Fated To Love You

“Mommy, what’s all this now? Why are you harassing me at my workplace? What do you mean by I don’t have respect? You’re the one disrespecting me by discussing an arranged marriage with me during work hours. Who does arranged marriage in 2025? Ehn, mommy?”

“Mommy? What is she, five? What grown-up lady calls her mother ‘mommy’ at the office?”

“These rich kids need to leave these job opportunities to the people that desperately need them instead of disrespecting the rest of us that actually take our jobs seriously.”

Tike face-palmed as she overheard her co-workers air their disgust about her being a spoilt child from a rich family. And in all honesty, she knew they were right.

Her parents had always doted on her, being an only child, but even worse off, being an only girl child. Her father was overprotective, and her mother had high expectations. In between the constant desire to appear perfect and surpass all of her parent’s expectations, she had to give up on her desires and plans for her life. 

She was grateful that she had very supportive parents, and she knew they wanted the best for her but there were times when she desperately wanted to be left alone to make her own choices.

However, since she had never stood her ground against her parent’s wishes, they now lived in the illusion that she would always do as they desired.

She had every intention of proving them wrong. 

She went about her day quietly, still reeling in embarrassment from her mother’s call. Her colleagues already thought poorly about her because they felt she had only gotten the opportunity through nepotism, and now they had every reason to think shallow of her after overhearing her argument about an arranged marriage like the rich snub they believed she was.

Minutes turned to hours, and the day was finally over. She inwardly thanked God it was Friday and waited for everyone to leave the office before they would add another offence to her account.

After tidying up her office space, she walked to the building’s reception and started a group video call with her friends.

“You guys, can we move our weekend getaway to this weekend? My mom is on my neck again about that arranged marriage that she’s planning with Daddy. I can’t deal with all that drama this weekend again. She’ll go to another owambe tomorrow and start another three-hour lecture about how all her friends’ daughters are already married and how she’s the only one left in her clique who’s not yet a grandma.”

Tike had expected words of encouragement from her friends after lamenting on the call for half an hour but all she got in response was another five minutes of jesting.

“Baby girl, this sounds like a you problem though. What do you want us to do now? Because I already have three weddings to attend tomorrow and I can’t miss any of the three events.”

Tike stared back at Mosun wide-eyed. She knew Lagosians had a blood covenant with owambes and she had never doubted the potency of the oath but she had also never heard of people attending three weddings on the same day. Especially since she knew her friend well enough to know that she would be changing into three different dresses for all three weddings so she could create “content” for her Instagram and TikTok accounts. 

“Madam, I don’t know how we’ll do it but we need to move this weekend. I don’t even have the strength to argue, please. When you guys needed me last month, I dropped everything for you without as much as a second thought. Now, I need you, and you want to give me excuses. We dey comot se. Send expensive wedding gifts to your friends and tell them you’re unavailable because you travelled out of the country.”

Mosun eyed Tike from the corner of her eyes before replying.

“But low key, you know there are times when you become a high-maintenance friend ba?”

Chimamanda and Ameerah giggled quietly in the background, their voices a quiet reminder that Tike was not alone in her dilemma.

“Alright. Where are we going this time?”

**********

Tike had always been a beauty. She had the kind of skin that inspired Afrobeat artists to write songs and a body that would make even poets like Christopher Okigbo stutter for words.

She had also graduated from senior high as prom queen but that was all in the past. At the moment, she needed to focus on how to stop her parents from forcing her to marry a man she knew nothing about. 

After strategizing a makeshift plan in her head, Tike snuggled into her seat to enjoy the rest of her flight. A few seconds after she closed her eyes, she opened them to find a stranger staring at her intently. 

She quickly sat up and attacked the intruder who seemed to lack basic etiquette towards strangers.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” Tike fumed, her face flushed with anger.

“Ermm… I’m sorry you caught me staring but I-“

“You’re sorry I caught you?! So you’re not even sorry for doing the act. You’re only sorry you got caught?! I can’t do this. I’d like to have my seat changed. I can’t be sitting with a pervert. I-“

“If you would only pause for a minute and hear me out.” Her presumed stalker interjected.

Tike eyed him like a murder suspect and folded her arms under her voluptuous bosom. He was tempted to look but he cautioned himself. 

“As I was saying, I’m sorry about the whole situation. While I understand that you may have felt very uncomfortable to find a stranger staring at you while you were asleep, I’d like to assure you that I had no nefarious thoughts towards you. I am a man of integrity and character.”

“Mr. Integrity and Character, why then were you staring at me so passionately? To be more specific, why were you staring at my lips so passionately? You were thinking about kissing a stranger you met on a plane?! Don’t you find it disgusting?” 

Tike was visibly shuddering from the thought of losing her first kiss to a pervert she met on a flight.

“A fly. I saw a fly. On your lips. I saw a fly perched on your lower lip.”

Tike immediately covered her mouth reflexively.

 “Uhn?”

He waited for her to process what he had said before resuming his explanation.

