I took in a deep breath as I took in the view and the faces of everyone present here, smiling and laughing. The happiness, I must say, didn't feel contagious as it would have been before. I watched Stella chatting with her boyfriend whom she had invited, while Martha and Ejiro were busy being themselves all around the love garden, socializing with people, dancing, and having fun. Knowing Ejiro, I'm pretty sure her social battery would soon run dry, and she would try to find a way to get away, as for me, I had none to begin with.

I wrapped my arms around myself, really not liking my presence here. Suddenly, I wished I hadn't agreed to this. It didn't get my mind off Ademide. It only seemed to pull me into a more sour mood. Even the several lights adorning the garden couldn't do anything to make my mood brighter, I seemed to reflect the dark night.

I looked at Henry, who was getting drinks for us from the vendor. He turned over to look at me and gave me that smile of his again. I forced myself to smile back even though I didn't feel anything similar to it.

Henry was one of the alumni who graduated last year. He was in final year while I was a fresher then, and somehow we happened to become friends and even almost became more than friends. And seeing me again today, he instantly came over to hug me, gushing about how nice it was to see me again. I had thought he would be a good distraction for me, but really, all I've done since is compare him with Ademide. And it was funny how I didn't really feel so happy with his presence like I used to be when I was in the first year, I couldn't even tell what about him I had liked before.

I tried to make my smile more believable as he walked over to me, bearing two cups of Chapman.

"Here you go, Mary," Henry said, handing a cup to me once he got over to where I was. He pointed at a stone bench at one corner. "Let's go sit over there."

I nodded my head and let him lead him there. We sat, and I immediately got busy drinking out of my cup, feeling a little awkward around him. Really, it was. How do you behave around a guy you almost dated sometime before, a guy who you happened to have also made out without even dating him.

"So how have you been? It's being long, hasn't it?" He said.

I nodded, giving him a quick glance before staring down at my drink. "Yeah, it has."

"I really missed you." I heard Henry say, resulting in me looking up at him.

I didn't really know what to make of the guy anymore. We had just drifted apart without anything bad happening, and we both didn't do anything about it. That only proved to me that we really didn't have anything to begin with, seeing as we forget about each other. If it was Ademide, I knew the guy would be stuck around even if he... even if his intentions were...

I shut my mind off Ademide and smiled at Henry as I lied. "I really missed you too."

He smiled as he kept on making light conversations, and I continued with the conversations half-heartedly, I wasn't even sure I was present anymore.

When the conversation started tilting towards the whole dating and relationships side, I started getting pretty uncomfortable and wanted out of it all. I couldn't even say what we were talking about particularly, I just smiled along, sipping my drink, and pretended not to have anything to say on the topic when I could have ranted all about Ademide.

The moment I noticed Henry moving closer to me, and then his head started tilting forward, I knew I had to set some things straight. I couldn't let him kiss me even if I was practically single right now. I prepared to push him off, but a voice stopped me before I could.

"I guess he's the reason."

I jerked up immediately and looked around me, hoping I had imagined the voice, but I didn't because I saw a figure leaning against one of the pillars in a quite disturbing manner, the person looked like he was trying not to fall and steadying himself with the pillar. This wasn't who I knew because he had never been this way before, but I could still damn well tell that it was Ademide.

Ademide was here.

How? And why?

He eased himself off the pillar and staggered towards me, walking as though walking was a pretty difficult thing for him right now. Why was that? He looked really disoriented. His shirt wasn't properly buttoned number one, and he was barefooted.

I stood up immediately, several emotions running through me. I couldn't help feeling happy at his presence, and I also couldn't help the brutal feeling of pain that speared through my heart as well.

"Ev-ev-every-thing ma...kes sense now." This time around, his voice came out in a slur and drunken manner as he managed to stop a few feet away from me. It was then I got the strong whiff of alcohol coming off him.

Ademide was drunk!

But he wasn't a person who would get drunk! Why?

"What's going on, Mary." I heard Henry's voice say, reminding me of his presence. "Mister, who are you?"

"He's my boyfriend," I deadpanned, wanting him out of my hair and hating the way he addressed Ademide like he was some lunatic. "Can you leave, Henry. We have a few things to discuss."

