Between the lines(5)
Chapter 5 - The gap in the wall
The decision doesn’t come like lightning. It comes like dawn. Gradual, inevitable, already happening by the time you notice.
I’m at work when it crystallizes. We’re having our weekly editorial meeting, everyone crowded into Aisha’s office, discussing upcoming themes. Someone suggests “Women Who Left” stories about departures, escapes, brave exits.
“I love that,” Aisha says. “We could pair it with essays about agency, about choosing yourself.”
Agency.
Choosing yourself.
The words settle in my chest like stones.
After the meeting, I sit at my desk and open my journal. The one I haven’t written in for months because Nonso read it and made me feel foolish for the things I’d written. I pick up my pen and write one sentence:
I need to leave.
Then I read it over and over until it stops feeling impossible and starts feeling true.
I don’t tell Nonso I’m leaving. I tell him I need a break.
Even that is almost too hard. We’re at his apartment. We’re always at his apartment. I’ve rehearsed this conversation in my head so many times that when I finally speak, the words come out flat, memorized.
“I think we need some time apart.”
He’s stirring pasta sauce, and he goes very still. “What does that mean?”
“It means I need space. To think. To figure out who I am outside of us.”
“Who you are outside of us.” He repeats it like he’s tasting the words. “Lara, that doesn’t make any sense. You don’t exist ‘outside of us.’ We’re in a relationship. We’re a unit.”
“I know, but—”
“Is this about Ogechi? Because she’s been poisoning you against me since day one. She’s jealous that you’re happy.”
“I’m not happy.”
The silence that follows is cavernous.
Nonso turns off the stove. Wipes his hands on a towel. Turns to face me with an expression I’ve never seen before. Something cold and calculating underneath the hurt.
“You’re not happy,” he says quietly. “After everything I’ve done for you. After I’ve loved you, supported you, tried to make you into the best version of yourself. You’re not happy.”
“Nonso—”
“Do you know how many men would kill for a woman like you? Smart, beautiful, young?” He’s walking toward me now. “And you’re so fucking broken that you can’t even see when someone’s trying to save you.”
“I don’t need saving.”
“Yes, you do.” He’s close now, too close. “You’re a mess, Lara. You’re anxious and insecure and you sabotage everything good in your life. I’m the only person who’s ever been patient enough to deal with that, and you want to throw it away because what? Because you need space? That’s just your fear talking.”
“Maybe it is. But it’s still real.”
“It’s not real. It’s panic. And if you leave now, you’re going to regret it. You’re going to realize that nobody else will put up with your shit the way I have, and you’ll come crawling back.”
Something in me snaps.
“Then I guess I’ll find out.”
I grab my coat and leave before he can respond.
I go to my apartment, which feels like visiting a museum of my former life. Dust coats every surface. The air is stale. My plants are all dead.
I sit on my bed—which feels too small after months of sleeping in Nonso’s king sized one—and call the only person who might still answer.
Oge picks up on the third ring.
“I left him,” I say.
She doesn’t say “I told you so.” She doesn’t say anything for a long moment.
“Where are you?”
“My place.”
“I’m coming over.”
She arrives with a tray of small chops, a bottle of wine, and her overnight bag.
We eat in silence at first, both of us unsure how to bridge the gap that opened between us. Finally, Oge sets down her glass.
“I’m sorry I shut you out.”
“You had every right to.”
“No, let me finish.” She takes a breath. “I couldn’t watch you disappear. It was killing me. But I should have stayed anyway. I should have been there even when you weren’t ready to leave.”
“I wasn’t ready.” My voice cracks. “And now I don’t know if I still am. I keep thinking about going back.”
“I know.”
“He’s going to call. He’s going to apologize. He’s going to say all the right things to make me feel crazy for leaving.”
“Probably.”
“And part of me will believe him.”
Oge reaches across the table and takes my hand. “That’s okay. You can believe him and still not go back. Those things can both be true.”
Nonso calls seventeen times that night.
I don’t answer, but I read his texts.
I’m sorry. I was harsh. I was scared of losing you.
Please talk to me. We can work through this.
You’re making a mistake. You’re letting your fear win.
I love you. Don’t throw us away.
Fine. If you want to be alone, be alone. But don’t come back when you realize what you lost.
Oge reads them over my shoulder. “Jesus.”
“He’s hurting.”
