At that moment, she stopped listening to him. Her head started to spin like a steering wheel out of control.
After getting over that initial shock, Nia realized that a smooth operator had taken her for a ride. The money, which she worked so hard for was gone. If she thought her life was boring before she met Toto, Nia was in for a rude awakening, because she was now broke, and to make a bad situation worse, he still wanted to marry her.
He believed that with her help, he could restart his business and make up for the money lost and said, "My family will help us get back on our feet."
As Nia started to evaluate her circumstances, she knew there was no future with Toto. She did not want to stay with him any longer. What would be the point? Both of them were insolvent. She had no money to take care of herself, much less take care of two people.
The cost of buying a one-way ticket back to the United States cost more than she could afford. She had no home to go back to, because she sold her condominium. All the same, she was fortunate in one way: She had family and friends who would be there for her and decided it was time to leave his place.
She checked into an inexpensive motel, called her parents, explained her state of affairs and asked to have money for a plane ticket wired to her.
Two days later, she left Gabon.
On the flight back to New York, Nia pondered how a man she hardly knew and never even met could have tricked her so easily. In retrospect, she started to ask herself why she did not recognize the hidden codes, which forewarned her that Toto was not forthcoming about himself.
So many questions and thoughts were racing through her head: When Toto described himself as a man of means, what exactly did he mean? Why did Toto always reverse the charges when he called me? Why did he not make an effort to come to the United States to meet me? When Toto asked me to marry him and invited me to come to Gabon, why did he not send me money for a plane ticket?
She knew it was pointless to ask these questions now. It was like putting the carriage in front of the horse.
Nia came to terms with the poor choices she made in the name of love and learned a very valuable lesson.
As the plane landed at JFK International Airport, she started to recognize that her life was not as boring as she imagined. The road she traveled to search for love and to add more excitement to her so-called uninspiring life was a prelude to an elaborate deception carried out by Toto with Nia being the injured party.