“As much as I tried to shoo it off, it kept returning to your lips. I sat here perplexed and staring at you because I didn’t know how to go about the whole thing without waking you up. You looked so peaceful while you were sleeping. I didn’t want to ruin it. Ma’am.”

He added the last part with a slight bow, making Tike feel a little embarrassed for raising her voice at him in public. 

“I-It’s it’s fine. It’s fine. There’s no need to apologize, Mr?…”

“Ogo. My name is Ogo but my friends like to call me OG.” 

He was smiling a bit sheepishly and scratching his head with a boyish grin that made him look like he was the most innocent human in the world. Tike could feel herself getting warm inside.

“Just Ogo or?…”

Tike had already started drawing invincible circles in her palm subconsciously.

“Ogooluwa. How about you?”

“Tike. Moromoluwatiketike. Sounds complicated, doesn’t it?” She added shyly.

“More like beautiful. I never would have thought you were a Yoruba lady till you mentioned your name. You look more like an Igbo lady to me,” Ogo mused.

“Oh please. Stop the cap. With my temper, it would be a crime to assume that I am not a Yoruba woman. Anyway, thank you for clearing the misunderstanding, Ogo.”

Tike smiled softly and Ogo felt something in his chest beat loudly. At that moment, all her endearing features began to sparkle before him as though someone had just removed a veil from his eyes. He immediately decided that he was not going to let their encounter end there.

**********

Tike wheeled her luggage to her bedside and immediately grabbed her phone from her purse. She had politely declined his request to have her mobile number since he was still a stranger to her. It was her custom to not give her contact out to strangers. 

However, since he seemed ‘gentlemanly’ enough and he had a face that made it difficult for any breathing woman to refuse, she decided to share her socials with him. She had given him her Instagram and Tiktok usernames and was now waiting patiently for a follow request or a DM on either account, but she saw nothing.

She waited all night but there was no new notification. Tired and deflated, she decided to go to bed. Her ego was slightly bruised. With the way they had connected and vibed during the rest of the flight, she had thought he would have been as ecstatic to chat with her as she was with him.

The next day came and she decided to go down to the pool area with her friends after ordering room service for breakfast. Unknown to her, Ogo had just left the pool to his room as she arrived with her friends. 

The weather was perfect and a couple of men threw flirty glances at them but she was not interested in any of them.

Sensing the change in her behaviour, Ameerah decided to ask Tike what was wrong.

“T baby, what’s wrong? I noticed you’ve been a bit off since we had breakfast. It’s unlike you to be surrounded by so many good-looking men and act indifferently. By now we should have been gossiping about each of them and ranking them on a scale of hotness. Or wait, did your mom call you to complain again?”

Tike turned to stare at Ameerah. She was gorgeous; dark-skinned, with big brown eyes, full hips and pink lips. But most importantly, she was calm and composed. Something Tike seemed to lack.

Maybe he thought twice about getting to know me because I was too loud and feisty. Why did I have to have such a terrible first impression with him?!

“Girls, I have a question. If you had a terrible first impression with a guy, but you guys resolved the misunderstanding, and you guys started vibing really well, then he asks for your number but you declined and gave him your socials instead, but he never texted. What does that mean?”

“You were ghosted, baby girl. After everything you just said, he probably assumed you were a snub or something and decided that he didn’t want to get entangled in all that. Insecure men are simply the worst!” Mosun was quick to respond.

“Or something may have come up. Cut the guy some slack. He’s not obligated to text immediately,” Chimamanda chimed in firmly.

“But you don’t understand. We talked about everything within that short time. The mood, the tension, everything was there. I was sure we had both felt an instant connection. So why would he just disappear like that? Can’t remember the last time I felt this insecure,” Tike lamented on the verge of tears.

“There, there. You’ll be fine, Sweetheart. You know what? Let’s keep that negative energy away from here. We’re on vacay and we’re gonna parteyyy”

With that, all three girls pushed Tike into the pool and dived into the pool simultaneously. Meanwhile, Ogo had forgotten his key card at the pool and hurried back to pick it up while the girls were jumping in. After retrieving his card, he went back to his room to spend the rest of his evening.

The next day came, but there was still no news from Ogo. Tike crossed her mind off him then and decided to forget about the entire encounter. The moment she returned her keycard at the reception desk, Ogo walked towards her with his luggage in hand.

“Tike?!”

“Ogo?!”

“Where have you been?! How could you ghost me like that?!” Tike didn’t bother to gauge her environment before airing her feelings publicly.

“I can explain.”

“I’m waiting.”

Ogo had only been with Tike for a few hours during their flight, but something instinctive told him that he needed to tread with caution if he didn’t want to have his head on a platter.

“I got robbed.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, and there was no way to get through to you to let you know where I was so we could meet up. I had planned to chat with you a bit on Instagram before telling you my location or asking for yours so you’d be comfortable first, but it all backfired. Who would have thought that we’d wind up at the same hotel.”

“Yeah, but we never got to meet here either,” Tike murmured under her breath.

