PS: HE LOVES ME

It was a boring evening sometime in August 2014. I was waiting for admission then. So, I was going through 2go, and in one of the rooms on the app, I added this guy. We started chatting and he was so friendly. I am an Igbo guy living in the East and he is Yoruba, staying in Ibadan. I told him I was gay and was interested in getting to know him. He laughed at that and asked for my contact. His name is Ayo. He called me the next day and said he’s not gay, but that that shouldn’t affect our friendship. I felt cold at this, but accepted things the way they were.

We started getting acquainted, with him adding me up on social networks like Instagram, BBM and Facebook. No day passed without the two of us talking on phone. He would ask me if I’d gotten a boyfriend and I’d ask him about his girlfriend. He told me he was a virgin and intended to stay chaste till his wedding night. We talked about a lot of things and our friendship bloomed.

It turned out that we were both waiting to get admitted into the university. I didn’t get admission that year and neither did he. We agreed to apply for admission in the same school in the coming year so we could be closer to each other. His parents wouldn’t let him apply to any university in the East, so I applied for the University of Ibadan. By this time, we’d gotten so close that we talked about everything regarding our lives and families to each other. As far as I knew, he was the only straight friend I had who knew about my sexuality. He was caring and sensitive, and could tell when I wasn’t okay by the tone of my voice whenever we talked on the phone. He was a poet and often wrote me poems, even though they weren’t love poems, just basically poems about making it through the drudgery of everyday living.

And I couldn’t help falling in love with him.

My father later objected to my option of University of Ibadan after I scored 245 in JAMB. He said I would have a very narrow chance of getting the course I wanted in the university, so I changed to UNN. It took a lot of courage for me to break the news to Ayo, and the disappointment was very apparent in his voice. This wasn’t our plan. Attending UNN would keep us further apart and delay indefinitely any chance we’d have of ever meeting. I promised him that I would definitely visit him when I could, and he made the same promise to me.

However, I was unfortunately not admitted into UNN. He too didn’t get admission to Ibadan because he didn’t meet the cutoff required to study Law.

My delayed admission was starting to get to me. I was getting frustrated and losing interest in a lot of things, and my mom suggested I change environment. So, I moved to Lagos to stay with my uncle and write my next JAMB there. Because of my depression, my communications with Ayo had dwindled overtime, and I was feeling too down to bother. I just wanted to fix my life.

One day though, I logged into Messenger and saw a message from Ayo, asking if we were quarreling. That I should tell him if he’d offended me so he could make up for it. I replied that nothing was wrong, that I was just going through some things. He was online and swiftly responded, asking if it was because of my admission. I said yes.

“But we are in this mess together,” he typed back.

I felt bad about that and apologized, promising to surprise him.

After some weeks, I called him to let him know that I intended to come see him in Ibadan the following day, that he should send me directions. He thought I was joking but I assured him that I was serious. I hadn’t told him that I’d been in Lagos all this while. He was ecstatic, and his excitement was infectious, as I began to feel intense pleasure over the fact that I was finally going to meet Ayo.

I told my uncle I wanted to visit a classmate in Ibadan. He initially objected, saying I’d never been to Ibadan before and he couldn’t risk exposing me to any danger. I begged him, lying that the reason I wanted to go had to do with my school stuff. He later agreed and warned me not to come back to Lagos late and that if the need arises, I should stay the night in Ibadan and come back the next day. Of course, I had no intention of coming back to Lagos that day. The need would for sure arise. I headed to Oshodi the next morning, and soon got on a bus heading to Ibadan. I spoke to Ayo and he wished me a safe trip.

The road to Ibadan from Lagos was messed up and the traffic a mess, and as such, the journey wasn’t an easy one to endure. I kept reminding the driver of my bus stop. Eventually, after a tedious two-hour-or-so trip, I was dropped at my stop. I called Ayo and he wasn’t picking. I texted him and got no reply. I tried not to panic. It wasn’t like I was stranded. I found a place to wait, and kept on calling as I waited. After about thirty minutes, I decided to head back to Lagos.

