told him I met him when I was coming for the interview. He said, “I’m a businessman. A relationship is like a business too. There comes a time when you have to make a choice.  Hard choices like firing someone or laying people off like it happened to you. It’s never easy to make such choices because those people have families. You think about it but in the end, you have to make the call because it helps the company. I’m not here to waste your time or mine. It’s a marriage we are talking about here but in the end, the choice is yours.”

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He stopped calling me outside working hours. He worked with me with a straight face as if he wasn’t the one who proposed to me. No, he hasn’t been hard on me but he always makes me know that he’s the boss and in charge. I thought about his proposal with Jane. She said, “Pick your boss. I don’t have a reason but pick him. People like him don’t have time to waste. Pick him.” I would have picked him in a blink of an eye if I didn’t have Kennedy. So one day, after work, when going home with Kennedy, I told him everything my boss has told me. It’s been my greatest mistake in this relationship. I thought telling him would let him know how much I loved him and make him stay calm but since then, this guy has turned into a jealous controlling freak who monitors everything that goes on in my life while I’m in the office.

He has intentionally befriended some of the guys in my office, setting them up to watch my steps in the office. They tell him the number of times I go to my boss’ office and if I went out with him, he would call and ask me where I’m going with my boss. A few weeks ago, we had to travel with my boss. I and that colleague who traveled with us the first time. I was scared to tell Kennedy about the travel so I lied. I lied that I was going to visit my parents but someone in my office told him the truth. That night I didn’t sleep. He was on the phone with me all night. When I said I’m sleepy, he said, “Sleep but don’t cut the line.” It was a Whatsapp call. My phone stayed on until the next morning just for him to be sure that I didn’t sleep with my boss. 

Since my boss made that comment, he hadn’t asked about the proposal again. I think he’s waiting for me to bring him an answer. He’s waiting for me to make the hard choice to leave Kennedy but I’m hanging in here because Kennedy already suspects that I have something going on with my boss. I’m asking, what should I do to calm situations? Kennedy makes life hard for me these days. He’s making every attempt to make my boss see him and I so he’ll park in front of my office at exactly 4:30pm, waiting for me to come out or waiting for my boss to see that he’s the one in charge of my life. At first, I wasn’t thinking about my boss but now I do. I think of what Jane told me and I want to go and say yes to him. Kennedy is ok. He was ok until I told him about my boss. Do you think he’ll ever trust me again?

That’s my dilemma now. To go left or go right. To make the hard choice as my boss said or let everything stay the same. That’s my problem.

–Kafui   

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