This is How You Get Lost in Him
You’re both eleven and he’s the boy with the sweetest smile. It’s December 2008 and you spend your nights talking on the phone even though you’re in different cities. You’re young and you shouldn’t know what this feels like, and you both don’t have anything important to talk about. Still, he ropes you in with his charm and even though you deny it to him, you spend your nights thinking about him. He promises you the world because you’re both at the age when the world seems easy and within your reach. It is easy to make love-fueled promises when you still view the world through rose-coloured glasses. You like that he expresses how he feels, but you’re not in tune with your own emotions yet. You feel guilty that it has happened this way.
Boys ruin lives, you remember.
You shut down his feelings when he tells everyone about how you two are going to be together. You’re scared of being judged because you’re too young so you deny every single part of it, even in his presence. You see the heartbreak and disappointment in his eyes, it breaks you but you look away. You never speak to each other after that and you wait till the next holiday to reach out. But it’s too late, you’re told he has moved away. He’s gone and never coming back, although you still think that he will.
This is how you get lost in him:
Soft, brown eyes that never look your way, with a smile that can melt the coldest of hearts.
Fourteen.
First, you fall for his personality and sense of humour without putting a face to it. He’s a stranger you know. You talk online all the time even though you’ve never seen each other in school. The first day you see him, you say he reminds you of a teddy bear. His eyes are warm and soft, and he has a child-like grin. When you finally put a face to the name, you nurture a sick obsession. You find yourself being unable to say his name without your heart rate accelerating. You find yourself scribbling down his name at the back of your notes and using every love calculator possible. You come up with silly code names for him so you can make reference to him openly without getting caught. We call this your first real crush.
You see each other every day and can’t look each other in the eye despite the fact that you spoke the previous night. This goes on until it’s just both of you in a class. It feels like a setup. You speak to each other for the first time and you realize he’s the same person you’ve gotten to know, but you’re the one that’s slightly different; you’re timid and reserved in person. He does most of the talking while you try to control your nerves. The moment your eyes finally meet, it feels magical. His voice fades out and silence fills the room and it gets smaller. He cocks his head to the side like he’s observing you and you feel stripped. You’re paralyzed under his gaze until someone calls out to him from afar. He tells you he has to go and then plants a kiss on your forehead before running off. You swear you felt your knees go weak.
So the obsession brews like a fever. You eat less before you stop eating at all because you want to look good for him. You hide your body under big sweaters even though you are boiling under the sweltering Lagos sun, hoping he would not notice your flaws. You listen to more rap music and make a conscious effort to expand your vocabulary so you can impress him. You laugh louder when he is around and cause scenes to get his attention, but every time he comes close, you stiffen. Sometimes, it feels like he sees the obsessive beast lurking behind you and he only comes close to feed it. You meet several times and it never gets easier. He continuously stares curiously into your eyes, like he is searching for something or trying to read you. You feel exposed, like you are flailing. A pitiful free-fall.
His presence always leaves you out of breath and you secretly resent how easy it is for him to be so cool and calm around you. Unaffected by these complex emotions that make you feel like a stranger in your own body.
But yes, this is how you get lost in him for almost two years till he chews you up and spits you out in contempt. This is how you continue to get lost in him while you watch him find comfort in the arms of another and many others.
This is how you get lost in each other
You’re both seated in an unpaved, empty car park. You’re sixteen surrounded by trees, anthills, mud and rusty old cars. The smell of rain dew is in the air and there’s a lot of comfortable silence. You feel the need to speak at certain periods to disguise your anxiety from having your fingers intertwined with his for so long. He has a small smile plastered on his face as he watches you talk while he strokes your thumb. You’re not used to this and you’re scared that others are watching.
A few more times and you get comfortable. You both have a spot now. It’s on a beaten-up wooden table beside an unpainted fence underneath an almond tree. It’s placed securely in a corner where you feel safe. You feel free to lean into him and he speaks more now. Sometimes you go on short walks, along mud paths and empty basketball courts. Sometimes you sit down on the sidewalk while he plays with a low tree branch and you both have nothing to say, but neither of you wants to go home. So you sit there and talk about nothing in particular. You watch him battle through different moods because he’s restless. He wants to stay with you but he knows he has nothing to offer.
Your first kiss happens on an unusual day with more than the usual silence. He stares at you differently with panic in his eyes. He shuffles his feet often and you feel the urgent need to fill the silence more than ever. Eventually, the silence overcomes you and you both sit awkwardly, hand in hand and looking everywhere but each other. Finally, he speaks up and tells you he feels the need to try something but he’s not sure how you’d react to it. He doesn’t want to upset you. You’re confused but it dawns on you, you smile and whisper, there’s no harm in trying.
Soon you’re both running through the paths and into the empty school compound. You find an old classroom and your heart is beating really fast. He holds onto you and asks if you’re okay, you shake your head and say you don’t know how to. He smiles and tells you to close your eyes, you feel his fingers raise your chin and soon your lips meet. It’s strange at first but you learn and meet him halfway. Soon you both lean in and his hands begin to wander.
In the moment, it feels like you two are alone in the world and all that matters in the world is who you’re with. You break away and you both can’t stop smiling. You lean in for another round but then you hear someone shout that a teacher is nearby. You both run out hand in hand out of the classroom like your lives depend on it, giggling from the adrenaline — the delicious thrill and fear of getting caught . Your lips still tingling from the feel of his, your head buzzing as you feel your body come alive for the first time. You look back expecting to see a teacher waving their cane at you. Reminding you that this is bad and none of it should be this easy.
Once it’s safe, you both stop running and walk. He’s no longer laughing. There is a deep groove on his forehead as he looks at the ground contemplatively, his fingers still laced between yours.
