28/09/2025
She said her name was May. I asked, “May as in the short form of Mabel?” She laughed, “No, May as in Mayflower.” I said, “Your father looked at a day-old baby and named her Mayflower?”
So Mayflower and I became lovers. We started as secret lovers because she didn’t want anyone to know until we were sure and established in love.
Every love affair is beautiful at the onset. I can’t say the same about ours. We had our first fight in our first month. I went to visit her and had a call. The call came from a friend who didn’t know how to say goodbye and end a call. So when the call finally ended and I looked at her face, she was angry. “I’m right here in front of you and you spoke for hours with another girlfriend?”
She told me it was over. I pleaded and promised her I would never do that again.
She said, “Your last chance.”
“I won’t mess it up,” I answered.
One month into our relationship, we had had three different breakups. I thought we should do better than that, so we sat down and discussed our needs and what was expected of each other. We promised never to fight again, and that even when a fight came, we would settle it like mature adults without all the drama. One week after that discussion, we had another fight. It was her fault. As usual, we fought about it like kids and ended the relationship. I told her, “If you think I’m ever going to come and apologize to you, then you are crazy.” She answered, “I don’t even need your apology. Go away, you devil.”
Days ran into a week; we never spoke, but I was suffering. I was missing her, but pride wouldn’t let me call her. I woke up one dawn to the ringing of my phone. I looked at the screen: “Mayflower calling.” She said, “So you meant it when you said it’s over?” I answered, “No, I didn’t mean it, but you pushed me to my limit.” She apologized and said it wouldn't happen again.
I thought our problem was because we were keeping the relationship secret. We had a face-to-face talk again. We agreed to go public so we could have witnesses to our affair. Things got worse. I called her an over-pampered fool and she came to my house and collected a wristwatch she had bought me as a gift. We went on a break for two weeks and came back again.
We barely survived our first anniversary. We limped through our second year together. In our third year, she poured hot water on me and gave me burns on my wrist. What did I do wrong? I had forgotten her birthday. That same year, we attended our end-of-year party at work and she saw the vibe between me and a female colleague and concluded, “You and this girl have something going on. See how she’s all over you.” We broke up. We came back together three days later.
One day she asked me, “When are we getting married?” I told her, “Let me know when you are ready.” She asked, “You don’t think I am ready for marriage?” I answered, “With these childish behaviors?”
I laughed so she would know I was only teasing. She left and sent me a message: “Thank you for letting me know how you really think about me. I’m childish. Go ahead and marry the one you think is mature.” We went back and forth over this issue for days until she finally told me, “We break up and I forgive you. Maybe that’s why you think I'm childish. Now watch me show you maturity. It’s over. And I mean it.”
She blocked all my lines. I also got angry and stopped pursuing her. Days became weeks, and there was not a single day I didn’t think about her. I thought she would come and say sorry. I thought she would call one dawn and ask us to be together. None of that happened. I started getting scared. I told myself, “Tomorrow I will go and see her.” I never did—until almost a month later. One dawn, I left my pride on the floor. I walked to her house. I knocked and she grudgingly opened the door. For close to ten minutes, neither of us said a word. We sat quietly, listening to the sound of each other’s breathing.
I said, “I’m sorry for the long silence. Forgive me.”
She opened her arms and hugged me. “You pushed me to the limit," she told me. "You might not believe it, but I gave someone else a chance in my life. Just three days ago, I said yes to him. Tomorrow morning I would have gone to see him. If I had met him and anything had happened between us, that would have been the end of you and me. It's good you came today because tomorrow would have been too late.”
We patched things up and came back together. We talked about marriage with laid-down plans. We didn't waste any time. We followed through until one day we both said “I do” to each other.
Our last breakup pushed us to the limit, where all we could do was change and be better. We never fought again. “Tomorrow would have been too late” became our life’s slogan. We didn’t push anything we could do today to tomorrow. We talked about things openly and held no hard feelings. But guess what—our next major fight happened on our honeymoon. She packed her things and left the hotel. I followed her to the house. She screamed at me, “Don’t try to get close to me; I’ll hurt you.”
A few minutes later, she was up, picking her clothes up from the floor and asking me where I had thrown her pants.
Love...what a crazy thing.
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