Chapter 1 - The meeting.

Why shouldn’t I take my own life?

It’s a question that has run through my mind one too many times. Even now, I think, and I wonder why I don’t have the balls to do it.

Sometimes, I imagine that it’s because I won’t make heaven. But even I know that that thought is just bull. At this point in my life, making heaven is not one of my top priorities.

Other times, I think it’s because of my selfishness. Now, that’s more reasonable. I’ve always been selfish. I’ve always never given two fucks about anybody but myself. All things considered, I think I'm permitted that leisure.

Although, I do think that no matter how much I hate my life, I’m simply too selfish to end it. Yes, selfishness is a more logical reason for me. And if I'm not selfish with myself, who would be?

That aside, suicide is not something I think I can do, even with all my issues. I just wouldn't be able to bear putting my mom through the pain. Doesn't mean I don't think about how it'd be though. Just a thought. I only wonder.

Over the years, there have been so many records of suicide, and of course, people will be people — always focusing on the unimportant part of things. Asking questions like “couldn’t they talk to someone?” “Don’t they know that life could get better?” And when I hear those questions, they simply irk me.

Because when someone is at the brink of their life, teetering on one edge and it’s like they’re living on borrowed time, they don’t think about things like that. Making heaven or having false hopes that their lives could get better isn’t what runs through their mind at that time, or our minds.

I’ve been depressed for so long, even I, am tired of myself. Life just sucks, generally. And sometimes I wonder why the old man up there even bothered bringing us all here.

I face my mirror steely and I see something no one else sees–normal, tired. Everyone else has always seen me as that girl next door. The boys think I’m hot enough to want to gobble up in one piece, so all my life, all of them have always tried to get in my pants.

And the girls, they envy me, so I’ve never really had any close friends, asides from Josephine and "the girls". Josephine though, she literally is the opposite of girls like me, but she loves me regardless. And if not for her, I’d probably be six feet down the fucking ground.

When you talk about that friend that is always there, come rain, come sunshine, it's Josephine. She has my back, and I, hers in any situation we go through. And honestly, she is one of the reasons I'm grateful for life.

“Tess, can we leave already?” I smile softly as Jose’s voice brings me out of my reverie. “I’m coming already. Just checking my beauty out once more,” I reply, laughing with a little hitch because it’s a regular back-and-forth between us.

“You already know you’re the finest girl in the world. Now get your ass over here, let’s get us some hot boys to cool us up.” She’s laughing as she says that, though she’s serious about it. We’re getting down to Joe’s this evening, it’s a new bar or something, just around the corner, and Josephine, having been there already, said there are enough hot boys for forever there.

As soon as we step into the bar, I’m met with the old smell of gin, whiskey, cigarettes and God-knows-what. I sweep my eyes gently but scrutinizingly over the room. They indeed have hot men here, I think, as I see several fine men in the room.

Reminds me of the last time I was at a bar. It was our last day together — "the girls", as we called ourselves. We'd just finished signing out and we decided to get together because it was the last time we were going to be together at the same place.

Vera was travelling out for her masters the next day, Kaisha was moving back to Abuja, Tolani was going on a vacation with her fiance. And it was just Jose and I that were going to be in Lagos so when the idea came up, we took it.

We made a pact that night to forget our partners and dance our eyes out. Funny as it sounds, we stood by it. Or "they." The person I was with at that time could not be referred to as "partner." An absolute waste of time and thinking about it now, I wish I did more than I did that night instead of respect the fool I was with.

That night though, we had our fun. Tolani in particular, danced with every guy that she saw, Vera grinded on every guy she considered her spec. And they were a lot. Jose twerked for and on everyone of us girls as well.

And Kaisha and I just clapped and hooted for everyone else. It was such a funny, yet memorable night. And at the end of the day, so many guys wanted to get the numbers of all of us, even though Kaisha and I didn't dance.

I miss them. And I miss our time together. The five of us met in the university. I joined in last though. Surprisingly, I was closer with Jose immediately I joined them. And Tolani as well. As for Kaisha and Vera, it took some time for me to get close to them and that's because I'm generally not so trusting, and they didn't look like they needed someone else in the group.

At the end of the day, we all let our guards down and we've been best friends since that time.

We still have our girls meeting, though virtual this time since we're all spread across the country, or the world.

I miss them. I won't even lie, I do. And our weekly virtual meetings are not nearly enough to fill their space.

But that's life for you. Knowing that the next time we might see could be years or probably never doesn't also make me feel better.

