There is something beautiful about intertwined hands. It shows togetherness; love. An emotion we all want to feel at one point in our life. The problem comes when one hand holds the other too tight. It leaves the other hand suffocating, which is not healthy. At one point, one will have to let go of the other hand because it hurts holding theirs.

That was how it felt with Chungu. He was those dreamy guys. At some point it felt as though he was starring in my movie, with him as my main character. He had the looks. He also had the personality. By personality, I mean he played the boyfriend role perfectly well. My friends would envy our relationship all because of how well everything seemed and how he treated me. For a moment I felt like Cinderella and he was that prince who was left with my glass slipper.

What people didn’t know was that behind closed doors, I was the Cinderella who was being mistreated. It was always his words which were thorns to me. They would poke me and injure me. Then he would cover it up with gifts and fancy dates. He was too insecure that it would lead to us quarreling over Taji who took me for lunch as we discussed work related stuff. We would fight (verbally) to the extent of slamming doors and not talk to each other for a week or so.

Chungu’s hand squeezed mine too hard. Some nights it was unbearable that I would cry myself to sleep. When he would notice this, he would make the first move and start being nice. In his mind, leaving lovey dovey notes on the kitchen counter would always do the apology.

Unfortunately, the notes stopped working after some months. These notes would feel like countdowns for leaving. Until one night we had an argument because of laughing with Tamu for too long. I remember it got too heated and I shouted that I was done. I dashed to the room and picked the few things that I could get hold off with tears in my eyes. I left him standing in the corridor in awe and slammed the door hard just to let him know I was really done.

It was time I started a new life. The healing would come later.

First, I needed to breathe.

Inspiration: Better in Time by Leona Lewis