Hey Schatz 💙,
Before you go on, you should check this out or you'd be lost… "The chemistry we'd always heard preached…”
If you've read it, enjoy🤗
My last paper was postponed by a week…
Just like that, the lecturers had some excuses. They claimed the halls were not enough for all the students offering the course, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. A whole week!
They felt it was the best decision for everyone since that was the final day of the exams. All departments would have finished writing then, and the exam halls would be mostly empty.
Thoughtful. Except I didn't want to wait one week only to write one paper. Neither did I want to think about what it meant for my plans.
It meant no trip and no Toni.
"My exams were moved forward by one whole week!" I screamed at him the moment he picked up his phone. I was so angry! "Stupid, stupid paper!" "A whole week?!" Those were the nicest things I said in my frustration.
Of course, the Nigerian University system would find a way to put a damper on my plans! They'd been doing it every year since I became a student.
Toni tried to pacify me, but there was little he could say, knowing that he wouldn't get to see me for a while.
If eyes could kill, I'd have murdered anyone who was happy for the extra time. I kept wondering if one carryover was really such a bad thing. Surely one carryover in 3 years wouldn't do much damage to my results.
Toni was a sweetheart about it. He never hesitated to reassure me that we had time ahead of us; we definitely would find time to plan another trip.
He said he was tempted to come anyway, but he didn't want me to be carried away by his presence and ruin my good results.
A pity — I would have liked the distraction very much 🥲.
I didn't tell him I had already been preparing for the worst 😩.
He claimed he would make time so we could talk every day again, charts or not, but I couldn't believe him. I kept wondering how he did it.
How was he okay that our trip had just been ruined and we were back to not knowing when we could see each other again? He promised he would try his best so I don't feel the distance.
Again… How were more calls going to compensate for the fact that we didn't know when we would see each other again? I thought I would never understand how people did long distance, but now that I found myself here, what I kept wondering was how people who did long distance made it to marriage.
I feared I would lose my mind.
I didn't.
He did try to keep to his words, for a while.
We spoke at length often, somehow still having steady conversations during his exams.
I kept wondering where the extra time suddenly came from, and when I asked him, he admitted that he had been off the charts because of his exams. I shoved all doubts away and basked in his attention.
With how much our lives had become intertwined, I could almost predict his responses. I could almost brag that I knew him. I had spoken to a few of his friends, and they were the nicest people.
One day he brought up the trip again and said he'd like us to make new arrangements for the beginning of my new semester. I wasn't too eager about this trip. I didn't want to get my hopes up only to be let down again. But I didn't tell him that.
There were times I stayed up late analyzing his actions, making sure he wasn't slowly drifting from me. I would analyze every gesture, every statement, and when the seeds of doubt began taking root, I knew I had to do something.
I mean, this is the Toni I loved so much — the movie, the epic love, the dream man come to being. I needed to act before the distance took him away from me.
I decided I would go to him. Surprise him. I knew I could find my way with the help of Kcee. I packed my bags and made the trip.
I spent 4 days there. Days I still dream about. Mostly because of the amazing food and the amount of care I received. When Toni said he could cook, nothing could have prepared me for the well-planned meals he made for me.
I fell sick on the second day of the trip. So we didn't get to go out much…
I was angry at my body. There were so many ways I thought the trip would go. I didn't consider once that my body would betray me. My body could have chosen another time to break down, not ruin my 4-day trip.
If Toni was angry, he didn't show it. He turned off the AC when I complained of cold, carried me to the bathroom when I had to throw up, bought medication, and whatever I was craving was made available.
He made the entire trip worthwhile.
I finally got the chance to meet his friends. There was one person that went out of his way to make me feel comfortable, Kcee. And naturally, we hit it off immediately.
I tried to stay alert because of Toni. I didn't allow myself to sleep too much despite my fever. He claimed he enjoyed taking care of me, but I wasn't going to forgive myself if I didn't try to make the trip worthwhile for him too. I didn't want any more regrets about the trip.
The thing with trips: You never want them to end, yet they do. And then you have to live with all the things you could have done better but didn't. I wished we had had more time.
But by the time I got back, I was feeling the butterflies again, and Toni was prepared to do everything to keep us very happy and in love. He even told me I could contact Kcee whenever I couldn't reach him.
Kcee would know where to find him and talk some sense into him, if need be. I laughed it off. He was being so sweet I didn't think I'd need Kcee's help; Toni was doing everything right again.