I’d boarded a bus and was waiting for other passengers to fill it up when my phone rang. It was Ayo. I answered and just drove straight into ripping him a new one. He apologised profusely, saying his battery had been down and his phone had been charging somewhere. I told him I was already on my way back to Lagos and he pleaded with me to stop and get down from the bus. I was really furious, but I also wanted to see him. I got down from the bus and returned to the stop where he’d told me to wait for him.

This time, he was waiting for me. He looked every bit as gorgeous as he was in his pictures. My heart tightened with so much emotion as he hugged him before gushing about how he’d “finally gotten to meet Owen!” This was a meet that was three years in the making.

We took a taxi to his house, and along the way, we excitedly chatted with each other as though this was the first time we were getting acquainted. There was no awkwardness, just a lot of love. When we got to his house, it was to meet it filled with lots of people. I couldn’t comprehend how this many people could be living under the one roof. Ayo said his father was around and took me to greet him. We got to the man’s room, and Ayo knocked before opening the door. Then he prostrated on the floor in greeting, saying, “Baba, this is that my friend I told you about.”

The elderly man said, looking at me, “Omo Igbo, abi?”

I said yes.

He told me I was welcome and that I should feel free in his house. I had a feeling he said that to a lot of people. Ayo took me to the kitchen where I helped him prepare noodles and eggs. He dished it out on the one plate, which we shared when we went to the parlor to watch TV. Soon, two of his siblings joined us in the parlor. They asked how we knew each other and Ayo told them it was on 2go. They brought up a conversation in football, and when I told them I wasn’t a fan of football, they laughed at me while saying something in Yoruba. After some time, they left the sitting room.

I had something I’d always wanted to talk to Ayo about, especially now that I’d met him in person. I said I couldn’t have been the only gay guy who’d interacted with him from 2go. He said yes, I wasn’t, but that I was the only one he’d stayed friends with. I asked him why. He looked me in the eye as he said it was because I was different. I felt that familiar tightening of my chest, a flooding of those emotions I had not been able to extinguish in all the three years I’d known him.

I told him that I was in love with him, and that I hadn’t been able to get over my feelings despite him being straight. He said it was a natural thing, that we can’t help who we fall in love with.

We stopped talking as the traffic of people moving in and out of the living room increased. I told him his house was really filled up and that the lack of privacy was making me feel self-conscious. I had a plan – a plan to try and get intimate with him at night. But that plan was looking like it wouldn’t happen because I was sure, with all this people in his house, we wouldn’t have a room to sleep in all to ourselves. Whether he knew what I had in mind or not wasn’t something I was sure of, but he suggested calling a friend of his to know if he was around so we could go to his house, seeing as he lived alone with his mother. At this point, I had to clarify him on my intent. I told him that because of my attraction to him, I would be tempted to touch him if we slept together on the same bed. Upon hearing this, he smiled and said he’ll trust me to control myself. This was a disappointing answer; I’d hoped for some encouragement from him. Suddenly, I was no longer feeling this trip. I just wanted to get back to Lagos. I told him not to bother calling his friend as I didn’t want to spend the night in Ibadan anymore. He looked startled and asked what was wrong. I said nothing. He asked if I was sure I wanted to leave. I said yes. The day was fading fast, and he said I should at least inform his father that I would be leaving soon. His father tried to persuade me to stay the night, that it was not a good idea for me to go back to Lagos by that time, but I told him my parents were expecting me back home. He said OK.

Ayo escorted me to the park. He hugged me and said in my ear, “I love you, Owen.”

I found myself fighting tears as I thought: Just not the way I want to be loved by you, Ayo.

He slid a piece of paper into my pocket and said I shouldn’t open it till I get back home. I got into Lagos by almost 11 PM. I was so exhausted by the trip that I slept off the moment I hit my bed. It was the next morning that I remembered Ayo’s note and took it out of my pocket to read.

It was a love poem. Totally different from all the poems he had written to me before. As I read his words to me about feelings and emotions and the heart, I found myself wondering if there was any real possibility that a straight boy such as Ayo could ever love me the way I loved him.

Written by Owen