Break-ups are for Lovers
Still hurting from a post Valentine’s Day break-up, Naza is forced to face an even more unexpected separation.
Valentine’s Day was on Friday, and I came home from work the Monday of that week to an empty house, as usual. Dera was never home when I got back, and rarely ever home on the weekends. We’d moved in together almost a year ago, but every time I walked into our apartment, it felt like I lived alone in a house that wasn’t mine. A weighty silence had settled over our apartment, and it had mixed with my loneliness to make me restless.
But, today, as I walked into our half-furnished two-bedroom — we’d stopped furnishing because Dera couldn’t decide on the aesthetics she preferred and I’d been too depressed to care — I didn’t mind the silence. I wanted to be by myself, see if a couple glasses of wine and yam fries would take the weight off the impending Valentine’s Day depression.
I walked into my bedroom, dumped my workbag, took off my work clothes, and went into the shower. The cold water soothed my hot skin and I sighed in pleasure. Lathering coconut bath wash on my skin, I spent the next fifteen minutes massaging and rinsing my skin. The commute home was always exhausting. I hated Lagos traffic; the heat, the dust, the smell, the roadside sellers shoving their wares into your face, the random men catcalling you, and the occasional one that grabbed at you and then cussed you if you weren’t flattered by his advances. I’d tried carpooling with Dera once. We worked just twenty minutes away from each other, but she left the house at 4 a.m. when I was still deep in sleep and got back at past 11 p.m. when I was fast asleep or mindlessly scrolling social media. She had started to do this a month after we moved in together. I’ve gone days without seeing her, only knowing she was home through her hurried footsteps in the morning and exhausted ones at night.
I’d considered booking a ride but doing so every day was a luxury on my salary. My boss paid me just enough to keep me dependent on him, coupled with just the right compliments so I wouldn’t forget my place. Every time I thought about how I’d spent four years studying architecture just to become a secretary to some architect who thought he was God’s gift to the profession, I got angry at myself and then depressed because I wasn’t angry enough to do something about it.
I spent ten more minutes in the shower, stepped out, and felt the cold from the AC hit me. Drying quickly, I pulled on my shorts and a hoodie and walked to the kitchen. I felt cool now, which was a blessing because the heat was insane.
I was just carrying my freshly fried yams and a bottle of wine to the couch when Dera walked in. I looked at the clock in surprise. It was 8 p.m. What was she doing home so early?
She smiled when she saw me and dropped her bag on the couch with a tired sigh. “What’s up?” she asked.
“You are home early,” I replied, completely flustered and surprised.
“Yeah,” she replied, chuckling. “We always close at 6 p.m. na.”
It was the same time I closed from work, but I still never saw her home before 11 p.m.
The sight of her at ease in her chic high-waisted pants and business casual crop top made me feel like an intruder. I set the wine and fries on the centre table and wondered why I felt like that in a house we both owned.
“Why are you home early?” I asked. She worked in an accounting firm and I immediately found it suspicious when she started coming home by 11. p.m. I was afraid of her answer so I didn’t ask, and she never offered.
She shrugged. “I finished work early today. We didn’t have much to do.” She gestured to the plate of fries. “You made dinner? Thank God.”
More surprised than flustered now, I stared as she popped a fry into her mouth. She never cared if I made dinner. The first month we moved in together, to keep my mind occupied, I cooked every night and made sure to keep some for her. But she came in late and always ignored the food.
“Why do you never eat my food?” I asked one day. I knew I sounded like some hurt wife whose husband was ignoring her home cooked meals but I couldn’t help it. “Don’t you like it?”
But she’d chuckled somewhat uncomfortably and said. “No, I always eat at work. And I’m home late so there’s no point keeping food for me.”
I stopped after that.
Now, she picked up the plate of fries and popped more into her mouth. “These are delicious,” she said.
And I bubbled with pleasure. I loved getting compliments about my food.
“Do you have any for me?” she asked.
I sighed inwardly. Though flustered and confused, I was happy to see her. But, I really just wanted to eat my fries and drink my wine in peace.
“You can have those,” I said. “I’ll just fry some more.”
I walked to the kitchen, and she followed me and stood against the fridge as I pulled yam from a stack of three and began to cut. I tried not to think about how awkward it was to have her home so early. I’d gone months barely seeing her. Having her here now felt like she had just returned from a long trip with no explanation where or why she had gone. She seemed chill though and was clearly starving because half the fries on the plate were gone.
“So, what’s up?” I asked.
“What are your plans for valentine?” she asked at the same time
We chuckled and the awkwardness broke. I realized then that I missed her. I saw less of her now than I did when we didn’t live together. It was sad.
“Valentine ke,” I replied. “I have no plans. “Thank God my boss gave me the day off that day. Man probably thinks I have some hot date or something. I’m just going to pick a bottle of wine from the supermarket and order some junk food.”
“Since when do you drink wine this much?” she asked.
“This much?” I asked in surprise.
“Yeah, I find at least two bottles in the trash every weekend. Alcoholic wine for that matter.”
I was surprised she had noticed.
