Chapter 30 DESPERATE

Pastor Melvin never gave up on Sobrina, he would call incessantly. He kept wondering what might have happened. He'd thought they were beginning to make progress, but Sobrina had suddenly stopped listening to him without any explanation or excuses.

Sobrina visited the University one time to see her exams officer who was working on her problem - excess credit load - and met Pastor Melvin suddenly, on the street one evening. She greeted him like a stranger and walked past.

Pastor Melvin suspected she was staying in a nearby hostel where her friend stayed, and waited there for her. When she returned, he blocked her and demanded answers. She refused to tell him anything except that he should go away. But he didn't allow her to leave, for hours they struggled, until Sobrina finally decided to tell him and be rid of him once and for all.

"I had a surgery few months ago, you weren't there. I was diagnosed with HIV", she revealed.

He went cold, but as she turned to leave, he grabbed her by the hand.

"I love you more now Soby, for telling me. I love you", he said pleadingly, as she tearfully turned around and entered the hostel.

He called her number when he got home that night, and told her he had a gift for her. She was supposed to travel back to Dove's in the morning. He begged her to wait, and to seal his promise, Pastor Melvin went and bought Sobrina a pretty pink cover Bible.

But Sobrina never took him seriously again, and didn't value the Bible. She had given up on God, on life, on herself and definitely on him.

But since he was unrelenting in chasing after her, she secretly remained in love with him. She was certain he would leave her sooner or later. She knew the love he professed was impossible, especially not for a girl such as herself.

She opened up to other relationships, men who were like her as she was advised to do, at the hospital.

She got engaged to one few months later and wore the ring to the University. Pastor Melvin's friend - the former President of their fellowship - who had previously told her to go and never come back, saw the ring.

"Have you seen Pastor Melvin?", he questioned. "No, I just came into school", she lied. She'd been actually trying to avoid him.

"Does he know about that ring?", he questioned, while pointing at her hand. Sobrina responded with a guilty silence.

Pastor Melvin called and invited her to his house later that day. When she arrived, he removed the ring from her finger.

"I met you before this man Sobrina", he snapped. "The day you told me about your health, I knelt in the center of the road as I was going home, I know what I told God", he concluded.

Sobrina loved him and so she was easily deceived by his show of hurt. She ended that relationship.

Pastor Melvin subsequently took his time trying to convince her about how impossibility could be possible in God. But she was greatly afraid, she feared the magnitude of the heartbreak to follow, since he had once broken her heart for no reason.

She met another young man in Saru - the city where she was now living with Dove - a few months later, but Pastor Melvin refused to let her be.

He contacted her one evening, and threatened to reveal her whereabouts to her parents, if she didn't return to the University. It wasn't that her parents cared about her whereabouts, but it was better for Sobrina that they didn't know, since they took satisfaction from having things to hold against her.

Sobrina texted him, begging him not to and promised to return, using a cell phone belonging to her new fiancé. She had no airtime on hers. When she didn't return as she had promised, Pastor Melvin called her fiancé. He didn't say much, but he was already an issue in her new relationship, his actions were enough to damage the relationship.

Pastor Melvin stopped at nothing to ruin every other relationship Sobrina got into. He monitored her through social media, if a man so much as blinked at her, they received a secret warning from Pastor Melvin.

Sobrina secretly loved him but remained distant in fear. He became an immovable part of her life, isolating her only to himself. She was therefore forced to wait for him as she had promised, many years ago, while struggling to solve her problem in the University without any help.