“Yeah, there’s definitely something.” He says eventually, a boyish grin taking over his face.
Now all you both do is sneak around and make out in empty classrooms and along stairways. You skip school and meet up in odd places. You kiss till your lips feel swollen and numb, and you’re all flushed. You eventually let him see you naked and you like the way he watches you when you have to leave.
You travel, and communicate with him less. The memories of both of you begin to place themselves in stacked boxes. He tries but you’ve moved on. You don’t explain how it happens but it happens. You feel brand new and grown, he feels old like child’s play. You know it is unfair.
This is how you really get lost in him
You’re in a new country with a newfound sense of freedom, and a false sense of self-righteousness- which is mostly you disguising all your fears and anxiety of being too young and alone in a new country alone. You’re almost seventeen and you fight a lot with your past and you’re trying to wean it off slowly.
Luck brings him to your doorstep. Literally. You open your door one afternoon to a beautiful surprise, he apologizes for getting the numbers mixed up. You’re self-conscious and you don’t know why. You watch him leave and search for the right number on the corridor. You convince yourself that it’s a sign from the universe and you take a second look before you shut your door.
The next time you see him is on your first night out. You watch as he gets lost in the way she moves her body and how his fingers fiddle with her waist beads as she leans into him. You try to look away but you catch their lips lock in a corner and it foolishly upsets you. When you want to leave, your paths cross. He says something to you but you’re upset and too busy trying not to look upset, so you don’t listen. He walks away and you spend the next few weeks trying to replay that exact moment, just to read his lips at least but it never works. So there begins another obsession. You trying to be wherever he is; you trying too hard to dress the way you think will get his attention. You laughing too loud in small spaces to get his attention. But this time, you get no reaction.
So obsession becomes the beast. She gets hungrier and feeds on the rejection, threatening to swallow you whole. You notice that you begin to dance harder at parties when he appears, you down more shots than normal to feel sexier and more confident. He never looks your way. You know he’s not that into you but still, you try. So you make a final attempt at a house party. You drink to your heart’s limit and gather the courage to talk to him. He obliges you with a polite conversation but you can tell he would rather be talking to someone else from his demeanour. The conversation is short and awkward. You’re embarrassed and ashamed because you don’t handle rejection well, even though you serve it best.
You’re a mess outside. You’re shit-faced drunk and no longer in control. Your tears feel like ice drops on your cheek because it’s a chilly winter night and you don’t remember where you kept your coat. You hear the noise from the party above and all you can imagine is him telling his friends how pathetic you are, assuming he cares to even remember you.
This is how you get lost in the one that never sees you.
So this is how you get lost in them
One by one, your late teenage years roll them out like a carpet. You undergo several changes and become several versions of a girl who once was. You drink more, even though you promised your mother you would never let the devil’s piss lace your tongue. You spend your nights in a daze, lonely and battling panic attacks. You don’t go to church anymore and you’ve momentarily lost your faith. So this is how you allow yourself to get lost in several versions of them.
A drunken kiss on a good night out feels like a new awakening. So you take him home and tell him to spend the weekend with you. You like the way his hands feel on your skin and how gentle he is. You like falling asleep with his hot breath against your ear. You allow yourself to get lost in this one even though he has no intentions to stay, and he only tells you he loves you when you’re ready to leave.
You allow yourself to get lost in the next because he reminds you of yourself. You tell him you’re both cut from the same cloth and you let yourself get lost in all the things you’ve wanted to hear. He’s artistic like you and you both paint yourselves as damaged souls. He tells you often of how much he loves you and needs you, though he never shows it. He hides his lies well and breaks his word often, but you want him to be your redemption so bad, so you turn blind to the signs.
Even when he tells you, “I know you make me happy, but the truth is, sometimes I feel nothing.”
You try to teach him how to love you and show him the kindness you want in return, but he remains in his bubble of little commitment. You blame his past and his childhood trauma even when the truth is, you are not enough and never will be. So one day, you leave him because his infidelity comes knocking and stares blatantly at you through your windows. The day you leave him, you remember the blank expression on his face while you were on the verge of tears. You remember the boldness of his reply, “if that’s what you want” and how he never comes knocking again.
You’re done with men, you say. You’re disgusted at your desperation and inability to love yourself. You’re twenty-one. You’re trying to figure out your life and you yearn for the time you lost chasing men who were never running. You try to find peace with your surroundings until you bump into a good- looking stranger on your way out one breezy evening.
A call turns into two. Two calls into a date. A date turns into three and then you find yourself getting lost in another. You have never done it quite like this before. There is an understanding and he seems ready and more equipped to handle you. He’s emotionally available and keen. He promises never to hurt you and will never judge you. The first time he tries to kiss you is underneath a stairwell. You refuse even though you want to. So you end up hugging him multiple times because you like how safe he makes you feel. The second time, he kisses you. He doesn’t ask but goes in for it. You are caught unawares but you like it. You don’t stop. Your lips wander to his every few minutes until you both end up at the backseat of his car, cuddled up and in-between kisses.
This is how you get lost in him till the fights roll in. You both never agree on anything and have different perspectives on life. He is domineering and possessive. His charm compensates for it all but just like he spoils you, the red flags come in nicely wrapped gift boxes that begin to unravel themselves one after the other. You still try to tell yourself he’s the one but then getting lost in him starts to feel like homework. So the moment he tells you he loves you, you leave.
He still calls you and reminds you of how you let him get lost in you. You want to say you’re sorry because you never had the intention of finding him, but then you realize you’ve been on the same journey several times —
Chasing those who were never running and getting lost in those who will never find you.
