Against Counsel – Part 4

The Last Stop…

Against Counsel
Part IV

It felt like an eternity.
I was staring out the window and watching the cars on the busy street. My eyes would fix on a particular car or person and track them till they moved out of the show.
I didn’t want to turn around.
My eyes were swollen from all the crying I had done in mere minutes.

So here I was for years, fasting and praying that God would give me something from someone who was doing everything within his power to hinder me.
Life.
Tobias broke the silence

“Adeola, let me explain”

I didn’t turn around yet.
He continued

“There is just a lot that I should have told you sooner and I am deeply sorry”

I swallowed hard.
My saliva was thick and I could feel a slight headache coming on, still looking outside the window and without turning, I said

“Were you ever going to tell me?”

He paused and then began to say

“You will never know the amount of guilt and sadness that I have held over the years. I have always wanted to tell….”

I turned and yelled

“Are you kidding me?
9 years Toby! (I called him Toby)
Nine years, I slaved, prayed and bled to give you a child and you couldn’t bring yourself to tell me?!
Are you fucking serious?”

I was barely able to get the words out as I was losing my voice

“Adeola, I promise I never planned to hurt you.
Do you know how it feels to live in a prison of life?
Pretending to be somebody else and trying to convince yourself that you are not who you think you are.
Marrying you was a mistake because I should have known who I was.. Falling in love with you was not one.
You have to believe that I wished I could tell you but I was a coward.
Afraid of what coming out to you would mean. The woman I shared sacred vows with….”

I couldn’t contain my tears but I let his words sit for a few seconds and then I said

“Those vows mean nothing because they were based on a lie.
A vey important lie.
did you always know before we got married that you were not attracted to women?”

 

His face seemed to drop.
He took a deep breath and said

“I had an idea but I was never really sure.
Some people thought it was a phase and that I would grow past it once I got married.
It subsided for a while but ultimately I wasn’t happy.
Not by any fault of ours but because I needed a different kind of love.
I should have told you and the fact that I couldn’t is all on me. Not you”

Honestly I wanted to say more but I was so broken.
This was a rollercoaster ride that I wanted to stop but I couldn’t.
But I had to know

“How long were you with him? And why did you get a vasectomy? We could have still had a child.”

 

He shook his head and said

“No we couldn’t. My count was low.
I had checked a year into our marriage. I also did not want to bring a child into this world to a life of lies and only to be confused.
That would be selfish on another level… As for the partners, I have only had two.
I was with one for about 2years until Abike threatened to expose me to you, if I didn’t stop… and then I started back up about year ago with the boy that works with you.”

I turned sharply towards Abike and screamed

“What?!… You knew he was cheating?! And you didn’t tell me?!”

She looked shell shocked.
Eyes big and wide, she froze.

…..

“Abike! Abike!”

She snapped out of her trance and muffled

“Hmmm”

“What is he saying?!!!”

I snarled back at her.
She was still frozen like a deer in headlights.

“Abike, I swear to God, if you don’t open your mouth….I will slap the shit out of you!”

I yelled at her.
Then she spoke.

“Yes!
I knew. I fucking knew and everyone knew.
We just wondered how you never knew…
….there was one evening when I came to drop something off for you. You had given me the keys because both of you were supposed to be out of town.
I walked in on your husband giving a man a blowjob. I was furious.
I wanted to tell you but you were so happy…so in love…I wasn’t going to be the one to take that away from you.
….And like he said, he apologized and promised he wasn’t going to do it again. I figured we would all move past it and it was a mistake”

 

Now I was angry!

“A mistake? A fucking mistake?
Do you think I would call it a fucking mistake if I walked in on your husband blowing another man?!
A mistake?! Wow… I have never heard anything more stupid in my life!”

She raised her hands in a pacifying motion and said

“Adeola, I said this already.
Nobody wants to be a home wrecker. I didn’t know how to say anything.”

“You are my sister! my fucking sister, Abike!
I don’t care about a stupid home if my own sister cannot tell me when the walls are crashing down.
You betrayed my trust…. I can’t even believe all of this. I just can’t.
This is too much”

I started to move towards the door when Abike said

“Sis Adeola, I am really sorry. Please believe that I am and I Want to to do everything within my power to make this better. If you will just allow me to try.”

I turned around as I grabbed my purse and I said

“You see that is your problem. You all continue to take and give nothing.
I have been there for you in countless ways, I love your children like they are my own.
Yet you have taken all of my happiness from me.
I am at a junction in my life….*tears*…. where I should be leaning on you the most and here I am finding the most heart wrenching things about my life through the lenses of other people.
You are my sister for crying out loud.
….. I am pregnant with a child that I know nothing of his father. For all I know, it could be this one or the Lord visited me in the middle of the night because I know I haven’t been with anyone else.
And I have cancer Abike!
Cancer that I only just found the strength to fight. So no, I will not be giving you any chances to do anything here.”

 

As I tried to leave, Lizzy, who had been standing in the corner started to move towards the door with me.
Tobias reached and tried to hold me.

“Don’t touch me.”

I tearfully said and then I heard Abike’s voice

“Wait!”

