Her Letters

Garba always said that fate had played us into each other’s hands, that he never thought he’d end up with me.

I thought that that was his romantic way of saying we were meant to be, that I was the best thing that happened to him.

That was until I saw her letters.

Hundreds of them. Dating from even before I met Garba. All addressed to one woman. Nifemi.

‘If only I was running my hands through your hair…’

My arms travelled to my thick locs.

‘I miss the sweet scent of your lavender shampoo…’

A picture of my vanilla scented shampoo flashed through my mind.

‘I saw a yellow bubu today and I couldn’t help but remember that yellow was your favorite color….’

I hated yellow.

‘When I look at her all I see is you…’

Everything she was, I was not.

Who was this Nifemi woman?

Whoever she was it was clear that my husband’s heart belonged to her and her alone, there was no space for anyone else. There was no space for me.

‘I love you, Nifemi, I always have and I always will.’

It was then realization dawned upon me. My husband didn’t me because he loved me, he married me because for some cruel reason he couldn’t marry whoever this Nifemi woman was.

He had settled. For me.

And despite everything I was still madly in love with him, just like he was still madly in love with Nifemi.

Time was such a strange concept. He had been away from Nifemi for more than twelve years, it showed from the dates of his first letters; and yet it felt like his love for her burned more and more with each passing letter.

I could not understand it.

There was a certain finality in accepting that the person you would lay your life down for would do it, but just not for you.

It didn’t change how they felt about you, but it made you stop putting your neck on the line for them.

He was my soulmate, but I wasn’t his. His soulmate was Nifemi. With her long, luscious soft hair and her lavender shampoo. Nifemi who loved all things yellow.

Not me, never me.

He had consciously looked for someone who was the exact opposite of his beloved Nifemi.

I stared at the letters, the ink stained with the tears I had been crying. I used the sleeve of my shirt to wipe my bloodshot eyes.

So why did he never mail them? Why leave them here for me to find? Why torture me with the certainty that his love lay elsewhere?

He owed it to Nifemi to send these letters. He owed the truth to me too, and he owed it to him to free himself from the burden of his secret love. That was the least he could do after everything.