Losing Everything to Gain You

by Vina Fenty

  After the third guy tried to pick me up and Tejiri getting tired of random guys smiling at her and coming to ask for her number, we finally found Joey and bid him farewell. He appreciated us as he gave Tejiri a final warm hug. I saw the sadness in his eyes and the resignation that showed that no matter what, he would always care about her. I appreciated his maturity, and I wished that Sam could have at least tried to be as reasonable as Joey. It would seem like I had a knack for attracting damaged men, and it irked me.

  Tejiri got us ice cream cones from a joint off the block, and we ate them happily, and as usual, Tejiri ate hers like a child, I had to lick off ice cream from her face. I was starting to think that she did that on purpose. Maybe she enjoyed having my tongue dart over her nose and forehead. How did someone even get ice cream on their foreheads in the first place?

  At home, I made a light dinner, we ate quietly, and Tejiri cleaned up after. In our huge bed, Tejiri is curled around me like a fern while I strain to get a little work done on my laptop. Only the noise of the TV talking in the background was to be heard, but I could feel my lover's heartbeat, and it was the best conversation I ever had. I was bliss, and my little negative subconscious mind whispered to me that this was the calm before the storm. Nothing could feel this good without something terrible lurking behind the shadow. I shook the thoughts off my head as I watched Tejiri, my perfect angel in human form. There was no dragon I wouldn't slay to keep things the way they were.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I texted Sam some days later, telling him I was coming to the house to get the rest of my things. I knew that he would do anything to be around so he could give me hell, but little did he know that I was coming prepared.

  I punched in my name to the bedside safe and pulled out Tejiri's revolver, wondering why she was so predictable. The combination to the safe had simply been the numbers representing my name.

  I remembered the first time I had seen her with the gun. I had been scared senseless as I imagined why she would ever have a gun.

  "I know I am healed, and I have moved on from the past, but the idea that I am not safe is strong. I also want to always protect you if need be, so I have this registered gun, and I've always had one since I could afford it," she said simply, and it had made sense.

  I hadn't given the gun much thought since then, until now.

  I grabbed a duct tape and some ropes while I left for the place I used to call home.

  I didn't plan on killing Sam or hurting him. I planned on threatening him till he signed the divorce papers, then I could get a restraining order against him. I never wanted him within the same mile radius as Tejiri and me.

  I had uncharacteristically left Tejiri at the office as she had a crucial meeting. So I texted her to say I was at my former place to get the remainder of my stuff.

  She didn't reply, I assumed she was too busy to check her phone.

  I got a cab, and once I got to Sam's, I let myself in and came face to face with him, sitting on the sofa, reading a magazine and sipping wine.

  "Welcome back home, Mrs. Ekene. You finally come to check on your husband?" he said, still looking intensely at his magazine.

  "Oh, please come off it, Sam. I never loved you, and you knew that. I don't want to fight. I just want you to let me go."

  He threw the magazine angrily to the other side of the sitting room and stood up saying,

  "You are my wife, and it’s high time you understood that. I am never granting you divorce, over my dead body. If for nothing, I would forever hold you down so you will never be with that cursed girl you follow around like a dog. Don't push me to the wall, Amara. Homosexuality is still punishable by fourteen years in Nigeria. I could ruin her reputation and businesses for life if I wanted."

  I searched my bag and pulled out a fresh copy of the divorce papers and laid it on the table with a pen, I wasn't here to chit chat or hear Sam rant, I just wanted to get this done and over with.

  He eyed the piece of paper distastefully as he sat back down and continued to sip his wine before saying, "come and make me."

  I snapped as I pulled the gun from my bag and fired a shot carelessly into the air. It landed on the ceiling as dust and cement came crashing down. Sam shook in fear as he realized that I was holding a gun.

  "Sign that damned paper, you idiot before I put a bullet through your chest and become a widow. I will not hesitate to kill you, Sam, I have tried this before," I said, waving the gun carelessly around.

