THE LOVE OF HER LIFE

I smoked until my eyes began to water. I knew I'd always been unsure about the strength of my sight, but now, without my glasses and within this kaleidoscopic room, I begin to doubt it even more. My date is in a corner of the club, grasping a tainted glass of room-temperature sparkling water within his pitted palms and stubby fingers, and staring hungrily at the buttocks of a light-skinned plus-size lady strutting past him. With each movement, the neon lights make it harder for me to hold onto the sight of his appalling attitude, and even though the raspy speakers boom of “Lambo” by Burna Boy, a song I’d typically not glower at, I find myself thinking about the artist and the background of the music in a bid to get my foggy mind off the entire situation. 

Burna Boy is a certain artist who grew up on the schizophrenic streets of Port Harcourt, Nigeria. I don't think it'd excessively amaze you, my audience, to know that for the longest time, I thought this artist originated from the western part of Nigeria, courtesy of his name being Damini Ebunoluwa. I’ve been listening to him since 2016, and it wasn’t until Utima, my fifth-door neighbor at the corpers’ lodge I resided in during my service year, made mention of the fact that he was a Rivers man, that I knew he wasn't who I thought he was. 

“Ermmm… No be that Port Harcourt guy wey sing Tonight be this?” He asked, looking all over the room for the confirmation he was yet to receive. “Omo this jam too sweet, abeg! Wetin be the name of the song?” Jatau, my other neighbor, knowing he was the one playing, looked up before tapping his right foot in a flurry. Jatau only tapped his right foot when he was nervously enthusiastic, and he’d done it numerous times for me to know that he just liked it when people wanted to know the name of the song he was playing—I think the idea that he was on the right track usually puts him in a good mood. So, even though, sometimes, Jatau would have to scroll through thousands of Afrobeats songs and instrumentals on his phone to get the actual title of the song and artist that was requested of him, he'd do it with an unusual joy—one that led him to study the songs on his library just in case anyone desired his disc-jockey artistry. I can't judge him, though. They said to do things that make you happy…. I guess people-pleasing wasn't an exception. 

Immediately I had an afterthought about what Utima had said, I responded in the thickest pidgin accent possible. So thick I almost stuttered. “Wait oh. This nigga no be Yoruba boy?” And everybody in Mama Ifunaya’s third daughter's barbing salon burst out laughing. Turns out, everybody else in the room, even the handicapped boy with broken, cigarette–stained teeth who sold condemned iron a few meters away from our lodge knew Burna boy was from Rivers state, and they spent the next thirty minutes making me regret what I had previously learned.

“Lambo” was a song that caused an uproar on the expressway of social media. Anthonia said Burna Boy didn't have to make a song mocking the girl with alleged hip dips and an accent when she was the victim in all of the saga. Bisola said it didn't matter. The girl should not have come on the streets of social media with the tale of a boy allegedly sleeping with her after promising her a Lamborghini. It was dumb that she didn't even try to collect the car first before sleeping with the man, especially as she was often referred to as a ‘sabi girl’. “She would have even taken it and ditched him afterwards without doing anything at all,” Bisola said, blinking her eyelashes rapidly, and twitching her brows like she was ready for a brawl. Mma-Affiong cut Bisola short with a tired sentence about celebrities taking advantage of the sluggish mentality of viewers time and time again. She said both Burna Boy and the girl were merely collaborators and just wanted to give the public something to talk about as per the usual. Because how is it that an affluent girl like Sophia would settle for something as small as a Lamborghini in exchange for sex? It was unfathomable! It had to be a PR stunt and, unfortunately for us, we ended up being fooled like they wanted. However, luckily for her, she wasn't going to be a part of our foolery. It was amid their banter on that gloomy day, where the atmosphere smelled of dust and musk, courtesy of the rain we'd been expecting for a long time, that I began to think of her blood on my hands.  

 

I think I now completely understand Sophia’s plight because I was once cloaked in her coat. You never know how painful it is until you're in the shoes of the person you're talking about. You meet someone and fall in love with them only for them to turn around and undeliver all the promises they previously laid helpless at your feet. I was convinced that if the whole story about Sophia and Burna was indeed true as opposed to what Mma-Affiong previously said, then all this talk on the internet about not delivering a Lamborghini when Burna boy had said he would, was way deeper than it met the eye. There was a huge possibility that she and the artist were a thing and this was simply a ploy to call his attention to his negligence. I know artists are busy people, and girls when in love, can be quite needy—necessary things that oftentimes cannot be properly blended, therefore causing a ruckus. I know because I'd been that girl. Once. In the past. Before this person who just sits around daily doing nothing except trying to get her head out of the possibility that her life might dwindle with the next gunshot. I look at my date again in the corner and the resolve to rob him of his breath lingers intensely. I knew I had to leave the girl who listened religiously in the past after I unalive someone to prove my love for him. The thought of the incident makes me jump to my feet in horror. 

I head out of the club, but not far away. Just enough distance to be able to breathe, shake, clear my head, and eyes. I try to stop myself from remembering, from bringing that horrible past into my present, because this remembrance has nothing to do with nostalgia. It is the type of remembering that drags you roughly into a dark hallway of a mind no one else built, but you. I know I said I came out to clear my head, but I find myself lighting a cigarette, again, making sure to rid my conscience of every guilt of not drinking water in the past seven hours. As I take a deep drag and let the tobacco inflate and deflate my lungs, I begin to feel more present. More flesh. More vulnerable. All against my will. I’m aware I was too desperate not to see through his shadowy character in the early stages of our convening, but 7 years is a pretty long time to stay blind. Sometimes I forget. But like sometimes, every time I never say it out loud. I just waltz around and let the thoughts eat me dry in a bid to unclog my chest. It was one of those nights. His voice louder than mine, mine shriller than his. 

