He called today.
My psychopath ex-boyfriend called me today for the umpteenth time, demanding my immediate return back to his life.
I didn’t know whether to go back to the Police to see how far they’d gone with that restraining order they said they would help me with or stay put in my house.
It’s been two weeks now and all I get every time I go there are promises. Promises and continuous demand for ‘small thing’. I was getting really frustrated, but they were all I could rely on at this point.
I waited as usual for the phone to stop ringing before I hurriedly opened my Twitter app to see if I’d gotten any positive response to my desperate plea for help.
I was shocked to see how many notifications I had, surprisingly most of the people offering help were men. I followed my instinct and chose to reach out to the female lawyer who’d reached out instead. Putting my trust in another man? That’s something I wasn’t so sure I could do at this point.
After exchanging a few messages, Folake, the soft-spoken attorney gave me a number to call and a place to meet up with her in another hour.
I was both relieved and scared at the same time. Relieved that I finally had somebody who seemed to know exactly what she was doing on my side, and scared shitless because I wasn’t looking forward to leaving the house.
What if Muhammed was waiting for me outside? This wouldn’t be the first time. The last time, he’d threatened me in broad daylight, and had only been stopped by the arrival of my nosey neighbour.
For once I was thankful for her. I’d quickly run off and headed straight to the Police station.
These days, all he did was call me to warn me about the consequences of trying to be with another man. I was his and his alone, he threatened. Luckily or unluckily, the last thing I had in kind was getting together with another guy.
Funny how I’d found his possessiveness kinda cute in the beginning. Not until he started hitting me. And I’d stayed with him for so long, enduring his perverted abuse.
I got used to his abnormal love. He’d hit me till I was at the point of passing out, then go get the first aid kit I had bought to treat my wounds, ever-so-sweetly he would nurse me, tears streaming down his face. He would blame me for being too pretty and letting other men stare at me, telling me I was all he had.
Stupidly, I would hug him and tell him I loved him and would never abandon him, and gently hold him as he wept like a baby.
I always had an excuse for my scars and my friends who had witnessed some of his outbursts warned me over and over again to leave him.
They’d gotten so used to me going back to him that no one took me seriously this time, as expected. But I’d really made up my mind to leave him. I was determined to survive.
I quickly picked up my phone and dialed Folake, pleading with her to come to mine instead as I was too afraid to go out. She understood and said she’d be arriving in less than an hour.
30 minutes later the doorbell rang. I looked through the peephole and saw Muhammed. Intense fear gripped me. What do I do?
He banged and banged continuously, and threatened to tear down the door. I knew that would make him angrier and more likely to go over the edge with the beating I was bound to get, so I opened the door for him to come in.
The first thing he did was throw a punch in my still sore face. I cried and fell over. He pounced on me and dealt several more blows to my face, my belly, my legs, everywhere he could reach. ‘You’re never going to leave me,’ he kept shouting with each blow.
I eventually blacked out and woke up in the hospital.
‘I can’t feel my face,’ was the first thing I whispered.