  He stood up slowly with his hands up as he implored me with his eyes not to kill him, I could smell the fear all over him as he started to beg.

  "Amara, you don't have to do this, let us talk about this like adults."

  "You are testing my patience Sam, I am not here to talk, sign the damn papers!" I shouted as I cocked the gun again and pointed it to his head.

  He hurriedly bent over the paper as he signed all the pages shakily. I collected the papers and went through it, still pointing the gun at him, and when I was satisfied, I faced him and released a shot to his thigh as the force of the bullet threw him to the ground in a thud. He screamed in pain as he clutched his thigh.

  "That is for putting your hands on Tejiri, no one gets to hurt her and go scot-free. Now, this next one is for Stacy. Sam, don't you ever try to put your hands on her again."

  He started to cry and beg.

  "Amara, please don't kill me, my only crime is falling in love with you, I do not deserve to die," he said weakly as his limp leg continued to bleed.

  I was about to cock and shoot his other thigh when I heard Tejiri scream, "Amara, stop it!"

  I turned to see my Wolf, standing there in disappointment again. She was breathing hard and crying once she saw what I had done to Sam. His flesh was open and gushing with blood as he wept profusely from the pain.

  "Amara, where did you get all this violence from, we've been through a lot, I know, but still all of this anger, when will it stop? You promised to be better, we promised to let the past go. I know you too well to predict your next moves, and you didn't disappoint. Drop the gun, Amara, NOW!"

  I started to cry as I let the gun clatter to the floor. I didn't want Tejiri to be disappointed in me, and it broke my heart to see the look on her face.

  Didn't she understand that I loved her and that I was angry at every Luke, every Sam that had tried to use their toxic masculinity to suppress me and the love I had for her?

  I was tired of having to fight, No should be. No, why did everyone feel like they could control me? I was angry, mad at everything, at everyone, I just wanted to be with her, and it was so simple, yet it has been the most challenging thing to achieve. Didn't she know that I was human and that I had a breaking point?

  She pulled me into a tight hug, whispering sweet nothings in my ear and stroking my back. I started to cry into her grey shirt, all the while inhaling her sweet smell.

  "This has to stop.

  Violence is not the only way. I know how you feel, and I love how you want to protect me, but..."

  A gunshot rang in the air as Tejiri jerked in my arms, and her blood splattered on my milk-colored dress. I couldn't comprehend what had happened, and I craned my neck over Tejiri's shoulder to see Sam sitting up with the gun now pointed at me.

  Tejiri felt heavy in my arms as I finally let her go, and she slumped straight to the ground like a sack of potatoes, lifeless. I was in a daze as I looked at my hands and Tejiris blood on them. I looked down at Tejiri's lifeless body as she struggled to breathe and finally took what seemed to be her last breath. It dawned on me what had just happened, yet I didn't feel a thing, no emotion, maybe I was in a shock because I expected pain, but I felt nothing for the longest time.

  I turned back to Sam to see him cocking the gun again and pointing it at me, and I willed him to do it, I had nothing to live for now, and I waited for him to just do it. The bullet tore into my stomach as I collapsed near Tejiri, bleeding from the hole in my gut. For some weird reason, I started to smile as the af
terlife danced before my eyes. I heard another gunshot and a groan as I figured that Sam had shot himself too.

  My smile spread as I turned my face to Tejiri's. She never hurt anyone in her life. She never did a single wrong apart from loving me. She could have convicted Luke, joined me to hurt Sam. Still, she didn't play like that, she was an angel in human form who never held any grudges, but she had erred in one simple way, she had fallen in love with me, and it had cost us both our lives.

  I painfully stretched my hand to take her cold one into mine. Finally, my smile turned into tears as I prayed to God to never separate us again in the afterlife. Hell, to me, was eternity without Tejiri, and that was the last thought I had before all of my life seeped away from me.

