4: Reasons

Father talked all the way home; he was trying to feed me with all the important stuff he believed I had missed in the last two years of being away from school. I didn’t mind; I wanted to hear all the petty gossip, and I missed our little talks all the while I was away.

“So, what about you? Any boyfriend I should be sharpening my boots and preparing for?” He cocked his full brow at me.

I chuckled and rolled my eyes. “I wish.”

“Why do you wish? You are a beautiful young lady, and let’s not forget that you are smart. These are all qualities you inherited from your old man. You’re welcome. You should have men swooning and fighting each other over who will take you.”

I laughed harder, covering my mouth because my laughter was turning ugly. “I wish that was the case.” I said this after my laughter subsided.

“Or are the men at Oxford blind or retarded?”

They weren’t; I was messed up in the head.

I had a boyfriend at the university after I started, but I knew it was a mere distraction, which worked because it took my mind off thinking about the man of my dream, who was then married. Jordan was a really sweet boy who only wanted to be a wonderful boyfriend for me, but I wasn’t ready. I ended things after the fifth month and told him I couldn’t be the girl he wanted me to be. Nine months ago, I got closer to a course mate of mine named Ace, and yes, unlike Jordan, I want to carry the pain and broken heart with Ace. We went out on a date and even got intimate after our second date. But then I learned of the passing of Janet Henshaw, and, once again, my focus drifted.

I admit I have a toxic trait, and his name was Jace, a man who saw me only as his best friend’s kid.

What was it about Wade that made me so crazy over him, you might ask? Apart from being a walking perfection, he also had the kindest of hearts.

He had always been kind to me, and after my father, he was the next person I could count on for help and support.

Throughout my secondary school years, I could remember getting picked on because of my glasses and also being called a “daddy’s girl.”

Unlike other parents who stopped their kids at the gate to wave goodbye and leave, my father went the extra mile to drop me right at the entrance of my classroom from the first day I started kindergarten down to the sixth grade. I thought nothing of it as a child passing through primary school until I started junior secondary school. As always, he would drop me off at the entrance of the classroom and then wave me goodbye, just like he had always done since forever. That was how my name-calling started.

I was tagged by the daddy’s girl a few weeks after starting junior secondary. I eventually convince him to no longer drop me at the entrance of the classroom, rather he dropped me at the gate. He didn’t understand why I was making the change, but he didn’t complain, and he started dropping me off at the gate, but even that didn’t stop the #tag. It got worse when I was prescribed reading glasses to correct my sight. I have been automatically tagged ‘glasses’ and the class bully, named Akin, turned his focus to me and would sit behind me just to make my life a living hell.

I didn’t tell Lyon about the bullying I faced in my class, and my relationship with him grew further and further apart as I grew older. He told me he understood I was growing into a young girl and needed my own space, but assured me he was always there whenever I needed someone to speak to. I couldn’t tell him about the hell I faced at school because I didn’t know if his intervention would make things better or worse for me. I knew he was worried for me, but there was nothing I could do about it, and somewhere along the line I got used to the constant torture, name-calling, and being picked on.

I made a friend called Jordan, a kind-hearted and well-mannered boy, and a few times he stood up for me. He only ended up bringing trouble to himself and getting hurt occasionally. I didn’t like that he got hurt because of me, and I told him to no longer intervene. My problems weren’t his problems, and I told him that.

The only thing that gave me joy was that I would leave the school in a few years and that they would never harm or hurt me anymore. Despite the bullying, I maintained my grades as a straight-A student because he knew the worst thing that would happen to me was a poor grade.

However, as I drew further away from Lyon, I drew closer to Jace. My father took a step back, and Jace pulled closer to me. Some days, he would pick me up from school instead of Jace. Sixteen-year-old me had now gotten so attached to Jace that I had developed a secret crush on him. He wasn’t like the boys in my school. He was nice, corny, and almost as smart as Lyon. I always loved our small talk from school, and once in a while I would steal glances at him and smile at myself. All girls fall in love with a version of their fathers, but that wasn’t the case with Jace. He was the opposite of Lyon, which was why I liked him a lot. He didn’t limit me based on gender or treat me as fragile as Lyon did, but that was his duty as a father to protect his daughter. Jace had all the qualities of my dream man, but knowing how ridiculous we would be together, I shoved the feelings aside.

On a faithful day, he didn’t arrive to pick me up as he used to, and Akin and his gang saw me waiting and thought it wise to pick on me. Jace had arrived just as they were about to get physical with their bullying and stopped them. I can never forget watching him grab a fistful of Akin’s shirt and lift him off the ground with it. He threatened to make his and the lives of his other gang members miserable if they even glanced my way until I finished my school year.

I watched Akin pee himself out of fear, and I have never been one to find pleasure in someone else’s torture until that day.

He was my knight, and it might have been a cliché tale, but it was mine, and everything that happened that day opened up my heart further and left me vulnerable to him. No other man has filled the space my heart made for him when I was seventeen years old.

A year later, he was married to Ms Janet Owen, and all my dreams for us ended.

I felt a warm hand on mine, and I jerked back to reality to find Lyon’s curious eyes on me. “Is there someone you’re trying to hide from me?”

“Yes, his name is Jace Henshaw II,” I mentally replied, but I did not dare say it out loud.

“No, dad, there is no one. Perhaps someday soon I will find someone.”

He didn’t look convinced, but he said nothing more. He just nodded, and we drove home in silence.