And I hate the fact that life is that way. My father left just that way one good day, years ago, and I never saw him again.

Heard of him, yes, saw him, no. Would I want to see him? Not in a million years, no.

He was my rock, my everything, and he stood up one night and said he was going to get ice cream for our father-daughter night. I should have known that something was wrong. I should have felt it. We always had ice cream, chocolate flavor specifically because it was our favourite. My mother used to joke that it was if he brought me to life in his belly. We were that close. That day, out of the blues, he left. He never had any issues with Mom, none that I ever saw. He didn't have any issues with me either. He just left.

When we waited and didn't see him, we cried so much and we started searching for him all over that night. We finally consoled ourselves to sleep, Mom and I. The next morning, we were the first people to meet the policemen at the station. They asked us to come back the next day, so we went home crying, calling all of our family and friends.

Then we went to a cyber cafe, printed out his picture and pasted it around the city ourselves. Then, the cycle started. Oh, and it went on for so long. We, turning whenever we heard a man's voice, hoping it was my Dad finally come home. And there was nothing. No sniff. No smell if him. Nobody saw him. The police concluded that he left of his own free will.

But we didn't agree to that. It just didn't make sense. Well, at that time. Three years after and someone claimed they saw him with a woman and child at a mall not even far from us. I refused to believe it. In fact, it was funny at first, it was laughable. I just could not believe it. My mother, on the other hand, looked like she was ready to believe anything. She looked like she just wanted to confirm if he was alive and give up.

It had been three years. Three whole years and we hadn't seen this man. Well, history changed the day we saw him, and indeed with a younger woman and a cute little baby, right at that same mall.

I saw red that day. I wanted to—without even asking anything—smash his head in, and the woman, and if possible, the baby. I wanted to make him feel the pain and sorrow and fear I'd felt for the past three years. And most of us, I wanted to weep, I wanted to wail out loud till I passed away. I wanted to understand how, why, what. So many things were in my mind. But like a coward, I ran as fast as my legs could carry me. Far, far away from there, till I got home.

And when I got home, I locked myself up in my room but the tears didn't come. I was so angry, so sad that there were not tears. I stayed that way till my mother got back and say next to me on my bed.

"What happened?" I asked her.

"I spoke to him," she said, as calmly as she could muster.

I wanted to weep, but I managed to ask, "and what?"

She stood up then. It's something my mom does when she's nervous. She stood up and paced round the room. Then she sat back, took my hands and said, "he said he left because he felt choked."

We never ever spoke of him after that time. Oh, forget what he said, it was bad enough that he now brought a new wife and child to live in the same town with us. It was terrible. And the next season, we moved out and that was the last I saw him, not heard of him though.

The nosy people back there never failed to call my mother whenever he gave birth again. And he had four more. So it was like a shadow tailing us all our lives. Horrible, really.

I won't say I had "daddy issues" or I never wanted to admit it. But when I found my relationships failing, I went to see a therapist. And when she asked me why I thought it was all failing, I said I didn't want then to feel "choked"

All my life, I've never cried as much as I wept that day. It was the realization that the incident still haunted me, made me lose so many relationships, so many good ones, and all because I didn't want it to end up the way mine with my father's ended up. Because at the end of the day, I had a better relationship with my dad. He was my father after all.

And he left because he felt choked. How much more other people? I found out later on with my sessions in therapy that the situation had dogged me all my life. I started working on it, yet I always had that innate fear that one day, everyone would leave me.

And there's nothing worse than living with that fear, in my opinion.

Ughh… depressing thoughts never makes well for a bar, and I'm not about to spoil my night.

I look around for Josephine and I see her sending signals to me that she’s leaving for the restroom and I should just take a seat and wait, so I’m about to take my seat when someone bumps into me not-so-gently from the back.

Now take note, I can be a grade-A bitch, especially when things like this happen, and especially when I'm still nursing the aftermath of my almost depressive episode moments again. I want to scream at this stranger because why would you just shove someone and not even have the guts to say something? That’s the question I want to ask whoever it is that just barged in and almost fell me.

But as soon as I turn, everything stops. And for a moment, all I can hear is the sound of my blood rushing to my ears and the uneven pattern of my stupid heart. If nothing else, this person looks perfect. I know that I have had my look at men in my life, but this one is simply perfection. I try, I promise, I try to will myself out of the embarrassing trance this human put me into when he speaks. His voice stops my obvious ogling, but only because it makes me gasp slightly. I could strangle myself right now.