It's 2020. 

In the late hours of a Wednesday night, Zara, your doctor who is also your friend, walks into your just-completed bungalow with a bottle of red wine in hand. You're sitting on the balcony reading a book when you hear her squeal from the gate. It's about to be a long night, you think to yourself. 

But on long nights like these, you are grateful it is not silent. You are grateful for friends, however few. Most especially, you are grateful for friends who come with wine bottles to celebrate your wins despite their ridiculous schedules.

She pulls you up and wasps you in her arms. You breathe in her scent - not knowing which to settle for, you let the fragrance in all its complexities remind you of all the things you are trying to forget. 

Lavender, for Jude. The softness with which the name rolled off his tongue. How he loved to see you in purples and how, when he called you lavender, you felt like nothing could ever sound as sweet until you heard him call another woman, Rita, his piece. Then, you were angry. Now, you wonder how many names he has saved up for all the women he will offer his body to.

Rose, for Ucheka. The first man to buy you flowers. A bouquet of roses and a box that read 27 things I like about you. It was your 27th birthday and as you take in the rose from Zara's perfume, you remember how you felt with Uche. This is it, you said to yourself. Until you could no longer tell what it was or what was it. 

Vanilla, for Dare. The man whose tongue brought magic to your body in ways that still have you begging God for forgiveness. Vanilla, because that's what he made you feel like. A refilling scoop to satiate his wants but even you know that human wants are insatiable and vanilla will never be enough for a man like Dare who likes to have a scoop of each ice cream flavour. You didn't understand it then when you both would go out and he'd order a scoop of every flavour available. You understand it now. He would never be satisfied. 

Zara's arms tighten around you as if sensing your need for the hug and you take in her last scent. Coconut oil. Kunle. Reflexively, you strengthen your hold on her as if holding her tight will bring Kunle back. Jokes on you. 

You have not met anyone since Kunle. You did not think you'd need to meet anyone else. It was Kunle, your husband, as everyone called him, you had hoped to spend the rest of your days with, and so you folded, and tailored yourself to his recipe even though he didn't know how to cook. Even though he couldn't moderate the heat. Sometimes you got burnt, other times, you were left raw. Uncooked. Not worth serving. Hence, not worth eating. 

But you loved him, so you stayed. Besides he was almost everything else but a good cook. You wondered why he called himself a chef when he couldn't whip up a decent meal. He reminded you of those critics who picked on your story the same way your grandmother picked beans; those critics who struggled to string words together to form a thought, but somehow could spot everything wrong with someone else’s piece. That was Kunle but you forgave him. 

For all he lacked, he made up for with his sufficiencies, so you stayed. He would get better as would you. “I am just as flawed”, you said to yourself every night before going to bed as though your doctor prescribed you a nightly dose of affirmation (or whatever that was)

Until that Sunday after church. 

Kunle left. No words, no reason, just upped and left. You called after him but he did not look back. In that moment you felt as though you were Sodom and Gomorrah and Kunle, the lot trying to escape becoming a pillar of salt.

That was the last you saw of Kunle. 

The next you heard of him, three months later, he was engaged. That night, you sat on the land you inherited from your father, legs crumbling as you begged the earth to swallow you. She didn't. Death does not come like a thief in the night, she walks in through the front door and takes. Takes until she is tired of taking. And no, she did not want to take you so you slept and woke up. 

***

At the veranda, after praying over the new house, Zara asks about the Professor from your PhD program. You smile and say he is doing well. You talk about how he makes you laugh and how you enjoy talking to him. You talk about the last time you both took a walk through the park, how he made scary faces at kids, and how they laughed because his scary face could never pass for a scare. He was cute like that. You liked cute. He was your first cute. Everyone else was something grand, something elegant, not him. He was very simple. The first man you called cute and you liked it. You liked him. 

“What if you guys don't get married?”

You could tell Zara was worried and why wouldn't she be? Who else but her was there to pick the pieces of you scattered all over the place after Kunle? 

So yes, you understood her concern, but you didn't have an answer. 

“I don't know Zara. I don't know. But I assure you, you will not have to piece back the broken pieces of me if anything happens...” and as she stands up to go get another bottle of wine from the cellar, you add, albeit in a whisper, “…because I'd have been long gone. You would not have to piece me together because you would not be able to find me. At least, not alive.”