He Said He Loved Me, But He Was Loving Her Too

I was with Kunle for three years. Three years of Sundays at his mother's house, of splitting suya on third mainland bridge, of believing I had found the one.

I found out on a Tuesday. His phone buzzed while he was in the shower and I glanced at it — not to spy, just reflex. The message was from a contact saved as "Gym Instructor" but the words were not about gym.

"Last night was everything. She doesn't know, right?"

She. That was me. I was the she who didn't know.

I put the phone down. I sat on his bed. I waited for him to come out of that bathroom and I looked at him — really looked at him — and I realized his face hadn't changed at all. Still handsome. Still the same smile. Still the man I loved.

That was the most terrifying part. He hadn't changed. I had just finally started seeing clearly.

I didn't cry in front of him. I waited until I was in my car, two streets away, before I let myself fall apart. I screamed into my steering wheel for ten minutes straight.

The lesson I took from it: some people are not evil, they are just deeply selfish. And selfish people will love you genuinely — right up until loving you becomes inconvenient.

I am okay now. Took fourteen months, but I am okay. To every woman reading this who is putting herself back together: it is possible. I promise.