Ugh.
He was making you angrier every passing second. You could feel the slight tremor in your left hand that usually comes before you explode, and you don't want to explode, not today.
"I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday. I can see you are not having it. I will leave."
You turn to make it through the door, ignoring the debris on the floor. Is that a moldy pot underneath his bed? What is wrong with this man?
You hear him follow closely behind you and then he takes your hand off the door knob, your trembling left hand.
"Ugonna, please allow me to leave."
"No, you are not going to walk out in the middle of our conversation and today is my birthday."
"You think I didn't know it was your birthday? Why else do you think I came here with a gift bag Ugonna!"
You try to remind yourself to stay calm. You are not exploding today.
"That is the problem. You are really only here because IT IS MY BIRTHDAY! I hardly ever get to see you. How do you think that is supposed to make me feel?"
"Ugonna..."
"Why do you keep calling me by my name? I am babe to you."
"Right now, you are Ugonna and you are really upsetting me."
"Oh communicating my feelings upsets you?"
"Ugonna, I have exams every other day. If I'm not writing an exam, I'm preparing for one. How is it my fault that we don't get to see often?"
"Babe, what about texting? You hardly if ever reply my messages, and when you do, they are one word replies."
"Well, how many times have you tried to come see me? If it bothers you so much that we don't see often enough why don't you visit me?"
"...because I have no idea what your schedule is like!"
"Don't raise your voice at me Ugonna!"
"Don't raise your voice too!"
"You know what other people's boyfriends are doing while you are here whining? There are these two girls in my class that have boyfriends that wait for them outside the clinic with food packs everytime we have exams! Other people's boyfriends are buying them stuff, helping them out, med school is hard enough but no, my boyfriend wants to make it harder!"
"Babe, are you serious right now?"
"....."
"Since this school year started, when last did you tell me about an exam you were about to have? I literally have no idea about what is going on in your life, how am I supposed to keep up?"
"You don't ask..."
"...and what about me? My life? You are literally the only person I can confide in but when stuff happens you are never there to listen. My world literally revolved around you..."
"Revolved? Past tense? Ugonna really?"
"Poor word choice"
"I thought we were going great, where is all of this coming from? Are you seeing someone else, are you trying to break up with me?"
He starts to laugh.
"Ugonna, talk to me, stop laughing!"
He stops laughing and makes to hug you, "someone said girls in medicine are crazy", he whispers in your ear.
"That someone is an idiot", you say and catch yourself laughing.
"But what someone said is true. Why would you think that I want to break up with you?"
"I don't know. I'm just scared that I'd messed up big time."
"So you agree that you messed up?"
"Shut up", you say and giggle then you hug him back and say that you are sorry.
"I'm sorry too. I was starting to feel neglected and not good enough for you"
"You are more than good enough for me."
"No dey lie, look at you, you are about to be a medical doctor—and I'm just what, an agric. student. I barely even have any idea of what's next after uni."
"...and I said that you are more than good enough for me"
"If I could, I'd send you a box of cupcakes everyday and buy you all the fancy stuff I can find so that the girls in your department would be jealous of you."
"I don't need any of those things. You are good enough for me."
"Even cupcakes?"
"I'll get myself cupcakes when I want them."
"You know, it scares me how self-sufficient you are. Sometimes I feel as if you don't need me..."
You let go of him to look him in the eye.
"Do you really think I would keep you around if I didn’t need you? If I didn't want you? You are my bestfriend and my lover. I adore you Ugonna."
"Aren't we done arguing? You can stop calling me by my name now. Call me babe."
You laugh and sit on the bed pulling him down with you.
"Babe, why is your room such a mess?", you ask pointing at the wraps on the floor.
"I'm sorry mummy, I'll tidy up my room tomorrow"
"Who is your mummy this boy?", you say and try to run your fingers through his hair, but it is too tangled.
"You are my mummy."
"Why are you cleaning your room tomorrow instead of now?"
"...because it is my birthday and I'm taking my girlfriend out to dinner right now."
"You are taking me out?"
"Not you. My crazy girlfriend in medicine."
You laugh and he is laughing too. He doesn't notice when you stop laughing and start to watch him, his unshaven beard, his dirty fingernails, the stain marks on his singlet, the bushiness of his armpits, musky smell of his room and the stench of alcohol in his breath— he was right. He was not good enough for you. You have to breakup with him, but not tonight or today.
You eye the gift bag you brought earlier and suddenly feel ashamed for buying a present worth almost half your school fees for a man that had gotten you a handcrafted card for your own birthday. You try to remember if he'd appreciated the gift but you can't recall.
"You haven't opened your present yet."
"Oh yeahhh. You are actually so sweet. I'll do that now."
You watch him stretch to grab the bag and pull out the gift box inside as you make your way to the kitchen to get water. Dirty cups, dirty dishes everywhere, you —
"Babe! Thank you so much! The shoes fit perfectly. I have never gotten this kind of present before, thank you so much!", you hear him say.
You grunt in reply. You are leaving the kitchen when you notice maggots coming out from a bowl underneath the sink. There are also bottles of beer sprawled across the floor connected by cobwebs. He has been drinking again.If this was the kitchen, what was the toilet like?