Slightly defensive, I shook my head. “I don’t drink it as much. Just when I’m tried or stressed, or sad.”
“So, every weekend then?” She asked. “You are tired and stressed and sad every weekend?”
“Abeg, which adult isn’t?” Sometimes, I thought adulting had to be the worst thing invented. It felt like I was running and running and running and couldn’t pass the baton and couldn’t stop.
Dera shook her head. “Nah. This whole wine thing started after you broke up with Joshua.”
I sliced into the yam with more force than I intended. “Let’s not talk about that, please.”
“Wow okay. But it’s been a year though. I just thought…”
“Dera?”
“Nawa, okay then.”
I went back to slicing the yam. I’d wanted to talk about it when I first moved in, and we had, with me in tears and her patting my shoulders awkwardly — until she didn’t want to anymore I guess. I was fine now; the wines really helped.
As I cut the yam up into short rectangles, the silence between us stretched. It stretched and stretched until she said.
“Let’s do something together on Valentine’s Day.”
I paused mid-way salting the yam. “Seriously? Don’t you have plans with Desmond?”
She shrugged. “We had a fight a month ago and he hasn’t said anything to me.”
“A month ago?”
“Yep. No word from him. He’s completely ghosted me.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked.
“It’s not like that. You know how much I hate talking about these things.”
She did. She really did. Especially when these things concerned her. The fight had lasted this long because she was likely avoiding confrontation. She hated talking feelings, hated having to sit in front of you while you talked about your feelings. She did it only as a last resort when she was stuck and had no other option but to go through it. It aggravated her, and me. I realized then we hadn’t had a heartfelt conversation in almost a year. I poured the salted yam into the oil and watched them sizzle.
“What happened?” I asked?
She rolled her eyes. “He’s been dramatic. We went out to this nice restaurant in Ikeja. Really posh and frankly overpriced but that’s his M.O. Anyway, we ordered some food, he wanted to pay but I did and he made a fuss about it. Talking about, ‘you can’t do that. You can’t do that in public. You want people to think I can’t afford to pay for my woman?’”
“Ah ahn.”
“Me sef I was surprised. I was being nice. He’s always paying for our stuff. I thought it’d be nice to do that for once and he acts up. Like, what is that even about? Anyway, I told him to chill, that it wasn’t a big deal, and this man dropped me off at work and hasn’t spoken to me since then.”
“Seriously? Man you’ve been dating for five months?”
“I kid you not.”
“Did you call him.”
“I did. He busied my calls.”
“Did you text him?”
“I did. Apologized sef. He still wouldn’t call or text back.”
“Wow.”
“Like. I even see his status up on WhatsApp. I’d comment and he wouldn’t reply. I had to mute it after a while. Like! What kind of nonsense is that?”
She really liked Desmond. This whole thing was hurting her, I could tell because she was blinking her eyes and doing her best not to meet mine. She did that when she was hurt. The blinks were supposed to hide her hurt, but I’d seen through it the first time we’d had a fight when we were 12 years old.
“I’m a little surprised that you paid though.” I said. “You love having your men pick up the tab.”
“Before! But I did what I did to be nice, to give him a breather, and he acts up like he caught me cheating or something. Anyway, forget him. Let’s do something together for Val’s day. We can book a resort, treat ourselves. We don’t need a man for that.”
She reached for the new set of fries I just brought out of the pan, popped one into her mouth and began to fan her open mouth with her hand. “Oh my God this is hot hot hot hot.”
I laughed and handed her a glass of water. “That’s definitely an idea,” I said when she was settled.
“Let’s do it!” She said popping a piece of cooled yam into her mouth. “Get on your IG and book something. You are very good with that.”
True. I spent more time on the app than I spent breathing. I never commented, just scrolled and scrolled. One time I fell asleep scrolling, woke up and went right back to it.
But I didn’t want to agree too quickly.
“What if Desmond reaches out to you? You know that could…”
“Forget him abeg. Even if he does, that’s his business. He cannot go a whole month not speaking to me and just waltz back in on Vals day.”
“Okay,” I said getting excited. “I’ll set it up. We can do a weekend thing. Friday, and come back on Sunday.”
She smiled. “Perfect!”
Done with the fries, I dished them out into two plates and handed one to her.
“You know,” I said as we walked out of the kitchen with them. “We have never actually, spent Vals day together.”
She frowned. “Hmmm. Weird.”
We’ve never spent Valentine’s Day together because it just never happened. There were many reasons, ranging from being in different states, to being sick but the major and most frequent one was that Dera was often in a relationship while I was single. It used to be a bone of contention between us. she would spend Valentine’s Day with her partner, while I spent it home alone, often jealous or angry at her.
That anger and jealousy evaporated the year Joshua came into my life. I always used to send Dera a sappy Valentine’s Day message but I missed it that year and she teased me relentlessly about it.
“You have Man na now. I guess I can just go to hell.”
I’d laughed at her teasing, but it was impossible not to pick up the relief in it.
