By P Mutuma
She wasn’t giving him another chance, and this time her decision was quiet but unshakable.
It didn’t come from anger or bitterness, but from exhaustion, the kind that settles deep in the soul after too many nights of waiting, too many conversations that went nowhere, and too many hopes carried alone.
She had already given him more than enough opportunities to choose her, to stand firm, to be certain.
Each chance had been filled with patience, with understanding, with her willingness to believe in the version of him he promised to become but never sustained.
She realized that every time she stayed, she was slowly teaching herself to accept less. Less effort. Less honesty. Less respect. She had bent herself into someone more convenient, quieter, easier to keep, thinking that love meant endurance.
But endurance without reciprocity had turned into self-abandonment. Loving him required her to silence her needs, justify his absences, and make peace with feeling like an option instead of a priority.
Another chance would not have been an act of love, it would have been a betrayal of herself. She understood now that apologies without change were just delays, and hope without action was a trap.
He had shown her who he was in his hesitation, in his inability to choose with clarity, in the way he asked her to wait while offering no real assurance. And she finally believed what his patterns had been telling her all along.
So she chose to walk away. Not dramatically, not loudly, but with a calm resolve born from self-respect. She stopped explaining, stopped defending her decision, stopped waiting for him to understand.
She didn’t need him to agree, she needed peace. Letting go hurt, but staying would have hurt more. And for the first time in a long while, she placed her worth above her fear of losing him.
She wasn’t giving him another chance because she had given herself one instead, to heal, to rediscover her voice, and to make space for a love that would meet her fully, without confusion or conditions.
