My Hormones are betraying me
The air in the newsroom was cool, almost cold, a sharp contrast to the scorching Abuja sun beating against the glass exterior. Ada scrolled through another pitch about “godly wife material,” her thumb pressing down on the mouse like she was crushing a scorpion. Half a year since she’d extricated herself from the quicksand of David’s love, a love that had felt like a privilege until it became a prison. His words still echoed sometimes.
“You’re too emotional, Ada. No one else will understand you like I do. That ambition is unbecoming.”
She’d been a fool, a naive girl who thought submitting to a godly headship meant handing over her mind and her map. The heartbreak had been a wildfire, burning down everything. But from the ashes, something fiercer had risen. Now she saw the architecture of control everywhere, in places she had trusted to have her best interest at heart.
She took a sip of her tea. Lipton, too bitter, steeped too long. The taste was a perfect match for her mood.
Then, he walked in.
Read the Church Chronicle series, a heartwarming collection of fictional stories.
Kene. The new data journalist from the sports desk. He was leaning over the desk of the features editor, laughing at something, his voice a low, warm rumble that cut through the sterile office hum. He caught her staring. A slow, easy smile spread across his face. Ada’s stomach did a thing. A treacherous, flip-flopping thing that had nothing to do with her feminist manifesto and everything to do with ancient, raw biology.
No, she commanded herself. We are not doing this.
Her body, the traitor, ignored her. A flush crept up her neck. This was infatuation, pure and simple. A chemical lie. A biological ambush designed to bypass her newly installed security system. Her protocol was clear: every man was a suspect. Guilty until proven innocent beyond all reasonable doubt.
Yet, he proved disarming.
Later, by the printer, he didn’t comment on her looks. He said, “I read your piece on the landfill protests in Mpape. It was brave. The way you wove the personal stories with the data.” He paused. “It gutted me.”
No one had ever said her work gutted them. David had called it “a nice little hobby.”
Her brain, a vault of red flags and warning memos, scrambled. “This is love-bombing. This is how it starts.”
Is this infatuation or a Godly Connection
But her heart, the foolish organ that still believed in a God of second chances despite the cruelty of some of His fan club members, gave a fragile, hopeful stutter.
The tension became a living thing. It hummed in the silent elevator rides down to the canteen, thick enough to taste. It was in the way he’d hand her a fresh cup of tea. How did he know she took two sugars? His fingers just barely grazing hers, sending a jolt straight to her soul. The tea tasted different then. Sweeter.
She found herself watching him. The thoughtful way he listened to the security guards, the lack of ego when he was wrong, the gentle respect he showed the older cleaning woman. Each observation was a data point filed away, challenging the damning thesis she’d written on all men.
One evening, working late, a familiar hymn drifted from his headphones. It wasn’t the performative, shouty type she’d grown to hate. It was a soft, acoustic cover. A private faith. It disarmed her completely.
Standing on her balcony in Wuse that night, the city lights shimmering like a scattered confession, Ada felt the war inside her. The fierce protector, battle-scarred and cynical, screamed to raise the drawbridge. The tender, hopeful girl she’d tried to bury whispered that maybe not all men were David. Maybe some were just Kene.
“God,” she whispered, the word feeling more like a breath thrown into the dark, like a person who knew her intimately.
“I am terrified. This feels like a trap. But what if it’s a gift? What if this attraction isn’t a betrayal of my healing, but a part of it?”
The infatuation was a spark. It could light another inferno, or it could illuminate a new path. She wouldn’t let it blind her. Her screening would continue. But perhaps, she thought, as a cool breeze washed over her, perhaps she could allow for the possibility of a miracle.
Perhaps she could learn to discern the difference between a warning sign and a green light, holding onto her faith and not the past experiences that created a stronghold in her mind.
As she wiped off her makeup with a wet wipe she had grabbed on her way, realisation struck. Kene hadn’t even asked her out, yet she was already speculating. He could even be married.
Who was she fooling? Was it not Abuja men again? Her naive self had not learned her lesson.
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