What Should Tina Do?

Tina and Emeka were head over heels in love with each other. Theirs was a love story that quite a number of their mutual friends considered almost unbelievable. "It's too good to be true," some of them would whispered. 

The lovers met way back in secondary school. Emeka noticed her in their final year and fell in-love with her. Their love was so intense that people couldn't help but talk about it. "Dear God, please give me a boyfriend like him," one of Tina's friends would pray about a month into their relationship.

They were so much in-love that they were seen everywhere together. 

In no time, Tina's parents had known Emeka and Emeka's parents also met and liked Tina. They accepted that they continued the relationship after much effort to separate them proved abortive.

Emeka's father worried about them and how they would perform in their WAEC exams so he called them a week to the exam and told them that the best thing for them to do was to be away from each other during the period of the exam.

"I know both of you cannot do without each other but I believe the best thing for you is to stay away from each other until after your WAEC exams so that you can concentrate and pass the exams because it wasn't easy raising money to pay your school fees up to this stage and we expect you to give the exam your very best," he said.

Emeka's father was a plumber while Tina's father was a carpenter and both mothers were petty traders.

They eventually agreed and stayed away from each other until the last day of the exams. They were both uneasy while writing their final papers, they couldn't wait to be in each-other's arms again.

After the exams, they were incredibly eager to meet at their usual place. Tina was the first to get there. She waited for Emeka and in no time, he was there. They hugged and held each other for so long, it appeared as though they had transformed into statues. As they hugged, tears of joy and excitement pooled in their eyes. It was just a hug but for both of them, it was worth much more than a million bars of solid gold. They spent the rest of the day together and it would have taken a miracle to separate them.

When their WAEC result came out, they both performed very well but Tina did better. They went together to check their results. Emeka was the first to check, he got six credits including Maths and English while Tina had distinction in four subjects and credit in the others.

They went ahead to write their JAMB exams and did well too. They were eventually admitted into the same university and things simply couldn't get any better for the young sweethearts.

Problem started when Emeka's parents said he couldn't go to the university because of financial constraints. His father's plumbing work was not enough to feed the household and he was not getting customers like he used to.

Emeka became sad and absolutely heartbroken. He cried and was terrified at the implication of him not being able to join Tina in school. He thought of how he would remain at home while Tina goes to school. He thought of Tina breaking up with him if he ended up a carpenter while she studied Medicine and became a Doctor. He cried and cried until he fell asleep.

As Emeka was sleeping, Tina came into their compound. She was shocked to see him sleeping outside. "Emeka wake up! What are you doing sleeping here like this?" she asked. Emeka got up and began to cry again. She consoled him and told him to tell her what the problem was. Emeka narrated how his parents said they wouldn't be able to pay his fees. Tina became really worried and told him not to worry that they would work out something.

After some days, she told Emeka that she has a plan. They would leave for school together but Emeka would be the one studying while she would start a petty business and in addition, give to him whatever her parents sent to her to pay her fees. He didn't agree at first but she convinced him.

They followed the plan until Emeka was in his third year in the university and their income wasn't enough to pay his fees anymore so she took a drastic decision.

She told Emeka that she needed his permission to become a prostitute at night and do her petty trading during the day to assist in paying his fees.

Again he refused but she convinced him. 

He was so happy, he reassured her of his promise to marry her after he graduated and secured a job. He promised her everything in the world including buying her the necklace that she used to admire in one of the boutiques they often walked past when coming from school and sending her to the university.

After graduation, Emeka secured a job as an engineer with a big company. He got a duplex, a car and everything that would make them comfortable but didn't send her to the university or propose marriage.

Whenever she asked, he would give excuses and if she insisted, he would shout, sometimes beat her up calling her a prostitute. He began to sleep around. He brought different women into the house and told them she was his sister. Tina pleaded with him to stop sleeping around but he didn't listen. 

She was so confused she didn't know what to do. Her parents didn't even know that she never went to the university. Emeka knew she couldn't do anything to him so he continued frustrating her. He called her an illiterate and said he couldn't marry a woman who wasn't educated, had gone through so many abortions and slept with so many men. "The only thing I can do for you is to allow you live in this house until I get married, so start looking for a job and get ready to leave this house as soon as I get married," he told her.

Right now Tina is perplexed and thoroughly frustrated. She doesn't know what to do. She has thought of killing Emeka, herself or even both of them. Tina really needs your advice at this point. Please, what should she do?