The love of my life is a criminal but I have decided to stand by him (3)

I have told you before that I take in what people tell me and often do nothing to crosscheck the facts because I believe what people tell me, I believe in people, especially fine men until they let me down. And many a man has let me down. This is how things have always been with me as far as I can tell. It is the same way that Ayo found me and a few months after left me not only miserable but also vulnerable for life. For instance, there was really no need to fall so hard for Raphael. But shush, the clarification I want to make now is about Ayo. I have mentioned him many times during the telling of my story. But before him, there were others like him. There was Jeremy back at the University of Ibadan, who like Briggs, Allen and then Ayo, snuck into my life and gave my trusting heart a beating. Like in the case of Raphael after Ayo, I was healing from the pain that was Briggs, who was good for nothing more than a one night stand gone wrong, when Ayo came along meek like a lamb but showed his true self to be a wolf.

If I am confusing you, dear reader, it is because the whole set up is at best confusing. Or how do you explain that I always attract these kinds of men? The type that takes until there is nothing left to give.

Ayo was a friend of a friend’s brother. Feyi, who was really the kind of friend whose birthday party you always attended because everyone would be there but whom you kept at arm’s length. You had a love-hate relationship with her due to her excesses her love of life.

“Don’t go playing with fire,” were the very first words Feyi uttered when she saw me spending so much time with Ayo the year she threw a party to celebrate her turning 32. It is a party I still recall with awe. It was awesome and it was wild. Perhaps that was why I threw caution to the wind and stuck with Ayo that night and beyond. What was there to lose? A lot, apparently.

“I can take care of myself,” was all I could muster to shush Feyi.

“I like a woman who knows what she wants,” that was Ayo’s whiskey laced voice giving me one of the many compliments he threw at me from that point of our meeting till he shattered my heart.

“Rachel, this party is getting boring. Let’s go someone more productive,” Ayo told me after just a few minutes of making my acquaintance. I liked him already, particularly his nose, which was neither large nor small, just perfect for a face which looked like it had been chiselled out of stone with a blunt tool. But falling for him and doing the things that we did that night could also be likened to the booze that kept flowing at the party. A lot of things happen at a party in Lagos that will fill countless pages.

Anyway, I went with Ayo and for the first time in my life, I sniffed cocaine and made love under the influence. I tell you I tingle all over even now but it was not the life for me. I should have known then that it would not end well. But the reality is that Ayo was my man for a little over six months. I think I even managed to change him. Got him to sniff a little more cocaine and smoke less weed. Which, I confess, he was the one who also got me to smoke my first toke. To do that and then make love was birthing euphoria itself. But don’t do it.it was the reason I lost all the things I lost. Ayo’s way was to spend fantastically on me the first few weeks, taking me to the most exotic places and then turnaround to spend me to ruin in the remaining five months that I stuck with him. I became his drainpipe for his expensive lifestyle. In fact, I believe the drugs and booze must have played a major role in the depression that set in after I discovered that in less than half a year I was in debt because of Ayo. I had not only spent my savings but I had also borrowed to finance Ayo’s high octane lifestyle. But I was still willing to give him a chance to walk the road to recovery with him if only he would agree to do it.

“There is nothing wrong with me. With us. We are living the life,” Ayo had fought back when I confronted him.

“No, I don’t think so. See,” I showed him my bank statement. “Before you came into my life, I had savings. Now all I have is debts…”

“Is that how it is now? You have moved from nagging to blaming me for all your woes. Please, don’t empty your frustrations on me,” he vehemently fought back thinking I wanted to pick a fight rather than turn things around. At that time he had moved in with me. I don’t even recall what he gave as the reason for moving in. And on that Monday morning when I confronted him, Ayo was already high on one substance or the other. This is the fire Feyi had warned me about.

To nail the coffin shot, I came home a few days later to find Ayo in my bed with a younger woman. Most likely a younger woman he had picked up at one of the campuses that dot the Lagos city landscape. It was a hellish time for me. So, I will confess that when Raphael confessed to me that he was not really a real lawyer and was just pretending to be one to make a living, I was shocked. But having had my experience with Ayo, Raphael was child’s play. Add to that the fact that he was mostly sober and brilliant at that and you know that he is worth saving. And I will stick by him, come rain come shine. Didn’t you hear me say before that I am innocent of bad things? That I love people and believe that most human beings are basically good. Or to put it more succinctly, no one is all bad.

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