The first time I got a love letter from you, I didn't even believe in love.

Okay, no. I didn't believe in love at that age. You were a scrawny 16 year old and I, a developing 15 with a father strict enough to have made it ingrained in me that until I was at least 20, love wasn't something for me to indulge in. So I scrunched up my nose in faux irritation and threw it underneath my table to seem flippant and clearly uninterested.

Nkem, I feel embarrassed to admit it now but I left school my latest that day because I waited for everyone to clear out before I went back under my locker to check out the content of your letter.

"Letter of Luv" was what you had titled it then and proceeded to start what grew to become a personal love language.

Telling me how much you liked me, why you liked me and mentioning different things about me that caught your eye.

You definitely didn't know it then, but you exposed me to an interest in love I didn't know existed. A love that went beyond "just because" and had meaning and reasons.

*

You were 19 and had tagged alongside some classmates to my 18th birthday party.

No, you hadn't given up on me, but you certainly weren't pining for me as hardly as you used to.

You were in your second year in university and had outgrown the awkwardness of a fresher and the gym knew your name and recognized your sweat. You had outgrown the scrawnyness and most of all, you had improved your style.

I never admitted it then, but you did start to look like the "fine young men" my father considered eligible and worthy of his daughter.

I was merely two years away from the age he was okay with me dating and so, the lessons had progressed from threats to avoid men to notes on what kind of men to associate myself with.

And at a young age of 19, you had somehow found managed to tick a lot of these boxes without even realizing it.

And that was the second time I knew I felt something different with you.

The letter you gave me on the birthday wasn't the second but the second one that left a big impression in me.

Well... Until your hug when you wished me a happy birthday lingered a little too long and my father hollered "This one you're holding her like you're in a Bollywood movie, hope all is well?" and the desire to please my father and act nonchalant won again.

I shoved you and said "I wonder oh! Maybe he thinks this is a movie or something like that" and sashayed away, hoping I proved well to my father that I was still his perfect girl and hoping that I hadn't done too much and used the proverbial last straw to break your camel's back.

I didn't know it then of course, but thankfully, I came to learn that I hadn't.

I also came to learn that you'd given me a respectful distance because you had heard of my father's overprotectiveness from other mutual friends and seeing him at my 18th was enough confirmation too.

So, you chose to linger. Close enough to remind me that your love for me remained, but far enough to be considered respectful that even the same father that had brought us to this point reached out and took you under his wings as well as allowed us to start a proper friendship. And I loved you as a friend. So much that I knew I loved you as more than just a friend.

*

You made my 20th birthday a double celebration. You went all out like you were excited to be able to go all out without it being wrong.

You made sure you got me everything I wanted and every other person's present almost felt like an afterthought next to yours.

But in your love for me, you were also considerate. Enough to let me shine on my birthday and to wait until midnight before surprising me with the question "Will you be my girlfriend and wife to be?" in the grandest of ways.

With my best friend present and recording every moment, my father whom you know I adore and love to please unknowing to me, waiting outside the beach to take us back home and with a bouquet of my favorite flowers, bouquet of books and a promise ring.

How on earth could I have said no?

We had both pined for each other in our different ways through the past 4 years and everything was finally right for us.

So I said yes to the beginning of our beautiful dream and yes to being with you from that day henceforth.

*

And being with you was nothing short of a beautiful dream. You were everything I wanted and everything I'd hoped you'd be.

You loved me with every fiber of your being and any one who knew you, knew you adored Angel like she was your angel.

And this intense show of love reflected for me in my writing. In this piece that carries the weight of my heart and my love for you.

In my writing that shows I love you with all that I am.

That I wouldn't want to exist in a world where you do not exist as mine. My lover, my beloved, my dream come true, my man, my Ade. Because you're the embodiment of your name to me, Ademide.

The crown that completes my being.

*

Three years into our love story, you propose marriage again. It belittled the proposal at 20 and if I didn't still consider it grand for the time, it'd almost be insignificant.

You managed to make a wedding proposal a real life fairytale that bore how intensely you loved me and with you, I'm glad all over again that I hit the jackpot once and square with you. You are the lottery, Ademide. And I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with you. My husband. Lover almost feels too weak a term now, olowoorimi. I am utterly smitten by you and I always will be.

*

We wed in a month's time and I've gotten this journal that bares my heart customized for you. This would definitely be your favorite of all my wedding presents to you and I look forward to it being yours.

You'd finally get all of my confessions to you in it's purest form and the mere thought of it fills me with joy.

*

Perhaps I shouldn't have.

I probably shouldn't have waited.

Nobody could have prepared me enough for the news of your death.

How did you die on the spot in an accident after promising me forever?

I told you, I wouldn't exist in a world without you, so hold on a little bit, I'll be with you forever, soon.

Rest well, olowoorimi. Your wife is coming home.