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Gaya

As I write this, I am beyond heartbroken. I am crushed. I am disgusted. I am gutted And I keep asking myself the same question on a loop: how come I never saw this? How did I miss it? I know you are probably judging me right now. That is fine. I am judging myself. I have been judging myself since the day my whole world rearranged itself in the space of one open door.

I'll stop the spiral because you are only here for one thing; the full gist. So let's get into it. From the very beginning.

The Beginning, Which Felt Like a Fairytale Because I Was Foolish

David is the cutest man I have ever dated, and I need you to sit with that statement for a second. One of my exes was a Mr. Nigeria contestant. He didn't win, but the fact that he was even standing on that stage should give you a sense of the calibre of faces I have been involved with. So when I say David was cute, I am not speaking loosely. This man was arresting. The kind of face that makes you forget your own name mid-sentence.

The face was honestly the least impressive thing about him. When we met, David was everything I had quietly stopped hoping for. Attentive in the way that feels deliberate; not distracted, not half-present, actually there. He laughed at my stupid jokes. The genuinely stupid ones. Not politely, but fully, like I was actually funny. He listened when I talked and remembered things I mentioned once in passing three weeks later. He was, by every measure I had ever used, a good man.

He also gave me money. Consistently and generously. Without being asked, and even more generously when I did ask. Whenever we had any kind of disagreement, before we had even fully resolved it, my account would receive an alert. Six figures. Sometimes figures that were knocking on seven's door. I told my friends, and they were happy for me. We collectively agreed I had found something rare.

What I did not allow myself to think was that this man was not being intentional. He was paying me to stop looking too closely. He was keeping me comfortable so I would never become inconvenient. I was being managed, packaged, and maintained, and I mistook every single bit of it for love.

The first time I visited David's place, I met someone at the door on his way out. Heading out just as I was arriving. David introduced him warmly, the way you introduce someone who genuinely matters to you. His homeboy….brother from another mother…. day one since secondary school. All the things Nigerian men say about the friends they would apparently do absolutely anything for.

I smiled. We exchanged pleasantries, and he left. I went inside and did not think about him again for weeks.

If only I had known then what "absolutely anything" was going to turn out to mean.

The Night I Should Have Listened to My Stomach

A few months into the relationship, I fell into the TikTok couple content rabbit hole. You know exactly the one; surprise date nights, elaborate setups, cute ways to remind your partner that you are thinking about them. I watched too many videos and caught serious feelings for the idea of being that girlfriend. The thoughtful one. The one who puts in effort and gets celebrated for it. I regret it now.

So I went all out. I turned my parlour into a mini cinema, with fairy lights, a projector, and snacks arranged with intention. I cooked for hours. I sprayed perfume on things that did not need perfume. I shaved everywhere that required shaving and a few places that didn't, just to be thorough. I was ready in every sense of the word; physically, emotionally, spiritually. Then I called David to invite him over.

He picked up laughing, a full, deep, completely relaxed laugh. The kind you only produce when you are somewhere you feel entirely safe, entirely yourself, entirely at home, and before he even got to hello, I heard it. Muffled but clear enough. "Babe, wait, let me get this."

I asked who he was talking to. He said Tunde.

Something small and sharp moved in my stomach. I pushed it down, smiled into the phone, and asked for a video call just to confirm I wasn't interrupting anything important. Tunde appeared on screen, sitting comfortably, looking completely unbothered. No girl. No signs of anything. I felt embarrassed for even asking and apologized for being paranoid.

I told David to come over because I had something for him. He said two hours. When I asked why not now, he explained calmly that he was with Tunde and it would be rude to just get up and leave. I did not want to be that girlfriend; the suspicious, controlling, insecure kind, so I said okay, take your time, I'll be here.

He came. We watched the movie. The setup was perfect, the mood was everything, and I had done my absolute most. And then nothing happened. He kissed me, deeply, deliberately, the kind of kiss that is a clear opening statement and then he simply stopped. Pulled back. Said he didn't want us to rush. Said he respected me too much to just jump into things.

I lay there in my carefully prepared, carefully perfumed apartment and thought: I have found the one. A Nigerian man who is not in a hurry. A man who is intentional about intimacy. A man who sees me as more than a body.

I texted my friends immediately. They said I had won in this life. I agreed wholeheartedly.

Tunde came first for everything. David's birthday? He spent it with Tunde first before coming to me later that evening smelling like someone else's cooking. Valentine's Day, the one day of the year that exists specifically for the person you are dating, David showed up to me at 7pm. When I asked where he had been, he said he had stopped by Tunde's because Tunde was going through something and needed him. I wore a new dress and waited from 5pm for a man who was busy consoling his homeboy on Valentine's Day, and somehow convinced myself that made him a caring person.&nbsp;

New Year's Eve countdown? He went to church with Tunde. His promotion at work? He called Tunde before he called me. I found out because he mentioned it casually, the way you mention something that already happened. The big moments, the small moments, the random Tuesday evenings, there was always a reason Tunde needed him more than I did and every single time, David had an explanation so calm and so reasonable that arguing against it made me feel like the problem. I was so busy trying not to be the difficult girlfriend that I handed that man a free pass for fourteen months and called it being supportive.

