Gone Bad (Nigerian Novel) -Editing

Chapter 30: Where Your Love Lies

"Always about you." he says, not missing a beat.

The sinking feeling in my chest returns and I remember how I had kissed Demilade knowing fully well I was someone else's girlfriend.

The title felt wrong.

Girlfriends were there on days their man couldn't go on. Saw the side of him no one else got to see. Knew him like the the back of her own hands. And never cheated.

Yet all I and Isren had done was sneak around, whisper sweet nothings in the middle of every party, and do things no boy could ever boast of having done with me.

The months had passed in a thrilling blur, and it felt like falling in love, yet deep beneath the ground, I wasn't sure we had any foundation.

"Do you mean that?" I say, slowly meeting his gaze.

The room had long been silent and I was met with a questioning pair of eyes.

"Duh." he says trying to piece together my expression.

"And what are we doing?"

"...Having fun?" he draws out, unsure where this was going.

I suck in a breath, knowing he missed the target but the words had hit a little too close to home.

"I mean us. I know we're a couple but it honestly feels like we're just messing around."

He sighs, taking his head in his hand. "Is this about the whole love you question? You know I like you alot."

"But you can't love me, I'm just your pretty little thing." I finish for him.

"Since you're bent on going there, then answer this for me. Do you love me?" I says piercing me with his needle gaze.

"Offcourse I..." I say unable to carry on, off all the words I could attribute to the emotions Isren made me feel, love wasn't one of them.

Attraction, lust, infatuation, butterflies, headiness, thrill, without a second thought it was there.

But love wasn't one of them, more than 6 months had passed and it was only now dawning on me I had no real connection with him.

"Exactly. We're the escape we both need, why not just enjoy it." he says closing the case.

But I slam it right in the middle with my next words. "Because it's not what I want anymore, I want something serious, to be loved, seen, and accepted."

"Is it really that deep?" he says, the irritation starting to seep through his tone. Who could blame him? I told him one thing yet asked for another.

"It was deep enough to make me kiss Demilade." I blurt, jumping from the seat like hot lava had poured from my mouth to my lips.

He laughs without mirth, head bobbing in melancholic rhythm.

"Off course it'd be him, sweet sweet Demi." he mocks and the tears welling in my eyes spill into my cheeks.

"I am so sorry." I say, daring to look at him.

Even through my teary vision I see nothing but betrayal on his face.

"You know I like you so much, I would've overlooked it if it were any no name guy. But I'm done with his crap and you're going to give me an answer." he says, his voice rumbling like thunder.

"What do you-"

"One. Is he the reason you can't open your bloody legs, after making me thing you were down when we first started talking?" he says firing the first missile at me.

His careless tone takes a chunk of my self worth with him, as I begin to see how little he cared about the girl beneath the face.

All his past compliments come slapping me in the face. Gorgeous. Beautiful. Mesmerising. Nothing more than his favourite doll to play with.

"No, is that what you really think of-"

"Two and don't you dare lie to me. Do you love that boy." he says spitting the last word.

Ironic. What a man he was.

"You can't expect me to answer on the spot."

He pinches the bridge of his nose, on the verge of a side of his anger I had never seen before. But it falls on the left side and I see calmness swimming once again in his dark pools.

"Then prove it."

"What?" I sputter, almost choking on my saliva.

"Answer the question or show me I have nothing to worry about. You said you're not abstinent. If nothing held you back from kissing him, why can't you have sex with your boyfriend." he says, like he was talking about the weather.

"Is that all you care about?"

"I care about you more than any woman I ever have."

How fortunate they must be.

"No wonder you're still a bachelor at 30." I spit it him, intentionally getting his age wrong.

The outer warmness in his eyes leaves and I see the coldness that had been there all along.

"Enlighten me then, I must be too old to understand what you mean."

"That you're a filthy rich rake who can't see past a woman's skirt. You don't like me. You like the fact that I'm okay with being toyed. Okay with sneaking around with you. Okay with being used because everything is so new to me that I don't mind going a little further each time. I admit it was fun, a joyride of some sort wasn't it?" I say, sarcasm dripping off my words.

He chuckles, the storm brewing in his eyes growing darker by the second. "An understatement." Isren answers, hoping to wound me.

And that he did. Only, when I looked at him was it crystal clear why an admission that should've been my last straw didn't undo me.

All along I had been in love with the idea of rebelling, and for me...that was Isren.

"This is probably a bad time since technically I did cheat. But lose my number Isren Olubode, we're over." I say yanking my bag from the expensive leather couch.

"If you like leave. There's plenty of girls the where you came from, half of them aren't such prostitutes."

"I wouldn't hold my breath Mr. Club Casanova. And while you're at it grow up, someday Daddy's gonna need the next heir for his multimillion empire." I mock banging the door in his face.

I would be down the road for a while since I hadn't called an uber.

But as I stood waiting, the euphoria of leaving him made the inevitable sadness of loss, however worthless it was, sound bearable.