  ~EPILOGUE~

  *Three years later*

  *********

  I stood by the poolside watching my wife as she turned and tossed quite a few times, obviously feeling very uncomfortable. I smiled brightly. She was still the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. In fact, her present condition had done nothing to diminish her aura. It made her even sexier to me, but I doubted that she saw herself the way I saw her. She was still the same person, either not accepting how beautiful she looked or not caring about looks.

  "Hey! Have I told you how much I hate you today? Standing there looking all sexy and beautiful and leaving me looking like this. Here you go, I hate you," she said to me over the book that she was reading.

  I laughed out loud at the face she made while talking to me and then walked over to her. I kissed her eager mouth and chuckled further when she didn't resist, and my hands moved down to cup her full breasts and then lower to cup the bulging stomach that housed our baby. I slid down her body and kissed the stomach all round.

  "For someone that claims to hate me, your kiss does tell a different tale," I said, sliding back up her body to take another sweet kiss from her.

  When the kiss broke, she said, "that is how I kiss people I hate, better believe me."

  She held me down and kissed me silly one more time.

  "I'm sorry, babe, this would be over soon. I know we never talked about having children, and our fates were pretty much sealed when I lost my womb to that incident, but..."

  "But I had an epiphany, and I changed my mind, bla bla bla. It's still not fair, this little man decided to change positions, and now he is on my lungs, I can hardly breathe. I look like a whale, and now I'm crying again."

  I kissed her tears and pulled her head to my chest. I wouldn't lie, I did feel guilty most times for making her go through this. I had never thought of having kids before, plus I wanted this woman for myself, and I never wanted to share her but the epiphany!

  It had been in a dream, and I had seen I and my wife with kids, I had jumped up from that sleep and sat down to mull the idea over. Our journey flashed through my eyes, we had almost lost our lives, and we would have just gone like that, leaving behind no proof of our love.

  Thank God for Tejiri's proactive thinking for calling her school daughter Zainab and Dr. Irene, to quickly come over with an ambulance to save what she thought would be Sam that I had just shot.

  She had gone back to the hotel and seen her safe opened and her gun gone, she knew me well to guess what I could do, and she hadn't wanted to take any chances. She always said she didn't want blood on her hands or even on mine, so she figured that if things got out of hand and I shot Sam, something could still be done to revive him somehow. She had hoped that as I was an inexperienced shooter, that I wouldn't aim somewhere fatal.

  Doctor Irene and Zainab had come to the house to meet all our unconscious bodies soaked in blood. She had done everything to revive all three of us, and now we had a second chance to expand our family.

  I left that incident with a uterus that was damaged, Sam was crippled for life and uses a wheelchair. Tejiri now had bullet scars added to the collection of her 'loving Amara' scars that she already had.

  I had persuaded Tejiri for months, and because she loved me and wanted me to be happy, she had agreed grudgingly to carry. Here we were, my beautiful wife, heavily pregnant.

  She kissed me again, and she soon started to breathe hard. Her libido was off the roof these days, and my fingers, tongue, and waist were all screaming and crying from overuse. I couldn't complain, it was a pleasurable price to pay for what she was doing for us.

  "Baby, please, let's go inside, I need you," she moaned.

  I led her to our room, her book discarded on the poolside lounge as we ducked past her mother and father. They were at the kitchen counter, fixing something Nigerian to eat.

  "Tejiri! Why are you guys sneaking around? Where to?" her mother asked with a lopsided smile.

  My eyes met with that of Tejiri, and we smiled as we tried to answer.

  "Mum, the baby, is doing yoga today. I just need Amara to rub my tummy or something," she said this grabbing my hands and pulling me up the spiraling stairs to our room.

  "Oh, I see. Please, Amara, rub the tummy gently, the last time you rubbed it, it was a little loud, and hopefully, it would take a few years before we go deaf so for now, we can still hear clearly," Tejiri's mother said holding back the laugh that threatened to burst.

  Tejiri and I stopped dead in our tracks, looked at each other, and then burst into laughter as the implication of what her mother meant dawned on us.