I stopped in my tracks.
She continued and said

“Since you are going to be leaving, there is something you should know now.”

Her husband Kunle looked at her very surprised and said

“Really, you want to tell her now?”

She bowed her head and said

“I have to.”

I was intrigued.
I shut the door and turned, holding my purse in front of me with both hands.

“What is it?”

I asked
She was already crying heavily which always broke my heart. She sniffled a few times and then she said

“I know the father of your child”

……

Pause for a second.
Have you ever been in the middle of a bad dream, and something bad was about to happen but you let it play its course, because you knew it was a bad dream?
Okay.
Now, have you ever been wide awake and watching life move right in front of you, like a bad dream?
Like everything that is happening is mortifying and you cannot stop it?

“Who?”

I finally asked
She looked over to her husband and he dropped his head.

“Abike, who?!”

She dropped her head and said

“Kunle”

Tobias charged at him and almost got physical with him.
Abike jumped in between them.
I had to sit down and then she said

“Please don’t hate me.
But Kunle is the father”

I was stunned but confused

“Abike, what are you saying?”

She started to explain

“I have seen first hand your struggle to have a baby.
After I caught Tobias with the man, I confronted him and in there, he told me that he most likely would not be able to have children because his count was low.
I watched you cry and beg God for a child and I know how much you wanted one….

….So I asked Kunle. He was initially against it and he even got angry with me for suggesting it.
But I was able to convince him.
I knew you would never step out of your marriage and I figured Tobias was the problem. So Kunle eventually did it.”

I stood up and I was the one who charged at her.
Tobias and Lizzy grabbed me as I screamed

“What?!
You had your husband rape me?!”

“Noo… nooo…. I just thought that it would be better.
To keep it in the family. I was never going to say anything.
I just wanted you to be happy. I swear that I was never looking to hurt you. I thought I was helping.”

I looked over to Kunle and I asked

“Is this true?”

He nodded.
I really felt violated. Like someone tore open my insides and had it on display for the whole world to see.
Even though it was months later, I still felt like I had been robbed of a certain innocence.
Why?
Why was this happening to me?

What did I ever do to have my life so difficult?
I believe in God and I truly felt like I was doing the right things in life.
This was too much.
I spent my life helping people put their marriages together and here I was losing everything that I built.

I didn’t even know what to say anymore.
I stood up and walked out of the room. Lizzy followed closely.
As we entered the hallway, Abike, Tobias and Kunle followed me. I heard Abike say wait but I kept walking.
She said it again.

I stopped, and tearful I asked

“How?”

She didn’t answer. The hallway had nurses and people that had been listening to all that happened in the room.
I asked her again

“How?!”

She said

“A few times when you came over, I spiked your drink and you were out cold.
I promise, I wasn’t trying to hurt you!”

With heavy tears pouring out of my eyes, I said

“I pray you all rot in hell.”

…….

That afternoon was the last I saw of those three.
Lizzy and I soon came to Atlanta together as I continued treatment.

I remember on our flight from Lagos, I kept thinking of all the signs I missed again.
The waking up sore at Abike’s house or being told not to marry him but ignoring all warnings. I blamed myself.

I went against every counsel as a young woman because I thought I was in love.
Now I am not encouraging anyone to simply accept the advice of anyone that has something to say about your romantic life but certainly evaluate everything.

I felt a certain peace in my heart that Toby was now happy with whoever he wanted to be with and he didn’t have to continue looking over his shoulder.
Love should never feel like a prison.
I felt a new dawn coming for me.
I was very uncertain about how it would all play out but I knew that this time around, I would be directing my own movie- how I wanted to.

…

“Are you ready?”

Lizzy asked, I nodded and smiled yes.

They wheeled me into the OR shortly after.
The doctor looked at me and said

“Are you sure you want to go through with this?
With your situation, you may never be able to have children of your own”

I nodded and said

“I’m sure”

On July, 21st 2017, I aborted the 4 month pregnancy.

For about an hour that night, I sat down in the shower and I just cried.
I cried so hard.
My hair was falling out from all the chemotherapy and I was feeling weak.
No guilt from the decision I made because I felt it was the right one.
I was never going to bring a child into this world under those circumstances.
The last few months had been nothing short of a rollercoaster ride.

I stood up and dried myself off.
Walking into the living room, Lizzy was walking out of her room as well.
In her hand, she was holding a pregnancy test stick. She had pushed back her wedding after everything that happened to come to Atlanta with me.
She looked at me, I looked at the stick, we looked at each out and my heart warmed.
I walked over to her and hugged her tight.
I couldn’t sobbing as she did the same in my arms.
If this was full circle, I’m glad.
For as long as I lived, I would love that baby like it was mine.
To love, to cherish, to counsel, to adore; against every obstacle and every odd.

The End.

Pleaseeeeeeee leave me a comment and let me know how you felt about this part and the entire series. It means a lot!

Thank you for reading the Against Counsel series with me! I throughly enjoyed writing it for you all and I hope you enjoyed the ride with me. If you hate me for how the ending panned out, I AM HERE FOR IT~ 😊

Another series by The Wordsmith is already cooking! @adewus4real

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