I need you to hold this number. Fourteen months. We dated for fourteen months, and we never had sex. Not once. Every time things naturally progressed, he would find a gentle, sincere way to slow them down. Always a reason, always delivered with such warmth that I never once pushed back. I told myself we were building something sacred. I told people I was in a beautiful, intentional, celibate relationship. I wore it like an achievement.

I was such a good girlfriend. Truly. I deserved an award.

One evening, I showed up at his place without warning. No specific reason, just wanted to see him, the spontaneous kind of visit that feels romantic when everything is actually fine. I heard the giggles before I even reached his door. Loud, unguarded, full-body giggles. My boyfriend was giggling the way people giggle when they are completely happy, completely safe, completely themselves. I stood outside and listened for a moment, smiling, thinking how lovely it was that he was in such a good mood.

I knocked. The sound stopped immediately. Total silence, the manufactured kind, the kind that only exists when people are actively creating it. Ten full seconds passed. Then David opened the door.

He was slightly out of breath. Not dramatically, but enough. The kind of breathlessness that comes from moving quickly from one side of a room to a door. He smiled when he saw me and stepped aside to let me in.

There was a creamy substance on his beard. I noticed it and reached up without thinking to wipe it off, the way you do when you love someone, and they have something on their face. He caught my hand. His eyes went wide for exactly one second before his face rearranged itself back into normal. Tunde was sitting in the room, looking at the wall with the focused intensity of a man who had discovered something extremely interesting about that particular wall.

My brain registered that something was wrong. The silence, the breath, the panic, the thing on his face I wasn't allowed to touch but the story it reached for was still the wrong one. I thought: he is cheating with a girl, and Tunde is here helping him cover it up. That was still the absolute furthest my imagination was willing to go.

So that night, I waited until David fell asleep. I went through his phone like a woman on a mission; every DM, every chat, every saved contact. Nothing. The only woman in his messages outside of me was his sister. I put the phone down and lay back beside him, feeling completely terrible. I had a faithful, generous, wonderful boyfriend, and I was on his phone at 2 am like a criminal.

He sent a large sum to my account before I woke up the next morning. I told my friends. They said he was a keeper. I said I knew.

A few weeks later, I decided to do something special. Properly special this time, a real intimate dinner. Table set properly, candles, music, the full thing. I had his spare key from a previous weekend. He called me that afternoon to say he had a business meeting and would be out for most of the day. Perfect, I thought. This is my window.

I stopped at the market on my way. Bought everything I needed and arrived at his house. I opened the door and pushed it quietly. You needed to have seen the sheepish smile on my face as I thought about how this could be my new norm. Crashing my boyfriend’s house to plan surprises. I blame TikTok.

When I eventually raised my head, David was on top of Tunde. Both of them were entirely absorbed in each other that they did not hear the door, did not hear my footsteps, did not hear a single thing until I screamed. I wish badly that they were in the bedroom because I wouldn’t have that image in my head of both of them on the couch completely naked.

They turned at the same time, and the last thing I remember was Tunde saying ‘Shit!’ then it all went blank. I don't know how long I was out. When I came back to myself, Tunde was gone. David was crouched beside me, his voice low and shaking, his hand on my arm, begging, ‘please, please, please don't tell anyone. Please’.

I looked at him. I genuinely had nothing to say. Before nko? How exactly would I want anyone to know that my boyfriend was cheating on me with a man? That my ‘bress’ and ‘nyash’ was not enough? That Tunde, whom I felt sorry for because I thought he was just a lonely friend, had actually been winning this whole time?

I stood up. I looked around the room. Then I picked up every single bag of food I had carried to that house. I was not about to lose both my relationship and my groceries. Absolutely not.

I walked out. Blocked David before I reached the gate. Never looked back.

We have been so busy looking for the other woman that we left a whole blind spot open. Nobody told us to watch the homeboy. Nobody told us to notice when he guards that friendship with an intensity that a simple friendship doesn't require. When he chooses that name over yours every single time, with excuses that are always just reasonable enough. When your instincts keep raising their hand, and you keep telling them to sit down because you don't want to be difficult.

I am not saying yours is doing anything. I am just saying a name is coming to mind as you read this, and you should really think about it.

I wasn't paranoid. I wasn't insecure. I just needed to understand why Tunde always came first. I was not ready for what I found.

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