Part I
The year is December 2019. I was still living with my mum at that time, we had just moved to the neighborhood three months prior. A two bedroomed apartment, with a very busy road downstairs with shops lined up across the gate.
I dread that year for many reasons, but especially for meeting this man who showed me the world for what it really is. This guy, I will call him Mark. Tattoos across his arms, bad boy vibe .. talk about bad news. Not cute I must say, but there was something about him that pulled my guard down and I was drawn.
I didn´t have a job back then, pulling through grief, healing and trying to find my footing. Mark wasn´t exactly the gentleman kind of guy. He didn´t even know what that meant lol! Some days he´d be totally drunk by noon, other days he´d whine on how unfair life was. His friends, the type of crowd your mum warned you about. Constantly drunk, untidy, problematic. All the red flags glared at me straight in the eye and I ignored them. Every single time I convinced myself that he was different, he just had the wrong friends.
We talked for a while, a few weeks I think, and he asked me to be his girlfriend via text. I accepted. Like a little girl with a new pink cinderella dress, I was exuberant. It got to a point I would sneak out of the house at night with excuses of going to the shop just to go get a goodnight kiss. I thought it was fun at that time, looking back now “What was I even thinking?!”
To show you how naive I was back then, he invited me to a house party he was attending one Saturday night. This time, I didn´t make up some story when leaving the house that night. I told mum the truth, about Mark and the party. To my surprise, all she said was be careful. I was expecting some sort of lecture. My relationship with mum grew deeper from that point .. story for another day.
At the party, I was surrounded by strangers. In my blue jeans, pink cheater print sweat-shirt, socks and sneakers .. I looked like a baby in that room. I said hi as we walked in .. damn this guy didn´t even introduce me! These were his friends, and I was a stranger. Then the host, a lady, commented out loudly, ‘You brought us another one’, and they all stared at me.
I joined the other ladies in the kitchen preparing dinner .. ended up cooking and serving everyone. Music was playing in the living room, folks sited by the wall round the room leaving a small dance floor area in the middle. I could hear them cheering Mark on as he danced with some young lady busy grinding on him that he got a hardon. I was passing out plates when I saw this, it pained me. I felt as though I had been cheated on while I was in the adjust room. Slowly walking back to the kitchen, all I could think about was cleaning up the kitchen. I couldn´t eat .. didn´t want to see him.
Sad part was I couldn´t go home, thinking how rude it would be to the host yet I barely knew her or the husband. So I stayed and got myself drunk. I didn´t sleep that night. I waited till they were too wasted and passed out .. then I slowly grabbed my jacket and walked home. I didn´t confront him after that incident, with all the red flags I saw at that party, I brushed them off and we continued seeing each other like nothing ever happened.