After two years of dating, Joshua and I broke up a week after Valentine’s Day. This year, he was the reason I planned to stay home, watch movies and drink wine. He was the reason why my chest hurt for weeks after we broke up, why I went to bed crying and found the taste of alcoholic wine soothing. I’d never drunk alcohol when we dated, or before. I made a whole deal out of it. Every time he took a glass of anything resembling alcohol, I’d say, “you know there’s literally no health benefit to drinking alcohol, right?” And he would laugh in his way that always made my heart flutter.
But the night we broke up, my hands had shook so much I’d needed to steady it. And wine had seemed like the safest thing to use.
The break-up was the reason Dera and I moved in together. The silence at my old apartment had been too loud, louder than it was here. I used to get home and see him everywhere: in the cute little chandelier he’d bought me for my living room, or the painting he’d splurged on at an Art Exhibition because I’d oohed and ahhed over it. One time in the kitchen, I broke down in tears because I was cutting up carrots with a knife from the knife set he bought me.
I’d chosen to do it, but I knew how dangerous it’d be to sit at home on Valentine’s Day and wonder. Wonder if he was out with someone else, wonder if he drank wine too to forget me, wonder if he was happy, if he’d found someone who didn’t suffocate him as he claimed I’d done.
“I don’t know,” he’d said the night we broke up. “I don’t know how to love you the way you need to be loved. You need too much, and I don’t know that I can give you do that.” He’d said it with sadness in his voice, like he wished he could love me as much as I needed.
I knew he wasn’t talking about things and stuff. We were never obsessed with that. He’d been referring to the vortex of need swirling inside of me. It took me months, but I finally realized that’s what he meant. And I’d wished then I knew how to not need love as much as I needed.
Still, I thought his reason ironic because he’d loved me perfectly. I wanted to hate him, but I always came back to the conclusion that he’d loved me so perfectly.
Dera didn’t know it, but she was saving me. We may never have spent Valentine’s Day together, but we knew how to have fun together. We did it so well, bingeing on a series, going for karaoke, spending hours talking about the most random thing. We used to know how to do that, how to feed off the energy and happiness we both jointly created. How to make a passerby feel lonely just watching us.
It was strange, so strange that we hadn’t done that in a year — living together was supposed to elevate that.
After I got home the next day and spent an extra twenty minutes with my coconut bath wash, I went on Instagram and scoured for resorts. I sent the first one to Dera on WhatsApp and she sent me a thumbs down.
I’ve been there before, she texted back. It’s overrated.
I sent an eye roll and went back on IG
I sent another one I thought was nice. It had a calm environment, tall palm trees, spacious rooms, nightly bonfires and many fun water activities. They even had a bookstore in the resort.
She sent another thumbs down.
Seriously? I texted back. They have a bookstore.
She sent a laughing emoji. That’s your thing not mine!
I went back on IG and sent her a couple more and she thumped down all of them.
Okay, do you want to do this yourself? I texted.
Sorry. she texted back. But put your mind to it, abeg.
I sighed and went back to searching. I found one an hour later — a surprisingly gorgeous and affordable resort. Their aesthetically pleasing pictures leapt out of the screen. The location was perfect. It was far away from the hustle and congestion of Lagos roads, but close enough that we could jump into a ride quickly if we needed to.
I sent it to Dera, and she replied with a thump up and a heart emoji and the words, book it!
I did. I picked a room with a balcony and a view with the bluest ocean I’d ever seen. The room was spacious, decorated in soothing light pink and white colors, came with a stocked fridge, had the prettiest bean shaped pool and huge flat screen with Netflix and Hulu subscriptions. They also had a restuarant with sumptuous looking food. I had to double check the price to make sure I was seeing properly.
I checked their activities and saw I could book a spa and massage, take a tour of the green tree filled Island, listen to live music at the restaurant, and do some karaoke. We could also go kayaking and paddleboarding.
All their services were Valentine’s Day themed and I clarified when I called to confirm booking that no, I wasn’t doing the kayaking and massages with my boyfriend, the reservations were for me and my best friend.
The lady at the end of the line had gone, “oh, that’s nice.”
“Yes,” I said with a big smile. “It is.”
We had something to do each day, but I left Sunday free. We’d be checking out at 3 p.m. and I wanted us to spend the morning talking. We were long overdue for one.
I texted Dera once I was done booking.
“Yo! Our reservations are ready. We leave on Friday at 10am.
She texted back with lots of heart emojis. Great! Love the resort you chose. And the foooood!
I laughed in delight.
For the first time in months, I didn’t go back to scrolling. I set my phone down, walked to my bookshelf and began to pull my books out one after the other. After the break-up with Joshua, I had considered parting with my books, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. He’d had a monthly gift card for me at my favourite bookstore and a lot of the books I owned now came from them. I thought of giving the books away because they reminded me of him, but it’d seemed too painful to do that. I’d already lost something I love; I wasn’t going to lose my books too.
My first month living with Dera, she’d said I was grieving like Joshua died or something.
“He broke up with you, for God’s sake. Try to be remembering that.”
My books were dusty. I grabbed a rag and began to gently clean them one after the other. I hadn’t read in a year. I’d barely done anything I loved in a year.
I smiled again as I thought of our trip. This was going to be fun!
Thank you for reading! ❤️
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