The one and only thing you could have predicted about my meeting the woman who was sleeping with my husband was that I would break her head into pieces, or that I tore her clothes, pulled her hair and yelled “leave my husband Lolita!”

But that is not what happened.

At the time I met Lolita Ann-Marie Udechukwu, I was dumbfounded; not literally, I mean physically.

She used to be Henry’s girlfriend back in the university of Uyo. At that time, Henry and I had not met yet. They were both in the department of petroleum engineering.

He was in love with her, deeply in love. But she wasn’t. She loved the fact that Henry was a brilliant student who wrote her term papers, assignments, tests, and even examinations when necessary. There was a time he was almost caught, but he paid his way out of being disgraced in the midst of exams malpractice. He did more for Lolita.

Henry had told me of how Lolita cheated on him with lecturers, politicians and wealthy men from outside campus. But despite all of these, he kept on forgiving and taking her back, whether she asked for it or not.

After their final year exams, Henry decided to propose to her.

He wanted to settle down and start up life with the love of his life. His father advised him to marry when he has nothing, so that he will marry well to a woman who loved him for real, and not for the reasons that he has money.

But Lolita didn’t want such a man. She wanted a man who was already made; rich.

That afternoon, he held the engagement ring in his hands, waiting anxiously for her at the main entrance of the girl’s hostel. When she finally arrived, he knelt right before her, in the midst of excited students.

Her face was expressionless. She stared at the ring like she knew he was going to propose on that day, and then turned her back against him.

“Please marry me Lolita…”

He said in a trembling voice, staring at her searchingly.

“I didn’t plan on marrying someone who isn’t working or doing anything for a living. I can’t live in that one room of yours Henry. I can’t marry someone who is in the same level with me please.”

Her capacity to irritate him was boundless.

“We are no more students. I will find a good job, we will be happy.” He said in broken whispers.

“How can we be happy in a one room apartment? No car, no washing machine, not even hope for a good paying job. How will you take care of me?”

It took a moment for her words to register. Then she said incredulously, “You came all the way from main campus to give me a cheap steel ring, not even platinum steel, not diamond. I would have managed gold. This is not the life I want Henry.” She said meanly, not looking at his face.

He didn’t want to go into a long explanation that afternoon, it was drizzling, and students had started walking away to their hostels, murmuring and giving loud sighs at the scene.

It was becoming cold, and he was tired of kneeling down in that freezing cold. So, he asked simply, “So you won’t marry me?”

“Don’t be ridiculous Henry! Of course, I won’t marry you!”

After a few minutes of listening to Lolita’s ramblings, Henry suddenly got up and walked away. He threw the ring into the gutter. He didn’t look back, all he thought of was the wasted moments he had spent on Lolita, and all the little pennies he'd spent on her too.


Months after Henry broke up with Lolita, we met.

It was his first time in my church, pastor Cordelier called out for people who wanted to give their lives to Christ. I was an usher in church. I stood at the podium, waiting to direct them orderly. I suddenly changed my mind and decided to join them. I gave my life to Christ for the second time. And just after we said the last lines of “…I accept Jesus Christ as my lord and saviour.” He clasps his hands loosely in mine in the midst of the congregation.

When I lifted my eyes to see who it was, my heart melted at his sight. He was weeping uncontrollably.

He tightened his hands in mine, becoming safe in the warmness of my palms. Heat flared and raced between us in burning waves. Our eyes held, and just at that moment, pastor Cordelier laid hands on his forehead. He didn’t fall under anointing, I did.

Link: https://africanfictions.com/christian-fiction/letters-to-yahweh-chapter-2/