   

“I can’t touch her!” he thundered. Then almost as if we were previously talking about what groceries needed replacement at home, he continued, “But you can. You know how to move quietly.” Now that I consider it again, he was far from wrong. I did know how to move quietly. I mean, I moved quietly when I snuck into her hotel room after midnight and snuffed off her breath with a pillow. I moved quietly when I’d set up a whole personality that she was going to meet on the internet. I moved quietly when I made her fall for this imaginary person with an actual TikTok account. I moved quietly when I made sure this imaginary person was all she could talk about for weeks, dropping anonymous flowers every day at her doorstep and workplace, but declining meetings with her until she was literally begging. I memorized her schedule down to the minute, watching her every move from across the street. I moved quietly when I had him install that burner app recommended by Bisola to mimic calls from a forged number, letting her listen to a voice and see a face that never actually existed. I moved quietly when I left subtle hints, messages, gifts, breadcrumbs that weaved her into the fantasy that I genuinely cared until she was tangled in it. I moved quietly when I booked our reservations with a fake identity and told her, after hours of having her wait for me, that my flight was delayed but I’d be with her the next day. I moved quietly when I made the hotel deliver pricey meals and other appeasement items to her room while I stood outside the building rehearsing what would come next. I moved quietly when I swiped her key card on our first encounter earlier in the hours of that day. Without her having a clue who I was, I was able to get away without any suspicion, able to clone her key card with the RFID reader I’d bought online. I moved quietly when I snuck into her room and vanished just as quickly. I moved quietly when I made sure I erased every trace of my entrance or exit. I moved quietly when I watched the news from the comfort of my home, found out she was Mma-Affiong’s favorite cousin, and never said a word. Just consoled and consoled Mma-Affiong until I was certain the devil was standing beside me with a notepad, learning. 

I told myself multiple times after that, that my decision to kill somebody who’d threatened to snitch on Mario was right. Absolutely right. Because if Mario went down, I sure as hell was certain I’d be on the floor. Every night, when the tears clouded my sight and threatened to fall, I told myself loyalty sometimes resembled madness from outside. But now, standing outside the club and outside that loyalty, I know it was indeed insanity. The blood, the tears, the denial, the delusion, the unanswered texts, the nearly abandoned friendships, all for a man who hasn’t looked at me with kindness for over a year. I step into the stuffy room with the gun firmly clasped within my right hand. I brush my nose with the back of my hand, steady my shirt, and say to myself, “It’s now, or never.”

He’s leaning on the counter talking to a waitress—a girl too tired to even care about what he has to say—with his shirt unbuttoned halfway. He smiles. That same smile he used to spend hours rehearsing in the mirror when he still cared about impressing me. That same smile that now makes my stomach turn in absolute disgust. As I approach him, I know I can tell him apart from another man in the dark because his cologne speaks several words before he can do the same. For the first time since I started plotting my revenge, my feet are unsure. I think there’s something terrifying about life when you're about to change it forever. When he sees me, at first there's a flicker of confusion, and then just as quickly, there's that of recognition followed by fear. It's humorous how tough, influential people can unexpectedly melt before something as undersized as a pistol. 

“Come on Esoha… you don't really want to do this, do you?” he says, stretching his hands forth, trying to buy the same time he stole from me—all the time I will never get back. The waitress scampers away in fright immediately she sees what is between my palms. And as soon as I raise the gun, some people stop dancing, while others try to observe beneath the light what is really going on. Some wave their hands in the air with a sigh before going back to their businesses. “It's all these movie people jare,” an underaged-looking boy with dreadlocks and baggy pants says to a girl who was previously giving him a lap dance before my episode, urging her to continue. 

When he sees the determination in my eyes, he opens his mouth to lie, probably. To plead. Or to even apologize. But it’s as late as the night itself, because I pull the trigger three times, making sure all the bullets earn a perfect entrance into his skull. He jerks backwards like an empty can of soda, crashing into a stool behind him, surprise visibly written on the tip of his forehead. This time, everybody leaves the hall in panic, their heels and shouts beating the speakers that still boom a different song this time. There are security officers trying to guide people out of the building before they can attend to me. I think of shooting him just one more time, but he lies still. Not the type of stillness that comes from sleeping after a long day, but the type that signifies the end of one’s life. 

 After several bottles have shattered and a table or two have been knocked over during the tantrum, I am almost alone. I stare down at his head and watch the blood seep through the cracks onto the floor. Moving feels difficult. I don't speak for a moment either, because the silence feels somewhat soothing. There's a siren in the background and a few security officers telling me to drop my weapon and put my hands in the air, if not they'll shoot. I know they have no bullets in their guns and are just trying to scare me, but I'm tired of running. Tired of hiding. And most importantly, I am exhausted from moving quietly. So, I close my eyes after dropping my weapon, not to pray or mourn my loss, but to think. Clearly and ostensibly for myself. What does a woman do after she kills the love of her life? What comes next?

Hell?

Heaven?

Purgatory?

Or jail?

Perhaps nothing. Perhaps everything. But whatever it is, it will be mine this time. Not his. Not the gang’s. MINE.

BY PRECIOUS NELSON ESATE