Revelations

Helen took an okada straight from church to her girlfriend B.’s house. Throughout the brief ride, she sped through her memories, rewinding as far back as possible. Even as early as when she was a child, Helen did not like playing with fire. When other kids would steal matches and strike them or play with lighters, Helen always shrieked, afraid. Once, when they were six or so, a classmate tried to swallow a lit matchstick. She never spoke to him again, just because of that. Years later, connecting dots in a journal, she realized that it was because he’d shown an untamed appetite for danger, and she could not stomach it. Who could be that young and dream of being a fire-eater when there were safer things to be?

Really thinking about it now, she could see how that visceral distaste was pointing to a deeper truth in her, hardening like cold wax: Trouble does not like me, and me, too, I don’t like it. The wind was drying out her eyes as she rolled out that memory over and over again. The world blurred. She was doing this for comfort. Doing it because now, after all that, she’d found herself standing too close to a fiercer fire.

When Helen and B. first got together, their growing attachment was a sweet heat: close enough to the risk to be thrilling, but not actually inside it. Helen kept on going, inching closer and closer with her eyes closed, testing her own threshold. It took her mother laying hands and praying for a good husband for her to realize that she could no longer see a husband. If she was ever going to walk down an aisle, it would have to be because she was going to see B.’s face loveflooded at the end of it. That fantasy, though brief, was the first time Helen felt the flame. It was the first time it occurred to her that if she let herself embrace it, this love would change her life in irreversible ways.

Some people could take that risk. Some people could be themselves without fear. But she wasn’t one of them. She wasn’t one of them at all.

When the okada stopped outside B.’s house, Helen gave the man a 500–naira note and collected her change. She said thank you, her heart in her stomach now, pounding there. This has to end today, she thought as she crossed a puddle and headed up the stairs. It has to end today.

The owner of the kiosk nearby called out to her: “Our wife!” Helen gathered herself together, pretending not to hear. Thank God she had earphones. How did she let this happen?

As soon as B. opened the door, Helen started crying.

B. didn’t need to guess what had happened because Helen’s face was telling it. So B. sat down and listened, trying to make sense of what Helen was saying through the stutters. Can’t, can’t, can’t, she made out, but most of it was hazy in the space between their mouths. Can’t do this, can’t. do. this  . . . anymore. The pain landed for B. with the lovingsharpness of a new blade.

“Does it feel overwhelming?” B. asked, detaching speedily from the situation, doing that numbing thing she did when something painful was alive and too close. “This. Us. Does it feel too . . . consuming?”

The pain landed for B. with the lovingsharpness of a new blade. 

“It . . . does,” Helen said, sobbing. “I love you, I swear. But my . . . my parents matter to me. I can’t lose my family; they’re my life. I’ve started thinking about you every day, every night, in class, at work, in church, during prayer, in my sleep. I can’t. I can’t. Please, let’s stop. I want you and I love you. But this thing is not good for my heart,” she said, crying. “It’s not good for my heart.”

Even for B., the routine they were building was frightening. Who wouldn’t be scared putting all their eggs in a basket that could be stolen at any time? Who wouldn’t be scared knowing that the love they were falling in could be seized like contraband? B. understood all of this before Helen even explained it, though that didn’t make it hurt any less. She knew her girlfriend well, so she knew that Helen was scared of becoming the kind of Christian who could enjoy sex with her girlfriend and then get up from bed and go to church; scared of smudging her salvation, of the Romans 6:1-2 question and answer; scared of cursing God’s name. She was even more terrified of the possibility of getting to a point where she’d see nothing wrong with how they loved each other; a point where she would believe without even trying that she still had a right to praise and worship even if she didn’t agree with the rest of the congregation on what a sin is. But there was a loneliness to that too, to seeing the body of christ clearly for the first time; to turning the lens on how wrong you’d been about people—including yourself; how wasted all those hours were of begging God to save people who were fully known and fully loved (by God, by themselves, by their partners) from their hearts and their flesh. It’d change her as a person. It could make her angry enough one day to ask someone at Bible study what the fuck they just meant by that comment, or mad enough to stand up and interrupt yet another(!) sermon about repentance—and then what? Kasala. B. hadn’t always been an atheist; she was deeply familiar with a churchgoer’s guilt. She got it.

So she could mouth the words back if she wanted, as Helen explained that her tether to life right now was Doing Right By God and for now, right now, she needed so badly to keep that reality intact because it was at least old enough to take care of itself. New (un)beliefs were too demanding, too selfshifting, needed help teething, and since outside their relationship, other little things were falling apart, it wasn’t the time to start seeing life itself differently. In order to stay sane, she’d have to believe exactly what she’d believed her whole life; she’d have to walk with it and it with her. And yes, they could do without the sex, sure. But could they really. It seemed too far gone already. They’d already gone there. She couldn’t just forget that.

Love was lovely and all, Helen concluded, but it was more important to her to be holy.

“So, as in, you’re done?” B. asked, tearing up the memory of an old relationship where she’d been the one giving a speech like this.

Helen shook her head. “It’s just . . .” and then she stopped. Nothing she could say now would make any of this better. They looked at each other, knowing there was no coming back from that silence and what it implied. But people who know loss know this: There’s nothing harder to let go of than an already-gone thing.

So, “I love you,” Helen said to B.’s slow-nodding head. “More than this world, more than most things. But I choose simple. I choose normal and stable. I choose the boring script. I choose being my parents’ daughter. I choose church and the choir. I choose what I know.” Her voice was quaking. “This is too much for me.” Helen just wanted her life back. She needed to go back to not-knowing, to the road before this one, and she would give anything to make that possible. She’d give everything to reel her heart back in, to love someone she could take home to her tired parents—not a girl.

B. knew there was no point in fighting. She kept her tongue between her teeth, trying not to cry and scream at everything. They loved each other—that was never in question—but what they had tried to avoid was still happening. They were still ending in shards. Those nights of lying in bed, unable to sleep; of apologizing for reaching out to Helen and trying to cuddle; those nights B. held out so that she wouldn’t rob Helen of her right to pray, of her access to God; that one night they even prayed to God together to help them stay pure, stay clean for Him; the times when they begged Him to please see that they were trying their hardest. What did any of that matter now? They had to let it go.

Most people stayed in relationships because they were afraid, scared of their lives falling to an unbearable hush, terrified of the void that comes with grief. B. knew that kind of staying from experience, having once given seven years of her life to a burning building of a relationship. She knew that breaking up, too, was sometimes an act of courage. So, “Okay,” B. said, resting her back against the bedframe. “Okay,” because wasn’t this also love sometimes? Acknowledging someone’s stakes and then taking back your hand. Retreating when asked for air, letting the memories into the ground; shrinking hope from the size of a world to the size of a fist, making it safe and sane enough to live with.

“I’m sorry,” Helen said again, shatteringly. “I’m sorry . . .”

“Shhh,” B. said, pulling Helen into a hug. There was hurt in her voice as tears streaked down her cheeks in two quiet lines, but no surprise there. It was strange knowing in this moment that even though there was something worth shouting at, it wasn’t each other. Not this time. At least they started out knowing that God could win in the end. Some people had it worse. This was still her person, this was still her friend. “It’s okay. I get it.” Then remembering the no-lie rule, and talking to herself too: “No it’s not. It’s not okay. But you’re okay. You’re okay. You’re okay. Breathe. Exactly like that, love. Breathe.”

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