  Tejiri opened her mouth twice to speak, but she must have decided against it because she shook her head and just pulled me up along with her.

  Once we arrived at our room, she slammed me on the door and ripped all my buttons out, they clattered to the ground as she immediately started to suck my sensitive breasts. I pretty much knew what she wanted by now, so I pushed her to the bed and held a finger up, indicating that she should wait.

  I went to the wardrobe and strapped myself with her favorite dildo. When I got back to the bed, she was naked and waiting for me, and the sight of my pregnant wife, naked and laying there on her back, was the sexiest and most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It had me overcome with emotions, and it took a strong will for me to stop staring.

  Minutes later, we stayed in each other's arms, satiated, and spent. The baby leaped around in joy, and I clutched her stomach as I felt my child moving around.

  "Hey, little man, I can't wait to meet you. Did mommy disturb your rest?" I asked softly.

  "Amara, don't start spoiling him, we should disturb his rest, he never lets me sleep."

  I smiled at her tone and just held her closer, her bum pressed to my crotch.

  "Are you ready? Have you changed your mind on epidural?" I asked.

  She turned to face me then and said, "I want to feel the entire pain babe, it's something I have heard so much about. Don't worry, I'm strong," she said, flexing her muscles playfully.

  I was skeptical about asking her to do something this dangerous. If anything happened to Tejiri, it would be my fault.

  "We could go the cesarean route, though. Did you know that it's safer than vaginal birth?" I said, trying once more to change her mind on doing this the natural way.

  "Amara, stop. I know what you're trying to do. I'm not biting."

  I didn't want her pushing without epidural, but she did have the final say in the end. I prayed every day to God for safe delivery. He owed me that much after everything I had been through.

  Our little boy was less than a few weeks from coming, and we had shopped till his room was almost clustered.

  Stacy and Avery were of no help, and neither was all our staff at Teamy Group of companies. The baby shower saw us unwrapping almost a hundred gifts. The love we received from family and friends was almost too much, it had my wife in tears.

  She had cried just like on our wedding day. Well, we had both cried on our wedding day, and then her parents had cried too, okay pretty much everyone who knew our story had cried and then some who couldn't just help being emotional. It was a pretty intense wedding as our feelings for each other had been so palpable, even the priest had shed a te
ar or two when I had read my vows to Tejiri.

  "How are you feeling right now, though?" I asked as I shook the wedding thoughts out of my head.

  "Good! The sex always helps, but I really can't wait for this to be over with."

  That night, the baby shifted positions with his head lodged on her bladder. The next morning at the breakfast table, I was showing her a funny video when she made a face and said, "oh God! Amara don't make me laugh, I just peed a little."

  It only made me laugh harder, which made her laugh harder, and she finally stood up and waddled to the bathroom as fast as her big stomach would allow. Pregnant Tejiri was a beauty to behold, but she was also a little bit of drama and comedy.

  "Now she will appreciate her mother even more. You guys thought it was going to be easy, right?"

  I turned to Tejiri's mother and smiled at her before saying, "mum, you know we appreciate you. Especially you being here with us for the baby and you too daddy, you guys are just awesome, I wouldn't know what to do without you."

  She blushed hard as she exchanged glances with her husband. Truthfully, she had been really helpful with all the herbs and home remedies she provided, along with some useful tips. I just wished that my mother and father were here, too, to witness this.

  ***

  I was roused up from a peaceful sleep when I heard my wife whimpering silently. All my instincts made me jump up in bed as I turned to face her, she had been going through pains obviously, but she was quiet so as not to disturb me.

  I quickly put my legs in my flip flops as I ran to her side.

  "Hey, baby! What is it?" I asked in alarm.

  "I don't know, I think the baby is coming, but maybe I just want to use the toilet?"

  I started to panic immediately, I wasn't ready, and maybe I never would be. We still had yoga classes and preparatory classes that we had fixed for the weekend before the birth, and right now, I didn't know what to do. I pulled down the duvet only to see that her water had broken.