Careless? (Part 4)

Things took a different turn almost immediately after that…Bimbo started to avoid me. He would come up with reasons why he couldn’t spend time with me on and off campus. It seemed he just wasn’t into me anymore but I didn’t want to believe that, there was no way he could do that to me…he was too nice for such or so I thought.

It had been almost a month of our hide and seek when a girl in our class asked me out of the blue, if truly I slept with the class governor.

I was more confused than shocked and asked what she meant. She informed me word was going round that Bimbo got to sleep with me as payback for embarrassing him about a year before then.  He had sworn to get back at me and the perfect revenge was to get between my legs. He promised to do whatever it took to make it happen…and he had been bragging to his friends that he didn’t only accomplish this, he did it 3 times, both home and away. I learned he was even referring to me as “3-shots”

I must have pinched myself hard to check if I was dreaming or not…I had to get out of there as fast as I could to avoid crying in public. I managed to hold the tears till I got into my room and the floodgates opened.

How could I be so stupid?

How could I have let my guard down so easily?

I hated myself for what I had done…

After all the checks that I put in place so as not to fall victim to any man, I didn’t only fall…I arranged the fall on my own and tripped myself.

It took a lot of courage for me to go back to class. I had stayed away for over a week but this time Bimbo didn’t show up

When I finally caught up with Bimbo some days later, he was under a tree by the buttery. I was furious and went on and on about the things I heard things on campus about us.
In my heart of hearts, I was hoping he would deny it or blame it on the loquaciousness of one of his friends or hall-mates. BUT he was not even sorry…as a matter of fact, he told me point-blank

“That’s how you deal with big-mouth girls. Nothing humbles a woman than knowing she gave it up cheap and for nothing” and then was going to walk away.

“God will judge you” I managed to say.

He looked at me and laughed scornfully, and then he mimicked my “moaning” sound, then laughed hysterically and left me standing alone.

If I was a witch, I would have killed him on the spot. I felt so cheap, dirty and worthless. When I got home, I looked in the mirror and told myself

Never again…never again will a man take me for a ride

Never again will I fall victim

Never again will a man take me for granted

Never again will a man be in charge

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me

My regret and anger were the perfect condiments needed for my hate concoction…and men would have to swallow every drop of it.

The way I lived my life for thereon, I would have been tagged a lesbian if it was a common thing back then.

I shared my experience with Auntie Titi (We were that close) and she felt my pain…however, she told me the game of love is not played that way because what hurts you is also what heals you. I remember saying love should keep the healing as long as it held on to the hurt too.

Auntie Titi never stopped encouraging me even in my obstinacy…she shared some of her own experience but I was not ready to test the waters again. She used to say I would come around at some point.

“All it takes is the right guy and all this fake anger will disappear

Or are you not going to get married? You better don’t let your Uncle hear that one”

I told her I wasn’t even sure I wanted to…but would let the future decide that.

It was right around this time that my biological father started to reach out, he chose the worst time of all and I just didn’t want to hear it. I was done letting men come in and out of my life at will. I had become the gate keeper of my heart and I already tossed the keys.

In my third year, there was this other guy that wanted to date me…he didn’t care that I was snobbish and extremely rude to him. He would say “Àgò ló máa dé adìyẹ last” (you will give in ultimately).

I tried to shut it down many times; as a matter of fact, I took my rudeness to a whole new level just to get him off my back but he kept coming. He would come almost every other night to see me and say the same things over again. He wanted to know why I wouldn’t give him a chance and if I could give a valid reason, he would leave me be…however, he was the one to determine the validity of the reason. The few times I responded, I told him I didn’t owe him, or his kind, any explanation.

There were times I didn’t even open the door to receive him...but he kept coming. I made it a point of duty not to remember his name. In my mind, I programmed him as “Mr. Àgò”.

He was very funny and jovial but I never laughed; other girls at my hall loved him because of this and I’m sure they must have thought I was crazy but I could care less.

He offered to come check on me, at home, during one of our breaks but I promised to pour pepper-infused water on him if he dared to. He sensed I could do it and I guess that made him think twice.

He kept at this for almost a year and a half until it was time for our finals; he came to see me one last time and told me he had promised himself to marry a good girl and knew that behind the mask of anger, I was a good girl and he would marry me.

I scoffed at the statement and asked how he intended to marry someone that wouldn’t even date him. He responded that life had its way of making things happen. He begged me to agree to a deal…if our paths crossed again and I wasn’t married, I would agree to marry him.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental   

© 2018 Lanre Olagbaju All Rights Reserved