“He’s manipulating you.” She takes my phone gently and sets it face-down. “You’re allowed to leave someone who’s hurting. You’re allowed to choose yourself.”
That night, I sleep in my own bed for the first time in months. Oge’s on the couch, close enough that I can hear her breathing.
The dream doesn’t come.
Instead, I sleep deeply, dreamlessly, my body finally releasing tension I didn’t know I was carrying.
The next few weeks are very strange.
I move through my days feeling like I’m learning to walk again. Simple things—what I want for breakfast, which route to take to work, what to do with my Friday night—feel very monumental.
Oge is patient. She invites me to things but doesn’t push when I decline. She sends me articles and memes but doesn’t expect immediate responses. She gives me space to be confused and sad and relieved and terrified all at once.
“You’re allowed to miss him,” she tells me one night. “Missing someone doesn’t mean leaving was wrong.”
I’m back in therapy, which I’d stopped because Nonso thought my therapist was “making me overthink things.” Dr. Ella doesn’t say “I told you so” either, but she does look profoundly unsurprised when I tell her what happened.
“How does it feel?” she asks. “Being alone again?”
“Terrifying,” I admit. “Like I’m standing at the edge of something vast and I don’t know what’s down there.”
“And?”
“And… free. Sometimes. In moments.”
“Tell me about those moments.”
So I do. I tell her about reading a book Nonso would have hated and loving it. About listening to my old playlists. About having a full conversation with a coworker without mentally rehearsing what I’ll tell Nonso about it later.
“It sounds like you’re finding yourself again,” Dr. Ella says.
“I don’t know if I ever knew myself to begin with.”
“Then maybe this is your chance to start.”
Nonso shows up at my apartment on a rainy Thursday night.
I hear the knock and know it’s him before I even check the peephole. Some part of me has been expecting this.
“Lara. Please. Just talk to me.”
I open the door but leave the chain on. “What do you want?”
He looks terrible. He’s unshaven, has bags under his eyes, hair uncombed. “I want to apologize. Really apologize. Not the bullshit I texted you. I want to say I’m sorry for making you feel trapped. For holding on too tight. For losing sight of who you are in my desperate attempt to keep you close.”
He sounds so sincere. He looks so broken.
“I’ve been in therapy,” he continues. “Twice a week. I’m working on my control issues, my abandonment trauma. My therapist says I was recreating patterns from my childhood, trying to prevent loss by controlling every variable. But I see it now. I see what I did to you.”
“Nonso—”
“I’m not asking you to come back. I know I don’t deserve that. I just need you to know that I’m aware. That I’m doing the work. That if you ever…” His voice breaks. “If you ever wanted to try again, I’d be different. I swear to God, I’d be different.”
For a moment, I’m back in his apartment, his arms around me, feeling chosen and special and seen. For a moment, I want to believe that people can change, that love can be enough, that this time would be different.
Then I remember the bruises on my wrist.
I remember Oge’s mother in the hospital and me not being there.
I remember the feeling of drowning while standing on dry land.
“I believe you’re trying,” I say carefully. “I believe you’re in therapy. I believe you’re sorry. But I can’t come back. Not now. Maybe not ever.”
“Lara—”
“You need to leave.”
“Just think about it. Please. Don’t close this door forever.”
“Bye, Nonso.”
I close the door. Lock it. Slide down to sit with my back against it.
From the other side, I hear him crying.
I cry too.
But I don’t open the door.
That night, the dream returns, but it’s different.
I’m in the pen, pressed between warm bodies, the smell of blood rising from the steel. But this time, when I look down at my feet, I notice something I never saw before.
A gap in the wall. Small, low to the ground. I’d have to crawl.
The creatures around me are still moving forward, still screaming, still heading toward the inevitable. But I could go down. I could make myself small. I could escape.
Fight, the voice of fear whispers. Or surrender.
I drop to my knees.
The metal scrapes my skin as I squeeze through the gap. It’s tight, almost too tight, and for a moment I’m stuck, panic rising in my throat.
Then I’m through.
On the other side, it’s cold. Dark. Empty.
But I’m out.
I wake up gasping, my heart racing, but this time it’s not terror.
It’s something else.
It’s hope.
Hi Pumpkin!
I felt so hurt writing this chapter, but Lara deserves better. I’m sorry this update is coming a day late. I apologize😔
As usual, let me know your thoughts.
With all my love,
Head Pumpkin, Joké💕