Jane has been sitting by her window thinking ever since she got up from bed. She did not sleep throughout the night because the depressing thoughts she entertained had really waged war on her mind.
She had already concluded that she was going to fabricate a story to her manager the next day when he will ask her why she stayed back from work the previous day. She has been doing it oftentimes, so there was no way she would get caught.
She was so lost in her thoughts to the extent that she did not notice when her friend, Emilia, walked in.
"How long are you going to hold on to this guy, Jane?", her friend decided to break the silence after she observed her for some minutes, but she was not still aware of her presence.
"Jane, what on earth is wrong with you, you want to kill yourself?", her friend asked while shaking her violently to make her stay conscious.
"Jane, you don't have to continue like this. We still have good guys out there, but going on with this guy will only limit your possibility of meeting any of them. All guys are not the same", Emilia pressed on.
Jane was so broken, she suddenly wrapped her hands around her friend then rested her head on her shoulder and began to sob.
"Jane, you know very well that you guys are not compatible with each other, yet you still want to pair yourself with him. Why is it so difficult for you to let this guy walk away? When he asked you to marry him few weeks ago, you knew that a stern no would have been a proper answer, but you still complied even when you had some misgivings about his proposal. How long will you continue to subject yourself to all of these emotional torments?", Emilia said while patting her back.
"You know that we have spent good five years together and we are already known by our respective families, we have both sacrificed so much for each other and it will not be so easy for any of us to let each other walk away", Jane responded amidst sobs.
Dave has been a great guy, except for the few weaknesses he has. He is an unrepentant womanizer and he sometimes is verbally abusive towards Jane too. But each time he misbehaved, he always pacified her with gifts, swearing with his life that he was not going to hurt her anymore, and she has always believed him.
She has always been counselled by Emilia, her best friend, who has been privy to all her life's secret that it is better to call it quit in a relationship especially when the red flags are glaring, but her believe that Dave will one day turn a new leaf has always countered the advice of her best.
Many times she has heard of lovers who started their relationship like cat and dog ending up as great and enviable couples and this has always been her consolation for all these long years.
"If I let go of Dave, will I find someone that can better replace him? What if I end up with another man that is more worse than him?", she has always thought to herself.
Jane had more than enough reasons to let go of her relationship with Dave, but too many "what ifs" that she couldn't find genuine answers for were the fetters that held her bound.
Everything is in the past now.
Jane finally decided to walk out of her relationship with Dave after the last and the most terrible experience she had with him.
A fight almost started between them after their usual disagreement and she narrowly escaped being slapped by Dave.
The bone of contention was that Jane didn't answer her phone when he called so he needed to know why.
He was not satisfied with the honest reason she gave him and he started barking out like a dog.
"May thunder strike me dead the day I'll have anything to do with you again", those were her last words that day when she banged the door of his house.
She had made several attempts to stay out of his life in many occasions, but she has always found herself back in his arms no matter how hard she tried.
This time she was serious. She didn't want that to happen again,so she moved in to stay temporarily with her friend, Emilia, because she knew how indispensable she was going to be on her mission to get over Dave completely, and she did not come short of her expectation.
"Babe, you cannot be using the gifts of a man you want to break up with and still expect you will be able to do that. Burn those bridges. Discard everything he has ever given you and delete his number from your phone, those are the embers that can reignite your love for him", Emilia advised when she saw her wear a blouse Dave bought for her.
The day Dave visited her at her friend's house was one of the most shameful moments of his life. Emilia had gone to work, but she was at home because she was scheduled to work in the evening.
She was dozing off on the sofa when she suddenly heard a knock on the door. Her eyes were still heavy with sleep, but she managed to stand up with a "hold on I'm coming" scream when the knock became harder.
She stomped towards the door, peeped through the peephole and saw Dave standing by the door, looking so helpless. She did not want to open the door, but she needed to show him that he was no more her 'oxygen'.
She opened the door and made sure he had a full view of her, then slammed it back with a force that almost chopped off his fingers if not that he was so fast to pull out his hand, and for as long as he stood there, she never came out until he left.
"Why did I do that?", she mumbled to herself when she noticed that Dave was gone as she looked again through the window. She tried to act brave but compunction would not let her. She is being betrayed by her confidence as she slumps into the sofa and begins to wail like a newborn. Here she is, standing between the devil and the deep blue sea. "Let him go", an unheard voice echoed in her mind, "don't let him go away", another unheard voice raged in her mind.
She had deleted his number from her phone, but she did not delete it from her mind and that was her weakness. Pulling her phone out from her pocket with shaky fingers she typed, "I'll love you forever" and sent it to him.