I did not fall in love with Yemi because he promised me the whole
world. Whenever I walked along the street he was there, on occasions.
Our first stares grew into first words, first words ripened to a first
visit and here my story begins. I am Adiba, calm and easy going. My
albino skin is 19years old and my brown eyes does not make me prettier
and for this cause people would rather keep their distance. When Yemi
tells me I'm beautiful, my head sparks and there is a shocking sensation
in my bones because for him only, I am dark. Ordinarily, I should cry
but I can't for all the tears I should shed now had dried up in my
childhood where several humiliating and isolating experiences lay. I
did not cry. I looked straight in his eyes and he said it again this
time with a depth of sincerity in his voice that hastened lip locking
and before one could say jack, I had toured that filthy path that made
me forget Sunday school lessons. Soon, the remorse I had felt each time I
left Yemi's was history and all I could do was yearn for more moments
with the only man that didn't see the awkward colour of my skin. I had
learnt to love him, to trust every word he said. If the whole world
would not associate with me; knowing Yemi cared made me care less.
Everything seemed perfect till one beautiful morning. One morning just
like the others something changed, with me precisely a lot of things I
could not comprehend.
Days later, the nurse told me I had acquired the dreaded disease
(HIV) and if I regularly took the necessary drugs, I may live longer
but if not death was near, but before I die if I had to; my mother would
kill me for there was no place to go, no where else to watch this belly
of mine grow since she was all I had and Yemi for whom I was beautiful
and dark, I lately repelled.........
by MERIT GOGO-FYNEFACE.
