BN Prose: Quagmire by Laura Nnamdi

“I hated marriage, relationships and love. I knew I didn’t want to go long term with anyone and subject him to my crazy tumultuous emotions. Whenever I came across a cute love story or a happy romantic couple, I told myself over and over again that such a life wasn’t for me. Until I believed it and started living it. Love would only add to my depression. I would never be happy.

My friends would ask me, What about the desire for company? What about the lonely nights I’d experience and the sexual urges that would ravage me on cold nights? I’d tell them I’d survive, just as I had been surviving without a man, without a relationship, without love.

I loved watching mushy rom-coms because they reminded me of what I would never have. Twisted? Yes, I know. How could I hate something and all it represented, and still punish myself with it? I was called a lot of things, crazy one of them, and I totally agreed. I bottled up the plethora of emotions that wished to overwhelm me whenever I read romantic stories and their happy endings; maybe mine would be one of them. No! I would quickly bury the idea before it latched onto my mind with the tenacious grip akin to such thoughts.

At 30, my mother called me mad; she thought my decision was due to some rocky breakup in my younger days. I stood my ground. I was told I needed deliverance and a spirit husband was influencing my decisions. I still wouldn’t give in.

I am 35 today and still can’t believe you are real. Just a look at you that evening and I knew I was undone. Truly, I hadn’t found that one who would make me call my decision crazy until I met you. I went home and prayed for the first time in a long while for God to cause you to look my way. At first I attributed it to years of loneliness, but after the smile you sent my way, I knew this had everything to do with stomach butterflies and even more.

I am still a mess. Still scared. You’re too perfect to be real. I feel like I am drowning in a quagmire of the very emotions I locked away years ago. I am giving you a chance to leave, to never look my way, to save me the heartache, to help me stay sane.” Kim was tearing now as she spoke to James, trying to relay the tempest going on in her heart in the simplest words.

“Stay sane, with me in your life. Allow me love you at your best and your worst, and at your craziest. Let me show you what it means to love again. Allow me give us the perfect love story, better than the movies. Allow me show you how much I love you.” And he sealed it with the perfect love story kiss.