Finding Love In A Hopeless Place And Leaving Without The Love Of My Life
By Emily Smith
Have you ever loved someone so much that when it ended your heartbreak gave you physical pain in your heart? Well that’s how I’m feeling right now. Like shit. Pure shit.
Cue the old school KC & Jojo, Brandy & Monica and new school Adele and Taylor swift, grab a box of kleenex and just spend every night loathing your life choices. That was my life just a few months ago.
I went to Morocco almost purely for Vincent*, that and some visas that I needed but more than anything I wanted to see him. He’d been begging me to come see him since I left and it was never a concern- I was going. I was going to celebrate his birthday.
Before he left me in the Nigeria I tried my best to avoid him.
I knew I didn’t want to invest my time in anything that didn’t have a future or get hurt for short term lust. But I couldn’t.
Everyday we’d have our coffee and toast together and he would tell me how much he loved me and how beautiful I was. On the last night before he left to go back to Morocco, he took me out on the perfect date of dinner, sheesha, drinks and dancing, and then we stayed up the whole night together. He never expected anything of me. We were just together.
Unlike all the other fools in this country or the other students that were part of his internship programme who treated me like a piece of meat, who’s only concern was for me to come to their room to “do the sex” with them, who would propose upon 5 minutes of meeting, it was never like that. It was never V.I.S.A with him, it was L.O.V.E. Vincent comes from a great family, he’s grown up around the world. His parents work for the UN. He’s cultured and he treated me with respect.
I don’t know if you’ve seen 500 Days of Summer, but there’s a split screen montage at the end of what JGL expected and what was actual reality. I was living that montage. After this man begged me to come see him in Morocco, I figured when I did I would be with him all day, every day.
I got there late on a Thursday night after a crazy journey in cabs, vans, boats and even a donkey cart. I was tired but wanted nothing more than to take him out for his birthday dinner. I had a hard time reaching him prior to going and reached conclusions he was a jackass but was going to give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, this is Africa where the power can go out for 8 days straight. Peoples internet access is fairly limited. I’ve been through it too. Getting in touch with people isn’t always the easiest. So when I arrived and called him he told me how happy he was I’d made it to Casablanca, how much he missed me and how excited he was to see me, but tonight, his birthday, he was with his father who’d come in from Guinea to see him – NBD.
Friday came and I spent the day out while he was at school but by night he came over and everything was just right. When he told me he loved me, I couldn’t help but say it back to him. A word so foreign to me in my past was now so easy to leave my lips while living abroad.
I was with one of my exes (on and off) for 4 years and could never love him the way he loved me. Another one and I cheated on each other all the time. Jonas* could never give me everything I wanted from him and my last, most recent serious relationship with Zion* made my skin cringe when I knew he was even thinking about how much he loved me. But this time, it was me recognizing us both as equals and him being everything I wanted. It was genuine.
So we kissed out on the balcony. We kissed until my lips were as black as his skin and then I took him to my bedroom and gave him my body, mind and soul. We had sex, we made love and then we took some MDMA and fucked. I had bruises all over my body and I don’t regret any of it. He stayed with me all night and had to leave to do some things during the day as I went out and explored. I thought he’d be exploring with me, showing me around- still ok.
We talked the next morning about how silly we were to continue with this charade. How could anything come from this? Would I even ever see him again? He said he would come to Ghana this summer to visit me, but after that who knows. I need to physically be with the person I’m involved with. Long distance isn’t worth it to me, especially after such a short period of time. It was only a month of physical space I knew Vincent. Love makes you do crazy shit though.
And then this is where shit went downhill.
I thought I would see him later on Saturday night. I had no phone or no internet there. My friend I traveled with was going to a concert and leaving me in the apartment alone, or with Vincent I thought.
At 8 I talked to him and he said he’d be an hour or so before he got there.
When 9:30 came around I didn’t want to be that crazy and possessive girl but I was alone and bored so I left my apartment and found a random stranger on the street to borrow their phone and call him. All of a sudden he became unavailable and said he tried to call me to tell me he couldn’t come but obviously I didn’t have a phone (legit).
I was so sad. I told him that if when we were in the same city as each other and he couldn’t make a better effort to see me, how could we go on with this outside those parameters. If he really cared about me he would drop whatever it was he was doing and come to me. If for nothing else than sex than whatever, but he didn’t come.
I spent Saturday night alone and crying myself to sleep. My heart felt like 1000 horses had trampled over it. I heard from him again though and stupidly because all I wanted was to just see him, just be with him agreed to meet him the next afternoon. I wasn’t supposed to leave until midnight so I could at least get in a couple more hours with him if he was willing to make the effort.
When I woke up on Sunday my friend told me instead we had to leave by 1pm otherwise it wouldn’t be safe for me to travel in the rural villages late at night. I would 100% get malaria. So I couldn’t fight, he was ready to leave at 1 and I couldn’t stay by myself. I didn’t get to see Vincent and this time it was my fault.
I haven’t attempted to contact him since I’ve been back. The only way I could would be online since my phone was stolen. I know that if I try to communicate with him via an email I’ll get angry and upset and there’ll be miscommunication. I don’t want that. I don’t know what I want at all.
I want this pain in my heart to go away. I want to forget I ever met him.
End of the story, I left Casablanca without my visas for Ghana and Kenya and without the love of my life.