Chapter 28 HEARTBREAK 101

"What do you want from me, Soby?", It was a text from Pastor Melvin. It was a little over three years into their relationship and they'd had a small fight the previous week. It was also the end of Sobrina's extra years in the University.

"I don't understand", Sobrina responded.

"I mean, what exactly would you like to have from me?",

"You're looking for a reason to mock me",

"No, believe me, I'm not",

"No, you will mock me, I know you",

"I'll never mock you Soby. Tell me what you would like and I promise, you will have it",

"Alright, there's nothing I want more than I want you. I want all of you Pastor Melvin", Sobrina responded.

"Will you marry me then?",

"Yes, yes of course with my whole heart", Sobrina hadn't expected that. She wasn't sure where the conversation was leading when it started. She had thought it was one of their emotional mornings which would end in either a fight or melt into an ordinary discussion. But, she was being totally honest, letting her feelings for him prevail.

"I will like us to seek the will of God for marriage then. Let's pray for three months", he responded.

"Wow, you're serious",

"Yes, in this three months starting from today, we will stop every form of communication",

"Why?", Sobrina questioned. Her good reasoning beginning to kick in.

"To avoid emotional interference", he concluded.

"Alright", Sobrina texted in agreement, wondering how she was going to do this.

Sobrina decided she wasn't going to pray a second, she decided to let him do all the praying and if he came up with the response of how God had approved that they married, she would tell him to wait. He was repeating school for Christ's sake and she hadn't really graduated. It would be a stupid decision at the time, but she was going to keep to the agreement.

Two days later, she received a text message from Pastor Melvin.

"Good morning Sobrina",

"Good morning sir, I hope all is well", It was surprising to hear from him so soon. He was violating his own rules, or had he heard from God already? And why was he using her name?

"I just wanted to let you know that you are domineering, selfish and over controlling. Therefore I won't marry you". He texted, and turned of his cell phone.

Sobrina was heartbroken. Of course those were lies, those were exactly a short description of all Pastor Melvin was, in the relationship. She only followed his lead and did only what he permitted. But Sobrina waved that knowledge aside, what mattered was that she was losing him. She began to weep, and went searching for him.

He had left his house to hide at a friend's place. She sat outside his house weeping for hours, she was there when one of his friends - the president of their fellowship - came to get the shoes he wanted to wear to a book launch that evening. She narrated the whole affair to him.

"First, I want to thank God that Pastor Melvin is truly a child of God, you would have succeeded in seducing him." he said, to Sobrina's amazement.

"You took the mentorship relationship he extended to you and turned it into a boyfriend and girlfriend relationship", he continued.

He told Sobrina a short story about a lady who had once pestered him, and how he almost got drawn into it, but thanked God he was able to drive the lady away.

"Now, this is what you will do. Pastor Melvin is at my place, you will follow me and when you see him, apologize for what you have done, go and never come back!". He concluded.

The phrase "Go and never come back" resounded in Sobrina's mind. She'd heard it before, and from someone in authority.

Sobrina did exactly as she was told and turned her back at Pastor Melvin. Leaving him was a decision she had reached already, but hearing someone in authority say it was the last straw that broke the camel's back, and she would go to the ends of the Earth to see that nothing drew her back to Pastor Melvin, and all he represented.

She felt alone in the world, she had gotten used to depending wholly on Pastor Melvin for almost everything. She was forced to return to Dove and to her former lifestyle, for lack of where to go. And finally into atheism.

God had done nothing but screw her over and over again.