Henry looked taken aback by the revelation that the drunk, and hardly stable guy before me was my boyfriend, and didn't look as though he wanted to leave me alone with him, but he nonetheless left with a disgruntled look on his face.

I immediately turned towards the drunk before me, who happened to be staring daggers at Henry as he walked away, a feeling of anger coursing through my veins.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, enunciating every word.

Ademide chuckled dryly, looking totally angry, and it all didn't make sense to me. A drunk and angry Ademide. "He's the reason you've been giving me all these issues, huh? The reason you wouldn't give me a chance. It's all because of him."

His voice didn't sound as drunken as it did before, but angry. He sounded enraged and really pissed, pissed at me. What right did he have to be piss at me when he was the one who kept hurting me?"

"What do you mean by that?" I threw back at him, my anger mounting higher. I was a little glad about the music playing in the background and for the fact that I was a little secluded from the rest.

Ademide came closer to me, the smell of alcohol hitting my nose harder. He pointed towards the direction Henry went and said, "How long has it been going on with him? Tell me, how long have you been seeing him behind my back?"

The anger I heard in his voice made everything in me combust. "How dare you insinuate that I've been cheating on you?"

"Oh, you'd have me believe you haven't, it didn't look like that to me, you both looked pretty cosy and I bet it wasn't the first time you'd be in such position with him."

My eyes welled up as Ademide threw such accusations at me. He was right about it not being the first time, but I didn't even know Ademide existed then.

"What is it about him?" Ademide continued in a fit of rage, his eyes bearing every single shard of anger his voice contained. "Maybe he's better than me when it comes to sex. You must definitely go crazy at every touch of his."

At that moment, I couldn't stop myself, and before I knew it, my hand had hit him across the face as I slapped him hard, tears spilling out of my eyes. "How dare you say such about me?"

Ademide staggered back a bit, his hand on his face where I had hit him. Then, as though he hadn't just been slapped, he burst into laughter. I watched in fury as he laughed hard, running his hand over his face, his head bent.

"Now you see how that feels," he blurted out slowly. Confusion filled me up, but it soon got cleared when I heard his next words. "That's how it feels to be mistrusted!"

He raised his head up instantly and locked his eyes on mine. The moment I saw his eyes, then I knew that I had hurt him somehow, and it wasn't just from the slap. Could he really love me? Have I been a fool all this while?

"That's how it feels when the person you love doesn't trust you and thinks the worse of you at every given moment," he said and dropped his hands from his face as a sad smile spread across his face. "Doesn't feel good, right?"

No, it doesn't. It was the most awful feeling ever, I hated it. "That's because I didn't do anything to hurt you, unlike you!"

"Oh, here we go again with your yelling," Ademide snapped. "You think you're the only one that hurts? I hurt too, I'm not some robot who has no emotions. It hurts."

Ademide stretched his hand beside me and grasped thing air, I watched him in utter bewilderment as he continued grasping thin air, wondering what he was up to. It wasn't until he grasped my hand that I figured he was trying to reach for my hand all along. He must be really drunk.

He placed my hand over his chest, I sucked in a breath as I felt his heart beating against my palm.

"Right here, it hurts right here every time you do that to me," he said, looking absolutely vulnerable. Never in all the time I've known him have I ever seen him look so vulnerable. It made my heart ache for him. "It really hurts."

I snatched my hand out of his, reminding myself about everything he had done. "Then why do you keep on giving me reasons to doubt you? Why do you keep doing things that hurt me? Why would you cheat on me?"

Ademide sucked in a breath and shook his head, a look of resignation on his face. "There's really no getting to you. You are going to believe whatever you want even if it isn't the truth."

I didn't know what to do or say anymore. A part of me wanted to believe him, or maybe already believes, and knows he wasn't lying. He looked really vulnerable and hurt right now, but then it wasn't logical.

"How do you expect me to believe it's not the truth? How?"

Ademide looked at me for a few seconds as though trying to figure out what species of creature I was, then he stumbled forward and grasped for the bench but somehow ended up sitting on the floor. Seeing him this way was really strange to me. "You claim to love me, yet you don't trust me a single bit. If that's the kind of love you have for me, then I'm afraid I don't want it."