You walk to the toilet with calculated footsteps, you are scared of what you will find but you open the door anyway. The stench that hits you prevents you from going inside. You have had it. You are done.
"Ugonna, why is this place a pig sty?"
"Here we go again"
"No really, your room is a gigantic mess"
"Does it matter? I didn't know you were going to come, I would have cleaned up."
"So you would have cleaned up only if you'd known I was coming? Not for yourself and for your health?"
"If you cared so much, you would help out with the cleaning instead of nagging. That's what other girlfriends do."
"Excuse me? I should clean YOUR room?"
"What? You can't do that? You are too medicine and surgery to help your boyfriend clean his room?"
"This has nothing to do with Medicine and Surgery."
"What is it then? Because I no get money? Because I can't afford to buy you expensive shit all the time ba?"
"Where is this argument coming from? I'm only trying to tell you—"
"I'm also trying to tell you that other girlfriends do the most in trying to impress their boyfriends. They cook, they clean, they ask about his mother and sisters, but you, you barely even talk to me, and this one time you are visiting me, all you've done is nag!"
"You are really bringing other girlfriends into this?"
"Didn't you bring other boyfriends into the argument before?"
"We already concluded that argument and I already apologised."
"Oh so Miss medicine and surgery can compare me to other men but I can't do the same because I am Agric boy?"
He says Medicine and Surgery as if it were an insult.
"Ugonna—"
"It's fine. It's enough. I'll get changed in a minute and we will head out."
You are angry and your left hand is shaking again. You want to scream, but you don't. You watch the clock instead.
Ugonna comes out wearing faded jeans and a white shirt, well almost white shirt. You can see the brown sweat stain line on the collar and the cuff of his sleeves as he tries to brush his beard. How did you not notice that this man was a child since you both started dating a year ago? What were you so attracted to? You cannot remember.
"Ready to go babe?"
"Have you had a bath today?"
"Are you even serious right now?"
"Yes, Ugonna, you don baff?"
" I'm not smelling. I'm ready. Let's go."
"I'm not going again."
"What do you mean? What is wrong with this woman?"
"You know what? You were right. I want a break up."
"I don't understand. I was right about?"
"You are not good enough for me, Ugonna"
"Are you even serious right now? A few minutes ago, you were saying that I was enough for you and now you want to break up with me because I am an agric student?"
"Yes, and I need to focus more on my medical education"
I am breaking up with you because you are a lousy dirty pig without any sense of direction whatsoever, but I won’t tell you that because it's your birthday and I don't want you to feel too bad.
"Wow, you are serious."-
"Yes, you can keep the present. It was nice being with you."
"You are breaking up with me, on my birthday?"
"Yes, I'm sorry."
"You are as cold hearted as the cadavers that you dissect."
"Okay. I'm leaving now."
You are as disgusting as the pigs they teach you about in that your Agric department. Olodo.
You head to the door and this time he doesn't follow or try to stop you. You are almost out when you hear him say something about girls in medicine being crazy. You stop and turn to face him.
"It is your mother and father and grandparents that are crazy, dirty pig!", you say, before you leave.
You feel a kind of sadness and a tear slips from your eyes as you walk out of the building, but you are smiling too. Smiling and crying. Maybe you were a bit crazy, maybe girls in medicine are crazy.
Author's note.
"Girls in medicine"= Girls studying medicine and surgery, I hope you got that.
Before making this post, I set up a poll and asked people about what they thought about "girls in medicine" and why they thought they were not as high up the desirability scale as their male counterparts<to get firsthand access to polls and personal newsletters and juicy gossip, become a partner today! Support my blog here: Blog support >.
I got to hear different opinions.
So, "girls in medicine" are desired too, just not in the same way as their male counterparts.
Apparently, some people regard them as tickets to 'the abroad' as medical personnels are often sought after in developed countries. The logic is to find a "girl in medicine", convince her to take the international professional exams, support her during the time, get married to her even, fly with her to "the abroad" when she gets a job offer, then you can leave to find the real love of your life.
Then there's people that desire them for the fulfilment of messed up fantasies but I'm not writing about them today.
There are also the people that will love and respect you a lot more for being a "medicine girl", because it means that you are intelligent. They want you as arm candy, something to boast about, "my girl is so smart, she is even in her 4th year in medical school", but of what use is that kind of love?
*sighh
<While there are all these kinds of people, there are good people too. People willing and ready to be good lovers, but of course, that is not the focus of today's post, hehehe>
I think being a "girl in medicine" in Nigeria no be beans.
There is the mental exhaustion from school work and the struggle to keep up with interpersonal relationships and the "your eggs are wasting, won't you get married and have children?" pressure from everybody else, and the entitled men that hate you for rejecting them because they think the rejection was borne out of "pride" from studying medicine and the ones that don't want to accept rejection and keep stalking you and the other girls that hate you because they think that you like acting as if you are better than everyone else for studying medicine—all of these are enough to drive anybody crazy.
This is such a long blogpost, I should shut up now, hehehe.
A megalicious super shout out to Chinedu Ayobami, Ahialaka Olivia and Dogara Awadzi for sharing their opinions with me, I have learned from you guys and I appreciate you loadzzz!
I hope you enjoyed reading this. Do you think the main character was doing too much by breaking up with Ugonna like that? Was there a better way? Let me know in the comments!
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