The Life I Should Have LivedTia

'You know that expression, 'Cut your nose off to spite your face?' I've done that so many times, just to be right, just to shield my overly developed sense of social justice. It's my strength but most definitely my weakness also. I am many people's shield, the warrior who fights fiercely for the underdog and the oppressed, when in reality I am also the underdog, the marginalized and the oppressed. It all sounds pitiful when you say it out loud. It all sounds pitiful when you simply think it because to think it means you go back in time and you feel it, right here in the present.

I am working so hard these days to be right here in the present; protect my physical and mental wellbeing. I'm looking back on stuff only to sort it all out, see it for what it is and place it in that box of other 'past stuff'. This 'stuff' has prevented my best life being lived. The missed opportunities, the drowning in misplaced loyalties, I haven't been true to me. I haven't given me my soul nourishment.

In 2014 I met a guy, a real sweet talker. I'd been single a long time simply because I'd had such bad luck at picking a good one, that it was safer to not trust my judgment. My younger sister told me, I didn't give any one a chance and didn't trust any man. This was straight after me telling her I didn't trust this guy. It was the truth. Another missed opportunity; not trusting my instincts and my developing heart and mind that had just started moving from being the flimsy material of a medical mask to a more protective shield.

I really don't want to give this man much time or much paper, and definitely not much headspace so, I will give it to you in the most concise way I can.

He was good looking for his age but constantly had to tell me that.

He wore expensive clothes and constantly had to tell me that.

He had an ex that wanted him so much she would die for him, and he constantly had to tell me that.

He had another ex, really good-looking, who now wanted him back because she saw he had a girlfriend, and he constantly had to tell me that.

He cooked well; I didn't mind telling him that.

He wasn't bad in the bedroom, my body told him that.

He was clean, germ free, and I liked that.

He had the colonial, Jamaican thinking that because he was light-skinned he was beautiful. I couldn't stand that.

He didn't like that I said I usually liked my men jet black and that dark-skinned women to me were the most attractive women on the planet. A black man, and he didn't get that.

I schooled him on stuff, made him aware of the disease of the mind, slavery had preserved through his culture. Kept it simple and gave him examples of Vybz Kartel and the bleaching of his skin. He always carried a newspaper or a magazine. He questioned lots, hungry to learn, an intelligence in itself. But my intuition was right and one day I calmly asked, 'You can't read, can you?'

He cried. Not because he was ashamed but because there was a woman from his past that knew he couldn't read and she had tormented, teased and blackmailed him over it. I helped him see what I was already impressed by; his relationship and active involvement in his kids' life, his wanting to support my kids in their lives, him having his own business and owning his own house and he had done all of that without anyone detecting he couldn't read. He had one cousin who knew, had read and responded to all his important documents, had even responded to my texts in the early days. So glad I never did get frisky too early. Sometimes me and my mouth.

I was going back to uni that year. I wanted to have a go at becoming a primary school teacher because I'd been a teaching assistant for years and I was good at it. Considering I'd taught adults in prison and mentored high school kids, it was a walk in the park switching to primary.

My phone calls from him and his turning up unannounced became more frequent. I had told him I was studying and needed a night off here and there. He took it as me pushing him away and obviously he saw it as lies. His ex, the one that would die for him, was also ringing me with her bullshit. She's a chapter on her own too but she's not getting one because I'm tired by it all, just thinking about it now. To add to the chaos that is unfolding, I receive the blow that student loans aren't going to pay my fees. It means I can't continue with the course, the course I call a walk in the park.

I'm devastated. He is devastated for me also. He offers to pay it. It's nine grand. That nose cut off face is back. That sin pride, haunting me but also that gut instinct of mine is doing overtime. I decline but he then insists on taking me out. The ex is still ringing him, and he is declining her calls. Sometimes I'm not arsed but alcohol is a disturber of the senses. I go to the bar leaving him with his declining calls and a man starts talking to me. I'm civil and then I make my way back.

He's been watching me. His face is like thunder. I'll be honest I do think, 'Ha! That'll make up for your bastard ex calling every five minutes.'

As we've come out last minute, I haven't brought a bag. I'm worried I might lose my phone, so I give it to him to hold in a secure pocket. It's an iPhone and it needs my thumbprint to unlock it, but did I tell you he was smart to have survived the years he did without knowing how to read? Up until this point I had been teaching him to read on top of my own studies, raising my own kids and taking draining calls from his ex.

He leaves me at the bar and tells me he is going toilet. He's gone for some time. I move to where I will be able to see him return from the toilets. The guy from the bar thinks I've been left alone and begins talking to me again. I'm still civil but no need to continue as he's interrupted.

'Come let's go get something to eat and go home!'

I think he is just pissed off because someone is talking to me, but I leave because I'm not really in the mood for a night out anyway.

He buys me something to eat but he says he's not hungry. He's vexed, that's why he's not eating. He's not said it, but I can see it. He says he wants to go to bed. We do. He starts sucking my neck and leaving love bites. He's never done that before. I tell him to stop because I don't want to return to my three sons looking like a whore.

He has sex with me. I would say I consented to that but not what happens halfway through. This is the bit I will make real brief.

He beats me naked.

It goes on for about an hour.

He had unlocked my phone at the club by ringing it and sliding open on the unlock.

He had seen a message from a Paul. Paul is my landlord.

He can read the name Paul, because it's very much like the name of the ex who would die for him, Paula.

He can only read some of the words in the message. His red mist has prevented him from concentrating on what the words say.

I'm begging for my life. He's so mad I think he is going to kill me.

I feel distraught I'm not going to see my kids again.

I convince him with one question and one statement. 'I have been with you every single day for the last seven months and in the early days before I knew you couldn't read, I would put what at the end of your texts?'

'Oh my God!' he says, in realization I'm telling the truth.

I continue, 'You can read numbers. Look! Look, I'm telling him I've paid £250 and I will pay the rest of my rent when my student loan comes through. Look! Look, no x's, no kisses at the end!'

The next hour he begs me not to finish with him. But it's too late. I've walked this walk before. He then won't let me go. Eventually he says if I insist on leaving, he will drive me home. I can see his peering eyes. He's going to drive us both into a wall because he knows he's lost me.

The life I should have had was probably to start with a man that would love me, be my safety, and for me to see myself content with the future. I'd dared to do that with him, before the ex, before the insecurities.

I agree to the lift home and while he is upstairs getting dressed, I jump out of the living room window in stupid heels, twist my ankle and limp away like a bad scene from a low budget horror film. I hear him frantically tear up and down, driving around the streets. I hide behind wheelie bins and suck in my breath like my life depends on it because I feel like he can hear every sound I make.

A few days later, I plaster makeup on over my bruises and attend my sister's wedding. I pretend, I pretend, I pretend everything is ok. I am then distracted by the complete abundance of happiness she has for new husband and my heart is singing and my hands are wringing that one of us at least has security and true love.

My revenge on the man who almost destroyed me?

I got him a tutor.

He begged me back for years.

He finally asked me why I had got him a tutor. Did I still love him? 'Is that why you did that for me?'

I told him, 'I want you to learn to read to realize what an ignorant...