Hearing him shove my love back at my face hurt more than every single time I've ever been hurt by him, and for the first time, it made me question my actions. But the fact that he was making me feel this way alone infuriated me more. "I'll gladly keep my love.

Ademide shook his head with a pitiful look on his face. "Order me an Uber, I want to go home."

I scoffed, folding my hands over my chest as I stared at his figure on the grass. "How did you get here?"

Ademide stared at me like I lacked sense, then said quite slowly. "By Uber. He left. Before you asked me why I didn't drive, let me clarify that I'm drunk, and I hate drunk drivers."

I bit back a retort and ignored him, but instead tried to find Ejiro among the people scattered around the Love Garden so that I could get my phone from her. The moment I sighted her, I made to go over to where she was, ignoring Ademide, who gave me a look that appeared to be warning me against leaving him.

I met with Ejiro and collected my phone and also told her about Ademide's presence. She and Martha looked pretty concerned about the fact that he was drunk, and they said they were coming to help me when Uber arrived.

When I got back to where Ademide was seated on the grass, against the stone bench, I found him pretty much dead. I could say so because his eyes were closed and his arms were sprawled around him. The sight of him like this did several things to me that I couldn't name. For once, I thought of the fact that maybe I had hurt him, maybe just like before, I had made up false conclusions about him.

I shook my head and ordered an Uber instead of confusing myself. Once I had done that, I sat watching Ademide.

"Call me an Uber," he said, sounding very tired, his eyes still closed. "I promise it's the last time I'll ask you for anything." He raised a pinky, his eye still very much closed. "I would stay away from you just like you want."

I felt my pretty much shattered heart pieces more at his words. Everything felt wrong. He was giving up on me, and for the first time since he came back, I felt like I was the one who had done something awful to him all these while. Why would I feel that way? Why should I?

"I hope you find someone better than me and that you're very happy with him," he drawled, eyes still very much shut. "Before that you'd have to work on your trust issues, if not you'd fuck it up just like you fucked up our relationship."

His words bit into my skin like a sharp knife. Fresh tears ran down my eyes without obstruction as I wondered if I really did fuck up our relationship. I tried hard to figure out where I went wrong in all this, and how exactly I had hurt him so much that it even made him this way.

I sat there, listening to Ademide as he kept on blabbering several things every now and then until the moment the Uber I ordered arrived. I tried waking Ademide, but all I got in return was an half awake man whose weight was definitely too much for me. Stella, Ejiro and Martha soon came to join me and eventually we were all able to get him into the cab.

I gave the address to the driver and paid him. And just as I watched him drive away, the only thing I could think about was the fact that I had wronged Ademide in ways I didn't know of.

"Why is he making me feel bad? Why do I feel like I've done him bad?" I asked no one in particular as the cab drove away.

"Well to be sincere, Mary," I heard Stella say beside me. I turned to look at her and saw a serious look on her face. "You did something bad to him."

"Yes, Mary," Ejiro added. "You should have given him a chance to explain himself, you shouldn't have made your own conclusions without really caring about his side of the story."

I looked at the three of them faces to see that they all agreed with this, this only made me feel worse. I don't know how I'll deal with any of this if everything I ever thought Ademide did turns out to be wrong.

"But he...he ghosted me, it had to be because of a woman. Isn't it logical that the woman..."

"Mary," Martha cut me shut sternly.

"What am I going to do now?" I asked, feeling totally helpless.

"First things first, you'll go home, have a warm bath, then sleep. And tomorrow morning, you'll go and check up on him, and listen to whatever he has to say," Stella said calmly.

"And you're not going to yell, cry, nor get angry. You're just going to sit still and let him explain everything to you, he atleast deserves that much from you." Ejiro added.

I nodded my head in agreement and gave them free reign when they all pulled me into a big hug. I smiled in between my tears, feeling more than grateful for having them in my life and with me right now.

What do you all think of this chapter?

Leave your thoughts behind guys.

See ya later, guys.

MARY ADEN.