A few weeks later, I did need to call Kcee after not hearing from Toni for 2 days. 🥲
Toni, Toni, Toni….
I'm sure I'd done something bad in the past to be treated like this by someone who claimed to love me more than anything.
The first day, I was busy during the day and I assumed he was too… I wouldn't like any distractions, so I didn't mind that he didn't call. I froze my WhatsApp because I didn't want to be distracted.
When I didn't hear from him, I didn't know if I should be scared or grateful. I called him; there was no response.
Day two, a Saturday, I called up to eight times, well-spaced. An hour or 2 intervals, stuck between not wanting to bombard him with calls and trying to will him to take his calls. I was beyond giving excuses for him at that point. I was even more enraged at the thought of actually having to call Kcee.
Kcee wasn't at home; he spent the day with his girlfriend. He promised to ask him to call me back when he got to the house. I didn't push him, didn't reach out to him again.
Sunday morning by 11am, I got a text from Toni. Just one word: "Hey." I scoffed. He was joking, right? I called him immediately. I confronted him, what does "hey" mean? How could that be the first thing you say after missing my calls? Hey? I was furious!
"I didn't feel like talking to anyone; I wasn't in a good place." Haha! This has to be a joke. Although, I paused to ask about his well-being and what was going on.
It was ironic because he was always the first person I would call whenever something bothered me. I'm not sure I cared about what was going on with him if he couldn't extend that same courtesy to me, but I could only get information from him if I was calm, so I pushed all my anger down and tried to have a civil conversation with him.
He gave a vague answer as always. Like I knew he would. He had this belief that he had to figure everything out by himself and barely spoke about things that bothered him with me. We had talked about it a few times, but I cut him some slack; some habits were difficult to break. But being patient didn't seem to be paying off.
He was starting to give me less vibe than I was giving him. I was starting to regret attempting long distance. Why was this happening? I couldn't ignore him and the feelings I had for him even if I tried.
Everything about him drew me in, and even the times he did something to piss me off, one conversation was enough to take the fight out of me.
After the call ended, I realized I had not registered my displeasure with him. I had gotten carried away. I'd assumed he felt as giddy as I did when we spoke, and he had attested to feeling butterflies too. What I couldn't understand is how anyone suddenly sidelines their "solace" in times of trouble. Not very logical if you asked me.
That day, I decided I didn't want to understand or let anything slide. I didn't want to blindly forgive him either. I wanted to address it. He didn't get to just call me, smooth things over with sweet words; he didn't get to ignore me and then come back with words that make me feel like butter and everything would be normal.
I explained exactly how I felt. If we were married, he wouldn't stay away from me for 2 days, isolating himself because he had things to fix and he didn't want to talk to anyone. I couldn't live with anyone that felt it was okay to ignore me sometimes.
He apologized and tried to make up for it.
If I had to count one of the things I loved about Toni, it was the fact that he could be reasoned with. You were sure he was listening when you were speaking. He was also a very good listener who never failed to remind me just how much he loved and adored me.
So I learned to swallow his faults like a bitter pill, knowing it would only make things better.
I was very confident in his love, and I never once considered he would cheat. You see, many people would call me innocent because there were times I was too trusting. I couldn't think ill of anyone until proven otherwise.
That made people think I was as trustworthy as I was trusting. I thought so too until I realized that there was something that drove me more than my desire to be good. It was my newly discovered love for attention — attention that Toni made me enjoy but often deprived me of.
I had been ignored too many times in my life to not find it aggravating when Toni ignored me a few times, and the distance definitely did not help.
Toni, the one to whom no one could hold a candle, who stood head and shoulders above a lot of people, with quiet confidence bordering on cunning. He commands attention everywhere, and when we spoke, I could think of nothing else.
Unfortunately, I didn't get to see him as much as I'd like, and talking to him was not nearly enough. Worsened by his tendency to go quiet on me.
So when Kris, a friend I had been in a talking stage with before Toni came along, moved into my hostel, I began to confide in him.
Kris knew I was already in a relationship, our friendship was harmless right?
💙Tari.
P.S. This is part 3 of a 4-part series
Part 1: 1st January 2021. My phone rang out of the blue..."
Part 2: "The chemistry we'd always heard preached..."
Part 4… Still to come…
Nahh. Y'all making this love thingy too dang scary 😰