Read Online Always Yours (Lagos Romance Series) by Somi Ekhasomhi - Free Book Online

words and what they would mean, if they were true.
    What is love?
    If love is pain
    Then why do I run to pain
    When I can run from it
    The words of the popular song kept rolling around in my mind, along with everything else. Until I was too confused to do anything but stare through things lost in thought.
    We hadn’t spoken for days. That hurt. It’s usually easy to say you never want to see a guy again but most of the time it’s not easy to actually never see him again. In my worst moments I wondered what I would do if he actually gave up on me. It made me feel so desperate, like I would do anything, just to have him for my own.
    I was heartbroken, with no excuse to be. The acknowledged lover has an excuse for her red eyes and shaky voice, but the unacknowledged one, like me, has to smile and put on a happy face, after all, for the world to agree that a man broke your heart, they have to have seen it in his hand. He had never made any commitment to me. All I had was the fact that, like a fool I had longed for one man for far too long and I had only just realized how futile my longing was.
    Why do you always have to run away?
    Those words again, even though I knew they shouldn’t, gave me hope, hope that I wasn’t the only one who was miserable. It was an odd kind of comfort, but the thought that perhaps he was also missing me, wanting me, longing to be with me comforted me so much that it was only when I thought of Folake, that I would realize again how futile my hope was.
    Folake! Sometimes I would torture myself by thinking of how beautiful she was. How he could never prefer me to her. In those moments I would resolve to go out and meet a man, a better man, to take my mind away from Michael. But I didn’t want any other man, in fact I didn’t believe there was anyone better. I wanted him. I wanted him so badly that it made me cry at night.
    I tried to imagine a life where Michael would be married to Folake, where I’d just be a friend to him. Where we would see each other only on occasion, occasions where I’d always filled with longing for him. Then I would imagine the alternative, where he would be totally absent from my life. I couldn’t bear both scenarios, instead I fantasized about the impossible, a life where he belonged to me and I belonged to him.
    It was hard to imagine that in such a short time I had grown so used to Michael’s presence in my life again. It had only been a week since the restaurant, a week in which we haven’t spoken at all and it felt as if the world had come to an end.
    “Maybe you should call him.” It was one week and a day after the restaurant (I had been counting) and it was Friday again, Living Lagos had just hit the stands again mostly thanks to Ada’s genius and the fact that I had finally managed to bury my pain with work. We were preparing to leave for the day and this was her latest solution for me snap out of the funk I was in.
    “And what?” I asked. I was standing by the window of my office, staring at the busy and crowded streets of Lagos Island below me, and wondering what all those many people were doing and if anyone of them was going through the same things I was going through. “Ada, don’t forget that he’s not my boyfriend or husband” I said. “It’s not like I’m going to call him and then we’ll have a grand reunion and some make up sex or whatever it is couples do in situations like this.”
    “But you guys are friends” she said cajolingly. Today her hair was in a thousand long braids that fell to her waist and she was actually wearing a dress. A short, pastel blue dress which really set off her complexion, making her look really pretty. “At least you guys can talk”
    I sighed. “Yeah and then what”. I paused and thought about it. “Nothing will change” I continued. I’m still going to love him and he’s still going to marry Folake.” I shook my head. “There is no happy ending to this.”
    No happy endings.
    Why do you always