“Hmm? What did you say?” Ogo asked with a puzzled look.

“Nevermind. And I’ve got a flight to catch. I have to leave with my girls now.” 

As Tike turned to catch up with her friends who were waiting for her outside, Ogo ran after her.

“Wait!”

Tike turned to stare at the familiar stranger, frantically searching for something among his belongings.

“Here, I’d like you to have this.”

He handed her a pen and waved her goodbye as he turned to head back towards the receptionist to finish off his checkout process, but she knew that she might never get another opportunity with him, so stopped him and asked him to give her his socials instead. After receiving his, she broke into a sprint.

Flustered by the rush of the events, Tike wasted no time in reading meaning into the gift that had been handed to her. Their Uber driver was already waiting outside the car for them, indicating that he was getting impatient.

“Ahn ahn, T baby. You didn’t tell us your crush was such a hunk. Definitely a ten outta ten.” Mosun teased.

Tike simply waved her comment off with her hand and hurried into the car.

Throughout their flight, Tike remained quiet. Her entire focus rested on the memento her flight crush had given her. The object felt slightly familiar but she couldn’t place her finger on any correlation. 

**********

Weeks turned into months and Tike could confidently pick up the microphones in her church to announce that she had fallen in love with Ogo. And she knew it wasn’t one-sided.

Time continued to flow as their love grew, so she decided to follow her parents to their house to tell them about him after a sunny, Sunday service.

“Tike, we have postponed the wedding arrangements for too long. We cannot push the family introduction any longer! If you refuse to respect your parent’s wishes, then you might as well drop our name!”

“Haba! Mom, you want to disown me because of ordinary marriage. The child you cared for and nurtured for twenty-eight years. You want to disown her because of your pride?”

“Nope. I’m doing this for our honour. Both families had already agreed long ago. If you respect your father and me, you will do as we say.”

Tike looked to her father for support but he simply carried his face away. It was clear that he didn’t want to incur his wife’s anger either. Tike sighed and stood up slowly.

“I’ll think about it and get back to you. I’ll spend some time in Dad’s study then go back to my place later in the evening. If you’ll excuse me.”

She went to her father’s study and locked the doors. The place had always been a haven for her to rest since her early childhood. As she walked about the room, tracing each object with her fingers, she stumbled upon a pen that looked exactly like the one Ogo gave her.

After staring at it for a few minutes, everything clicked. The pen looked familiar because it was a gift from her father to her at her high school prom. She and her date had emerged prom king and queen, and her father bequeathed the gifts to them as patron of the event.

“Wait, does that mean Ogo is my high school crush of that time? I had been too shy to get his first name then but he’s the same person?!”

Like a hare trying to escape a hunter, she blitzed to the living room to confirm her suspicions about her father, who agreed that he had indeed gifted the pen to her and her prom date many years ago. His company had made only 20 pieces to celebrate their 20th anniversary and both of them were the only child recipients of the gift. Every other person was a close business associate or relative. 

“If Ogo was truly my date to prom and my high school crush, could this be fate at play? Because what are the odds of us meeting on that flight? Now, more than ever, I don’t want this arranged marriage. I want to marry the man I love. I want Ogo.”

Months Later

Tike stared at her reflection in the mirror dressed in a Yoruba traditional wedding attire. A live band supplied the guests with music and the aroma of food watered even the most trained of bellies. Everyone had smiles plastered across their faces.

All except Tike who felt like she was betraying the true love of her life. 

She had sent a flimsy break-up text and blocked him the night after she agreed to go ahead with the arranged marriage. She couldn’t bear to tell him the real reason for their break up and she couldn’t continue dating him while planning to marry another.

As she danced to meet her groom, what she saw shocked her deeply. 

Sitting with a grin as bright as the sun was her high school crush turned flight flirt turned boyfriend turned arranged husband. 

A surge of emotions instantly enveloped her causing her to stand still in the middle of the procession. 

Ogo immediately rushed to her and gave her a warm, side hug. All four parents exchanged surprised looks because, to the best of their knowledge, their children were strangers to each other.

“So, if you were truly going to break up with me, were you seriously going to use that flimsy text? I would have said you should be more creative next time, but by God’s grace, there will be no next time,” he whispered, then chuckled.

After making inquiries, both families understood the entire situation, and Tike’s father explained how he had always been good friends with Ogo’s dad. Ogo was born and brought up abroad, but his parents brought him back to Nigeria during his senior year. Hence, the reason Tike knew little about him.

Of course, as close friends, they had wanted their children to be each other’s dates to their senior year prom. They had hoped that their brief encounter together would have made it easier for both families to proceed with the arranged marriage, but Tike had refused to accept it. 

The universe, however, was definitely on their side and it brought them together naturally, with everything leading up to the moment they were in.

Tike looked at her husband-to-be and smiled warmly.

I guess it’s my fate to love you, this man.

“You better treat me right!” She whispered into his left ear.

“You bet!” He whispered back into hers.